Stan Kroenke Could Give Mike Trout One Last Shot at a World Series

They don't resemble a winner right now obviously, but the Los Angeles Angels are probably about to win another World Series.

Not this season or even the next, with the Major League Baseball owners' lockout apparently coming. But soonish.

No, their win-loss record isn't good: 53-86 as of Wednesday morning, tied for the worst in the league. And their farm system, while improved since Spring Training, still ranks in the middle of the league according to places that know, like Baseball America.

But it's also true that Stan Kroenke just bought the Angels from Arte Moreno. Kroenke's teams in other leagues win, using the Los Angeles Rams and Colorado Avalanche as examples.

So here's the question: Can the Angels win soon enough for 35-year-old Mike Trout to still be on the team when it happens? Possibly, because Trout is signed through 2030. That's the expiration date on the $426.5 million contract extension he signed in 2019.

Is 2029 or 2030 enough time for John Mozeliak, or whomever Kroenke picks to permanently run baseball operations, to turn it around? Sure, with properly placed free-agency dollars and some luck.

But would Trout still be a main cog in the machine when the Angels win again? That's getting dicey. Trout began the season in a renaissance, hitting 10 homers in April/March, and making the All-Star team again. But since June 1, not long after sustaining a hamstring injury, Trout has regressed to about where he was a year ago: appearing to be someone nearing the end of a great career.

His defense looked improved early according to some metrics, but overall he's been one of the worst defensive center fielders in the league in 2026. Somebody needs to tell him to move to a corner, or just DH, or compromise and go sit in a corner for a while and persuade himself to be a DH. Checking his MLB Statcast page, there's reason to think that some of Trout's results this season are bad luck, and he still can be a solid middle-of-the order guy going forward, even borderline great. For a while anyway. Certainly worth sticking around to find out.

And, boy, has he stuck it out. Aside from making the All-Star team again, Trout's biggest triumph in years was outlasting Moreno, who was a mediocre owner at best and much worse at worst. Kroenke, as long as you don't ask St. Louis about him, has a good reputation.

Look, the track record -- it's there," Trout told reporters.

Many observers scolded Trout when he signed an extension with Angels and bypassed free agency, squandering a player's only real leverage. Not only did Trout cost himself dollars on the open market, but he didn't pick the best possible place to win a World Series. The place where he was.

"And you're staying with the Angels? On purpose?" is what people said. Is Stockholm Syndrome a thing in MLB? Most valuable hostage, Mike Trout was.

Remember, though, the Angels still had Shohei Ohtani in 2019 when Trout re-upped, and it had been only five years since their playoff appearance together.

Trout wanted to win, but he also wanted to be loyal and comfortable. He was naive to think the winning part could happen with the Angels, but it can now.

But can he keep himself viable enough to be a reason why, finally, the Angels win again?

It would be a heck of a final act in Trout's Hall-of-Fame career.