Every trade deadline needs its unicorns, the two or three stars everyone knows will never actually get moved but debate anyway because the hypothetical is too fun to pass up. This year that's been Byron Buxton and Mike Trout, two of the sport's most talented and most snakebitten center fielders, both stuck on teams that haven't sniffed the playoffs in ages. For weeks the industry chatter has treated them as forbidden fruit. Now Jon Heyman is reporting the fruit is staying on the tree.
https://t.co/7xEtdSvHvs Buxton, Trout suggest they don’t want to go anywhere in trade and will use veto powers if need be
Buxton's situation has actually been the more realistic of the two on paper. He's controlled through 2028 at a manageable $15.1 million a year, which is exactly the kind of contract a rebuilding-adjacent team could dream about attaching to a star talent. But he carries a full no-trade clause, and he's already told anyone who'll listen that he isn't going anywhere. Twins GM Jeremy Zoll backed that up publicly, saying the club has no plans to trade him. Heyman's report is just the latest confirmation that this was never as close to happening as the rumor mill wanted it to be.
Trout is the more symbolic name. He's never publicly flirted with leaving Anaheim in over a decade of the Angels wasting his prime, and he holds the same full no-trade protection Buxton does. Every July someone floats the idea that this is finally the year the Angels blow it up and Trout waves goodbye, and every July it doesn't happen, partly because ownership won't seriously shop him and partly because Trout himself has shown zero appetite for a change of scenery.
What makes this pairing notable isn't that either guy staying put is surprising on its own. It's that having both no-trade clauses activated at once effectively removes the two most attention-grabbing names from deadline speculation in one swoop, leaving front offices and fans to sort out who's actually available among a much less star-studded field.
None of this closes the door forever. Buxton's full no-trade protection is only guaranteed through this year before it narrows to a 5-team list for the final two seasons of his deal, which means a future version of this story could look very different. For now, though, both center fielders are telling teams the same thing: save the calls, we're staying.