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Forget Albert Pujols. There's another reason to watch the Los Angeles Angels, and his name is Mike Trout.

For all the hype Bryce Harper has rightfully received, it's time to start giving a few headlines to another rookie phenom, time to give the Left Coast a little love. Trout went 3-for-4 with a home run, a stolen base and three runs scored in the Angels' 4-0 victory over the A's on Tuesday. In 15 games since getting recalled from Triple-A, Trout is hitting .316 BA/.369 OBP/.561 SLG, reminding Angels fans what an All-Star batting line is supposed to look like and why a homegrown, five-tool rookie with young, fresh legs is a player to get more pumped about watching than a money-for-hire Hall of Famer you purchased on the free-agent market.

So while we wait for Pujols to get untracked, maybe the Angels' answer to their offensive prayers -- they've been shut out an MLB-leading eight times -- is a kid who doesn't turn 21 until August.

Against Bartolo Colon, he took a middle-in fastball and crushed it just to the right of center field, off the back wall behind the center-field fence in Anaheim. There aren't many leadoff hitters who can mash a pitch with that type of authority. The other day, he showcased his quick, compact swing, yanking a 2-1 fastball from Yu Darvish well over the left-field fence in Texas. His first home run came on a 1-0 fastball off Toronto's Kyle Drabek, a 93 mph heater low in the zone that Trout hit to left-center.

I think those returns are pretty clear: Trout can do some serious damage when he gets into a fastball count.

Trout is even faster than Harper and much more advanced defensively (although he lacks Harper's arm). And for all the awe for Harper's quick rise, Trout is only a year older. Like Harper, he debuted in the majors while still 19 years old. Like the previous two 19-year-old center-field phenoms -- a couple of guys named Andruw Jones and Ken Griffey Jr. -- Trout has that broad range of skills that should make him a franchise player as he matures.

My favorite aspect of the Trout/Harper comparisons is that the two will always be linked, even though they play in different leagues and cities three time zones apart. Just like we debated Rodriguez and Jeter and Garciaparra back in the late '90s, or like New Yorkers debated Mays and Mantle and Snider in the 1950s, I'm sure we'll be endlessly debating Trout and Harper for years to come.

The other highly rated prospects entering the season were Tampa Bay Rays lefty Matt Moore and Mariners catcher/designed hitter Jesus Montero. They aren't off to impressive starts like Trout and Harper, but let's take a closer look at them as well.

Bryce Harper, Washington Nationals
I'll make this one brief. We've seen Harper's lightning-quick bat speed and raw power with his home runs in back-to-back games -- one blast to dead center and the one Tuesday to deep right-center. We've also seen a few misplays in the field, however, from losing a ball in the darkened skies Sunday to dropping a fly ball Monday.

And of course, we've seen the rocket arm and the top-grade athleticism. There's no reason to believe he can't be a superb fielder with more experience. I think the biggest positive is his strikeout rate hasn't been excessive, with 11 in 60 at-bats. Along with his ability to hit left-handers, that was the big concern of his premature call-up. While there were initial thoughts that his time in the majors would be temporary, his play and the Nationals' injuries mean he's here to stay.

Matt Moore, Tampa Bay Rays
When I polled the SweetSpot network bloggers before the season for their American League rookie of the year predictions, Moore came out on top, outpointing Darvish. I wasn't quite as optimistic, as I believed Moore's spectacular playoff performance against the Rangers raised expectations to unrealistic levels. The only rookie starter since 2000 to pitch at least 162 innings with an ERA less than 3.00 was Jeremy Hellickson, and his flukey .224 average on balls in play had something to do with that. With Moore, I still wanted to see a guy who had the consistent command needed to dominate in the majors.

