Teams entering Mike Trout sweepstakes should proceed with caution

There are certain players that we all just dream about having on our team. Back in the 1990s, the then-Cleveland Indians were always one great pitcher away from having a dynasty, so every time a rumor cropped up about Randy Johnson or Pedro Martinez being on the trading block, fans would start to imagine what it might take to bring them to Cleveland. It never happened, of course, but, to this day, fans wonder why the front office didn’t pull the trigger.

If Mike Trout is made available for trade this coming offseason, fans of 29 other Major League teams will at least wonder how he would fit with their team. Trout is that good; probably the best player of the 21st century so far.  At his best, he would materially change the postseason odds for half the teams in MLB if they could acquire him.

But there are warning signs for any team chasing Mike Trout

Whoever gets Trout would be getting someone who has played in 237 games the past three seasons, and who has not played in more than 140 games since 2016. For some teams — say, the Phillies, Trout’s hometown team and one that has already been linked to him — all that would matter would be that Trout be at his best in October, maybe just enough to propel them to one or two World Series over the course of his contract.

Trout’s aging curve is a big part of that calculated gamble. Trout just turned 32, and players who are injury-prone at that age don’t tend to become iron men in their late 30s. A cautionary tale for any team thinking of going after Trout would be Ken Griffey Jr. Griffey posted 70.7 WAR in 11 years with the Mariners before being traded to the Reds at age 30. He had one solid year with Cincinnati, then averaged 92 games per year over the next six seasons.  In the last 11 years of his career, Griffey posted a total of 13.1 WAR, almost half of that in that first year with the Reds.

There is already some evidence that Trout isn’t the same player he was a few years ago. After seven consecutive seasons with an on-base percentage above .390, Trout has been below .370 the past two seasons. He also would have struck out close to 200 times both years if he had played full seasons. Trout’s OPS this season of .858 is the lowest of his career by almost a hundred points. Most teams would sign up for a few more years even as good as this year, but they would be gambling that this isn’t the start of a steeper decline.

That’s a gamble some teams may feel is worth taking, but it would come at a high cost.  First, there’s that contract.  Trout will make $36.7 million per year through 2030. It’s possible that inflation will make that total seem less onerous by the latter part of this decade. However, at that point Trout will be 39, and for most teams spending $36.7 million on one player limits the ability to fix other parts of the roster.

The other cost of acquiring Trout is the package it would take to get the Los Angeles Angels to give him up. Trout does have a no-trade clause, and he may decide that he only wants to go to a specific team which would limit the Angels’ leverage. But, assuming Shohei Ohtani leaves in free agency, Trout is the main tool that the Angels possess to jump-start their rebuild, and they can’t afford to accept any less than the package Washington got for Juan Soto.  If they can’t get something close to that, they should just hold on to Trout and spend the next seven years celebrating his status as a franchise icon.

That means that a team like the Phillies may not have the pieces to entice the Angels to make a deal. We should never underestimate the ability of the Angels to shoot themselves in the foot (this, after all, is the team that just traded two top prospects for 32 innings of Lucas Giolito) but whoever makes the final decision on a Trout trade would know that it could be the transaction that defines his career. That sort of pressure tends to impose a bit of caution, which would tend to make a trade less likely to happen.