Mike Trout: 10 years, $360 million

jon abbey

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They do have Ohtani and Jo Adell, both of whom should be ready to help big time next year and beyond. They definitely have a lot of work to do still, though.
 

Lowrielicious

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not every player cares about winning
Alternatively, not every player is focussed on the same version of winning.
Maybe the best player in the game is more focussed on MVPs and even on winning the biggest contract in the history of sports than on being on a perennial World Series threat.
 

McBride11

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Alternatively, not every player is focussed on the same version of winning.
Maybe the best player in the game is more focussed on MVPs and even on winning the biggest contract in the history of sports than on being on a perennial World Series threat.
The anti Tom Brady if you will.

Trout is a phenomenal, generational talent without a doubt and likely deserves this more than Harper and Machado. I certainly can't begrudge the guy getting paid after working his butt off and taking advantage of his talents, whatever his motivation may be. Maybe LAA can build a team around him finally (personally I think they need to decide Ohtani as P or hitter to make this happen). Of course that team better lose to the Sox in the ALDS
 

jon abbey

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Trout is a phenomenal, generational talent without a doubt and likely deserves this more than Harper and Machado.
I am going to use that 'likely' and make sure everyone saw the insane factoid Eno Sarris dug up for his Trout contract piece in The Athletic (worth your money), Trout has compiled more WAR than Harper and Machado COMBINED, that is absurd.

Trout: 1065 games, 64.9 WAR
Harper: 927 games, 30.5 WAR
Machado: 926 games 30.3 WAR

https://theathletic.com/876801/2019/03/19/sarris-twelve-remarkable-facts-about-mike-trouts-career-so-far/
 

BroodsSexton

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Alternatively, not every player is focussed on the same version of winning.
Maybe the best player in the game is more focussed on MVPs and even on winning the biggest contract in the history of sports than on being on a perennial World Series threat.
The anti Tom Brady if you will.

Trout is a phenomenal, generational talent without a doubt and likely deserves this more than Harper and Machado. I certainly can't begrudge the guy getting paid after working his butt off and taking advantage of his talents, whatever his motivation may be. Maybe LAA can build a team around him finally (personally I think they need to decide Ohtani as P or hitter to make this happen). Of course that team better lose to the Sox in the ALDS
I don’t think it’s fair to call him the anti-Tom Brady but I do think the first point is correct.

These guys have spent their entire lives thinking about baseball, and they must recognize that the measure of individual performance for a baseball player is almost totally independent of team success, in a way that is just different from football or any other professional sport. This is especially true for position players who don’t get tagged with “wins” or “losses.”

The fact that we can sit here and ooh and ahh at Trout’s WAR — which is totally independent of the team he is on — is very different than Brady, whose individual value it is much more difficult to measure with precision. It would probably have been impossible for Brady to become GOAT without Belichick and the ensemble around him.

For Trout, it may well be rational and totally reasonable for him to say that his individual legacy is his individual legacy—wherever he plays—and so treat baseball like the business it is when it comes to signing with a team. It’s just part of the nature of the game. Brady doesn’t have the luxury of thinking that way, if you will. He is playing—and measured—by different rules. Part of what makes him great is the ensemble around him.
 

Marciano490

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This thread is funny. If Trout signed with the Yankees, there’d be a different hue. Guy is a lowkey dude. He’s married. Maybe he values consistency and relative anonymity.

It always cracks me up when people question the commitment to winning of these superstar athletes. It’s a good thing they were bitten by spiders or stumbled into gamma rays and got so good at sports, otherwise their lack of competitive fire never would’ve allowed them to become great.
 

d.ro.ho

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A more charitable take on Trout's motivation would be that he loves the Angels and wants to help them win a title, and doesn't think signing on with a winner would be as rewarding. Or, at least, he doesn't want to be criticized for being a front runner. I guess he could have taken a big home town discount to stay in LA with the hope they would use the savings to sign other players, but as a fan I have hard time criticizing a guy for staying with the same team he came up with. If he waited and later signed with the Yankees, I doubt we'd be commending him for his competitive fire.

Edit: ha! was writing while Marciano posted.
 

BroodsSexton

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This thread is funny. If Trout signed with the Yankees, there’d be a different hue. Guy is a lowkey dude. He’s married. Maybe he values consistency and relative anonymity.

It always cracks me up when people question the commitment to winning of these superstar athletes. It’s a good thing they were bitten by spiders or stumbled into gamma rays and got so good at sports, otherwise their lack of competitive fire never would’ve allowed them to become great.
Not sure if you were responding to me, but isn’t that just saying that he measures “winning” differently? My point was that “competitive fire” doesn’t always manifest itself in valuing team wins or championships above all else. And I can understand that in baseball even more than other sports.
 

Marciano490

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Not sure if you were responding to me, but isn’t that just saying that he measures “winning” differently? My point was that “competitive fire” doesn’t always manifest itself in valuing team wins or championships above all else. And I can understand that in baseball even more than other sports.
No not to anyone here in particular, it just seems like whenever someone doesn’t sign with Boston/NY/LA/Chicago or whatever team is hot people go after their competitive fire. You also have to figure over the course of a 10-12 year contract pretty much every team is going to be good and bad.
 
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dcmissle

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No not to anyone here in particular, it just seems like whenever someone doesn’t sign with Boston/NY/LA/Chicago or whatever team is hot people go after their competitive fire. You also have to figure over the course of a 10-12 year contract pretty much every time is going to be good and bad.
Yup.

And this argument is raised to an art form when a player refuses to waive a no-trade at the deadline to be dealt to a team in the race. You don’t want to dislocate your family? — no heart!

The purveyors of this would advise their son to play where he wants and to hold out for the last dollar.
 

Pandarama

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Aug 20, 2018
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No not to anyone here in particular, it just seems like whenever someone doesn’t sign with Boston/NY/LA/Chicago or whatever team is hot people go after their competitive fire. You also have to figure over the course of a 10-12 year contract pretty much every time is going to be good and bad.
After his experience in Seattle, I think Robbie Cano would say you were half right.
 

JakeRae

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A more charitable take on Trout's motivation would be that he loves the Angels and wants to help them win a title, and doesn't think signing on with a winner would be as rewarding. Or, at least, he doesn't want to be criticized for being a front runner. I guess he could have taken a big home town discount to stay in LA with the hope they would use the savings to sign other players, but as a fan I have hard time criticizing a guy for staying with the same team he came up with. If he waited and later signed with the Yankees, I doubt we'd be commending him for his competitive fire.

Edit: ha! was writing while Marciano posted.
He did just sign for a big hometown discount. Don’t let the fact that he’s getting the biggest contract ever cloud over the fact that based on other recent contracts he’s worth much much more than what he signed for.
 

SoxJox

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I don't have anything to add to the thread, per se, but a friend of mine's son passed along the following [unverified] stats on Trout.

after...

311 games = .311 BA

445 games = .445 OBP

596 games = .596 SLG

1,002 games = 1.002 OPS
 

Dollar

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I looked it up and the numbers didn't check out. Turns out that instead of "after" it should read "in his last X games..."

Which makes sense, and you could do this with any rate stat for any player who has played a bunch of games. Like (fake example) in his last 994 games he has a fielding percentage of .994. They're still amazing numbers though.
 
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SoxJox

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Yeah, I wasn't sure and admittedly didn't spend a bunch of time checking. I looked at his Baseball Reference page and it seemed at first...and very brief...glance that it was an attempt at interpolating from the season-summary lines in the seasons in which he passed those respective "milestones". Thanks for the insight and taking the time.