Mike Trout's Historic $400M LeBron-Like Free Agency Is Back on

The sweepstakes for neither Bryce Harper nor Manny Machado really lived up to the hype, yet they still walked away from Major League Baseball's free-agent market with $630 million between them.Makes you wonder how Mike Trout will fare in a couple years, doesn't it?Following a 2017-18 offseason that was notoriously unkind to star free agents, the expectation for 2018-19 was always that Harper and Machado would spearhead a market correction. His current deal is worth $144.5 million.The reality, however, is that the Harper and Machado contracts all but sealed the deal that Trout's free agency is going to be the biggest North American sports bonanza this side of LeBron James' occasional dilemmas about where to take his talents.The topic of how much Trout might earn as a free agent is already a hot one. By comparison, Harper and Machado are 26-year-olds coming off their age-25 seasons.Per Baseball Reference wins above replacement, however, the appeal of Trout's playing ability—which notably consists of excellent power, patience and speed and mostly solid defense—would have severely trumped Harper and Machado's if he'd also been on the market this winter:Trout's 64.3 WAR through his age-26 season is an all-time record.