Mike Trout’s Contract Is A Win For All Involved

When Mike Trout signed a 12-year contract for $430 million critics scoffed.

“A terrible investment! A ballplayer starts peaks at 28 and his decline is noticeable after 32! The Angels will be paying Trout a ton of money (baseball contracts are guaranteed) in seasons he may not even be playing!”

That’s one way to look at it. And there’s validity to it.

But who knows? Maybe in 12 years $36 million-a-year will be the going rate for whatever Trout’s production is.

More importantly, Trout is now likely going to be associated with the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim for his entire career. Which will only help marketing baseball.

Fangraphs has projected that if Trout continues on his current pace he will retire at 42 as baseball’s all-time leader in Wins Above Replacement.

Trout, 27, has a lifetime .990 OPS, or has averaged a .307, 37 HR, and 99 RBIs, and 29 stolen bases in his career. And he even led American League center fielders in put outs in 2015.

But Trout’s not a household name. He has only one endorsement deal and that’s for frozen pretzels. Adam Kilgore of the Washington Post reports his celebrity is approximately that of Kenneth Faried, a backup center for the Houston Rockets.

Will Leitch of New York magazine reveals all these things in a piece on Trout this week. Then Leitch writes the tired Big Apple lament Trouts’s celebrity would be so much better if he played for the Yankees (or other…