In the wake of Giancarlo Stanton signing his record-breaking 13-year, $325 million contract, I can’t help but recall that report from earlier in the year where the Halos casually let it slip that before signing Mike Trout to a six-year, $144.5 million mega-extension that Trout’s agent actually broached the idea of a lifetime contract for Trout. Much to the chagrin of Angels fans everywhere who still have nightmares of Trout someday ending up wearing a Phillies uniform, that idea never really went anywhere.
That was fine. A lifetime contract (however you want to define that) always seemed like a pipe dream. Then the other young stud outfielder named Mike, oh, excuse me, Giancarlo, went and signed his 13-year deal. Maybe it was plausible after all. That doesn’t mean it would have been a good idea though.
Yes, that’s right. A lifetime pact for Trout probably would’ve been a bad idea (said the blogger as he ducked several lightning bolts).
While they might seem like a good idea at the time, these forever contracts just don’t ever seem to work out well. Angels fans should know that well considering that we are living through the Albert Pujols contract as I type this. He was much older than Trout when he signed his deal, so it isn’t really a fair comparison. Todd Helton signed a nine-year deal that kicked in during his late-twenties, and was regrettable by the time he reached 34. Again, not a true equivalent other than the contract expiring around the same age that Trout’s fictional lifetime contract would have.
The best comparable is Alex Rodriguez, another generational talent who signed a very long contract at a young age. A-Rod inked his monster pact going into his age 25 season, which is close enough. It only took three years for the Rangers to regret giving him that deal and trading him in his prime. Despite Rodriguez, coming off an MVP season, and getting traded to to a team with seemingly bottomless pits of money, Texas still had to eat a substantial amount of his remaining contract and got one quality player back, not some treasure trove of elite prospects that helped rebuild the organization.
The common refrain with a potential lifetime deal is that it is always going to be eminently tradeable. A-Rod showed us that it isn’t. Yes, Rodriguez got traded, but for 70 cents on the dollar. That’s not what people are hoping for when they talk about being able to deal the recipient of the lifetime deal at a later date. Even the Marlins figure to have a tough team trading Stanton if/when they choose to do so because his contract is so heavily backloaded, just like Trout’s would be.
It is hard to think now that the Angels could ever run into the kind of situation where they feel compelled to trade Trout. In fact, that’s the problem. We can’t think of those scenarios now because everything seems golden when it comes to Trout. However, it isn’t even that far-fetched that some series of events could tarnish that gold.
The Angels are drowning in bad contracts right now. Those, with the exception of Albert’s, will expire over the next three years, but it also leaves the Angels scrambling to replace those veteran talents. With a barren farm system, that means throwing around more money and ending up with more potentially bad contracts. If those moves go bad and the Angels were to end up having to leave Anaheim and privately fund a new stadium, then their financial flexibility would take a massive hit. Before you know it, the 2018 Angels are the 2014 Phillies. They’d have be in the same position that the Rangers were, trying to trade the best player in baseball but trying to find a team that can even afford to take on $200+ million in salary. What’s the point of a lifetime contract if it forces you into a situation where you would have no choice but to trade said player?
Then there is the concern over Trout himself. He only just turned 23, but there is concern that he’s already showing signs of decline. He’s already made a conscious decision to run less. His defensive metrics were curiously below average the last two years. His strikeout rate took a massive jump up. All of those could be anomalies, but they all could very much not be. If Trout were to continue these annual marginal declines, halfway through his proposed lifetime deal (which would be the end of his real deal), he’d merely be a very good player making more money than anyone else in baseball. That’s not a great return on the investment.
And let’s not ignore some of the other red flags with Trout. Have we all forgotten the Fat Mike Trout saga? Garrett Richards, his minor league roommate, has told plenty of stories about Trout’s wildly unhealthy eating habits. What happens to Trout when he gets a little older and his natural metabolism slows and all that Pepsi and pizza doesn’t just melt off? Actually, you don’t need to ask. Just look at what happened to former wunderkind Andruw Jones by the time he reached his late-twenties.
Clearly these are worst case scenarios, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t plausible. Avoiding the lifetime contract protects them from those scenarios. It also exposes them to losing Trout to free agency in six years, which is really the worst case scenario. If you think about though, if six years from now the Angels were in a position where they couldn’t afford and/or weren’t an appealing home for Trout, he’d probably be angling for a trade anyway. They don’t get anything other than a draft pick for losing him via free agency, but if they wise up to reality in advance, they could deal him for quite a bit the trade deadline prior, which they might not be able to do if he still had $200 million left on his deal.
Maybe I’m wrong on all this. Maybe Trout is the exception all rules. His down (by his standards) 2014 season could be an outlier. His elite athleticism could survive him losing a step or adding 15 pounds. Maybe having Trout on the roster forever is worth more in terms of public relations that his contract could never be considered bad. Maybe we’ll get to find out for real six years from now when his current contract expires.
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