Mike Trout is having his best season since 2022, as he’s fully healthy and producing like a star at the plate again, with power and patience and high batting averages. By the time this piece runs, he’ll have more PA than he did in either 2021 or 2024, and more bWAR than he produced in all but two seasons since 2019.

The Angels need to look into trading him right now, as his value will never be higher, and his contract is still a major risk for them. (Trout has a no-trade clause and has the right to veto any trade.)

Trout’s mega-deal has about $178 million remaining over four-plus years, a contract that, as recently as last fall, looked like it was going to be underwater the rest of the way for the Angels. They locked up the best player in franchise history multiple times to deals where he probably left some money on the table, but haven’t built a contender around him, even when they arguably had the two best players in baseball on the roster at the same time.

They’re even further from contention now than they were when Trout signed this most recent extension, and their farm system ranked as the worst in baseball last February, with no prospects on my top 100 and very few position-player prospects who offered even the ceiling of an average everyday player.

It’s bleak.

What Trout has done so far in 33 games, however, looks like he’s been exploring Florida with Daniel Ponce de Leon. His hard-hit rate of 50 percent is his highest since 2023, his Barrel percent and Barrel per Plate Appearance (Barrel/PA) rates are the highest of his career, and he’s whiffing less on fastballs and breaking balls than he has in several years.

Statcast’s bat speed data only goes back three seasons — and I know the metric is far from perfect — but it indicates that, in 2026, he’s swinging as fast as ever.

After multiple injury-plagued seasons, Mike Trout is looking like the Mike Trout of old again. (Geoff Stellfox / Getty Images)

That’s one reason why trading Trout, if there’s a decent market for him, is the only logical move for the Angels.

They’re not likely to contend during his contract — it’s not impossible, with the expanded postseason, but the odds are low — and they could use the trade to try to add some prospects while also shedding some of the salary commitment. The Angels could swing a trade that just dumps the salary, but that isn’t going to set the team in the right direction; they’re not going to be able to spend their way to 90+ wins just by using whatever they save from moving his contract.

They need to get one or two real prospects back, even if that means paying down some of the sunk cost already promised to Trout.

If Trout keeps producing and stays healthy, as he has in the first month-plus of 2026, then the contract itself isn’t an issue — his production will justify the salary. The problem is that Trout is now 34 years old and has not played a full, healthy season since 2022, nor has he been a two-win player since 2023. His own recent history and the general track record of players in their mid-30s indicates that he’s probably going to get hurt again.

Once that happens, the opportunity to trade him vanishes.

To a contender, especially a team sitting on the bubble of a playoff spot, a two-win player isn’t worth $37 million — well, unless he’s replacing a negative two-win player, I guess — but a four-win player would be. If this revenant Trout is going to stick around for a year or two, and you had some reason to believe he’d stay off the injured list for any extended stretches, you could take on most of the contract and probably be satisfied with the return, as long as you’re not giving up any prospects.

The problem for the Angels is that they really need the prospects, or young big-leaguers, more than they need the cost savings. Owner Arte Moreno has been willing to spend money, often to his detriment and that of Angels fans. He has not been willing to wait, to be patient or to demonstrate object permanence where he might close his eyes and the Angels will still be there tomorrow, probably losing another game.

If the Angels do this — and I accept that we are well into highly speculative territory here, I read a lot of fiction, I know how much suspension of disbelief I’m asking of you all — they need to pay a large chunk of what Trout is still owed so they get players back. It’s buying prospects de facto, since doing it de jure is against the rules. Paying a third of the remaining money, about $59-60 million, makes Trout a $25 million a year expense, and that gives the acquiring team a chance to get surplus value for as long as Trout keeps hitting like this.

It’s rare, but we have seen players with huge contracts that might be underwater traded for returns that included real prospects and/or young big leaguers, including most recently in the Rafael Devers trade.

Devers brought back four players, including a former first-rounder who has since become a top 100 prospect in James Tibbs III and a former top 25 prospect who hadn’t had big-league success yet in Kyle Harrison. Devers was still owed over $270 million at that point, with the Red Sox paying just the salary for Jordan Hicks (about $25 million), who came back as part of the return. (This deal does not look so hot for the Giants right now.)

