Mike Trout Still Has Dreams of Second Playoff Appearance in Los Angeles

The Los Angeles Angels have started the season with an 8-9 record which is currently good enough for second place in the American League West. If the season ended today, five-and-a-half months early, they would miss the postseason by two games. It would be the 10th consecutive season that the franchise failed to reach the playoffs. Fortunately, there is still plenty of time for the team to make up ground and sneak into the wild card, or even win the AL East.

That's great news for Mike Trout, for whom hope springs enternal, even at 32 and a decade removed from his only taste of the postseason. See, Trout wants to win and he wants to win in Los Angeles, no matter how unlikely that seems.

"He wants to stay," said Torii Hunter, the longtime major league outfielder who once played with Trout and is now an Angels special assistant. "For the people that say he should get traded -- it's not their decision. It's Trout's decision. For people to say that he doesn't want to win a championship -- that's 100% false. This guy's always had fire and a desire to win."

As ESPN points out, Trout's huge contract would be tough for any team to acquire, still the rumors persist while Trout refuses to demand a trade. So he watches Shohei Ohtani sign across town for $700 million and pushes the front office to replace him with more star power and they responded by not doing that.

Pursuits of Blake Snell and J.D. Martinez did not materialize. Their biggest offseason expenditure, $33 million, went to relief pitcher Robert Stephenson, who might have serious arm issues.

If you think that makes Trout angry, well, you're kind of right. He is angry. Just not because his team is chronically unable to build a contender despite having two generational players over the last few years. Nope. He's mad because he was hurt last year and wants to be allowed to run freely like he did when he was young. Here's outfield coach Eric Young Sr.:

Young noticed that during their first meeting four months ago, when he kept hearing one phrase over and over again from Trout -- that he wants to get back to "playing baseball." It means he wants to run again. More specifically, he wants to get back to stealing bases.

"He just wants to be set free," Young said. "And so I kept hearing that and hearing that, and I go to Wash and I say, 'Man, I hope you don't put no damn handcuffs or anything on him. Just let him be free.'"

And he'll need to be free to catch whatever he's chasing, which is apparently dead people. Coach Bo Porter:

"He's chasing dead people," Porter said. "When you look at Mike Trout's career -- if he was to retire today, he's a first-ballot Hall of Farmer. So, the accolades, I don't even think that's a driving force anymore. I think his No. 1 goal is to be the last team standing in the middle of the diamond at this point in his career. And he wants that to happen in an Angels uniform."

Trout already has three stolen bases, which is more than he's had in any of the last four seasons. And he's already hit two triples and leads the league in home runs. It just hasn't really translated to wins. So maybe Trout will have to wait a little longer to register his first postseason victory and the second postseason hit of his career. What a sight it should be.