MLB rumors: Mike Trout chose surgery over DH role for the rest of season

The Los Angeles Angels are bad for baseball. One day, countless scribes will write books about how the Halos somehow squandered the two best baseball talents of a generation for seemingly nothing. While Shohei Ohtani is living is best DH life for the big brother Los Angeles Dodgers across town, Mike Trout has opted to punt on the season to fix his ailing knee. This is the end of an era, I'm afraid ...

With Trout out for the season, it looks to be another lost year for the Angels who haven't made the postseason in a decade. Trout has been like, once, and Ohtani never did during his previous Anaheim residency. The worst part in all this is we are seeing the beginning of the end of Trout being one of the best players in baseball. He will now be missing significant for the fourth-straight year for the Angels.

Even worse, he apparently had a chance to serve as the team's DH for the year, but declined to do so.

“It was an option they put out there. It would have been just maintaining the pain level of it. The day I got the MRI and it showed that, I was in a lot of pain, so it would have been a tough road for the rest of the year to bear that. I felt the best option for me was to get it right and be fully healthy to come back soon.”

If the pain is too much for him, then by all means, I get it. At this point, why even watch this team play?

"I'm doing everything I can to get back on the field. I want to go as fast as I can, but I don't want to push it."

I am starting to feel so beyond terrible for skipper Ron Washington to leave Atlanta for this nonsense.

Mike Trout has declined to be the Los Angeles Angels' DH for the season

One crucial chapter that will be present in the many books written about the utter waste of massive talent accumulated by the Angels over the last decade will be dedicated to owner Arte Moreno. Nobody pays a premium to get less in return than this man. He is like the rest of America who doesn't understand how the stock market works. You buy high to only sell low, and wonder why you are sad...

These last four years have really complicated Trout's legacy. I would still say he is a lock to make it to Cooperstown one day, but he is really putting some divots in the green on the back nine of his illustrious career. No, he has not done irreparable damage to his legacy like Russell Wilson has for Ciara and Team 3 reasons. I just hope he has the stats to earn his rightful place in the Hall of Fame.

Analytics will serve him in the end. However, Trout never playing in a single game that mattered won't help his cause if his numbers end up being borderline. 500 homers aren't what it once was, and he has a long way to go to get to 3,000 hits. Trout is only 32 years old, but you have to wonder if the wear and tear of trying to carry a hopeless franchise will make him want to hang up the spikes prematurely.

I don't know the pain he is in, but I'll never question the loathsome burden he had to carry for so long.