The Wall Street Journal - 14.11.2019

A12| Thursday, November 14, 2019 THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.

for the years down the road, the

Angels couldn’t use that strategy.

Team owner Arte Moreno wouldn’t

authorize “tanking” for a franchise

that has drawn more than three

million fans for 17 straight seasons.

“We had to approach it with the

mind-set of, ‘We have Mike Trout.

We have to honor this. We can’t let

these years play out,’ ” Eppler said

during the 2019 season. So Eppler

and the Angels walked a tightrope,

prioritizing the future while still ac-

tively trying to contend.

Trout had been set to become a

free agent in 2021, and with it the

chance to join the Philadelphia Phil-

lies, the team closest to his home-

town of Millville, N.J. After signing

with the Phillies last winter, Bryce

Harper even said publicly that he

intended to try to recruit Trout to

team up with him after 2020.

But instead of looking elsewhere,

Trout grew more engaged. He sent

Eppler late-night text messages to

ask about the team’s rising pros-

pects and even attended a pre-draft

workout to see Jo Adell, the Angels’

first-round pick.

“He was paying attention,” Ep-

pler said of Trout. “That was a

turning point for me, because I

hadn’t really seen that from an elite

player before.”

Trout was phenomenal again in

2019, and either he or Astros third

baseman Alex Bregman will win

MVP. Trout hit a career-high 45

home runs, even though an injury

ended his season in early Septem-

ber. He led the majors in on-base

percentage (.438) and the AL in

slugging percentage (.645).

The Angels’ record: 72-90.

Weather

Shown are today’s noon positions of weather systems and precipitation. Temperature bands are highs for the day.

City Hi LoW Hi LoW City Hi LoW Hi LoW

Today Tomorrow Today Tomorrow

City Hi LoW Hi LoW

Anchorage 36 30 sn 35 30 sh
Atlanta 46 40 r 49 39 r
Austin 51 33 r 61 31 s
Baltimore 48 33 pc 54 32 pc
Boise 58 37 pc 58 32 c
Boston 42 36 c 52 26 s
Burlington 34 27 c 40 10 sf
Charlotte 44 37 r 51 38 r
Chicago 34 18 pc 38 27 s
Cleveland 39 25 pc 38 30 pc
Dallas 55 30 s 57 35 s
Denver 55 35 s 67 41 pc
Detroit 34 23 c 38 18 pc
Honolulu 86 73 s 86 74 pc
Houston 45 35 r 59 33 s
Indianapolis 39 20 pc 38 26 s
Kansas City 42 23 s 52 28 s
Las Vegas 76 53 c 75 50 s
Little Rock 51 26 pc 49 24 s
Los Angeles 72 55 pc 71 52 pc
Miami 84 74 pc 85 68 t
Milwaukee 33 21 pc 38 29 pc
Minneapolis 33 24 s 39 27 s
Nashville 50 29 s 48 28 s
New Orleans 53 42 r 58 40 pc
New York City 46 37 pc 52 29 s
Oklahoma City 48 25 s 58 32 s

