A Christmas Gift For 3 MLB Players
One Thing Mike Trout, Luis Robert Jr., & Javier Baez Want For Christmas
Every year, on December 25th, millions of people celebrate Christmas, going to church, gathering as a family, and exchanging gifts. Some baseball fans may ask for tickets to a game or a jersey of their favorite player— but what do the players want? Besides gifts that casual people may ask for, baseball players might be asking for something to help with their training or maybe even their nutrition. While this helps them with their play, what might some players ask for if they could ask for something that changes their play, maybe even their career (excluding any awards or team wins)?
Mike Trout | OF | LAA
Mike Trout has been known as one of the best players in Major League Baseball. However, throughout the past few years, Trout has been limited to playing time due to injuries. Trout, 33 first started having problems with injuries in 2017, his age 26 season. Since then, Trout has played in less than half the possible games he could have played in due to injuries.
As you can see, Trout has not played much at all, especially in 2021, when he missed 122 games and this past season, 2024, when he missed 133 games. Due to all of this injury and lack of time on the field, Mike Trout would want to stay healthy this Christmas. As a player who once was in the question for being one of the best of time, to now being sidelined for almost the whole season, it really is sad to see Trout on the injured list as often as he is, and we would all like to see him back on the field— just as much as he would like to be back on the field. So, Mike Trout would like to stay healthy and on the field as much as he can for Christmas this year.
Luis Robert Jr. | OF | CWS
Not much was thought of Luis Robert Jr. for the first few seasons of his career. However, after a breakout campaign in 2023, where he hit .264 with 38 homeruns and 80 RBIs, tallying up a total of 144 hits, Robert became known as a superstar. In his ‘23 season, he was named an All-Star for the first time and won an AL Silver Slugger Award, also for the first time.
Even after a down year in 2024, Robert is still extremely talented and has a huge potential. Unfortunately, you can find Luis Robert Jr.’s name on the roster of the Chicago White Sox, who held the worst record in baseball for the 2024 season, and were one of the worst teams of all time. Being a superstar on a team that lost 121 games, you are most likely going to play every single day, but is it really fun playing when you know you could be on a contender and getting paid a lot more money rather than being on the worst team of all-time? This is why Luis Robert Jr. would want to be traded for Christmas this year.
Trade rumors for Robert have been going on for a while now, especially this past trade deadline and now into the offseason. Multiple teams have reportedly been interested in Robert, including the World Series Champion Los Angeles Dodgers, the Philadelphia Phillies, and the Cincinnati Reds. While it is uncertain where Luis Robert will be traded, if traded at all, Luis Robert Jr. certainly wants to be traded this Christmas.
Javier Baez | SS | DET
Javier Baez, a once World Series Champion in 2016 who was considered one of the top players in the league at the time to a player that everyone discards. So, what happened? Well, injuries started to become a problem for Javy along with a very high chase rate at pitches, 43.2%. These injuries have kept him off the field while also decreasing his consistency while hitting and fielding, even though his fielding stats aren’t bad, they are as good as they used to be. With a high chase rate, comes a lot of strikeouts, and Baez had a 23.9 strikeout percentage in 2024, which is around the league average of 20%. In addition to all of this, Baez had a -1.1 WAR, a -0.7 oWAR, and a -6 oRAR in 2024. This can tell you that Baez chasing so many pitches is costing the Detroit Tigers games. Nevertheless, we always see clips of Baez striking out of horrible pitches, which you can watch at the end of this post. This all goes to show why Javier Baez probably wants to return to his old self on the baseball field this Christmas.
Baltimore wishes Mike Elias made more moves
Cincinnati wanted Lou Bob for Christmas too, but we’ll settle for anytime before spring training starts.