The most obvious trade partner is the Phillies, who need help in the outfield corners and would get an immediate bump from bringing a local star (he’s from Millville, New Jersey, not too far from Philly, and is a diehard Eagles fan) back home. Their GM, Dave Dombrowski, has always loved acquiring big-name players, and isn’t afraid to trade prospects to try to boost the major-league team. The Phillies just fired manager Rob Thomson, which doesn’t exactly change their outlook for the season but does signal that they’re in win-now mode. And they can probably take on a good portion of Trout’s contract.

The Phillies make sense as a destination for Mike Trout. It helps that Trout is a diehard Philadelphia Eagles fan. ( Bill Streicher / Imagn Images)

Philadelphia’s prospect capital for trades is thin at the moment, with Aidan Miller hurt and Andrew Painter a critical part of the major-league rotation already, but I could see the Phillies parting with one of Justin Crawford or Dante Nori, both outfielders, along with some prospects from their low minors, perhaps even right-hander Gage Wood, who is throwing well in Low A as a college product.

The Rangers seem like a great fit, although the whole “don’t trade within your division” canard might still apply. (I always thought that was dumb. Would you really refuse the best deal just because you’re afraid the players you trade might do well against you later and hurt your feelings?) They could make Trout their primary DH, as he’s a below-average defender in a corner now, and their DH situation is abysmal.

With Joc Pederson as their primary designated hitter, the Rangers are getting a .234/.331/.408 line from their DHs so far that I suppose is at least an improvement over 2025’s .195/.274/.33 line. Evan Carter has been hurt quite a bit since his stellar debut in the Rangers’ run to the title in 2023, and I’m not sure the Rangers would or should sell low on him, but I wonder if putting him in a deal, plus one of the Rangers’ top pitching prospects would move the needle.

The Giants showed last year they weren’t afraid to take on a big contract when they sent four players to the Red Sox for Devers, who is now part of their DH problem. They’ve gotten some production from Casey Schmitt, a good defensive third baseman who has power but doesn’t walk and chases too often to see him as a long-term regular at an offensive position. It does seem like throwing good money after bad to go acquire another big-contract DH, though.

The Yankees could get creative here with some of their own big contracts and perhaps slot Trout in as their DH. They still owe Giancarlo Stanton, who is nominally their DH in his brief interludes between IL stints, about $40 million through the end of 2027, including the buyout on his 2028 team option. They could send Stanton to the Angels to offset some of Trout’s remaining contract, and have enough second-tier prospects after George Lombard Jr., and Dax Kilby to put together a compelling package.

(I’ve long been a skeptic about Spencer Jones’ hit tool, but the Angels are the sort of team that can hand him 500 PA and see what happens — or, more specifically, see what happens beyond the 25+ homers he’ll accidentally hit.)

I considered the Mets, but they don’t seem like a great fit. Rookie Carson Benge has not hit so far this year, although his future is still quite promising; they really need a first baseman, which Trout hasn’t played, and putting him at DH doesn’t necessarily improve their offense enough right now and potentially blocks that spot for Juan Soto for several years.

The same goes for the Tigers, who have seen Kerry Carpenter get off to an alarming start with a 36.5 percent whiff rate following a decline in his overall production last year; Trout would be an improvement, but if we assume Carpenter hasn’t gone over the cliff at age 28, it would be an incremental one.

The Padres could find a place for his bat, but they don’t have the prospects the Angels should be demanding, and I’m not sure their new owners want to take on yet another long-term contract.

It’s quite possible that Trout will get hurt again, as he has in almost every year since the pandemic season, and obviate any discussion of his trade value. It’s quite probable that Moreno won’t allow GM Perry Minasian to even entertain trade offers. And there’s certainly a chance, albeit small, that Trout’s rally to start 2026 is a mirage — maybe just flukey, maybe a rare time when he’s in such good physical condition that he can remind us of the player he once was, and some minor ailment will bring him back to earth.

The Angels’ future is bleak with or without him, however. Sometimes trading the best player in the franchise’s history is the right move for the franchise’s future.