Welcome to Snyder's Soapbox! Here, I pontificate about matters related to Major League Baseball on a weekly basis. Some of the topics will be pressing matters, some might seem insignificant in the grand scheme of things, and most will be somewhere in between. The good thing about this website is that it's free, and you are allowed to click away. If you stay, you'll get smarter, though. That's a money-back guarantee. Let's get to it.
Hello, July. In baseball, the nearing of the trade deadline means the rumor mill is churning throughout the month. It's chaotic and exciting -- for those of us whose jobs and livelihoods aren't up in the air. It also perhaps isn't such a fun time in the Trout household.
Every year around this time, there are screams from baseball fans and media alike that the Angels need to trade Mike Trout. It makes a lot of sense if we ignore the two most important parties here, but we'll skip that for a second like so many other people do.
First off, Trout is an incredibly fun player and a generational talent. He'll fly into the Hall of Fame on the first ballot once he's retired for five years. The three-time MVP has 421 career home runs with 221 steals and a .291/.406/.566 (168 OPS+) slash line.
And yet, he's been relegated to a mostly irrelevant baseball team. The Angels haven't made the playoffs since 2014 and they were bounced in the ALDS that year. Trout is now 34 years old with 16 years of service time and has three career playoff games under his belt. It's only natural for many people to wish that we'd see more of him in the postseason. I'm not singling anyone out here, nor am I shaming anyone. I would love to see it as well.
It looks like there would be a natural fit this season, too. The Phillies need outfield help and Trout famously grew up a Philadelphia fan from South Jersey (his Eagles fandom is often in the spotlight in the offseason). The All-Star Game is in Philly next week and Trout will be a starter for the American League, so long as he doesn't suffer a setback in recovering from injury. It'll be a big story, that Trout-Philly connection.
Imagine a lineup featuring Trout, Kyle Schwarber and Bryce Harper. He's long been connected with Harper anyway, as the two were Rookies of the Year in their respective leagues in 2012.
The problem with all this wishcasting, however, is that it doesn't seem like either the Angels or Trout desire a trade and they are the two most important decision-makers here.
Why should the Angels be required to trade the best player in franchise history, who is wildly popular among the fan base?
Interim general manager John Mozeliak told the Los Angeles Times that trading Trout is "not happening." This is a man who once lost Albert Pujols to free agency and had his team back in the playoffs the next season and in the World Series in the season after that. Four years post-Pujols, the Cardinals had the best record in baseball.
This is to say that if he believed the franchise would be better off in trading Trout, he'd certainly consider it, knowing he's found a way to survive losing a legend before.
Let's talk about this legend.
Trout has remained pretty firm over the years that he has no desire to be traded. He has a full no-trade clause. As recently as late May, he said the following (via Halo Territory):
"I haven't even thought about any of that. I'm not even going to talk about the trade stuff."
It's entirely possible that the Angels wouldn't be able to trade Trout unless they ate a significant portion of the remaining four years and nearly $160 million left on his contract. Maybe they don't want to do that. It doesn't even matter, though, because Trout has a full no-trade clause and by all accounts doesn't want to go anywhere.
This is about the point where a bunch of fans start proclaiming that any competitor would want to go to a winner instead of toiling in obscurity (I think those are the same people who criticize players for "ring chasing," so it's a complicated needle to thread here, I guess). That's nonsense.
Trout is a human being. He has a family with two young children. Why is he required, for the purposes of our entertainment, to move his family, possibly all the way across the country? He's comfortable where he is and we should respect that.
The Angels have every right to want to hold onto Trout for the rest of his career. Trout has earned the right to determine whether he wants to stick around.
That's the reality of the situation, even if so many of us would love to see him playing in late October.
