Mike Trout injury: Why Angels slugger’s 12-year, $426 million contract extension was still the right move

Once again, injuries have derailed Mike Trout’s season. Los Angeles Angels GM Perry Minasian announced on Thursday that Trout, who has not played since April 29 because of a torn left meniscus, has torn the meniscus again, and will miss the rest of 2024. He played only 29 games before the initial injury in April. His 10 home runs led MLB on the day he was placed on the injured list.

A variety of injuries limited Trout to only 266 of 648 possible games from 2021-24, or 41%. That includes 41 games after the All-Star break in those four seasons combined. Trout does not have one chronic injury that keeps popping up. It’s something new each year: a calf strain in 2021, back trouble in 2022, a broken hamate in 2023, and now the twice-torn meniscus in 2024.

Trout will turn 33 next week and this is Year 6 of the 12-year, $426.5 million extension he signed in March 2019. The Angels still owe him $35.45 million per year from 2025-30, or $212.7 million total. To date, that contract bought the Angels an MVP-winning season in 2019, a top-five finish in the MVP voting in 2020, and a bunch of injuries from 2021-24. A quick recap:

Trout’s extension has gone sour but you need not feel bad for the Angels or owner Arte Moreno. Moreno does not feel bad for you when you pay your bills each month, and Trout was massively — massively — underpaid earlier in his career, when he put up MVP-caliber seasons while being paid far below-market salaries as a pre-arbitration and arbitration-eligible player.

The Angels are a disaster, the most rudderless franchise in baseball outside of Denver, and Trout’s contract is proving to be a mistake. You can add it to a list of mistakes that includes not trading Shohei Ohtani at last summer’s deadline, signing Anthony Rendon, and whatever that was when they traded top prospects for Lucas Giolito and others last deadline, only to waive them a month later.

Even when Trout was at the height of his powers, the Angels went to the postseason just once, when they were quickly swept by the Kansas City Royals in the 2014 Division Series. In six years with Trout and Ohtani, arguably the two most talented players in the sport, the Angels never posted a winning record, let alone went to the postseason. To call the Angels inept would be generous.

Trout’s contract is proving to be a disaster, but it’s a move the Angels had to make at the time. He was only 27 when he signed the extension, he was the best player in the world, and he was willing to skip free agency and stay with a non-marquee franchise long-term. Having the best player in the game on your roster in his prime is the hardest thing to do in this sport.

Furthermore, Ohtani was named AL Rookie of the Year in 2018, so the Angels had two prime-aged stars to build around. They could see the light at the end of Albert Pujols‘ contract too. Essentially, Trout’s extension gave them five more years to build a contender around Trout and Ohtani before Ohtani hit free agency. Five years with two of the best players in the game.

And the Angels completely botched it. Moreno has not allowed the front office to exceed the competitive balance tax threshold — that’s what all the waiver activity was about last August, shedding payroll and avoiding CBT — and the front office has stepped on rake after rake. Poor player development, poor free agent signings, poor trades, poor decision after poor decision.

The one thing the Angels got right was extending Trout through the rest of his prime and pairing him with Ohtani. Everything after that was a mistake, and now it’s likely Trout is out of his prime. He’s certainly out of his prime in terms of durability. He still performs very well when he’s on the field. He’s just not on the field very often. It’s too bad. We’re being robbed of all-time greatness.

The end of Trout’s extension was always going to be ugly because the end of every big money long-term deal that locks a player up deep into his 30s gets ugly. Teams know that going in. The Angels had Trout and Ohtani and produced zero winning seasons. The Angels failed Trout. Trout is not failing the Angel with his injuries.