What follows almost certainly falls under the heading of Never Gonna Happen. If you don’t have five minutes to spare, stop reading. If you do, I ask you to ponder two questions:
1. Would the Angels actually trade Mike Trout?
2. If the answer to No. 1 is even a "maybe," should the Braves try to hook him? (Hook? Trout? Groan?)
The Angels have baseball’s sixth-highest payroll. After this season, they’ll still owe Albert Pujols $140 million over five years. (As of Friday morning, the 36-year-old Pujols was hitting .197 with an on-base percentage of .266.) The Angels have lost Garrett Richards, their best pitcher, to Tommy John surgery; there’s thought Andrew Heaney will need it, too. Shortstop Andrelton Simmons, imported from the Braves, has a broken thumb and will be out until July.
The Angels awoke Friday at 13-21, which was the third-worst record — behind the Braves and Twins — in the majors. Unlike the Braves, the Angels have no reason to believe they'll improve anytime soon. Keith Law of ESPN Insider rates their farm system as baseball's least bountiful, deeming it "by far the worst I've ever seen."
All the Angels have going for them is Trout, who’s among the best players anyone has ever seen. In his first four full seasons, he finished second, first, second and second in the American League MVP voting. At age 24, his career WAR value is 39.9. At 24, Chipper Jones’ WAR was 9.1 — and he’s a first-ballot Hall of Fame lock.
Trout is the once-in-a-generation talent — or twice-in-a-gen, if you count Bryce Harper — a club never trades, but the internet has been abuzz with what David Schoenfield of ESPN's SweetSpot calls "the unthinkable." Wrote Dave Cameron of FanGraphs: "If the Angels keep Trout and just keep trying to surround him with decent free agents while trying to build back up the prospect base, there's a pretty good chance they'll be a 75-win team for the remainder of his contract."
On Baseball Prospectus' Effectively Wild podcast, BP editor Sam Miller speculated as to what sort of package might pry Trout from the Angels. Using the Cubs as a template, Miller guessed, "A (Kyle) Schwarber, a (Javier) Baez, a top 50 (overall) prospect and two top 10 (club) prospects."
For comparative purposes, I asked a man who works in baseball what it might take. He said six or seven players, with three already at the major-league level. Meaning: Even more than Miller’s massive Cubs proposal.
For the sake of this exercise, we offer six Braves' names: Julio Teheran, Ender Inciarte, Aaron Blair, Dansby Swanson, Tyrell Jenkins and Kolby Allard. I'm fudging on the "three at the major-league level" part, seeing as how Blair just arrived. Still, that's their best starting pitcher (Teheran, who's 25); a starting outfielder (Inciarte, also 25) who had a 5.3 WAR last season; their top prospect (Swanson) and three pitchers ranging from age 18 to 23, all ranking among the top 10 in Law's newly crowned No. 1 farm system.
I didn’t include Nick Markakis because he’s 32. I didn’t include Freddie Freeman because he’s owed $106.5 million from 2017 through 2021 and the Angels mightn’t be interested in assuming another fat contract. I skipped No. 2 prospect Sean Newcomb, whom they shipped here for Simmons. I omitted Ozzie Albies, figuring one shortstop (Swanson) would suffice.
So: Teheran, Enciarte, Blair, Swanson, Jenkins and Allard for Michael Nelson Trout. If you’re the Angels, you’d surely say, “We’d need more.”
If you’re the Braves, would you offer more? And here’s where I say: No.
This is baseball. Even the absolute best player doesn’t make that much of a difference. We recall the five-guys-for-Mark-Teixeira trade of 2007 as a gaffe, but we forget that Teixeira had a 6.0 WAR in his 363 days as a Brave. (Freeman’s best season produced a 5.7 in 2013.) With Teixeira, the Braves were 77-83. With ex-Braves Elvis Andrus at shortstop, Neftali Feliz as closer and Matt Harrison in their rotation, the Rangers reached the World Series.
As tantalizing as the thought of Trout in SunTrust Park is, the glow would dim without the requisite talent around him. As we’re seeing, the Braves don’t really have a big-league team. What they have is a farm system, the fruits of which could become really good big-leaguers. To ravage this rebuilt chain for the lure of having Trout through 2020 would be too much too soon.
Even if they landed Trout, the Braves would have succeeded only in trading places with the Angels. They’d have the best player in the business and not much else.
