Another disappointing year for the Angels and for superstar Mike Trout comes to a close. With the impending free-agency of Shohei Ohtani, it seemed to be a critical year for the Angels to improve and display their ability to be a playoff bound team. Sadly that was not in the cards for the team. For the ninth straight year the Angels failed to make the playoffs and for the eighth straight year the Angels finished the year with a losing record. For Trout, he finished his third straight year with a major injury that left him off the field for a significant amount of time.

A common trope on Twitter has been “Mike Trout and Shohei Ohtani do something amazing as Angles lose 5-3.” Once again the “stars and scrubs” approach to building a roster has failed the Angels’ hopes of making the playoffs for the first time since 2014. The disappointment fans felt this year was similar to taking a fastball to the ribs. The Angels came out of the gate with a strong promising start that seemed to be a sure sign that this was a playoff team. Those dreams ended when the team lost 14 games in a row and manager Joe Maddon was fired. “How could this happen again?” is the question that surrounds fans of Mike Trout and the Los Angeles Angels.

Mike Trout’s 2020 season ended with MLB’s playoffs once again lacking the best player in a quest for a championship. A shortened season caused by a global pandemic casts a sense of proportion on the disappointment, but in baseball terms. . . this is getting old.

The 2020 season offered a lot of promise for the Angels to reach the finally reach the playoffs for the first time since 2014. Anthony Rendon signed a free-agent contract and would provide sufficient lineup protection for Trout. Shohei Ohtani would be able to rejoin the meager pitching staff. Top prospect Jo Adell would be waiting in the wings to join the team, and the league would open up the playoff structure so that half of the total teams would make the playoffs. For the Angels to miss the playoffs in that situation the team would have to seriously underperform. Sadly, that is exactly what happened.

After signing a career forming contract that will likely leave him in an Angels uniform for the rest of his career, Mike Trout sets out to lead his team into the playoffs. Most pundits and projection systems have the Angels as a slightly improved team from 2018 that is one of the last teams to miss the playoffs. While there is some chance that the Angels out-perform these predictions a lot will ride on players not-named Mike Trout. Most notably the starting pitching staff will have to exhibit greater resilience to injury than it has shown in the last several years. Other players such as Justin Upton and Shohei Ohtani will need to return from injury with the power to impact the offense in ways that prevent teams from intentionally walking Trout.