That's been a big issue with him so far, as he's walked 22 batters in 39 innings, a rate of 5.1 walks per nine. As Justin Havens of ESPN Stats & Info points out, Moore also has struggled with runners on base:


Justin also writes that Moore "continues to leave entirely too many balls up in the zone, ranking sixth out of 115 pitchers in percentage of total pitches 'up' in the zone." This ties into Moore having the third-highest walk rate (12.4 percent) among starters, behind only Ubaldo Jimenez and Drabek, and six home runs allowed in seven starts.

There are no major issues here, other than pointing out that most young pitchers do go through a learning curve. Hellickson -- who doesn't have the raw stuff Moore owns -- set the bar high with his own rookie campaign, but that type of season is the exception.

Jesus Montero, Seattle Mariners
It's also a mixed bag so far with Montero. With five home runs, he's displayed the power stroke scouts projected. His overall batting line of .256/.285/.411, however, isn't much to get excited about, as the occasional long ball is marred by a poor 29/6 strikeout/walk ratio.

There are a few things going on here. He has expanded the strike zone, swinging at 36.2 percent of pitches outside the strike zone. That's not necessarily a career-killing attribute (Josh Hamilton currently has the second-highest rate in the majors), but it's among the 30 worst percentages so far. The bigger problem is he isn't making contract on those pitches and certainly not good contact. He's swinging and missing at those pitches 56.6 percent of the time, which again places him among the 30 worst rates.

When you dig deeper into the numbers, it's pretty clear what's happening. Check out the heat maps below. On the left, Montero against "hard" stuff, and on the right, Montero against "soft" stuff.



Against "hard" stuff, he's hitting .362 (25-for-69) with four home runs and five doubles. Against "soft" stuff, he's hitting .133 (8-for-60) with one home run and no doubles. So if pitchers get ahead in the count, they can get Montero to chase the offspeed stuff out of the zone.

A final issue is Montero's ability -- or lack of it -- to pull the ball. While he's known for his opposite-field power, I'm not sure you can live off that trait alone. Of Montero's five home runs, two have gone to right-center, one to center and two to left-center. His hit chart is littered with fly balls to right field and the right-field line. Frankly, he just hasn't shown the ability to pull the ball with any authority. To me, this reads like a guy who can be jammed inside and will chase pitches outside. Look, the pitch recognition should improve, but he's going to have to figure out how to do more damage to all fields.

The injury to Miguel Olivo also forced the Mariners to play Montero more regularly behind the plate. I haven't seen the defensive butcher advertised, but he's clearly a work in progress. A couple of starts ago, Kevin Millwood was constantly shaking him off. However, the two were on the same page in Millwood's win over the Yankees on Sunday. Opponents are 8-for-10 stealing bases off him.

PHOTO OF THE DAY

Fifty-four different players have batted at least 100 times in the cleanup spot this season. Seattle's Miguel Olivo has been the worst, hitting .187/.224/.287 in 150 at-bats. The Mets' Jason Bay hasn't been much better, posting a .528 OPS in 86 at-bats (he hasn't homered). Adam LaRoche hit .186 for the Nationals. Jack Cust hit .205 for the Mariners. Justin Morneau has one home run in 182 at-bats while batting cleanup.

How do those compare to the worst cleanup hitters ever? As it turns out, Olivo and Bay are among the worst ever (or at least since 1974). Courtesy of ESPN Stats & Info, here are the five worst OPS totals while hitting cleanup since 1974 (minimum of 100 plate appearances).

5. Greg Vaughn, 1995 Brewers: 181 PAs, .177/.276/.266 (.542 OPS)

At least it made sense that Vaughn was hitting cleanup. He'd hit 30 home runs in 1993, 19 in the strike-shortened 1994 season and would hit 41 in 1996. He started the season in the four-hole but was hitting .229 with two home runs by mid-May and moved temporarily out of the cleanup spot. He hit .224/.317/.408 overall, he just never hit when batting fourth.

4. Dave Hostetler, 1983 Rangers: 160 PAs, .163/.288/.252 (.538 OPS)

Hostetler had showed promise as a rookie in 1983, hitting 22 home runs in 418 at-bats. Entrusted with the cleanup spot in '83, he flopped and his major league career was over by 1984 other than a brief appearance in 1988.

