Angels’ Joe Maddon Explains ‘Interesting’ Mike Trout, Shohei Ohtani Lineup Decision

With Mike Trout and Shohei Ohtani, the Angels have two of the best hitters in baseball right now. That gives Joe Maddon flexibility with how he wants to order his lineup.

To begin the spring, Maddon has been putting Ohtani in the leadoff spot, with Trout batting second. However, the Angels skipper decided to flip the two on Friday/Saturday, just to see what it looks like.

“It’s an interesting thing,” Maddon said, via MLB.com’s Rhett Bollinger. “There’s nothing to read into, but it’s definitely a possibility. I just wanted to invert them and see what it looks like with Shohei behind Mikey and how that affects him. That’s all there is right now. I’m not saying I won’t do it, but I wanted to see what it looked like.”

In 2021, Ohtani played in 117 games as the No. 2 hitter and just 23 as the leadoff man. Trout only played in 36 games total, all but one in the No. 3 spot in the lineup, with one game batting second. For his career, Trout has hit either second or third in over 1,000 games, and leadoff in 162 total. However, 138 of those games came during the 2012 season.

How Maddon orders those two will have an impact on the rest of the lineup also. The Angels are expected to bat Anthony Rendon and Jared Walsh third and fourth in some order, and it’s unlikely Maddon would want Ohtani and Walsh to hit back-to-back since both are lefties.

Ohtani is coming off an MVP season, totaling 46 home runs on a .252/.372/.592 slash line, with 26 stolen bases and 100 RBIs. As a pitcher, he had a 3.18 ERA and 150 strikeouts in 130.1 innings.

Meanwhile, Trout’s season was marred by a calf injury that cost him most of the year, but he still hit eight home runs on a .333/.466/.624 slash line on the season. If both players are healthy, they could offer the most dangerous one-two punch at the top of a lineup in the league today.