3 reasons why an offseason Mike Trout trade makes no sense for the LA Angels

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The Los Angeles Angels are in the midst of yet another disappointing season. This one felt different as the team showed a huge sense of urgency to win especially at the trade deadline only to fall flat on their faces with an ugly finish to the season. The Angels wound up playing zero meaningful baseball games which once again has fans of MLB in general pondering where Shohei Ohtani will end up this offseason.

The Ohtani free agency saga will be the number one storyline from the moment the final out of the World Series is completed until the moment Ohtani finally puts pen to paper on what will likely be the richest contract in MLB history.

Ohtani will be taking up much of the Angels' time until he signs either with them or elsewhere, but there's another superstar out there that you can only wonder what he's thinking. Especially if Ohtani signs elsewhere, who would really blame Trout for requesting a trade this offseason? He gave the Angels his loyalty and they've rewarded him with one singular playoff appearance in his Hall of Fame career.

On paper, a Mike Trout trade sounds somewhat inevitable if Ohtani leaves. However, it's much more complicated than you might think. Here are three reasons why a Mike Trout trade will not happen this offseason.

1) Mike Trout has a full no-trade clause which makes everything more complicated

When Mike Trout signed his mega-deal to essentially play the rest of his career in Anaheim, it came with a full no-trade clause. This means that even if the Angels were to decide that they wanted to trade him, they'd need his approval.

Would Trout accept a trade to go to his hometown team of Philadelphia? Maybe. Would he accept a trade to go to somewhere like Kansas City if they were interested? I'd bet not. I'd bet there are a whole lot more teams Trout would never even consider which puts the Angels in an uncomfortable situation.

Trading Trout only makes sense if the Angels can either get out of the large amount of money they still owe him and/or if they can find a way to land a prospect package that's actually worthwhile. Lessening the field to only a couple of teams Trout would even consider makes that more difficult.

It's unclear as of now where Trout would consider playing if there are even any spots. What I do know is him having the ability to veto any deal makes it less likely for one to go down.

2) Mike Trout has too many question marks for a team to make a worthwhile offer to the LA Angels

Let's get this out of the way. When healthy, Mike Trout is still among the best players in baseball. In 2022 he hit 40 home runs in just 119 games. He finished eighth in the AL MVP balloting and was an all-star while also taking home a Silver Slugger Award.

This past season hasn't been quite as good as we're accustomed to, but Trout still has a 133 WRC+ and was at around a 40-homer pace had he played a full season. He was named an all-star for a reason. He's still quite good. He's a great player, but it'd be naive to discount all of the question marks he has.

First, Trout has been incapable of staying on the field. He has played just 82 games this season, and has reached the 100-game mark just once over the last four seasons. He hasn't topped the 140-game mark since 2016. That is a problem. The best ability is availability, and the Angels or whoever would acquire him simply cannot count on that. Trout is 32 right now and is only getting older. That usually means more time on the IL, not less.

Second, the production has taken a hit. Trout is enduring the worst full season of his career. A 133 WRC+ is still quite good, but Trout's lowest mark in a full season was 167. There's a huge difference there. Again, with age, this figures to only decline.

Trout has had glaring issues catching up to high-velocity fastballs even when you knew they were coming. His strikeout rate is as high as it's ever been at 28.7% and he's in the 14th percentile in that category.

He hasn't been available, and this season he was showing some decline. He's still a great player, but with seven more years left on his deal and all of the injury concerns what realistically will teams offer?

3) MIke Trout's contract is too expensive for the LA Angels to get anything worthwhile for

The Angels cannot trade MIke Trout just to trade the contract. Getting rid of the remaining seven years at roughly $250 million total would be nice, but trading Mike Trout just to clear cap is not what should happen.

The only way the team should really consider trading Trout is if they can get a legitimate return. This can mean either MLB players or prospects, as long as the value makes sense. The chances of this happening are almost zero without the Angels eating most of the contract.

The Angels could follow what Steve Cohen did when he traded Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander at the trade deadline when he ate a ton of money in order to get top prospects in return, but the Angels are unlikely to do this with Trout.

Trout still has seven years left. Do you really expect Arte Moreno to eat likely well upwards of $100 million total over the course of the next seven seasons to watch Trout play elsewhere just so the Angels can get a lottery ticket prospect in return?

The way for the Angels to get a satisfying return for Trout would be if they got rid of the money and got a prospect or two back. That simply won't happen, making it virtually impossible he gets moved without a demand.

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