On March 19th, Angels fans celebrated as the face of the franchise, Mike Trout, signed a 12 year contract extension that would make him an Angel for life. The $426.5 million guarantee was the largest in sports history at the time and made sense for a big market franchise with a Hall of Fame worthy player entering his prime.

That extension came on the heels of a previous six year $144,500,000 extension signed in March of 2014 that included his salary for the 2014 season. At the time, that extension made Mike Trout the highest paid player in baseball in terms of average annual salary.

In total, Mike Trout has been paid a little over $319,000,000 to play baseball for the Angels. An astronomical sum to be sure, but in the context of modern day baseball a sum that has been fair for both sides considering the value Mike Trout has provided for the team.

In dollars per WAR, Mike Trout has been paid quite fairly.

Whether you prefer the WAR calculation by FanGraphs or Baseball-Reference, Trout has accumulated over 87 WAR throughout his career. By doing simple math, $319 million divided by 87 equates to Trout being paid approximately $3.67 million per WAR.

On the current free agent market, players are typically paid about three times that amount. Back in 2019 when Trout signed his extension, players on the free agent market were paid about $7.8 million per expected WAR.

If going from the 2019 season forward, you have to factor in the shortened Covid season of 2020 into any calculations. If you extrapolate his 1.8 WAR in 2020 over a full season, that is 4.5 WAR. And to make the math easy we will use his full base salary in 2020 as well.

In that case, Trout has produced 25.8 WAR in exchange for $241 million. That results in a cost of $9.34 million per WAR, which is perfectly in line with free agent contracts signed this off season.

Off the field, Trout provides even more value.

While impossible to quantify, Mike Trout does an admirable job as the face of the Angels. From national advertising campaigns to multiple All Star game appearances and MVP’s, Mike Trout has become synomymous with the Angels.

In the marketing world companies pay for impressions. The more visible your brand, the more you are willing to pay. Having the captian of the World Baseball Classic be the face of your franchise has significant value in the marketing and branding world.

As fans, we tend to care a lot less about this. But the Angels are well aware they have the All American Boy representing their brand and carrying it places they couldn’t even pay to get it.

The back end of the contract will likely age poorly, but Trout’s overall value will still stand.

Father Time is undefeated. That rings true in the fight game and in life. No longer the 19 year old dynamo who made his Major League debut, Mike Trout has settled into life as a designated hitter after multiple injury marred seasons.

Last year he posted a pedestrian 1.5 WAR while being paid over $37 million. That is not good value for the team. But he also played in the most games in over two years and it isn’t inconceivable for him to exceed that value in 2025. In 2023 Trout posted 2.9 WAR in only 89 games.

But even if Trout settles into a 1.5ish WAR player over the remaining 5 years of his contract, he will end up with a total of 95 WAR for the franchise in exchange for about $505 million. do the math and that is $5.3 million per WAR for his career. Lower than what the Angels would have paid using multiple free agents over the course of that time and without any of the ancilliary benefits.

There have been a multitude of reasons for the Angels failures over the years but Mike Trout’s contracts should not be included on that list. Yes recent years have been disappointing but those injuries are the result of playing 1648 games in an Angels uniform with the smile and joy of a 12 year old having fun with his friends.

The autograpsh for kids, charity work, and brand ambassadorship are bonuses. But even in looking just at on field value, Trout has more than delivered for the Angels.