OT: Trout and Angels finalizing 12-year contract worth more than $430 million

[BramptonYute]

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[Ado05]

Surprised he wanted to stay with the Angels. Good for him though.

[So_Fresh]

Wow... If anyone is worth that kind of money it's Trout. He's a beast!

[vaff87]

Holy ****! I’d take this 10/10 over the Harper deal, tho.

[The_Hater]

This is so good to see after watching Bryce Harper chase one, dumb monetary goal all winter.

[BigLeagueChew]

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[Schad]

I know that I'm the person against massive extensions, but...$36m AAV over 12 for Trout is perfectly fine. Cheap, even. It overwrites the first two years, so it's really just a 10-year extension plus a rather teensy raise in 2019 and 2020.

Would most players be worth $360m in their ages 29-38 seasons? Nope. Will Trout? Extremely likely. He averages $70m in value per year to date...even if he starts declining by 31 or 32, unless he absolutely falls off a cliff, he'll have the contract paid for before he reaches his dotage.

[I_Like_Dirt]

I know that I'm the person against massive extensions, but...$36m AAV over 12 for Trout is perfectly fine. Cheap, even. It overwrites the first two years, so it's really just a 10-year extension plus a rather teensy raise in 2019 and 2020.

Would most players be worth $360m in their ages 29-38 seasons? Nope. Will Trout? Extremely likely. He averages $70m in value per year to date...even if he starts declining by 31 or 32, unless he absolutely falls off a cliff, he'll have the contract paid for before he reaches his dotage.

Agreed. Trout is such an outlier that is so much better than his peers at this point that there really isn't a market measure on the scale to make him as overpaid as his peers on mega contracts. Getting ~40% more AAV than Bryce Harper is irrelevant to him because he's waaaaay more than ~40% better as a player and has more room to decline and still have value.

[VanWest82]

Perhaps I'm in the minority here but I think this is a bad deal even accounting for some payroll inflation (unless you assume crazy huge payroll inflation, which I wouldn't).

If we use A-Rod as a baseline, he accumulated 61 WAR after his seventh full season in the majors which is where Trout is now. Analysts will say that's a really good deal because it's only ~7M per win, and the going rate is more like 10M. Sure. I've never bought that as a good way of looking at it. Not all wins are created equal. Generally speaking, the first few wins are cheap and it gets more expensive as you go.

The Angels appear to have paid something approaching top dollar for wins 72-80 based on the current construct of their roster. Maybe you'd argue it's not really that bad because Trout should generate 8+ WAR over the next 3-4 years, and given his AAV will be ~36M they're really only paying 4-5M per win. Fine, just also acknowledge it's probably going to be much, much worse on the back end of the deal. So it's a win now / pay later move, except Angels aren't really in a position to win now. Maybe others disagree.

We're not dealing in a market with unlimited resources. If we were Angels would carry a 700M payroll so they could win 100 games each year, cause 7M per win is a good deal right? Player resources aren't unlimited either, and that drives up the price but just because the market tells you this is what a player is worth, that doesn't mean it's equal to his intrinsic value to your franchise.

Baseball analysts seem to be justifying the deal in relation to other dumb contracts. How is that a good way of looking at it? We're less dumb than everyone else therefore we made a good deal?? I don't think so.

I always try and look at the opportunity cost. Angels could have traded Trout for a boatload of prospects and picks because he was still under contract for two more years. Build your team back up to the point of contention and then consider adding free agents. But if/when you do, do it on the margins. Pay 7-10M per win for wins 93 and 94, and do it over the short term. No team can win big if they're paying huge sums of money for lower level wins. Just my two cents.

[I_Like_Dirt]

I always try and look at the opportunity cost. Angles could have traded Trout for a boatload of prospects and picks because he was still under contract for two more years. Build your team back up to the point of contention and then consider adding free agents. But if/when you do, do it on the margins. Pay 7-10M per win for wins 93 and 94, and do it over the short term. No team can win big if they're paying huge sums of money for lower level wins. Just my two cents.

Trout had an NTC. Granted, he still has one, but two years to make a trade and convince him to be traded to the team making the offer is tricky when he knows he could hit free agency anyway. They have a bit more leverage with trading him at this point and more time to figure something out. And given that his contract isn't bad and he won't be hitting free agency, it might not necessarily hurt his value.

I don't think this contract is a super bargain or anything, just not the standard free agency albatross. Of course it's going to be much better up front.

I also think there are other factors that could be at play here that would never hit the media. For example, how much of a selling point was Trout when it came to Ohtani making his decision. Granted, Ohtani is stuck with the Angels now, but they probably want to keep him happy as well. It isn't so much the Trout's contract for me with the Angels as it is the everything else (non-Ohtani stuff, anyway). Pujols was a disaster. Trout's contract isn't a miracle or anything but it's way different from the standard Pujols conract. Really, it's the other stuff they need to get in order, with or without Trout.

