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The Cubs could pull off a trade for Mike Trout, definitely won't, and totally should

This won’t happen.

Trading a player of Mike Trout’s caliber — wait, no. There is no other player of Mike Trout’s caliber. Trading Mike Trout, and trading for Mike Trout — given the ridiculous haul of big-league talent likely necessary to enact such a trade — represents an organizational risk so enormous that no front office seems apt to take it on. The Angels would need to stomach parting with the best player on the planet for a bunch of guys who aren’t that. The acquiring team would need to send away a whole slew of players it scouted and drafted and developed and in whom it invested, all for one guy who, like all players, could always get hurt.

But if any team is built to pull off a trade for Mike Trout this winter, it’s your world champion Chicago Cubs. They almost certainly won’t do it, but they totally should.

It’s so hard to even speculate what a team might need to give up to land Trout, since, again, there’s no real contemporary-era precedent for moving the best player in the world at the outset of his prime while he’s under contract for four more seasons. The Angels went 74-88 even with Trout on the team in 2016, and they’ve got holes all over the place. Presumably they would need to feel confident they were filling several of those to even think about trading away Trout.

From left, Jorge Soler, Javier Baez, Kris Bryant, Kyle Schwarber and Anthony Rizzo. (PHOTO: AP Photo/Morry Gash)

From left, Jorge Soler, Javier Baez, Kris Bryant, Kyle Schwarber and Anthony Rizzo. (PHOTO: AP Photo/Morry Gash)

And yet the Cubs, for their incredible depth, can somehow put together an incredible package of potential superstars, capable big-leaguers and prospects without tearing apart the bulk of the lineup that just won 103 games and the World Series.

This is fantasy, naturally: Does a package of, say, Kyle Schwarber, Javier Baez, Albert Almora, Jeimer Candelario, Mark Zagunis, Ian Happ and Miguel Montero get it done? Seven players! That seems like such an absurd haul, but then, Trout is absurd, too.

Schwarber and Baez you know by now. Almora, 22, is an outfielder with a strong prospect pedigree who played well in his first 47 big-league games in 2016. Candelario and Zagunis are both 23-year-olds who performed in Class AAA ball this season. Happ was the Cubs’ 2015 first-round pick and reached Class AA in 2016. Montero, entering the final year of his deal, likely represents an upgrade over the Angels’ internal options behind the plate for 2017.

That package would essentially overhaul the Angels’ entire lineup for both the immediate and long-term future. If even one of Baez and Schwarber comes close to matching his hype, the Angels would end up with a marquee big-leaguer and a bunch of capable contributors around whom they could build their next contender.

The Cubs, though. Trading all those dudes would rob the Cubs of the remarkable depth and flexibility they showed in 2016, but it would put Mike Freaking Trout on the Cubs.

Oh, and in the completely made-up reality where this happens, they bat Trout leadoff every day followed by Anthony Rizzo and Kris Bryant. If that trio stays healthy, it means every day the opposing starter arrives to the park knowing that his very first task will be retiring three of baseball’s Top 10 hitters. Not just every day in the 2017 campaign, either: Every day for the next four seasons. Trout then Rizzo then Bryant. There’d be poetry written about it, inevitably. These are the dopest of possible words: Trout then Rizzo then Bryant.

Mike Trout (Joe Nicholson/USA TODAY Sports)

Mike Trout (Joe Nicholson/USA TODAY Sports)

Plus then after those guys, Ben Zobrist, Jorge Soler, Willson Contreras, Addison Russell and Jason Heyward, every single one of them under team control through at least the end of the 2019 season.

The Cubs entered spring training in 2016 looking like the best team in baseball. They played like the best team in baseball for the entirety of the regular season, then won the World Series. Without making so much as a single offseason move, they would likely enter 2017 looking like the best team in baseball again.

If running a baseball team were playing a basketball game, Theo Epstein and Jed Hoyer essentially have a 2-0 fast break on the rest of the league entering the offseason. And they can simply try to convert an easy layup, or they can seize the opportunity to throw down a thunderous dunk. Dunking is always preferable and better.

Trout has no-trade protection, and landing on the Cubs right now might actually put him in a fairly difficult spot: If they repeat as world champions, which is really hard, they’re only doing what they’re supposed to do. If they fail to do so, then the easy (albeit certainly incorrect) conclusion would say that Trout failed to improve the Cubs.

(AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)

(AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)

But then, Trout clearly enjoys winning at stuff, and joining the Cubs at this juncture represents any player’s best shot at winning stuff. Plus, becoming the best player on a dynastic club that plays in a major media market for a rabid fanbase in a historic ballpark might finally provide Trout the type of spotlight his talent deserves. And on top of that, few ballparks in baseball are more affected by changes in weather, and Mike Trout loves the weather.

So, you know, do it. It’s not going to happen, but it’d be sweet if it did.

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