Mike Trout Could Be A Bigger Star If He Wanted To Market Himself, MLB Commissioner Says

Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred is asserting that MLB powerhouse Mike Trout is potentially selling himself short. In terms of marketability, Manfred appears to see something worth chasing. Trout, the baseball player Sports Illustrated once referred to as “the game’s best young player since Ted Williams,” apparently doesn’t put a whole lot of value into selling his brand during his down time.

ESPN is now reporting that Manfred was recently candid in giving his thoughts on Mike Trout’s apparent lack of motivation in regard to building up a lasting brand within the MLB as well as outside. Furthermore, it’s a brand Rob Manfred seems to think could well push Trout into sports super-stardom.

“Player marketing requires one thing for sure — the player. 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.

“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.”

Mike Trout does have a shoe sponsorship with Nike, so it appears his downtime isn’t all fun and games, but generally speaking Manfred seems to imply that Trout is someone who values his personal time as being personal, rather than being spent marketing himself.

Coed has recently estimated that Mike Trout’s net-worth for 2018 at about $82.4 million in total. Perhaps that combined with his baseball career is more than enough success in the eyes of the 26-year-old sports star and center fielder for the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim.

Nicknamed “The Millville Meteor,” Mike trout was born Michael Nelson Trout in 1991, a notably young player among others. As of now Trout holds the record of being the youngest baseball player ever to steal a minimum of 40 bases and also to hit a minimum of 20 home runs within a single baseball season.

Mike Trout further demonstrates his potential marketability of being a sports superstar in having also been named an MLB All-star six times in total. Moreover, he’s received the American League Most Valuable Player (MVP) awards in the year 2014 and then a second time in 2016.

Many feel Trout has reinvigorated interest among younger people for the sport of baseball, something the MLB would understandably want to use to their advantage in terms of drawing in new fans to games.