2025 Fantasy Baseball Week 5 Trade Values: Now’s the time to buy low on Mike Trout

The problem with a player like Mike Trout in Fantasy is, you’re always waiting for bad news. He hasn’t played 100 games since 2022 and hasn’t played more than 120 since 2019, so you go into the draft process knowing that there’s a pretty good chance he’s going to have to miss some time. But the bargain is that you’re going to get elite production from him for however long he’s on the field, at least.

And he’s not holding up his end of the bargain right now. Trout is hitting just .172/.275/.483 on the season, with his eight homers not doing nearly enough to make up for the putrid batting average. And, with a career-worst 29.6% strikeout rate, you might be inclined to think that the 33-year-old former MVP just isn’t that dude anymore.

You’d be wrong to think that. 

The eight homers are a good sign that he’s still got plenty of juice left in his bat, of course. Trout is still absolutely mashing the ball, with a 92 mph average exit velocity that ranks as the third-best of his career and a .564 expected wOBA on contact that is the second-best of his career. No matter what else is going on, Trout remains one of the game’s premier power hitters, and even amidst an otherwise slow start, that’s still there. 

But the strikeouts are a problem. There’s no getting around that. A near-30% strikeout rate is a problem even if you’re one of the game’s premier power hitters … I just don’t think that rate is likely to stay this high forever. His whiff rate is up to 31.4%, which is concerning, though not totally out of character – he was around 28-30% from 2021 through 2023, as well. 

And the good news is that, while the overall whiff rate is high, where the whiffs are coming doesn’t suggest a sudden collapse in Trout’s hit tool. His contact rate on pitches in the strike zone is still 82%, right in line with the MLB average; that’s the first place I’d look if I was looking to see a major dropoff in talent. 

No, the problem is on chase pitches. Trout is both chasing more often than usual and making contact on those swings less often. That’s concerning, but it’s also such a huge outlier for Trout’s career that I’m simply not willing to panic because of 25 games. Trout’s swing decisions have almost always been one of the strongest parts of his game, and 25 games just isn’t a big enough of a sample size for me to say it’s suddenly become a problem, especially when he’s still doing everything else so well.

And about that: No player is more due than Trout right now. He has 11 outs on batted balls with an expected batting average of .500 or higher, the highest mark in the league, as you’d expect from someone hitting the ball as hard as Trout is who is nonetheless saddled with a .135 BABIP. Trout’s expected batting average for the season is .264, so, again, it just doesn’t seem like there’s been a sudden collapse in the skill set.

In fact, Trout’s underlying numbers suggest he’s still an absolute difference maker with the bat. Only six hitters are underperforming their expected wOBA by a larger mark than Trout’s .093-point gap right now, and none of the other hitters have anywhere near the track record Trout does – for his career, Trout has underperformed his xwOBA by just .006. 

Which is all to say, I’m still banking on Trout being that difference maker for as long as he’s healthy. Maybe that won’t be for long, but I’m still willing to bet on the talent, especially when the price is sure to be lower than it’s ever been. 

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