{"id":479798,"date":"2026-02-17T03:59:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-17T03:59:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/479798\/"},"modified":"2026-02-17T03:59:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-17T03:59:08","slug":"mike-trout-prefers-to-return-to-center-field","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/479798\/","title":{"rendered":"Mike Trout Prefers To Return To Center Field"},"content":{"rendered":"

It appears\u00a0Mike Trout<\/a> is set to return to his old position. The future Hall of Famer told reporters this morning that he hopes to be primarily a center fielder this season (links via Rhett Bollinger of MLB.com<\/a> and Jeff Fletcher of The Orange County Register<\/a>). General manager Perry Minasian and skipper Kurt Suzuki are evidently aligned with that plan.<\/p>\n

\u201cI talked to (Suzuki). I definitely want to play center,\u201d the three-time MVP said. \u201cI told him I\u2019ll play anywhere but obviously prefer center. It was good communication with him and Perry and they\u2019re on board with it.\u201d Suzuki said that Trout will also continue to see work in the corners during Spring Training but sounded broadly open to giving him significant playing time up the middle. \u201cWe\u2019ll keep our options open, but he does prefer center, so we\u2019ll take a look,\u201d the manager told reporters.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not completely out of nowhere, as Minasian said as far back as December that the team wasn\u2019t closing the door<\/a> on Trout getting some center field action. It seems that\u2019ll be more than just part-time work, though it\u2019s not clear how much of a defensive workload he\u2019ll be able to log in his age-34 season.<\/p>\n

That was the impetus for moving Trout off center field a year ago. The Angels felt the position was putting too much physical stress and contributing to his unfortunate series of injuries. Trout didn\u2019t play a single inning up the middle last season. He moved to right field and started 22 games before sustaining a bone bruise in his left knee. He missed most of May and was a full-time designated hitter for the remainder of the season.<\/p>\n

Trout disagreed with the premise that right field was any less of a physical burden. \u201cHonestly, I felt like when I was in center, it was less on my body,\u201d he said today. \u201cRight field felt like I was running a lot. It\u2019s just a preference thing. Talking to some other outfielders, they feel the same way sometimes, that center is less on your legs. I just feel more confident in center.\u201d Although Trout didn\u2019t have a huge sample of right field work off which to base that assessment, it\u2019s hardly surprising he feels more comfortable with his reads at a position where he has more than 11,000 innings of experience.<\/p>\n

At his age and with a history of lower body injuries, Trout is unlikely to be a plus defensive center fielder. He remains a slightly above-average runner at full speed, so he could probably play close to average defense. That\u2019d be a marked improvement over\u00a0Jo Adell<\/a>, who was one of the worst defensive center fielders in MLB and should be a right fielder. Whether Trout can stay healthy is the much bigger question, though it\u2019s perhaps notable that many of his recent injuries have come either as a hitter or while running the bases.<\/p>\n

Playing Trout in center would allow the Halos to use Adell and\u00a0Josh Lowe<\/a> primarily in the corners. They\u2019d have\u00a0Jorge Soler<\/a>\u00a0mostly in the DH role. Trout will surely still see a fair bit of DH action as semi-rest days. Soler would draw into a corner on those occasions with either Adell or Lowe moving to center in what would be a lackluster defensive group.\u00a0Bryce Teodosio<\/a> is the best defensive outfielder on the roster but has hit like a fifth outfielder.\u00a0Jose Siri<\/a> is in camp on a minor league deal as an alternative to Teodosio for an all-glove depth role. Prospect Nelson Rada<\/a> is likely ticketed for Triple-A to begin the season but might be the team\u2019s best all-around center field option by midseason.<\/p>\n

Trout has five seasons remaining on his $360MM extension. He\u2019ll make $35.45MM per season between 2026-30.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It appears\u00a0Mike Trout is set to return to his old position. The future Hall of Famer told reporters…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":479799,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[49,48,4011,462,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-479798","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-mike-trout","11":"tag-mlb","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/479798","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=479798"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/479798\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/479799"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=479798"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=479798"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=479798"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}