3. Joe Rudi, 1978 Angels: 182 PAs, .202/.254/.280 (.534 OPS)

Rudi was a good player, a guy who twice finished second in the MVP vote. Part of the first free-agency class in 1977, he signed with the Angels but spent much of the season on the DL. He began 1978 as the team's No. 4 hitter, didn't hit, and spent most of the season hitting fifth. He finished the year .256/.295/.416.

2. Pat Putnam, 1984 Mariners/Twins: 153 PAs, .177/.229/.227 (.456 OPS)

I remember this one. Putnam had been the Mariners' team MVP in 1983, which wasn't saying much since that team lost 102 games. It was his last bit of glory, as 1984 would be his final season in the majors.

1. Glenn Adams, 1981 Twins: 105 PAs, .126/.200/.179 (.379 OPS)

Adams was a career .292 hitter, albeit with little power, entering the 1981 season. Adams was never the regular cleanup for any period of time as manager John Goryl and Billy Gardner struggled to find any offense on a team that finished the season hitting just .240 with 47 home runs in 110 games.

By the way, of the 25 lowest OPS totals from cleanup hitters since 1974, only one accumulated at least 300 plate appearances -- Jose Lopez, of the 2010 Mariners.

Yes, it's been a rough couple of seasons for Seattle fans.

Follow David Schoenfield on Twitter @dschoenfield.

Sort of like yesterday's exercise with pitchers, if you want to take a stab at who's doing the best job of eradicating the running game from behind the plate, you can go in a few directions. Cut off playing time around 400 innings caught (we'll cheat and keep Joe Mauer in the sample, because he just missed) and you can go with simple caught-stealing percentage. And voila, this year's best catchers at getting caught stealings are the Indians' Lou Marson and Kelly Shoppach of the Rays at 44 percent apiece. Raise your bar to include only the most regular receivers, and the Snakes' Miguel Montero is your guy (40 percent).

However, just running with SB/CS data doesn't necessarily give us the whole picture, does it? Regardless of whether a play's ruled a stolen base -- and let's set aside the anachronistic silliness of "defensive indifference" -- what we're interested in is results in terms of baserunners advancing or getting thrown out. Poor receiving skills on top of a weak arm can contribute to runners taking more extra bases on loose-ball plays (wild pitches, passed balls), but a strong arm can help deter runners from going anywhere lest they get gunned down.

So, using Baseball-Reference's Runner Bases Allowed (which include PBs and WPs as well as steals) and Runner Kills (outs of every fashion, whether they're pickoffs, caught stealings, etc.), plus Baseball Info Solutions' Catcher Runs Above Average (RsbC), let's see if we can get a slightly more involved look at the best guys:


That makes for a fairly interesting field, but we see a lot of the same names crop up: Wieters, Shoppach and Marson. Opportunities aren't equally distributed, of course -- some guys draw tougher assignments. So Jarrod Saltalamacchia and Josh Thole, the catchers charged with most frequently handling baseball's knuckleballers (Tim Wakefield for the Red Sox and R.A. Dickey for the Mets) don't catch many breaks.

And looking strictly at Runner Kills can give you a false impression -- one of the reasons Olivo and Lucroy show up in that column but nowhere else is because they lose so many bases on steals and loose balls that they get attributed more opportunities. They're very average at throwing out runners (an exactly MLB average 28 percent for Olivo, 26 percent for Lucroy), but they're both allowing around three extra bases per nine innings they catch, among the worst marks in the majors. Olivo's hands of stone made him a strange choice for the defensive-minded Mariners, especially since they settled on him in last winter's backstop sweepstakes fairly early (Dec. 9), but it's consistent with his track record.

