LA Angels: Five untouchable players in trade talks

Untouchable Angels in trade talks: Mike Trout

At this stage in his career, it is highly doubtful that any teams are calling the Los Angeles Angels in regards to potential trades for Mike Trout. It isn’t that there wouldn’t be teams lining up at the door should the team make him available, but there is just something that says you don’t trade the best player in the game. Period.

That isn’t to say that exceptions haven’t been made in the past, but even in those cases, the trading teams run into two difficult problems to solve:

• Can they get equal value for the player in question?
• Can they manage to pull off such a trade without completely alienating the fan base?

The answer to both of those questions is almost always, “no.” The Marlins proved this point when they were forced to take a pauper’s deal to unload the massive contract attached to Giancarlo Stanton, and while Stanton was excellent at the time of the deal, he was still no Mike Trout.

Since making his Angels debut in 2011, Mike Trout has been the unequivocal best player in the game, putting up an MLB-best fWAR of 73.4 and a wRC+ of 172 through his age-27 season. While Trout will earn north of $37 million yearly over the remaining 11 years of his Angels contract, he’s been valued $62.5 million per season through his first nine seasons, easily making him the best bargain in the game despite his enormous price tag.

Currently, the Angels have only three players that have worn the halo and appear in Coopertown, with Burt Blyleven, Nolan Ryan, and Vladimir Guerrero holding that distinct honor. What neither of them has is the legacy of being an Angel for their entire career, a team icon for generations. Mike Trout has the chance to fulfill that distinction, and it is one that Arte Moreno and the Angels undoubtedly covet.

There is absolutely no way that the Angels will ever choose to trade Mike Trout as long as he maintains his current trajectory.