Mike Trout returns to his hometown of Millville, New Jersey, whenever he can -- this is where he will live when his baseball career ends -- because he can just be himself and spend hours each day with family. The folks in the town know him, he knows them, and he can go about his life being treated like their neighbor Mike -- the son of Debbie and Jeff, the brother of Teal and Tyler, Jess' husband.
In a sense, the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim are a baseball version of his hometown -- a great, comfortable place where the people of the organization fully appreciate him for who he is. He knows them, they know him, and knowing how much he does for the Angels daily, the organization endeavors to give him his space, to allow him to do what he wants to do. When the Angels are home, Trout leaves his house near the water, heads to the park and plays the game he loves, his professional life as free of complication as any superstar could hope for. Millville West.
The question is: Will Trout's desire to win the most important games of the year drive him out of this safe place in Southern California?
That's what his choice about where he wants to play after the 2020 season should come down to. Presumably, it won't be about money, because presumably the Angels will make it clear to him that his contract terms won't be an impediment. He's worth whatever they pay him, because he checks every box as he continues on an unprecedented trajectory. As one executive said the other day when discussing the unsigned Bryce Harper and Manny Machado, there are some reasons why you might pause to invest in either player. Harper's defensive metrics have declined markedly. Machado's effort level has sometimes wavered.
With Trout, there are no warts. He checks every box, and then checks others you haven't thought of. No player in baseball history has generated the production he has in the first seven full years of his career. No player has been named on every MVP ballot distributed in the first seven years of his career, as Trout has. His effort is consistently optimal. He hits; he hits for power; he runs; his defense is outstanding; he plays a premium position. He's a great teammate; he's a great representative of his organization; he's open-minded to suggestions; he's more than willing to share with those around him. He, Mookie Betts and Francisco Lindor have perfect résumés.
So you'd assume the Angels would make the financial decision easy: Mike, we're happy to pay you.
But anybody who knows Trout, from childhood friends to family to teammates, will attest to how competitive he is. He wants to win, desperately, at everything, and most of the time he does win -- and when he doesn't, well, he'll want to continue to play until he prevails. As a kid growing up in New Jersey, he loved watching Derek Jeter, and he could set his calendar by when Jeter would show up on baseball's biggest stage, in the biggest games. Mr. November lived in October -- playing 158 games, or about a full regular season's worth of playoff and World Series games. In each of the first 12 seasons of Jeter's career, he was in the postseason.
Trout is 27 years old and will hit his 250th career homer sometime this year; next year, he'll probably score the 1,000th run of his career. He could turn out to be the greatest player of all time.
And he has played in three playoff games.
After a lot of years of farm system neglect, the Angels' foundation beneath Trout is improving. They have a wave of prospects coming, and now that Josh Hamilton is off the books and Albert Pujols is nearing the end of his contract, there will be more flexibility to add around Trout.
But he'll have to decide how far his patience extends. Does he want to wait for the Angels' resurgence?
If Trout leaves in search of postseason success elsewhere, he'll have to step away from this great, comfortable home and embrace the kind of stress he has never really had. He knows Philadelphia fans as well as anyone -- hell, he's one of them, as a diehard Eagles fan -- and understands better than anybody the scrutiny he would step into if he signed with the Phillies. He'd be beloved for signing, of course, and then expected to be Superman thereafter, and if it didn't go well, they'd let him know. He gets that.
If he signed with the Yankees and played his home games just a few hours up the Jersey Turnpike, his relationship with Yankees fans would be the same as it would be with Phillies fans. He would be embraced and cherished as long as the team won.
Maybe for Trout the competitor, there's something really attractive about that -- the stakes raised, pressure increased, the challenge even greater.
Or maybe for Trout, there might be greater satisfaction in lifting his baseball Millville, the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, to a place of glory.
Soon enough, he'll have a great choice to make. A tough choice, but a great choice. And he earned every bit of it.