Mike Trout, the center fielder for the Los Angeles Angels and arguably the best baseball player of his generation, landed the richest contract in North American sports. Trout will be earning roughly $36 million per season or $340 million for 12 years with the Angels — an average annual value that will overtake Diamondbacks pitcher Zack Grienke’s previous record of $34.4 million per year. To give some context on just how talented Mike Trout is at baseball, Kaelen Jones from the SI Report explains that stats collected that raise him above other players.
Trout, a two-time American League MVP, is entering his ninth season in the league. The 27-year-old enters 2019 boasting a career average of .307, with 240 home runs and 648 RBIs. He was recently ranked MLB’s No. 1 player in Sports Illustrated‘s 2019 MLB Top 100.
Anyone that pays the slightest attention to the baseball world knows that Trout’s talent is well worth the $340 million payout. The question isn’t asking whether the Angels should be paying all this money to Trout. Rather, the true question in this situation is asking if the Angels deserve to be the team paying Trout to be their star player. Trout was in the position to decide which team he wanted to play for. Trout could have decided to take a pay cut to become apart of a team such as the Yankees or Dodgers with big-named and talented players that would support Trout in getting to the World Series each year. Trout chose to stay with the Angles, a team not known for its extremely talented players aside from Trout.
This is an incredible investment for the Los Angeles Angels. Trout has already proved himself as an all-around amazing baseball player that is consistent and resistant to slumps. Trout turns a mediocre roster into a competitive team hunting for wins.
$340 million may sound like an astonishing sum of money for a single player to receive just for playing the game of baseball. In reality, Trout along with the other top players in the MLB could be earning a lot more. Stadiums fill because of baseball players such as Trout. The best players of the game are the faces of the MLB. The MBL grossed over $10.3 billion in 2018, and this revenue is largely contributed by the MLB players that people come from all over to see play.
If you still feel that baseball players are overpaid for playing a game, it’s true in some cases. The players in the MLB that are overpaid are the mediocre players getting paid the minimum of $500,000 to sit on the bench as backup players. These kinds of players do not attract fans to the stadium, causing them to be a poor investment for the team.
Major League baseball is centered around the game of baseball, but it is also a business trying to profit as much as possible. It is strategic for teams to become as good as possible with the best players as possible so that they will win more games and attract more fans. The more fans, the more money enabling the team to give extremely high contracts to players that will lead the team to complete the objectives of winning games and making money.
Trout and other big-name players deserve the huge sums of money they are receiving. These players make their teams far better off in terms of winning records and money making. Without these star players, teams would not make nearly as much money as they do, and baseball as a whole would simply be boring to watch. American society rewards the people that create results. This is exactly what the MLB is doing for Mike Trout.
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