MLB bold predictions:
The season begins March 29 with a full slate of games scheduled. Seven USA TODAY Sports experts share their bold predictions for 2018.
Our experts share their forecasts for ’18, including the contending Phillies, an Indians run and lots of Mike Trout homers.
The thumb injury that limited Mike Trout to 114 games in 2017 and cost him a shot at a third AL MVP Award helped cover up a remarkable and terrifying truth: The best player in baseball is still getting better.
The lone hole in Trout’s offensive game early in his career was a propensity for strikeouts, but the Los Angeles Angels center fielder has steadily and markedly reduced his strikeout rate since its peak in 2014. Last season, he established career bests in strikeout rate and walk rate, and for the first time he walked more (94) often than he whiffed (90) — a rare feat in the contemporary game. And Trout did not simply make more contact, he made harder contact, setting career highs in extra-base hit rate, home run rate and home runs per fly ball.
Before suffering the injury stealing second base in late May, Trout was on pace for 56 home runs.
Hand issues are known for sapping power, but even after his return, he smacked 17 long balls in 67 games.
At 26 and fully healthy entering the regular season, Trout should only get stronger and more selective at the plate in 2018.
And with suspicion growing about the makeup of Major League Baseball’s balls as players around the league homer at unprecedented rates, Trout, as long as he stays healthy, will join the juiced-ball party this season and blow past his previous career-high home run mark of 41 late in the summer.
Trout not only looks like a good bet to crack the half-century mark in homers but also holds a fair chance to becoming the first-ever member of the major league’s 50-30 club after swiping 22 bags in 26 attempts in his protracted 2017. Trout has been the best player on the planet since he joined the majors for good as a 20-year-old in 2012. All signs point to a somehow-even-better Trout arriving in 2018.