Angels News: Aaron Judge Surpasses Mike Trout in Average Annual Value

With Aaron Judge's new contract with the Yankees, Angels outfielder Mike Trout drops to sixth place on the list of highest-AAV deals.

When Mike Trout signed a 12-year, $426.5 million contract in March of 2019, it set the record for largest overall contract in American professional sports history and the largest average annual value (AAV) in MLB history at just over $35.5 million. And while Trout's deal still holds the mark for overall value, he's dropping down the AAV list.

Trout's $35.5 million was passed by Gerrit Cole later that year when Cole signed a nine-year, $324 million deal with the Yankees ($36 million AAV). Both were blown away last offseason by Max Scherzer's three-year, $130 million contract with the Mets, an AAV of $43.3 million, but a contract that short almost deserves an asterisk in this discussion. Still, those were the only contracts to top Trout's AAV until the last week or so.

In the last several days, Justin Verlander got almost the same AAV from the Mets last week, but for only two years. That came a day after Jacob deGrom got $37 million per year over five years from the Rangers. 

But the big whammy came on Wednesday, when Aaron Judge agreed to a nine-year, $360 million deal to return to the Yankees. The $40 million AAV puts Judge in third place in history and drops Trout down to sixth. At $360 million, Judge's contract is the third-largest in baseball history (and the largest free-agent deal), trailing only the extensions signed by Trout in 2019 and Mookie Betts in 2020 (12 years, $365 million).

If Trout can remain healthy, $35.5 million per year will look like a bargain based on his production.