Rob Manfred believes Mike Trout would be an even bigger star if he were willing to spend more time marketing himself.

Trout, 26, is a two-time MVP and seven-time All-Star.

"Player marketing requires one thing for sure -- the player," the commissioner said. "You cannot market a player passively. You can't market anything passively. You need people to engage with those to whom you are trying to market in order to have effective marketing. We are very interested in having our players more engaged and having higher-profile players and helping our players develop their individual brand. But that involves the player being actively engaged."

Manfred said Trout simply chooses not to spend his downtime marketing himself.

"Mike's a great, great player and a really nice person, but he's made certain decisions about what he wants to do and what he doesn't want to do, and how he wants to spend his free time and how he doesn't want to spend his free time," he said. "That's up to him. If he wants to engage and be more active in that area, I think we could help him make his brand really, really big. But he has to make a decision that he's prepared to engage in that area. It takes time and effort."

When asked about Manfred's comments, Trout was unfazed.

"Yeah ... no," Trout said in response. "I keep telling you guys, I do as much as I can. But it's a long baseball season. I got to pick and choose when I want to do things and go from there."