Trout's Contract Begs the Question: WAR, What Is It Good For?

Mike Trout is not coming to the Yankees. Nor is the South Jersey native going to his "hometown" Philadelphia Phillies. The center fielder, often called the best player in baseball, has signed a contract extension with his current team, the Los Angeles Angels, which will pay him $430 million over the next 12 years.

It is the biggest contract in sports history, breaking the record of the one signed by the other contender for the title of "best player in baseball," Bryce Harper, with the Phillies, $330 million over 13 years.

Trout is 27 years old, just entering his prime, has already made 7 All-Star teams, and won 2 American League Most Valuable Player awards. But, as good as they have been, neither he nor Harper has ever played on a team that has won a postseason series.

The Phillies are clearly going for it, as Harper is far from their only big acquisition. The Angels? Since his debut in 2011, they've usually been good, but have only made the postseason once, winning the American League Western Division title in 2014 (his 1st MVP season), and they got swept in the AL Division Series. So he's going to go into his 28th birthday without ever having played in a winning postseason game -- something glaring given that, each year, 10 out of 30 teams make the Playoffs.

Angels owner Arte Moreno can afford to build a winning team around Trout. But since buying the team in 2003, when they were coming off the only Pennant they've ever won in 58 seasons, and were defending World Champions, they've made the Playoffs 6 times in 16 seasons (not a bad ratio), but only won 2 Playoff series and 3 ALCS games (not good).

If Trout was looking for money, he got it. If he was looking for security and stability (Harper's reason for seeking a 13-year deal), he got it. But if he was looking for his best possible shot at winning... Well, Moreno has tried, just as the Angels' original owner, legendary entertainer Gene Autry, did, but it didn't work out for him.

This morning, shortly after the deal was announced, someone on Twitter wrote this:

A reasonable aging curve for Trout's age 27-38 seasons has him putting up about 85 WAR over the next 12 seasons (that's Chipper Jones's career on top of what Trout's already done). So even at $430M the Angels are still only paying about $5M per win.

I remember, when I was a kid, reading about Mickey Mantle, and he said, "My dream was to have a big WAR. The World Series didn't matter."
Actually, no, I don't remember that. The Mick didn't say that. No player said that. And no fan dreamed of Wins Above Replacement, either. We dreamed of actual wins.

By the time he was the age that Trout is now, Mantle had already won 7 Pennants and 5 World Series -- as many as Derek Jeter did in his entire career.

True, some athletes hang on long enough to finally win one late. In baseball, we have the examples of Jackie Robinson and several other members of the 1955 Brooklyn Dodgers, Warren Spahn with the 1957 Milwaukee Braves, Luis Aparicio with the 1966 Baltimore Orioles, Al Kaline with the 1968 Detroit Tigers, Jim Kaat with the 1982 St. Louis Cardinals, George Brett with the 1985 Kansas City Royals, Dave Winfield with the 1992 Toronto Blue Jays, Wade Boggs with the 1996 Yankees, Darren Daulton with the 1997 Florida Marlins, Roger Clemens with the 1999 Yankees, Randy Johnson and Matt Williams with the 2001 Arizona Diamondbacks, Ivan Rodriguez with the 2003 Marlins, Carlos Beltran and Justin Verlander with the 2017 Houston Astros, and perhaps others that I'm overlooking.

But we also have examples of all-time greats who never made it. Ty Cobb was 0-3 in World Series. Carl Yastrzemski and Tony Gwynn were 0-2. Ted Williams and Barry Bonds were 0-1. Ernie Banks and Ken Griffey Jr. never made it to one.

Trout has the talent. In Moreno, he has an owner ready, willing and able to spend. Will Trout and Moreno have the luck necessary to put a title run together? We shall see.

But winning matters. WAR is just a number, one which suggests a player's winning value, but doesn't actually predict it, or prove it.

Or, to put it another way: WAR! Huh! Good God, y'all! What is it good for? Absolutely nothing!

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