Omaha 39 23 s 49 31 s

Orlando 81 69 c 77 58 r

Philadelphia 47 37 pc 53 30 s

Phoenix 82 58 pc 83 58 pc

Pittsburgh 43 23 pc 41 24 s

Portland, Maine 37 28 pc 46 19 pc

Portland, Ore. 59 48 c 59 43 sh

Sacramento 68 46 pc 68 44 pc

St. Louis 41 21 pc 44 24 s

Salt Lake City 62 41 pc 64 40 pc

San Francisco 62 50 pc 62 49 pc

Santa Fe 54 25 s 59 30 s

Seattle 57 50 pc 58 48 r

Sioux Falls 39 25 s 47 30 pc

Wash., D.C. 49 36 pc 52 34 pc

Amsterdam 45 37 c 43 36 r

Athens 69 58 pc 71 57 s

Baghdad 78 56 pc 80 58 s

Bangkok 91 76 c 91 75 pc

Beijing 45 27 pc 51 35 pc

Berlin 45 38 c 53 44 c

Brussels 43 36 c 41 35 c

Buenos Aires 82 66 s 79 68 s

Dubai 86 65 s 84 69 s

Dublin 44 35 c 44 33 s

Edinburgh 42 32 sh 45 34 s

Frankfurt 46 36 pc 45 33 c

Geneva 43 35 sh 44 33 c

Havana 86 68 pc 87 68 pc

Hong Kong 79 69 s 77 70 s

Istanbul 68 57 c 69 56 s

Jakarta 90 77 t 93 77 c

Jerusalem 78 62 s 70 54 t

Johannesburg 80 53 pc 79 54 s

London 45 38 r 48 40 r

Madrid 51 37 r 50 32 c

Manila 86 76 r 87 77 c

Melbourne 68 52 c 64 46 c

Mexico City 70 53 pc 67 48 pc

Milan 49 45 sh 51 42 r

Moscow 43 32 pc 42 32 c

Mumbai 92 75 pc 92 75 pc

Paris 46 37 sh 42 38 sh

Rio de Janeiro 82 70 t 80 71 c

Riyadh 80 61 s 78 62 pc

Rome 61 55 sh 65 51 r

San Juan 88 77 pc 86 76 pc

Seoul 41 31 s 59 37 sh

Shanghai 62 49 pc 69 57 pc

Singapore 87 77 t 87 78 t

Sydney 76 61 s 85 62 c

Taipei City 73 65 c 78 68 pc

Tokyo 7047sh 5950s

Toronto 3624sf 3712pc

Vancouver 52 46 r 52 41 pc

Warsaw 46 40 c 54 46 c

Zurich 44 31 c 43 32 c

Today Tomorrow

U.S. Forecasts

International

City Hi LoW Hi LoW

s...sunny; pc... partly cloudy; c...cloudy; sh...showers;
t...t’storms; r...rain; sf...snow flurries; sn...snow; i...ice
Today Tomorrow

Warm

Cold

Stationary

Showers

Rain

T-storms

Snow

Flurries

Ice

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Kansas

City

El Paso Dallas

Billings

Portland

Miami

San Francisco

Sacramento

Orlando

Atlanta

New Orleans

Houston

Phoenix

San Diego

Los Angeles

Las

Vegas

Seattle

Boise

Denver

Mpls./St. Paul

St. Louis

Chicago

Washington D.C.

Boston

Charleston

Milwaukee Hartford

Wichita

Indianapolis

Cleveland

Buffalo

Austin

Helena

Bismarck

Albuquerque

Omaha

Oklahoma City

San Antonio

Des Moines

Sioux Falls

JacksonBirmingham

Cheyenne Philadelphia

Reno

Santa Fe

Colorado

Springs

Pierre

Richmond

Raleigh

Tucson

Albany

Topeka

Columbia

Augusta

Ft. Worth

Eugene

Springfield

Mobile

Toronto

Ottawa

Montreal

Winnipeg

Vancouver Calgary

Edmonton

70s

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70s

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40s

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30s

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30s

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GQ MODELS| By Nancy Shack & Jeff Chen

Across

1 Robotic vacuum

cleaner brand

6 Go for a Gala

9 Post pieces

13 Ale hue

14 Ritzy Vegas hotel

15 Porterhouse kin

16 The Ten

Commandments,

in shiny

commemorative

gold?

19 Not so original

20 Forever and a

day

21 “Independent

Lens” airer

22 Fresh

24 “The Burial of the

Count of Orgaz”

artist

26 Sewing

dysfunction?

30 Spawning

habitat for

some sturgeon

31 Make a row,

maybe

32 Loser to U

for Grammy

Record of the

Year in 2001

36 Doctrine

37 Supporter of a

king, perhaps

40 Slim Energizer

41 Copy companion

43 Serious offense

44 Alternatives to

clubs

45 Medieval

crusade to locate

a suitable suitor?

49 Apt name for a

Christmas baby

52 Roadie’s

engagement

53 First female to

land a triple axel

in competition

54 Org. that takes

returns

55 Puts together

haphazardly

59 French bird that’s

part of a Rube

Goldberg

contraption?

