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The obvious paradox of every offseason: The Giants need a star, but they don’t grow on trees. Well, there’s Chet Lemon, but he’s been retired for a long time. Darryl Strawberry doesn’t count, and Norm Cash definitely doesn’t count. In the offseason bazaar, there are hundreds of booths, but only one of them is offering a star. The line is 20 deep, and the guy manning the booth is taking a bathroom break. Yes, the Giants finish second for premium free agents a lot, but think of all the teams who finish seventh! You don’t feel better. That doesn’t change the fact that the Giants just can’t go out and get the free agents they want, though. These players have agency; it’s right there in the name. They can choose where they want to go. Farhan Zaidi can order a 600-foot banner of Shohei Ohtani’s face, slap it on the Salesforce Tower and stand under it with a gigantic novelty check in the amount of one billion dollars. It still doesn’t guarantee that Ohtani is coming to the press conference. No, stars don’t grow on trees. But they can be found in the ocean sometimes. I even double-checked to see if this is true. The Giants liked Mike Trout when he was a high school kid from Jersey. It’s time for him to come home to the team that drafted him in an alternate universe. There’s more than one way to skin a fish that doesn’t grow on trees. It’s time to see if there’s a plausible way to get Trout on the Giants.
“If you are the Angels and believe in your ability to build a winning team, you can do that with your merging core.”
BK digs into Mike Trout and the young crop of Angels talent. #MLBNow pic.twitter.com/katwiMhmrc — MLB Now (@MLBNow) November 13, 2023Question #1: Would the Angels trade Trout?
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Probably. |
| he’s owed $222.7 million over the next six seasons. The Angels have played 486 games over the last three seasons, and Trout has played in 237 of them. The idea of Trout being traded isn’t just me pulling something out of my nether regions; MLB Network just did a whole segment on the idea. The Angels are most likely (although not definitely) going to lose Ohtani, and Trout is making a sixth of the payroll while playing half of the games. It’s not like that team is close to an Orioles-like renaissance, although the Orioles didn’t look like they were especially close a couple seasons ago, either. |
| Arte Moreno might want to save a hundred million dollars, give or take. Maybe even two hundred million, depending on how much contract Trout’s new team absorbs. That’s the kind of money that could be used to get the next Anthony Rendon, so you know Moreno is itchy. |
Question #2: Would Trout want to be traded?
| The biggest question. He has veto power, and as we saw with Giancarlo Stanton, sometimes players exercise that power. He might absolutely |
| love Medieval Times. “You eat with your hands!” he tells anyone who will listen. “They joust! Dude, did you see that? They freaking joust!” You can’t get that kind of entertainment in the Bay Area. Trout might also be legitimately comfortable with the Angels organization. It’s the only one he’s known. Just like a free agent, Trout can control where he goes. Just as it’s not as simple as going to the Ohtani store, it’s not as simple as going to the Trout store. If he doesn’t want to go, he doesn’t want to go. Discussion over |
Question #3: Would Trout be a good fit for the Giants in 2024?
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