Inside the Los Angeles Angels clubhouse on payday next year, there are truths. Like the 33-year-old first baseman with nine years left on his $240 million contract. Nearby is the guy hitting behind him, in the first year of a $125 million deal. Which is not to be outdone by the fifth outfielder who may get 10 plate appearances a month fetching a bigger check than anyone, $24.6 million for the season.

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And over there sits the best player in baseball, not even making a million bucks.

Such is life in the major leagues, where the first three years of a player's career amount to forced poverty, at least by professional sporting standards. Surely Mike Trout can survive on a paltry $900,000 or so while Albert Pujols, Josh Hamilton and Vernon Wells, respectively, do rich-people things like donate $2 million to charity.

Well, what if Trout wants to give away a bunch of money – or, at least, get a Black Card? If the Angels are willing to lavish others with nine-figure deals, surely they could find it in their budget to do the same for the 21-year-old AL MVP runner-up.

It's not happening – not at the moment, two sources confirmed – but the idea of a Mike Trout contract extension is far from far-fetched. In a game where Evan Longoria signed away nine years of his career before a single major-league pitch, the opportunity to lock up young talent is palpable. And with that, and Trout's once-in-a-generation talent in mind, Yahoo! Sports went about figuring out the perfect contract for Trout and the Angels.





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No need for Angels GM Jerry Dipoto to thank us. Trout's agent, Craig Landis, need not kick over a vig on his 5 percent fee. For this, we consulted experts around the game – executives, agents and players, who could give perspective on all sides of the negotiating triangle. What's good for the player isn't always for the club, and vice versa, and the agent often causes another layer of confusion. This deal is meant to be amenable for everyone: long and rich enough to satiate Trout and reasonable and rational enough to placate the Angels.

While they'd love to pattern the Longoria deal, Trout would not settle for anything near that. And because Trout doesn't reach free agency for another five years, the Angels won't be compelled to pay him like one. So rather than picking a number and dollar value together, perhaps it's best to split them up and reunite them toward the end of the process.

Let's first look at the years. The executives, told to be reasonable, shied away from the 15-year offers they would lean toward for a player of Trout's caliber. They weighed Trout's free agency after the 2017 season – he would spend most of that season as a 25-year-old and cause a frenzy at 26 – with the Angels' desires to lock in his best years.

"If I were him, I'd try to do a nine-year contract," said an AL general manager. "Good for him, good for the Angels. Five years, four free-agent years."

Well, good for the Angels at least. Agents heard the suggestion of nine-year deals and scoffed.

"Just go year to year," one agent said, and it was probably the least-surprising comment in this whole exercise. Of course an agent wants Trout hitting the market at 26. If he continues to play in the manner he did last season – and while that level may prove an impossible standard, Trout, at very least, should be among the game's best – Trout would have a reasonable case to become the first $300 million player. If Hamilton is getting $32 million in each of the last two years of his contract in his age-35 and -36 seasons, surely one of the game's best players could fetch that with most of a 10-year contract throughout his prime.

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