If you’re a baseball fan, chances are you know who Mike Trout is.
The Los Angeles Angels outfielder has been one of the most dominant players in the league, and has an impressive résumé to prove it. He’s seven-time All Star, Rookie of the Year, four-time Silver Slugger and two-time MVP, so yeah, the 26-year-old has had quite an impressive career.
But Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred believes if Trout marketed himself better, he’d be even more popular.
“Player marketing requires one thing for sure — the player,” Manfred told the Associated Press. “You cannot market a player passively. You can’t market anything passively. You need people to engage with those to whom you are trying to market in order to have effective marketing. We are very interested in having our players more engaged and having higher profile players and helping our players develop their individual brand. But that involves the player being actively engaged.
“Mike’s a great, great player and a really nice person, but he’s made certain decisions about what he wants to do and what he doesn’t want to do, and how he wants to spend his free time and how he doesn’t want to spend his free time,” Manfred continued. “That’s up to him. If he wants to engage and be more active in that area, I think we could help him make his brand really, really big. But he has to make a decision that he’s prepared to engage in that area. It takes time and effort.”
Manfred’s comments certainly are interesting. For someone who doesn’t have a World Series championship in their long list of accomplishments, Trout easily is one of the most well-known players in the league.
However, the Angels took note of the commissioner’s comments and responded with a statement of their own, stating they applaud the outfielder for putting his values over self-promotion.
It’s really hard to argue with the Angels. Each season, Trout puts up tremendous numbers and this season is no exception. He’s batting .310 with 25 home runs and 50 RBIs to go along with a 1.060 OPS.
Trout certainly doesn’t need any help promoting himself — his consistency in putting up big numbers each season will do that for him, including hitting at least 25 home runs in seven consecutive seasons.