In the end, I'm partial to the ratio of bases allowed to kills as a useful quick-and-dirty way of answering the question of who's doing the best job of killing off baserunners when opportunities come along. If you're partial to giving part-time players full credit -- and why not, catching's no easy gig -- that means giving Shoppach and Marson their due as the game's best sharpshooters behind the plate. But among the ironmen asked to be everyday receivers, it's the Orioles' Wieters who should walk away with the gold.

Christina Kahrl covers baseball for ESPN.com. You can follow her on Twitter.

Top five reasons why Wednesday's Baseball Today podcast with myself and master chef Keith Law really is a must-listen:

1. Ozzie Guillen must be a genius to insert Brent Lillibridge into right field for defense! He saved the game! Ozzie for Prez! As for "closer" Sergio Santos, on the other hand ... what's the fascination managers have with naming closers?

2. Miguel Olivo "homered" Tuesday night with a rather large assist from Ryan Raburn. Simply put, Olivo couldn't have done it without Raburn. So why is it scored a home run? And how would the defensive metrics deal with it?

3. Is Jered Weaver simply on a path like last season's Ubaldo Jimenez?

4. Terminator Andre Ethier can't be stopped, unless his lofty batting average on balls in play evens out, of course. But can we compare Ethier to others who had excellent April hitting streaks? I say ... well, download and hear it for yourself!

5. Law doesn't like the potential new playoff format or the All-Star Game, as currently constructed? OK, you expected that, but his reasons on each might surprise.

Plus: Excellent emails about Kent Tekulve, a comprehensive look at Oakland Athletics right-hander Tyson Ross, who is scheduled to pitch on ESPN tonight and why didn’t the Blue Jays hit lefties last season but then Adam Lind and pals obliterated Matt Harrison on Tuesday? All this and more on Wednesday's Baseball Today.

Well, our (latest) long national nightmare is over:

Catcher Chris Iannetta will rejoin the Rockies today after a month-long stint at Triple-A Colorado Springs.

As general manager Dan O'Dowd indicated Monday, Iannetta did everything the team asked after his demotion.

Iannetta hit .349, including five home runs and 21 RBIs, in 63 at-bats for the Sky Sox, regaining his timing offensively.

"He has addressed his swing mechanics, shown a great attitude and done everything we have asked," O'Dowd said.

Miguel Olivo is the Rockies starter, but Iannetta will be expected to get more playing time than when he was sent down.

Well, at least the Free Chris Iannetta Brigade can stand down ... but in a few weeks, its members might re-form as the Popular Front to Play Chris Ianetta, because as long as there's a team with Chris Iannetta behind Miguel Olivo on the depth chart, somewhere Empiricists will be wailing.

Granted, Oliva's having a great couple of months. Entering this season, though, he sported a .278 career on-base percentage (and last year it was .292). How likely is he to maintain today's .283/.346/.540 line? And even if you want to argue that Olivo, almost 32, has somehow learned the strike zone at this late date, that's still begging the question because it's foolish in the long term to carry two righty-hitting catchers who are good enough to play regularly.

The Rockies have a crying deficiency at second base, a deficiency that Kaz Matsui, for all his talents, isn't likely to address with any real adequacivity. Now, I should note that there aren't exactly a bunch of surplus second basemen sitting around, waiting to be traded. But the Rockies are likely to be fighting for their postseason lives in September, and fighting with Chris Iannetta (mostly) on the bench would be a good way to lose.

After the drama, I looked up Miguel Olivo and found these notes:

News: After an 0-for-4 performance on Monday against Philadelphia, Olivo is batting 2-for-28 in his last six contests to lower his average on the season to .228. In the meanwhile, Chris Iannetta has batted .306/.390/.639 (11-for-36) with three homers and 11 RBI since being demoted to Triple-A Colorado Springs.

Spin: Olivo, who recently blamed his slump on a problem with his timing, has picked a poor time to slump. He could have easily run away with the starting role had he continued to perform, but if he continues to put up 0-fers and Iannetta continues to knock the ball around in the minors, he'll face competition for the Rockies' starting role sooner rather than later.

