MIKE TROUT'S PATIENCE, particularly in a batter's box, wasn't instilled or taught or even developed. It is apparently innate, hard-wired somewhere within his genetic makeup. As a child, Trout took batting practice off his father, Jeff, and didn't swing at pitches he didn't love. Sometimes it would be the dead of summer in New Jersey, which can get exceedingly hot and humid in the middle months, and Jeff would throw a half-dozen pitches before his son even removed the bat from his shoulder.
"It would drive me nuts," Jeff, a professional ballplayer and talented hitter himself, said.
That patience never left, even as the difficulty escalated and the pressure mounted. Trout took until he got a strike throughout his minor league career, simply because he wanted to. While he established himself as his sport's greatest player, many clamored for Trout to become more aggressive. But Trout stayed true to himself, hardly ever chasing, always striving to work deep counts -- even while residing on inferior Los Angeles Angels teams that tested restraint.
That's what makes this year seem so significant.
Trout began the week leading the majors in OPS, weighted runs created plus and FanGraphs wins above replacement while in the midst of the greatest start to his illustrious career. By that point, Trout had played 30 games. His .376 batting average, .488 on-base percentage and .713 slugging percentage all stood as career highs for his first 30 games of a season. And at the root of that was a surprising aggressiveness -- subtle for most, monumental for him -- that had helped elevate Trout to another level.
Through those first 30 games, Trout was swinging more often -- and, to be fair, missing more often -- than he ever had. His swinging-strike percentage, 10.6, was 19% higher than his previous career high. But most notable was his sudden inclination to swing at first pitches.
Swing rate on all first pitches: 25.2% (previous high: 19.7%)
Swing rate on all first pitches in the zone: 42.1% (previous high: 29.2%)
Swing rate on first-pitch fastballs in the zone: 53.7% (previous high: 35.5%)
"I look back the last couple of years and the first pitch is the best pitch I'll get the whole at-bat," said Trout, now slashing .355/.477/.673 for the season. "I've just been aggressive. I've been sticking with it, and it's been working."
The league-average OPS was .917 on first pitches from 2012 to 2020. When the count went to 0-1, it fell to .829. With two strikes, it plummeted to .520. In that stretch, only Paul Goldschmidt accumulated more plate appearances in two-strike counts than Trout. Trout's OPS in that situation, .742, easily led the majors but still fell 266 points shy of his overall mark.
The obvious conclusion: It's really difficult to hit when down to your last strike, and it's usually worth it to take advantage of a pitcher's desire to get ahead in counts. Trout, who took the second-most called strikes over the last nine years, has finally come around to the idea. He unleashed 27 first-pitch swings through those first 30 games. Three resulted in whiffs, 12 resulted in foul balls and 12 were put in play -- seven for hits, five for outs.
The slugging percentage on those first-pitch balls put into play: 1.333.
As Angels hitting instructor Paul Sorrento said: "You can't just throw a first-pitch fastball to Mike anymore."
And because of that, Mike Trout, baseball's undisputed overlord for most of the last decade, has unlocked what might be the most dangerous version of himself. If he keeps it going, he might just put together his best year yet.
IN HIS FIRST at-bat on April 3, Trout got a first-pitch 95 mph fastball near the top of the zone from Chicago White Sox starter Lance Lynn and swung right through it. Two days later, he saw the same pitch in the same situation from Houston Astros starter Luis Garcia and fouled it back. The next day, Zack Greinke began a third-inning at-bat with an 89 mph fastball near the bottom of the zone and Trout flied out. He got the perfect pitch but swung just below it.
Two days later, the success began.
The Angels were in Dunedin, Florida, and Toronto Blue Jays starter Ross Stripling was on the mound. Stripling previously spent a lot of time with the crosstown rival Los Angeles Dodgers, and Trout had hit him well in a limited sample size. With two outs and none on in the first inning on April 8, Stripling started with a 93 mph fastball that ran slightly low and Trout lined it down the right-field line for a double. Later, with the score tied and two outs in the fifth, Stripling tried to get ahead with another fastball and Trout launched it 444 feet for a home run.
It was all he needed.
"Having success gave me confidence," Trout said. "I started doing it, had some success, hitting the ball hard, and kind of just rolled with it. If I wasn't having success, I don't know if we'd be talking about this situation. But I think the confidence level built higher and higher when I kept putting good swings on the ball and hitting the ball hard."
