{"id":180875,"date":"2026-02-17T01:29:16","date_gmt":"2026-02-17T01:29:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/180875\/"},"modified":"2026-02-17T01:29:16","modified_gmt":"2026-02-17T01:29:16","slug":"mike-trout-announces-position-change-angels-star-discusses-2026-world-baseball-classic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/180875\/","title":{"rendered":"Mike Trout Announces Position Change, Angels Star Discusses 2026 World Baseball Classic"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-bp_small__body__article__medium css-1vqr2el\">Los Angeles Angels star Mike Trout will be back to his original position when the 2026 season begins.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-bp_small__body__article__medium css-1vqr2el\">Trout <a class=\"MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-inherit MuiLink-root MuiLink-underlineAlways MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-bp_small__ui__link__medium_strong css-lu48cp\" href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/JeffFletcherOCR\/status\/2023421452616425714\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">told reporters<\/a> on Monday that he will be playing center field again after spending 2025 as the Angels&#8217; right fielder, saying that position &#8220;wasn&#8217;t comfortable&#8221; and he &#8220;felt like it was more running.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-bp_small__body__article__medium css-1vqr2el\">Trout also addressed his absence from the 2026 World Baseball Classic, calling it &#8220;disappointing&#8221; that insurance prevented him from playing despite his desire to participate, per <a class=\"MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-inherit MuiLink-root MuiLink-underlineAlways MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-bp_small__ui__link__medium_strong css-lu48cp\" href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/BNightengale\/status\/2023420111219306889\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">Bob Nightengale<\/a> of USA Today.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-bp_small__body__article__medium css-1vqr2el\">The Athletic&#8217;s\u00a0<a class=\"MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-inherit MuiLink-root MuiLink-underlineAlways MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-bp_small__ui__link__medium_strong css-lu48cp\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/athletic\/7007920\/2026\/02\/16\/mike-trout-missing-wbc-insurance\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">Sam Blum<\/a>\u00a0explained that Trout &#8220;might have risked his $35 million contract&#8221; if he played in the WBC without insurance coverage. He&#8217;s not the only star who will be missing from the international tournament for that reason, as Houston Astros stars Jose Altuve and Carlos Correa also failed to acquire insurance and won&#8217;t play for Team Venezuela and Team Puerto Rico, respectively.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-bp_small__body__article__medium css-1vqr2el\">Trout was dubbed &#8220;Captain America&#8221; while leading Team USA in the WBC three years ago, and he recorded three home runs and seven RBI in seven games. The team advanced to the championship game but lost 3-2 to Team Japan and his then-Angels teammate Shohei Ohtani, who now stars for the Los Angeles Dodgers.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-bp_small__body__article__medium css-1vqr2el\">Without Trout available, Team USA&#8217;s outfield will consist of team captain Aaron Judge, Byron Buxton and Pete Crow-Armstrong. Roman Anthony was also added to the roster on Monday to replace Corbin Carroll, who underwent hand surgery last week.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-bp_small__body__article__medium css-1vqr2el\">Trout will instead put his focus into gearing up for the 2026 season with the Angels. He spent most of his 130 games in 2025 as the team&#8217;s designated hitter, so he will likely continue to fill that role while occasionally playing in centerfield this year.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-bp_small__body__article__medium css-1vqr2el\">If the three-time American League MVP can stay healthy and return to his old form, he will be driven to help the Angels end their 11-year playoff drought.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Los Angeles Angels star Mike Trout will be back to his original position when the 2026 season begins.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":180876,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[163,165,164],"class_list":{"0":"post-180875","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-anaheim","8":"tag-anaheim","9":"tag-anaheim-headlines","10":"tag-anaheim-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180875","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=180875"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180875\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/180876"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=180875"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=180875"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=180875"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}