Los Angeles Angels: What Would Mike Trout Free Agency Look Like?
By Ryan Schultz
New developments suggest that Los Angeles Angels superstar Mike Trout could possibly enter free agency this offseason. Mass chaos would ensue if he did such a thing.
Nathaniel Grow of Fangraphs laid out a pretty crazy possibility yesterday. I won’t get into the legality of it all, as Grow did well on that front himself. The point that he brings up if you’re too lazy to read (or plan on reading later) is that Mike Trout, due to a loophole, could hit MLB free agency at any time now. If the Los Angeles Angels outfielder became a free agent this winter, what exactly would happen?
There has been much speculation about what will happen during the winter when Manny Machado, Bryce Harper and other stars will reach free agency. Before Harper’s relative struggles in 2016, there was a belief that he would get something in the 10-year/$500 million range. In other words: a crazy ridiculous amount of money that my puny brain cannot process. Machado has been predicted to get a similar amount of money.
As good as both Machado and Harper are, neither of them come close to doing what Mike Trout has done since the very first day he stepped on a Major League Baseball field. In terms of fWAR, Trout has never had a season worth less than 7.9 wins. He’s gotten incredibly close to or above 10 WAR in the remaining four seasons of his career. If you ascribe to the theory (albeit very flawed) that players on the free market get about $8 million per WAR, Trout deserves an average of $75.36 million EVERY. SINGLE. YEAR.
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Trout would naturally be seeking a contract in the range of 8-12 years. At just 25 (holy cow, twenty-five?!) years old, there’s no doubt that Trout will be producing at a high level for at least the next eight years. There would be no problem at all for Trout to receive a deal with that kind of term. Let’s go with eight years as the baseline. That would mean Trout would get a contract of about eight years and $600 million. That is absolutely absurd.
Every single team in the league would benefit from having Mike Trout on their roster. Naturally, there would be teams willing to give that type of contract to him. The problem, however, is in which teams can afford it. The team would have to toe the line between being a large market team with a lot of money available and avoiding the luxury tax.
That alone would limit the possible teams to just a few. Those teams would likely be the Giants, Cubs and Yankees. The Red Sox and Dodgers have both expressed their luxury tax difficulties, which pretty much puts them out of a hypothetical Mike Trout bidding war. Other teams like the Cardinals, Nationals and Tigers could be in the race as well.
Next: Possible Mike Trout Trades
The bottom line is that Mike Trout would absolutely flip the baseball world upside down if he became a free agent. Teams would change their plans for 2016 based around a single player. It would be a spark that would make the relatively chilled stove a hot one. It would be mass chaos, but it would be the best event of the offseason. Seeing Mike Trout in a different uniform would be odd at first, but the idea of watching him win a World Series is something to dream on.