Nike Unveils Mike Trout’s New Footwear

Designing Mike Trout’s fourth signature cleat started in Nike’s research lab, with a fresh take on a plate design derived from work already done for NFL players and track stars at the Rio de Janeiro Olympics.

“When you see an athlete like Mike who is such a powerful, explosive guy, it is easy to overbuild something if you don’t have any information,” Nike senior footwear designer Jeff Rasmussen said. “Using computational design and Mike’s pressure map data, we were able to build him the strongest, lightest cleat.”

Roger Chen, Nike’s senior director for digital innovation, pulled in Trout’s foot pressure map data, as discovered in Nike’s Sports Research Lab, to look at how force moves through the baseball star’s feet. That data informed the design for Nike Baseball in the Nike Zoom Trout 4, which will be released Friday. It also created a “more precisely tuned plate design” that will eventually define the future of all Nike baseball cleat designs.

The updated engineering gives the plate extra stiffness where needed, flexibility in other spots and shaves in still other locations to offer a stronger yet lighter option.

“It is an intelligent design,” Rasmussen says, “not a big slab.”

To help create strength and comfort, Nike turned to nature and brought in a hexagonal shape for the plate, and also added Nike Zoom Air bags directly atop the metal spikes to help moderate the hot spots of irritation created from having metal spikes millimeters from the foot. By using the honeycomb design, engineers created a reductive nature in the cells that reduce weight in some areas, but offer an incredibly strong connective nature.

The air bags work with a plate to use the hexagon shape to spread out forces and distribute them more evenly so Trout doesn’t feel everything through the spikes.

The computational design with Nike Zoom Air was an example of utilizing existing Nike technologies in new ways. The material and honeycomb design in the plate has been done in other sports. The hexagonal bags have been done in other sports. But never in baseball.

Nike engineers also used finite element analysis testing, typically a traction test simulating the role of a spike pattern against varying surfaces. “We look at the forces driven by him, and then we try to simulate that digitally so that we can tune the traction and the actual stiffness of the plates,” Chen said. That information, coupled with the Trout-specific data, led Chen to use angular spikes placed in high-pressure areas to offer traction during pivoting, while the hexagonal Zoom Air units in the heel help absorb impact and enhance explosiveness.

With a completely redesigned plate, Nike needed an upper that matched the technology underfoot. Based on Trout’s athletic 6-foot-3, 200-pound frame, Nike knew it needed to provide comfort along with strength. Using a Foamposite-styled design inspired by basketball, designers created a bucket to saddle Trout’s foot and contain him while in the batter’s box. “We always take into account that we want the plate and the upper to work in unison as much as possible,” Rasmussen says.

The rest of the upper, though, may depend on comfort more than science. With baseball players spending so much time in cleats, whether standing, at half-speed or those bursts of peak speed, Rasmussen says they needed to design for every level of use. Along with the Zoom Air atop the spikes, the Trout 4 includes a full-length foam midsole, a tricky balance of comfort and performance. “If you add too much foam, you get the athlete too far off the ground and compromise the nimbleness of the cleat,” Rasmussen says. “You have to weigh all the consequences of an athlete’s movement. We have responsive cushioning and protective cushioning with full-length foam.”

A Trout signature cleat wouldn’t be complete without an aesthetic treatment befitting the Angels’ star. And that includes the play off Trout’s last name and his enjoyment of fishing. The Trout 4 continues the fish-inspired designs from the signature line, which began with the Mahi Mahi, which ties to the All-Star Game location of Miami.

Trout himself understands the process. “Each shoe represents the hard work of so many people,” he said. “To know that I was able to sit down with Nike and help reach a finished product is something special. The science and dedication Nike puts into a shoe is for real.”