Wins in free agency are terribly expensive. Something like $8-9M per. It's also the most expensive place to buy them. A 100 win team would run a payroll something on the order of $450M if every single player earned $8-9M per WAR generated.

But an extension is not free agency. The Angels are willing to pay 12/430 precisely because they expect that Trout would command an even higher offer as a free agent. So of course they think he will be "underpaid" by the deal. Trout knows that too, but $430M is a heck of a nice "safe" deal to take, rather than waiting seeing what PHI would offer in two years.

Furthermore, it tears up the last 2 years of his current contract (2/66.5 remaining) so really it's the same as a mere 10/364 extension when you think about it. Which is as much of a stupefying bargain as the Angels could have possibly hoped for.

Now they need to go get him some support. Calls need to be in to Keuchel and Kimbrel immediately.
[Post edited by Beerman at 03/19/2019 12:04PM]