63 First name in

Notre Dame

football fame

64 Moody music

genre

65 Noted German

idealist

philosopher

TheWSJDailyCrossword |Edited by Mike Shenk

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13 14 15

16 17 18

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22 23 24 25

26 27 28 29

30 31 32 33 34 35

36 37 38 39 40

41 42 43 44

45 46 47 48

49 50 51 52

53 54 55 56 57 58

59 60 61 62

63 64 65

66 67 68

Previous Puzzle’s Solution

s

Solve this puzzle online and discuss it at WSJ.com/Puzzles.

T R I M Y EWS AMA S S

RUNE AMOK WELTY

ANTS K IWI DOL LAR

NORSE HAL SR I

QUA I DORSAY YOGA

STY TAUNT DURAN

TIA GERTZ

BROKENPROMI SE

ROTOR PET

CUP I D DEATH SRO

ACES MADR I DOPEN

REB I ON SHEDS

FLUIDOUNCE JEDI

AER I E BOOM ODED

XEN I A ERGO YORE

66 Spots

67 Grog ingredient

68 Physicist Mach

Down

1 Collars

2 Issue

3 Band with an

acronymic name

4 Full of salacious

stories

5 Set straight

6 Garment that

may close in the

front or the back

7 Work in a

museum

8 “Toy Story 4”

returnee

9 Chips choice

10 Flaw-detecting

aid

11 Historic turning

point

12 Painter’s base

layer

15 Abrupt

digression

17 Seasonal

tableau

18 Loaf around

23 Something you

saw in a shop

25 Scrips

26 Bit of wit

27 Bear overhead?

28 Brand for boxers

29 Barcelona’s top

scorer

33 Memorial

Quadrangle site

34 They play about

a mi. south of the

Capitol

35 Break cover

37 Fastest course

38 Fuzz

39 Mohair source

42 Company bought

by Carl Icahn in

1985

44 Member of the

middle class

46 Gossip

47 Comet

companion

48 Savory pie

49 “Rhiannon”

singer

50 Make up (for)

51 Chef’s topper

56 Catcher’s

communication

57 Front pages, in

France

58 Shower with

snowballs, say

60 “___ my

pleasure!”

61 Speedy bird

62 May honoree

W

hen Mike Trout
signed the largest
contract in Ameri-
can sports history
last March, he
made a bet that the Los Angeles
Angels could do something they’ve
failed to do for nearly a decade: ac-
tually build a contender around the
best baseball player on the planet.
Now Trout has a strong chance
of winning his third MVP award
Thursday following another tran-
scendent season—for him, at least.
The Angels finished with their
worstrecordin20years.
It’s not difficult to see why the
Angels would commit so much
money—$426.5 million over 12 sea-
sons—to keep Trout. The question
was why Trout would commit to
the Angels two years before he
could’ve offered his services to any
team in the sport.
“If I ever had my doubts, I defi-
nitely would have waited,” Trout
said in an interview in May.
Pretty much everyone else had
doubts. Trout has put together ar-
guably the best eight-year stretch
of any player in baseball history.
During Trout’s run of brilliance, the
Angels had exactly zero playoff
wins to show for it.
No team in history has ever
failed a superstar the way the An-
gels have with Trout. Over the last
eight seasons, he compiled 74.
wins above replacement, or WAR, a
metric designed to measure his to-
tal value. Only one player has
topped that over an eight-season

BYJAREDDIAMOND
ANDANDREWBEATON

ments that were meant to support

Trout have failed spectacularly. Be-

fore 2012, the season Trout won

Rookie of the Year, the Angels spent

$240 million to woo Albert Pujols, a

three-time MVP who had accumu-

lated 72.4 WAR from 2003 to 2010

for the St. Louis Cardinals. But with

the Angels, Pujols has been a below

average hitter in each of the last

three years—and they’re stuck with

him for the next two seasons, too.

A year later, the Angels

signed outfielder Josh

Hamilton to a five-year,

$125 million contract.

Hamilton lasted just

two seasons before

the Angels traded

him back to the

Texas Rangers. His

career ended in 2015.

In total, the Angels

paid nearly half a billion

dollars to Pujols, Hamilton,

Jered Weaver and C.J. Wilson from

2012-19. Their combined WAR for

the Angels was half of Trout’s—all

while the team had the tremendous

opportunity of having the best

player of his generation on a below-

market deal: Trout made about $

million over that span.

