DID MIKE TROUT WIN OR LOSE?

DID MIKE TROUT WIN OR LOSE?

For the uninitiated, Mike Trout is a Major League baseball player who just signed a $430 million contract to play baseball for the next 12 years with the Los Angeles Angels. He will be smiling continuously while collecting his bonanza until he is 39 years old in 2030. Or will he? His financial gain will allow him to live the Life of Riley for the rest of his life. At the same time, however, he has incurred an equally gigantic expectation that the Commissioner of Baseball, Rob Manfred, first alluded to last year. Manfred implied that Trout was not pulling his weight by not promoting baseball the way Manfred thinks he should. With his new financial windfall, the expectation has risen to Everest-like heights!

First, for the fun of, it let’s break down Trout’s massive salary into more digestible bites. Trout will make $35 million a year or $216,000 for EVERY GAME for the next twelve years or $24,000 for each inning of the season. In any given game, Mike might bat 4 or 5 times and actually catch or touch the ball 3 or 4 times in a whole game. He still takes home $216,000 per game no matter what he contributes, even games he does not play in! In a normal three hour game he will make more money than most people can ever hope to make in three years! For my many teacher friends, it will take a starting teacher 3 YEARS to earn what Trout will take home for EVERY GAME. There is no argument, from a financial perspective, that Trout is a winner. 

But from the Commissioner’s point of view, he expects that Trout has a larger responsibility than just playing ball and cashing his pay check. By many different measures, baseball players are not well known. In ESPN’s ranking of the most famous athletes in the world there were 13 basketball players named, seven football (including soccer) players, several cricket players, two table-tennis stars and zero baseball players. For some reason, Manfred singled Trout out for not doing enough to market himself and consequently, the game of baseball. He was accused of maintaining too low a profile! Trout responded by saying that he felt his role was to devote himself to playing the best baseball he was capable, to help his team win, not to market himself. 

In our socially connected world, name recognition and “followers” have assumed an artificial importance that is further played up by the media. For example, on Instagram, LeBron James has 44 million followers, the NFL’s Odell Beckham has 12 million and poor Mike Trout has only 1.5 million followers. 

Is a star’s main role to perform at an elite level or become a media darling? Mike Trout did not become a baseball player to get into marketing. He played for the love of the game and had the skills and endurance to become successful. He did not ask for the role of “The Face of Baseball” nor the expectation that he was responsible for being the ring master of the baseball world. 

But now that he has become the highest paid baseball player ever, does he now have an added responsibility, whether he likes it or not? The Commissioner thinks so. What do you think? Did Trout really win or did he really lose?