CHINK IN THE ARMOR

The 2012 and 2013 baseball seasons saw Mike Trout establish himself as the best overall player in MLB according to Fangraphs WAR metric.  20.4 WAR in 2 years (10.0 and 10.4) is max performance.  It takes some star players 3-4 years to accumulate this value.  The multifaceted Angels OF has set a very high standard maybe even too high for himself going forward.  

Mike Trout vs Cubs   (gettyimages.com)

May 2014 so far is Trout's worst month of his young career (with at least 60 AB's).  He's seen his average drop from around .320 to .270.  His worst month in 2012 was August (.284 in 116 AB) and in 2013 was April (.261 in 111 AB).  With 43 AB in May he's around .140.  He might go on a tear and return to normal but until then we'll keep looking at his numbers.  He is a lower performance player this year who could end up having a good year instead of a great year. Can Mike Trout's new extension (6/145.5) have anything to do with his current level?.  Maybe he wants to deliver more power.  Trout is at his best spraying line drives to all fields and hitting hard grounders through the infield mixing in a good quota of fly balls.  

His splits this year, compared to 2013 show a different type of player:
                  BB%        K%         LD%      FB%
2013          15.4          19.0        23.0        35.6
2014          11.7          27.8        17.9        41.5

His walk rate has dropped, his strikeout rate has jumped 46%, the line drive rate has dropped a lot and fly balls are up by a big margin.

                    LHP        RHP       Home   Away     RHPA
2013           .309          .327        .319     .326        .325
2014           .366          .234        .304     .241        .203

2013 he was good across the board.  This year he is having trouble against right handed pitching, trouble away from home and a lot of trouble against RHP away.
                    LF              CF             RF
2013            31%           38%           30%
2014            35%           41%           24%

His batted ball distribution says he is pulling more and going the other way less.  

Mike Trout vs Blue Jays in Toronto   (zimbio.com)

With his short, compact swing I wouldn't expect such a high spike in strikeouts.  He just seems to be swinging and missing.  The higher fly ball rate, higher strikeouts and higher pull rate suggest he is looking more power.  On April 19th, for the first time in his career he wore a "golden sombrero" (4 strikeouts in a game) and then repeated about 3 weeks later on May 11.

I expect Mike Trout to regain a lot of his "good" numbers.  We'll see how much.