Making first-pitch outs always bothered Trout. He felt as if it was his responsibility to see pitches, build a deep catalogue of a pitcher's repertoire and tire the opponent out. Since his first full season in 2012, Trout fell within the top 15% of qualified hitters in pitches seen per plate appearance on an annual basis. A first-pitch out often felt like a wasted at-bat. Swinging in that situation often felt unnatural.
"If I go up there hitting first pitch," Trout said, "I get extremely big, I try to hit the ball out of the ballpark and bad things happen. My swing gets all out of whack. Taking a pitch, it kind of slows me down a little bit, locks me in. This year, I just tried to do that while I'm on deck and slow myself down, and then just be aggressive. And it's been working."
Sorrento, who carved out an 11-year career in the major leagues, has often found himself in awe of Trout's ability to adjust within plate appearances and instantly identify flaws with his swing. He and the other Angels hitting coaches have frequently impressed upon Trout the importance of thinking aggressively to begin at-bats, but they've tried their best to remain subtle about it.
"There's a fine line where you don't mess with success," said Sorrento, who has spent the past six years working with Trout. "I mean, he's been pretty successful in his approach up to this point."
Sorrento sees a hitter who is just now reaching his apex -- who spent his life refining an advanced feel for the strike zone and is finally comfortable enough to swing more freely, who resides at the cross-section of athletic prowess and appreciable wisdom. Trout has found a way to evolve every year, and this year he has seemingly done so by combatting what might be his greatest weakness -- a weakness that is actually a strength.
"There's really no stopping him," Sorrento said. "Great player, and he's just getting better, getting smarter, making adjustments quicker."
JEFF TROUT TOLD practically anyone who would listen that his son might be poised for his greatest season in 2021. Trout will turn 30 this year. He is a father for the first time. And the coronavirus pandemic left little room for anything besides staying home and training during the offseason. Trout, his wife, Jessica, and their son, Beckham, formed a small bubble with their families in South Jersey during the winter months. In that setting, Jeff noticed a heightened level of focus and maturity from Trout. He found him to be in immaculate shape.
Through those first 30 games, Trout was on pace for 12.3 FanGraphs WAR, which would stand as the highest since Barry Bonds in 2002 and put him on a pace to become the only player besides Bonds to capture a fourth MVP. His major league-leading .517 BABIP was unsustainably high, but his exit data helped support it.
"It's early," Jeff said last week, while his son's batting average still resided above .400. "We'll see."
Jeff and his wife, Debbie, stay up late to watch every one of Trout's games on the West Coast. Jeff, a retired schoolteacher, will often wake up early the next morning to play a round of golf, then sneak in a midday nap so he can watch Trout play past midnight.
Jeff is often asked what he did to raise such an accomplished yet grounded son, but he has learned over time that "some of the best coaching with Mike growing up was the coaching I didn't do."
That patience, which often showed itself in drawn-out BP sessions, was a prime example.
"After a while I'd say, 'Swing the bat,'" Jeff recalled. "But over time I said to myself, 'You know what, he's so good, let him go. Maybe this is the way it should be.'"
Trout's strike-zone recognition was so good, Jeff said, that sometimes umpires were hesitant to work home plate for his Babe Ruth League games out of fear of calling him out on strikes and making a mistake. Trout's patience grew so strong that swinging early in counts proved to be a mental hurdle. Overcoming that, and layering innate patience with appropriate aggression, could alter the dynamic.
It's not as if Trout has suddenly become Javier Baez. His swinging strike rate still ranks within the bottom 40% of the league. The improvement has been marginal, but enough to be noticeable.
"It's just nice to see him jump on a first-pitch fastball," Jeff said. "I used to love to see that."
Asked recently if this felt like his best start to a season, Trout, who typically avoids such qualifiers, smiled and said, "It's definitely up there."
This season marked Trout's best 30-game start, but it was far from his best 30-game stretch. His batting average ranked 41st among single-season 30-game stretches in which he averaged at least 3.1 plate appearances per game. His on-base percentage ranked 72nd. His slugging percentage, however prodigious it looked, didn't even fall within his top 100. That's how good Trout has been.
In an era when hitting is harder than ever and batting averages have fallen to historic lows, Trout continues to raise a bar that has long felt unreachable -- a product, Jeff said, of unchanged humility and unmatched competitiveness.
Returning to the postseason, Jeff said, remains "the motivator."
It gives Trout something tangible to chase with nobody left in front.
"It's good to see him being himself and hitting the ball hard," Jeff said. "I just hope they win and have something to play for in August and then in September. I think that's what he wants the most, deep down."