Mike Trout has reportedly agreed to a 12-year, $430 million extension, which begs the question: What could one do with all of that money?
Let's start with the obvious. $430 million is nearly enough to pay for the total signing bonus, both in the MLB Draft and International Signing pools, for every single player in one year. That's right--a 50-round Draft for 30 teams plus all of the international signings comes out to $439 million for the 2017 season per Forbes. That's without mentioning that minor leaguers deserve some form of pay increase anyways, but still.
Now, on to the more important things.
For those of us who enjoy finer dining, nothing beats a Friday night fish fry in Wisconsin. For those who like to step outside the usual fried cod, haddock, or walleye, you could enjoy not only a trout dinner (any night of the week) at the Old Fashioned in Madison, but a Rushing Waters Rainbow Trout From Palmyra (Wis.) dinner. If you had Mike Trout's money, you and 22,691,292 of your friends could enjoy this outstanding meal, which comes complete with fresh thyme, baby spinach and Door County beets tossed with white wine vinaigrette. You could give every single person in Wisconsin nearly four of these delicious trout meals.
But hey, why buy a trout dinner when you could just buy your own trout farm and cook it straight out of the pond? There's a trout farm in Berlin, Wisconsin selling for $1.19 million, meaning that if Mike Trout wanted to own his own trout farm, he could not only afford over 361 trout farms at this price, but the cost of only one of these farms represents less than three-tenths of a percent of all the money in his new contract.
Alternately, you could just order in bulk and receive 58,344,640 rainbow trout fillets from Omaha Steaks, which would be enough to give 1.5 fillets to every single person in California. Nothing says thrifty like ordering nearly 60 million frozen rainbow trout fillets!
Let's talk some baseball, though, because that's what it's all about. Mike Trout will make 14,333 times per season what two-time All Star pitcher Dizzy Trout made in one of his All-Star seasons in 1947 ($25,000). It's also over 36 times per season more than former pitcher Steve Trout made in his highest-earning year, 1988 with Seattle ($990,000).
If you assume that Mike Trout will hit 30 home runs per year over the life of his new contract, that would be an additional 360 homers (putting him over 600 career dingers). The price per trip around the bases would be $1,194,444.
Trout's contract would be enough, if he had a paltry $20 million in the bank, to purchase a majority stake in the Tampa Bay Rays according to this valuation list. His new $430 million contract would have been enough in 2005 to purchase nearly two entire Milwaukee Brewers franchises at the price Mark Attanasio paid for the team ($223 million). Or, since MLB rules prevent a player from owning another MLB team, Trout could get into the NHL or MLS as a side hobby and have money to spare.
Ultimately, what Mike Trout does with his $430 million is up to him and his family. But there are definitely some fun things you could by, including an enormous amount of fish, with that kind of money.