Angels GM: We're not trading Trout

Things are a mess in Anaheim right now.

Absent from the playoffs in three of the last four seasons, the Angels have endured a familiar, dispiriting start to the 2016 campaign, stumbling to a 13-15 record with an aging roster overflowing with bloated contracts. Albert Pujols is hitting .198. Jered Weaver's fastball can't break a pane of glass. Their farm system is a mess, too, and Garrett Richards looks poised for Tommy John surgery.

Still, bleak as it is, general manager Billy Eppler made one thing perfectly clear Friday: Mike Trout isn't going anywhere.

"We have no intent or desire to consider moving Mike Trout -€“ he's not moving," Eppler told Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports. "He's an impact player, a huge piece in a championship core."

Impact player? Talk about an understatement. In more than a century of Major League Baseball, no player has ever been as good as Trout at the same stage in his career. Trout, already an All-Star four times and MVP once, compiled more WAR through his age-23 season than any player ever, and is off to another sublime start this year, hitting .317/.400/.596 (181 wRC+) with seven homers in his first 28 games.

All-time WAR leaders through age-23

Nevertheless, Eppler said, even though Trout - who has five years and about $138 million left on his deal - would command perhaps an unprecedented haul in a trade, the first-year GM isn't ready to start the rebuild.

"This team was up against a lot of adversity last year and fought to the end," Eppler said. "We've got a lot of character, a lot of the same guys on the club. They will not back down from a fight."