Upton will play alongside Trout
a secondary option.
Along with a steady track record of power production, Upton owns a career .348 onbase percentage, above the .330 mark Eppler has mandated as a minimum.
“Justin embodies our offensive philosophy,” Eppler said, “which is to get on base and hit the ball hard.”
One advantage of the new contract is the additional payroll f lexibility it provides. Upton’s old deal called for him to earn $ 22.125 million in each of the next four years. The contract f inalized Thursday is significantly backloaded. It starts at $ 16 million in 2018 and rises to $ 18 million in 2019, $ 21 million in 2020, $ 23 million in 2021 and $ 28 million in 2022.
“Reconfiguring the cash f low of the deal was important for us, and we articulated that throughout the process with Justin,” Eppler said. “To really capture Justin’s commitment to winning, he was on board with that.”
The Angels have held their opening- day payroll around $ 165 million in recent seasons. Even without Upton, they already had more than $ 110 million in salary commitments for 2018 between their veteran, arbitration- eligible and minimumsalaried players.
The $ 6 million saved on Upton for next season represents a significant increase in available money to dole out to free agents or trade acquisitions.
In the long term, Mike Trout’s six- year extension expires after 2020 and Albert Pujols’ 10- year deal expires after the 2021 season, leaving space to pay Upton in 2022 when he will be earning the most.
In signing the longest contract Eppler has ever committed, Upton became the first Angel to sign a contract extending beyond Pujols’.
Eppler noted that Upton will be only 34 for most of the 2022 season, and he praised the player’s long- standing commitment to conditioning.
Early action has become an Eppler signature. One month into his job, Eppler swung a November 2015 trade for shortstop Andrelton Simmons. A year ago, the Angels also made the f irst move of the offseason, acquiring Cameron Maybin from Detroit the day after the season ended. They ceded Maybin on waivers to Houston minutes after acquiring Upton. Maybin won a World Series with the Astros on Wednesday night at Dodger Stadium.
Eppler said he felt comfortable with the idea of pairing Upton wth Trout for the next f ive years. Waiting out the market to suss out the competition for outfielders J. D. Martinez or Jay Bruce did not carry as much appeal.
“It’s nice to cross objectives off the list,” Eppler said. “One of the things that we wanted to do was address offense. You look at championship- level offenses and they tend to have a pretty heavy punch in their order. I think that we were able to do that by keeping those two guys in the middle of the order.”
Short hops
The Angels formally declined their club options on pitchers Huston Street and Ricky Nolasco. They are free agents. The team also outrighted reliever Deolis Guerra to triple A. ... Pujols has already started his winter conditioning program, Eppler said. Pujols has been hindered by offseason surgeries in recent years. … The Angels lost third base coach Ron Roenicke to Boston, where he becomes the bench coach. It is the second consecutive season an Angels staffer has left for that job; f irst base coach Gary DiSarcina departed a year ago. DiSarcina was not brought back by new Boston manager Alex Cora.