We’ve all heard the Hall of Fame fun fact: Trout is the best player ever through age 26. Of course, whether he’s already reached it or it’s still to come, Trout’s peak is so lofty that he can fall very far before any other player surpasses him.
There’s every reason to think that Trout will have peaked prior to 2021, the first of the “new” 10 years covered by this contract. Trout is, after all, due to turn 28 in August, and most mortal players are either at or past their primes by that point. As hard as it is to imagine Trout’s performance heading downhill in the near future, considering that in some ways he’s still getting better, there’s a chance that he’ll decline prematurely or suffer a career-altering injury, and that risk is priced into this extension. The Angels committed to Trout’s age-29-through-38 seasons without having seen his age-27 and age-28 seasons.
MIKE TROUT HOUSE FREE
Trout is roughly a year older than Harper and Machado today, but by the time he hit free agency, he would have been a few years older than Harper and Machado were this winter. Granted, we can’t directly compare Trout’s contract to Harper’s or Machado’s, because they were free agents, whereas Trout was still two seasons and more than a year and a half away from free agency. Mike Trout Chooses Familiarity With a New $430 Million Contract The Angels Are Finally Set Up to Stop Wasting Mike Trout If Trout were a free agent today, the bidding should begin at $500 million, and even $600 million would make some sense on paper. In other words, take the superstar who just signed for $330 million, add him to a second superstar who just signed for $300 million, and you have Trout-except that Trout takes up only one roster spot. Begrudging Trout the millions he’s making is akin to being upset that Moreno isn’t making more.Īs Jeff Sullivan noted for FanGraphs in February, Trout has-both recently and over the course of several years-been as productive as Harper and Manny Machado combined.
In this world, though, the money that’s now going to Trout wasn’t going to go to teachers or ticket buyers or hungry minor leaguers, but to Angels owner Arte Moreno. Admittedly, in a world where earnings were parceled out by an all-knowing entity based on societal utility or Good Place points, not even Trout would make so much more than the average citizen. It’s never easy to argue that an athlete is underpaid even though he’ll make far more money in a decade than most of us can imagine making in multiple lifetimes. We’ll stipulate something that hardly needs to be said: If making $426.5 million is a problem, it’s one we’d all like to have. The problem for Trout is that he’s too good to be paid exactly what he’s worth. But as hefty as his salary is, it won’t shatter the scale in the way his performance on the field does. Trout will retire with more than $500 million in career earnings. Viewed in that light, the surprising thing about the terms of this contract is that Trout won’t be making more. The obvious first response to seeing a number as big as $430 million (or even $360 million) is, “That’s a lot of money.” The obvious second response is, “Well, yeah-we’re talking about Trout.” It would be weird if a player that much better at baseball than everyone else weren’t also that much better compensated. Check out all of The Ringer ’s MLB coverage leading up to Opening Day
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