It's amazing what can happen in one game, huh?

This afternoon in snowy Denver, Olivo went 5 for 5, his last hit a walk-off homer in the bottom of the 10th inning that left his batting average 46 points higher than just three hours earlier.

In the process, Olivo just might have bought himself another few weeks as the Rockies' No. 1 catcher.

Meanwhile, all Iannetta can do is keep hitting. His career Triple-A line?

.331/.424/.519

Granted, that's only 77 games ... but that's only 77 games because Iannetta is too good for Triple-A. He vaulted into the majors after just two professional seasons because the pitchers down there just weren't good enough to get him out with any regularity. Slightly over one year ago, Iannetta and Brian McCann were the catchers for Team USA in the World Cup; now he's back in the Pacific Coast League, hoping for another shot with the big club.

It's an odd business, baseball. Even good players have to navigate shoals, clamber over obstacles, get jostled by speed bumps. For Iannetta, though, this one's a real doozy. The guy just turned 27, when most players are peaking, and he's still trying to win a job that seems rightfully his.

Boy, Chris Iannetta's 2010 tryout sure didn't last long. Off to a slow start, Iannetta's not only lost playing time to Miguel Olivo; now he's lost his roster spot. Here's Jack Moore with the gory details:

This is just another exercise in the dangers of using small sample sizes to evaluate player performances. Miguel Olivo is showing all of the problem signs that have resulted in a .279 career on base percentage and an 82 career wRC+. Olivo’s BB% and K% of 4.3 and 35.6 respectively are right in line with his career marks, and his ridiculous .375 BABIP and 38.5% HR/FB rate are the only things keeping his line afloat. There’s no way that he sustains this kind of production, and ZiPS suggest we can expect him to produce at his typical .287 OBP level for the rest of the season.

--snip--

It shouldn’t take long for Iannetta to make it clear that he belongs in the major league and for Olivo to demonstrate that he belongs on the bench. Iannetta should especially thrive at Colorado Springs, one of the most hitter-friendly parks in professional baseball. When Iannetta comes back and starts put up numbers like his career .349 wOBA, people will likely claim that the minor league stint helped him get his head right. In reality, it will simply be hits falling in for Iannetta where they weren’t before.

Look, there are things that Jack Moore (probably) doesn't know, and there are things that I (definitely) don't know. Maybe Iannetta's not working hard. Maybe he's walking around the clubhouse with a five-mile stare. Maybe when he's not in the lineup, he sneaks into Jim Tracy's office and smears boogers on his desk.

The odd thing is that just a few months ago, the Rockies indicated that Iannetta was a big part of their future, signing him to a three-year contract extension worth $8.35 million. Well, they sort of indicated that. They sort of contra-indicated that when they signed Olivo and his .278 career on-base percentage for $2.5 million. Particularly considering that both Iannetta and Oliva bat right-handed.

So you might forgive Iannetta, after his benching last September and the arrival of Mister .278, to question his place in the world. Some players -- not all, but some -- aren't at their best when wondering about their place. Aside from the three-year contract -- and yes, we have to acknowledge that $8.35 million is a lot of money, even after taxes -- if you were running the Rockies and you were trying to screw Iannetta up, isn't this roughly how you would do it?

Jack's probably right, though. Iannetta will go to C-Springs and hit, and Olivo will play more and won't hit, and everything in the world will seem right again. These things happen, and usually they're forgotten within a few months. Ideally, managers and general managers would know exactly how to handle every man on the roster. Know when to yell at him, when to speak softly to him, and everything in between. Realistically, they don't. There's never been a manager who was that smart.

Fortunately, managers don't have to be that smart. If Iannetta can't handle this one, he probably wouldn't handle all the other stuff that comes up, either. Most players, if they need a lot of babying from the manager, have problems that all the babying in the world can't fix.