The climax of an offseason spent contemplating and debating the value of some of baseball’s biggest stars, as it turns out, was not the record-setting free agent contracts signed last month by Manny Machado and Bryce Harper, but what reportedly came Tuesday: a massive extension for center fielder Mike Trout that zoomed past those other deals like a 600-foot home run.
According to ESPN’s Jeff Passan, Trout’s extension is worth $430 million over 12 years — exactly $100 million more than the 13-year, $330 million deal Harper signed March 2 with the Philadelphia Phillies, which previously stood as the largest in North American sports history.
Trout’s dollar figure, with its echo of Harper’s total payout, was either a strange coincidence, or an expert-level troll job, which happened to come just days after Harper made a public pitch for Trout to come join him on the Phillies — the team for whom Trout, a New Jersey native, grew up rooting. Trout, 27, was to have reached free agency for the first time after the 2020 season.
Trout, a seven-time all-star and two-time American League Most Valuable Player, is already considered the best player of his generation, and at his current trajectory could rank as the best of all-time by the time he is done. And now, it appears, he will finish his career with the only franchise he has ever known; the new contract reportedly has no opt-outs.
The theoretical availability of Trout on the free agent market at the end of 2020 was already shaping long-range strategies at the top of baseball’s talent marketplace, possibly helping to explain, for example, the relative absence of such behemoths as the and from this winter’s high-end market. The Phillies, with more money to spend and a built-in geographical and emotional advantage, would have almost certainly made a major play for his services.
But those possibilities all disappeared on Tuesday. The Angels — who, notably, have made just one playoff appearance in Trout’s eight seasons — worked quietly behind the scenes in negotiating with Trout, as word of those discussions failed to leak until Tuesday’s blast that a deal was near. For the Angels to retain Trout, it cost owner Arte Moreno more than twice as much as the $184 million he paid for the entire franchise in 2003.
Trout’s deal is believed to have smashed every other worldwide benchmark for an athlete’s on-field compensation. Before this winter, Giancarlo Stanton’s 13-year, $325 million extension with the in 2014 was the record for largest contract, a number that was exceeded by Harper last month. Boxer Canelo Alvarez’s deal with sports streaming service DAZN, for 11 fights over five years, was worth a reported $365 million.
At nearly $36 million per year in average annual value, Trout’s new deal would also make him the highest-paid player in baseball year-to-year, topping Zack Greinke’s $34.4 million AAV with the . Harper’s Phillies deal, by contrast, is worth just over $25 million in AAV.
