Mike Trout agrees to 12-year, $430M extension

[reillymcshane]

Angels and Mike Trout have agreed to a new deal - 12-year, $430M. Trout is set for the rest of his career as he is under contract through age 39. He was set to be a free agent after the 2020 season.

 

Deal comes out to $35.83M per season.

 

http://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/26306935/sources-angels-trout-430m-extension

[sveumrules]

Good for Mike.

 

My strategy if I was him would've been "Half Billion or I test the market", but I guess at that point is it really worth risking injury over 70 million measly bucks?

 

Obligatory reminder that had Sabathia ranked higher than Teixeira in the free agent rankings we would have gotten the pick used to select Trout instead of the Angels. Looks like we got Kentrail Davis & Max Walla with our picks.

[coolhandluke121]

Oh no. I was so looking forward to hearing about his free agency for the next 2 years and whether he would sign with the Yankees, Red Sox, or Cubs.

 

Any info on no-trade language in the deal?

[JosephC]

Take that Bryce Harper and Scott Boras!

[Ennder]

It is tough to feel bad for someone making $430M but I feel bad for Trout. That franchise has no clue what to do to become a winner and I could easily see his entire career waste away on it with us never really seeing him on a dominant team.

[MrTPlush]

It is tough to feel bad for someone making $430M but I feel bad for Trout. That franchise has no clue what to do to become a winner and I could easily see his entire career waste away on it with us never really seeing him on a dominant team.

 

Yup, not that he cares...but yah. A shame how much of his career has already been wasted on losers.

[Ennder]

One thing that does make me chuckle though. When Trout's contract is up, the Mets will still be paying Bonilla for 5 more years!

[homer]

It is tough to feel bad for someone making $430M but I feel bad for Trout. That franchise has no clue what to do to become a winner and I could easily see his entire career waste away on it with us never really seeing him on a dominant team.

 

Agreed. I have a feeling he will never really get his due because he will probably never play for a contender. Crazy to think he might be the best player of all time and no one really talks about him all that much (relatively speaking).

[MrTPlush]

It is tough to feel bad for someone making $430M but I feel bad for Trout. That franchise has no clue what to do to become a winner and I could easily see his entire career waste away on it with us never really seeing him on a dominant team.

 

Agreed. I have a feeling he will never really get his due because he will probably never play for a contender. Crazy to think he might be the best player of all time and no one really talks about him all that much (relatively speaking).

 

He could never play a game again and be HOF worthy. He already has like 65 WAR, 2 MVP Awards, 4 2nd place finishes that honestly should be MVP awards, AND IS 27. UNREAL.

 

He almost has as much WAR as Miguel Cabrera and very well could pass up Derek Jeter THIS YEAR.

[homer]

It is tough to feel bad for someone making $430M but I feel bad for Trout. That franchise has no clue what to do to become a winner and I could easily see his entire career waste away on it with us never really seeing him on a dominant team.

 

Agreed. I have a feeling he will never really get his due because he will probably never play for a contender. Crazy to think he might be the best player of all time and no one really talks about him all that much (relatively speaking).

 

He could never play a game again and be HOF worthy. He already has like 65 WAR, 2 MVP Awards, 4 2nd place finishes that honestly should be MVP awards, AND IS 27. UNREAL.

 

He almost has as much WAR as Miguel Cabrera and very well could pass up Derek Jeter THIS YEAR.

 

 

You could almost say he was HOF worthy like two years ago. There was an argument to be made at least. Insane how good he is.

[SeaBass]

12 years is a long time, organizational changes could happen and/or they could figure things out and make a run. If the Brewers can do it so can they.

[KeithStone53151]

Is it weird that I still think he's a little underpaid? He's definitely on the short list of greatest players ever...already.

[sveumrules]

In his first seven full seasons Trout already has the 4th highest seven year peak WAR (63.8) of any CF with only Mays (73.7), Cobb (69.2) & Mantle (64.8) ahead of him & Tris Speaker (62.4) just behind him. For comparison the 2nd best contemporary CF, Griffey Junior, had a seven year peak WAR of 54.0.

 

So far Trout's two low seasons are 6.7 WAR (2017) & 7.6 WAR (2014). A couple more ten win seasons would push him ahead of Cobb, but he's gonna need some monster seasons to catch Willie.

 

Will be fun to watch unfold.

[And That]

Is it weird that I still think he's a little underpaid? He's definitely on the short list of greatest players ever...already.

Yah, $430 million seems light to me by at least $100 million.

[pacopete4]

Is it weird that I still think he's a little underpaid? He's definitely on the short list of greatest players ever...already.

