After spending most of 2025 at DH, Mike Trout, Los Angeles Angels outfielder, is moving back to center fielder for the 2026 season<\/p>\n
After a brief change, this three-time MVP and 11-time all-star is going back to his original role.<\/p>\n
Mike Trout, Los Angeles Angels outfielder, wants to return to the role of everyday centerfielder after a brief position change during the 2025 season, he told reporters on Feb. 16. The 34-year-old is entering his 16th MLB season.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just feel comfortable out there,\u201d Trout said. \u201cI feel like I\u2019m at my best when I\u2019m in center.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trout, who made his MLB debut in 2011, had spent the majority of his career in centerfield, but moved to right field last season in hopes it would help keep him healthy. He ended up spending most of the 2025 season as the Angels\u2019 designated hitter.<\/p>\n
Trout had some injury struggles from 2017 to 2019, but it has gotten significantly worse in the 2020s. He played in only 39 games in 2021 due to a calf strain, 119 games in 2022 due to a back injury, 83 games in 2023 due to a broken hamate, 29 games in 2024 due to a torn meniscus and 130 games in 2025 due to a bone bruise on his left knee.<\/p>\n
Trout\u2019s injury history is what kept him out of playing in the 2026 World Baseball Classic. For the 2023 WBC, Trout was the captain of the team as he helped lead them to the finals, where they lost to Team Japan.<\/p>\n
In order to play in the WBC this year, players must receive insurance so that the MLB teams won\u2019t have to pay the contract if a player were to miss time due to injury.\u00a0Players who spent significant time on the injured list the previous year or have a \u201cchronic condition\u201d are less likely to have their contracts insured. Due to Trout\u2019s frequent trips to the IL, he was unable to get insured, which Trout said is \u201cdisappointing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite all of these previous injury concerns, Trout said playing in center will be better on his body than playing right.<\/p>\n
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\u201cI felt like when I was in center, it was less on my body than the corners,\u201d Trout said. \u201cTo be honest, right field, I felt like I was running a lot. But it\u2019s just like a preference thing. Talking to some other outfielders and they\u2019re saying that they feel the same way sometimes; center is less on your legs.\u201d<\/p>\n
With Trout potentially moving back to center, teammate outfielder Jo Adell \u2014 who had a breakout offensive season in 2025 \u2014 would move back to a corner outfield spot. After playing four games in center in 2024, Adell played 89 games in center and 69 in right this past season. <\/p>\n
Adell has had some success playing in a corner outfielder spot. In 2024, Adell played in 119 games in right field, where he had 6 defensive runs saved and was a Gold Glove finalist. In center field this past season, Adell was a negative defender, posting -13 DRS and -8 outs above average.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m glad that he\u2019s healthy and that he\u2019s back and ready to roll,\u201d Adell said. \u201cMy thought process has been any way that I can help, wherever I need to be, that\u2019s where I\u2019ll be. And I\u2019m glad he\u2019s feeling right. He\u2019s ready to go and we\u2019re excited about it. So, hopefully, that will work for us.\u201d<\/p>\n
This would also have outfielder Josh Lowe \u2014 who the Angels acquired Jan. 16 \u2014 playing left field. The Angels have yet to confirm if Trout will be the everyday center fielder, as the plan for Spring Training is to have Trout, Adell and Lowe split time in center and have Trout play a bit of the corner outfield spots to evaluate every option.<\/p>\n
\u201c[Trout] came up to me and he said, \u2018Hey, Zuk, I\u2019ll play wherever you need me. I\u2019m comfortable left, right, center \u2014 wherever you need me to play,’\u201d Angels Manager Kurt Suzuki said. \u201cAnd he kind of left it as that. So we\u2019ll keep our options open, but he does prefer center, so we\u2019ll take a look.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After spending most of 2025 at DH, Mike Trout, Los Angeles Angels outfielder, is moving back to center…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":139367,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[163,165,164,1426,5128,1334,40746],"class_list":{"0":"post-182723","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","11":"tag-angels","12":"tag-mike-trout","13":"tag-mlb","14":"tag-wbc"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182723","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=182723"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182723\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/139367"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=182723"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=182723"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=182723"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}