Plain and simple: baseball is just better with Mike Trout around. The outfielder and generational GOAT candidate — at least until his ex-teammate Shohei Ohtani entered the scene — has had a rough start to the 2025 season. As has been typical in the past few seasons, he missed time with an injury, a bone bruise in his left knee. At the time of his injury, he was 21 points below the Mendoza Line.
Since his return on May 30, he’s shown glimpses of the old Trout, slashing .291/.400/.418 in the 22 games, hitting three homers and driving in 10 runs. Across that span, his Los Angeles Angels are 12-10, and they’ll start a three-game home series against the Boston Red Sox tonight.
Los Angeles is a 1.5-run underdog at DraftKings Sportsbook and the total is set for 9. Below, I’ve highlighted my favorite prop bets centered around the three-time MVP.
Best Mike Trout Prop Bets on DraftKings Sportsbook
Mike Trout 2+ Hits (+225)
Trout only has five multi-hit games since his return from injury, but that’s because he doesn’t face Walker Buehler every day. The 30-year-old has struggled mightily since undergoing Tommy John surgery in 2022, combining for 134.1 innings between a pair of seasons with the Red Sox and Los Angeles Dodgers and pitching to a putrid 5.63 ERA, negative-2.1 WAR, and a 1.533 WHIP. Buehler was a Cy Young Award candidate as recently as 2021, but now he ranks in just the sixth percentile in pitching run value and the 20th percentile in expected batting average. He hasn’t missed many bats, and batters have posted a .495 wOBA against his four-seam fastball.
Trout’s metrics are still as elite as they come because he’s been the victim of some horrible luck. Despite an ugly .227 mark for the season, his expected batting average is in the 80th percentile — .282. He also ranks in the top decile in several other Statcast categories, including the 100th percentile in launch angle sweet spot percentage. Perhaps most relevant to this prop is the fact that he has a 96th percentile barrel rate, a category in which Buehler sits in just the 28th percentile. He’s also posted a 52.1% hard-hit percentage and a .268 batting average against four-seamers, Buehler’s most frequently-used pitch.
Mike Trout 1+ Walks (Batter) (+125)
Even as he’s seen some decline in some of his other metrics, including his whiff and strikeout percentages, Trout’s plate discipline hasn’t fallen off. He’s recorded seven walks in his last 10 games, earning a free pass at least once in six of them, and he has an 84th-percentile walk rate and an 86th-percentile chase rate. That’s a tough combination for Buehler, who, despite ranking near the league average at avoiding walks and inducing chases, has thrown some 53% of his pitches outside the strike zone this season. Behind Buehler, the Red Sox’s bullpen has also conceded the ninth-most walks this season.
