The Angels opened spring training with a relatively sparse collection of major-league talent and minor-league prospects, and now they are playing without their two best pitchers and their best defensive player, the results perhaps predictable. They were crushed again Tuesday, this time by the Cardinals, a defeat that drove them to 6 ½ games behind the Mariners, five games behind the Rangers.

The path for them this season seems to harden by the day, and this will only feed into the speculation about whether they should trade Mike Trout, a player on an early trajectory that would take him into the inner circle of Hall of Famers. The Angels will not entertain trade offers for him anytime in the near future, GM Billy Eppler said the other day, and anyway, with Trout possessing the power to control the entire process through his no-trade clause, there's little chance the Angels would get equal value.

But that doesn't mean the Angels should be content to merely wait for Trout to get closer to the expiration date of his contract, at the end of the 2020 season. They should still be proactive with their All-Star center fielder.

If Garrett Richards and Andrew Heaney both have reconstructive elbow surgery, then both could miss not only the rest of this season but also most of 2017. The Angels don't have a lot of other long-term solutions in the rest of their rotation, or elsewhere -- at third base, second, catcher and left field. Albert Pujols is under contract for five more seasons beyond 2016, for a total of $140 million, and he's 36 years old. There's a good chance that the Angels are looking at some lean times for at least one more season and probably two, as Eppler rebuilds the farm system.

This would be a good time to go to Trout and get him invested in the future as much as possible, by discussing a contract extension.

An overture like this could be good business, too. Bryce Harper and Manny Machado will be free agents after 2018, two years before Trout could hit the open market, and figure to obliterate the salary ceilings. Locking down Trout now would commit the Angels to a huge deal for many years to come, but in the end, any salary negotiated could represent savings over what Trout may get as a free agent.

But going to Trout now would be a way to recruit him to a shared future, through the difficult times ahead. The message from the Angels could be: Look, we know this might be tough, but we're early in the process of building something great and that starts with you. You are our Willie Mays. You are our Hank Aaron. You are our Mickey Mantle. And we're ready to commit hundreds of millions of dollars to you to wed our future to yours. We’re in this together.