MLB: Five players the game needs to market moving forward
By David Hill
Mike Trout
Obviously, any conversation about which players that MLB should market has to begin with the best player in the game today.
Mike Trout has become a transcendent star, a player who is already amongst the greatest to ever appear in the majors. He has a resume that most players can only dream of – he has been an eight time All Star, won the AL MVP award three times and finished second four other times, won seven Silver Sluggers, and was named the 2012 AL Rookie of the Year.
Trout, in just a decade, has invoked comparisons to the greatest players in MLB history. The most similar players to him by age have been Mickey Mantle and Frank Robinson, two legends. For the more sabermetrically minded, he is already ahead of the likes of Derek Jeter, Tony Gwynn, and Jim Palmer on the career bWAR list.
There is also a great way to work with Trout in terms of marketing. His love of all things weather related is well known, to the the point where the Angels had him provide a weather report. He chased snowstorms in Arizona, owns a weather balloon, and has called in snowfall reports to Jim Cantore of The Weather Channel.
If Mike Trout does decide to become a meteorologist after his playing days, you can imagine that The Weather Channel would market him. And that they would do a better job of it than Major League Baseball does.