“It’s been tough,” Trout said.

In October 2015, the Angels hired

longtime New York Yankees execu-

tive Billy Eppler as their general

manager to replace Jerry Dipoto,

the GM who signed both Pujols and

Hamilton. Eppler immediately tar-

geted revitalizing the Angels’ mi-

nor-league system as his primary

goal, though with a catch.

While other teams were undergo-

ing full-blown rebuilds to stock up

span: Babe Ruth, from 1920 through

1927.

From 2012 through 2019, Trout

accounted for 38.3% of the Angels’

overall WAR. Of the nine players

with the next-best eight-year

stretches ever—legends like Ruth,

Lou Gehrig and Ted Williams—none

of them contributed a larger per-

centage of their team’s WAR, ac-

cording to Stats LLC. On average,

they accounted for 29.8%.

Another way of looking

at that: Trout has ac-

counted for 10% more

of his team’s contri-

butions, on average,

than the other best

players ever.

This chasm is

why the Angels may

be the team to watch

this winter. They’re

among the favorites to

sign free agent Gerrit Cole,

who produced more WAR last

year than the Angels’ entire pitch-

ing staff combined.

Since Trout inked his deal, the

team has faced turbulence off the

field. Tyler Skaggs, the Angels’ best

pitcher, died in his hotel room with

oxycodone, fentanyl and alcohol in

his system in July.

On the baseball side, nobody can

accuse the Angels of not trying.

Only four teams have spent more in

payroll than the Angels during

Trout’s recent reign of dominance.

All the others qualified for the post-

season at least three times. The An-

gels appeared in October just once,

suffering a first-round sweep to the

Kansas City Royals in 2014.

The problem is that the invest-

$426.

MILLION

Mike Trout’s 12-year

deal keeps him

with the Angels

until 2030.

Mike Trout might win his third MVP but the Angels finished with their worst record in decades

Baseball’s Best Player Can’t Win

SPORTS

Mike Trout hit a career-high 45 home runs in 2019, even though an injury ended his season in early September. The Angels finished with a 72-90 record.

BYANDREWBEATON

The NFL’s

Pivot on

Kaepernick

FROM TOP: JOHN HEFTI/REUTERS; TONY AVELAR/ASSOCIATED PRESS

WHENEVER NFL COMMISSIONER

Roger Goodell has been asked why

Colin Kaepernick remains unsigned

after nearly three years, his answer

has always been the same: Don’t

ask me, ask the teams. The NFL, he

has stressed, doesn’t get involved in

player personnel decisions.

“Our clubs are the ones that

make decisions on players that they

want to have on their roster,” Good-

ell said before the last Super Bowl.

So it was a jarring shift this

week when the NFL suddenly or-

chestrated a workout for Kaeper-

nick and invited all 32 teams to at-

tend it Saturday at the Atlanta

Falcons’ training facility. The event

was arranged after at least two

teams checked with the league

about the 32-year-old Kaepernick’s

status.

Those inbound calls were

prompted by an October statement

by Kaepernick’s agents that reiter-

ated his desire to play yet no team

had even let him try out. That

statement and the teams’ calls

prompted Goodell to reevaluate his

stance, people familiar with the

matter said.

Goodell believed a league-orga-

nized workout was an opportunity

to address his building frustration

over Kaepernick’s complaint that no

team would even let him try out.

Goodell couldn’t force a team to

sign Kaepernick, but he could lay

the groundwork. He then consulted

with at least some owners before

going ahead with the idea.

On Kaepernick’s side, though,

there were doubts about the legiti-

macy of the event, one person fa-

miliar with the discussions said.

They questioned why it had to be

held this upcoming Saturday—the

day before NFL games and when

key talent evaluators typically ob-

serve college football games—and

didn’t understand why interested

teams simply wouldn't contact him

directly, as is the standard proce-

dure for any free agent.

Kaepernick, whose since-settled

grievance alleged the league and its

teams colluded to keep him un-

signed because of his outspoken po-

litical views, tweeted on Tuesday

night that he was “just getting

word” about the event and that he

“can’t wait to see the head coaches

and GMs” from teams.”

Colin Kaepernick last played in 2016.