[GoRapstheoriginal]

/tongue in cheek: And I'm just over here ========> just trying to make a buck! ! ! ! Lolz!

I'll be here all week folks!

Good for him his great great grandchildren will be taken care of for life!

[VanWest82]

Trout had an NTC. Granted, he still has one, but two years to make a trade and convince him to be traded to the team making the offer is tricky when he knows he could hit free agency anyway. They have a bit more leverage with trading him at this point and more time to figure something out. And given that his contract isn't bad and he won't be hitting free agency, it might not necessarily hurt his value.

I don't think this contract is a super bargain or anything, just not the standard free agency albatross. Of course it's going to be much better up front.

I also think there are other factors that could be at play here that would never hit the media. For example, how much of a selling point was Trout when it came to Ohtani making his decision. Granted, Ohtani is stuck with the Angels now, but they probably want to keep him happy as well. It isn't so much the Trout's contract for me with the Angels as it is the everything else (non-Ohtani stuff, anyway). Pujols was a disaster. Trout's contract isn't a miracle or anything but it's way different from the standard Pujols conract. Really, it's the other stuff they need to get in order, with or without Trout.

Missed the part about the no trade. I suppose that changes things some. I would have still preferred to at least try and get Trout on board with a trade to a place of his choosing. If he didn't want to entertain that I would have let him walk in FA like Nationals did with Harper. Take the comp pick over a 430M commitment.

I don't really get the logic of giving someone a bad contract so you can also have the privilege of giving his teammates bad contracts. If Ohtani wants a crazy long-term deal let someone else give it to him. Baseball's system is broken. Show me the big money, long-term deal that's worked out. I suppose you could argue David Price's crappy deal because he at least helped the Red Sox win the title.

[I_Like_Dirt]

My point is that it isn't actually a bad contract. It doesn't fit with the Angels current position but not much does at this stage. I'm not sure what they should or shouldn't do at this stage but I'm not going to criticize a reasonable deal for Trout when they have so many other issues worth criticizing.

[Schad]

We're not dealing in a market with unlimited resources. If we were Angels would carry a 700M payroll so they could win 100 games each year, cause 7M per win is a good deal right? Player resources aren't unlimited either, and that drives up the price but just because the market tells you this is what a player is worth, that doesn't mean it's equal to his intrinsic value to your franchise.

Point of order: it's $Xm per win above replacement. A team of replacement-level players making $500k/apiece still wins, like, 50-odd games or something; extraordinarily good teams clock in around 50-55 fWAR, a solid playoff contender is in the high 30s/low 40s.


Thus, Trout covers nearly 20% of the distance between a replacement-level team and one that is extraordinarily good, or more than a quarter of the ground for a playoff contender. At $35m, that's more than reasonable; four Trouts and a bunch of scrubs compete for the playoffs on a mid-tier budget.

Certainly, no free agent has more surplus value than a star in their pre-arb years. Unfortunately, the paradox is that money doesn't buy those players, either, because no one's selling them.

[VanWest82]

We're not dealing in a market with unlimited resources. If we were Angels would carry a 700M payroll so they could win 100 games each year, cause 7M per win is a good deal right? Player resources aren't unlimited either, and that drives up the price but just because the market tells you this is what a player is worth, that doesn't mean it's equal to his intrinsic value to your franchise.

Point of order: it's $Xm per win above replacement. A team of replacement-level players making $500k/apiece still wins, like, 50-odd games or something; extraordinarily good teams clock in around 50-55 fWAR, a solid playoff contender is in the high 30s/low 40s.


Thus, Trout covers nearly 20% of the distance between a replacement-level team and one that is extraordinarily good, or more than a quarter of the ground for a playoff contender. At $35m, that's more than reasonable; four Trouts and a bunch of scrubs compete for the playoffs on a mid-tier budget.

Certainly, no free agent has more surplus value than a star in their pre-arb years. Unfortunately, the paradox is that money doesn't buy those players, either, because no one's selling them.

Silly mistake re WAR. My bad. I don't disagree that Trout @ 36M AAV is a good deal. If the contract was 6/216M it would have been quite reasonable. My issue is that extra 6/216M on top of the first one. I just think that's crazy and isn't going to age as well as people think. Actually, I think it's going to age horribly.

[Skin Blues]

I didn't look too close at the details, but I believe based on his projections, they're only paying $4.5M per WAR (projected). So its a big number, but its still relatively cheap compared to what else they could've bought with that money.