 

Nope. I had the same gut reaction to the deal. He is an insane talent but this deal also shows how lopsided top end players are compensated compared to a guy making 500K a year or less.

[JosephC]

Angels brought in Billy Eppler three or four years ago and I think he's done a pretty good job so far. He inherited a bottom-of-the-barrel farm system and is now pushing the top 10, and that was done without any major trading from the MLB roster or a stretch of really bad MLB teams. Did have one top 10 pick with Jo Adell (who was the 10th pick), but outside of that he hasn't really had big resources to restock that farm system and yet has done a really good job in doing so.

 

I thought the Cozart signing was stupid since defense is his strength and the Angels made that move knowing they'd move him off shortstop. But I didn't think the Upton move was unreasonable, he got hurt his first year there but last year posted a solid 3.45 bWAR/fWAR and that's not bad for a deal that averages 21.2 million per season in the LA market. Unless I'm forgetting some other moves, those have been the only significant free agent moves that Eppler's made which is probably the right strategy considering how much dead money Pujols represents, and this off-season they didn't appear to have any shot at making a realistic run at Houston so they just went cheaper and plugged some starting pitching holes which seems like the right strategy to me.

 

Granted, there were some years that the Angels really appeared totally clueless, but Eppler hasn't done a bad job considering what he inherited. I wouldn't go as far to say that I would be super-encouraged if I was an Angels fan, but I wouldn't be a bit discouraged with what Eppler's done.

[502 to Right]

I wouldn't call a $430 million deal an underpayment. And I fully recognize that Mike Trout is the best baseball player on the planet.

[topper09er]

Trout has the most WAR in MLB history through his age 26 season, just ahead of Ty Cobb.

 

If he continues his current pace of 9.2 WAR/season for the entire 12 year span of this contract he will finish #2 all-time in WAR with 174, still a full MVP caliber season behind Babe Ruth's 182 total.

[Warning Track Power]

It is tough to feel bad for someone making $430M but I feel bad for Trout. That franchise has no clue what to do to become a winner and I could easily see his entire career waste away on it with us never really seeing him on a dominant team.

My cousin in Wisconsin (casual baseball fan) asked me about why Trout got this deal when he has made the playoffs once. I likened it to the Packers with TT as GM. The ineptitude of the Angels GM to build a pitching staff around Trout is the equivalent of TT trying to build a defense around Rodgers. Signing guys like Matt Harvey, Cody Allen, do nothing to move the needle to get the Angels in competition with the Yankees and Red Sox.

[Fear The Chorizo]

but collusion!!!! Loud Noises!!!!

 

Great for Trout and great for the Angels - Trout has operated under the anti-Boras approach for star players by signing contract extensions with their parent club years before reaching free agency. Taking that approach, Trout has earned roughly $80M as a big league player to date, and now guarantees himself a total career earnings over half a billion (with a B!) dollars.

 

Conversely, Harper has earned roughly $50M as a big league player to date despite what is essentially the same amount of big league service time, with a guaranteed career earnings of $380M despite being on the open market for anyone to sign this offseason at what is believed to be the start of his prime.

 

Granted, there's only 1 Mike Trout - but from a financial perspective I think these two are very similar given that Harper could've gotten a very similar extension to Trout's initial one back in 2015 following Harper's MVP season.

[markedman5]

I'm happy for Angels fans.........great that a player like Trout wanted to start and finish his career with the same organization.

[sveumrules]

I wouldn't call a $430 million deal an underpayment. And I fully recognize that Mike Trout is the best baseball player on the planet.

 

MLBTR is reporting that the 12/430 includes the 2/66.5 he still had left on his old deal, so really only a 10 year/363.5 million extension.

 

Had he stayed healthy & put up two more Trout caliber seasons, one has to believe he would have gotten way more than 10/363.5 on the open market, so really only an "underpay" when viewed in that context.

[markedman5]

Tom

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@Haudricourt

4m4 minutes ago

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Yelich certainly sounds open to extension talk at any time: "I love it here. We'll see how it plays out."

[KeithStone53151]

Tom

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@Haudricourt

4m4 minutes ago

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Yelich certainly sounds open to extension talk at any time: "I love it here. We'll see how it plays out."

 

It's hard to think about extending Yelich. I feel like he's too good/valuable and the contract won't allow us to put winning pieces around him. 4 years away though, so we'll see.

[CheezWizHed]

Obligatory reminder that had Sabathia ranked higher than Teixeira in the free agent rankings we would have gotten the pick used to select Trout instead of the Angels. Looks like we got Kentrail Davis & Max Walla with our picks.

 

[sarcasm]Whew! Look at all that money we just saved![/sarcasm]