This is a non Orioles topic but I can’t stop thinking about what the Angels did this week when they announced that they would not be trading Shohei Ohtani and then followed that announcement up by trading for Lucas Giolito and Reynaldo Lopez. As I took in the immediate reactions of fans and media to these decisions my feelings on the moves kept on changing and I wanted to type through all the different angles and justifications of this all in bet the Angels have made.
The arguments in favor of these moves
I had to put on some extremely rose colored glasses for this part and I will be making counter points to a lot of these arguments in the next section but I wanted to start by making a case for what the Angels actually did.
When the Angels announced that they would not be trading Shohei Ohtani, a part of me understood. I have been a fan of bad teams and I always think it is annoying when fans and media act like my favorite team owes it to the league to trade away our best players so that the better teams can get better.
The Angels are not a terrible team this year, they had a 52-49 record and were just 4 games out of the wild card when they made this deal so it is definitely justifiable for them to try to make the playoffs when they have 2 of the best players in the sport. Last year the Orioles sold at the trade deadline when we were in wild card contention and missed the playoffs by just a few games and despite how fun the 2022 season was it will always have a somewhat sour “what if” attached to it even if those trades end up benefiting the Orioles in the long term. The reason that the MLB expanded the playoffs was so that more teams would be alive later in the season and want to compete rather than selling their pieces and fielding a triple A team for the last 2 months of the season so the fact that the Angels chose to buy when they currently sit outside of the playoffs is a sign that the expanded wildcard is working.
If the Angels had chosen to trade Ohtani it would have been as a rental and the return would not be as massive as people would think despite what Colin Cowherd might say they wouldn’t be getting a “a bevy of picks” to reshape their farms system they would be getting a handful of prospects that may or may not turn out. Look at the Orioles firesale of 2018 they traded 4 of their best players and got back 15 prospects of which only Dean Kremer and Dillon Tate have become real major league contributors (although some like Zach Pop and Evan Phillips have gone on to find success with other teams and Jonathan Villar was eventually traded for Easton Lucas who was just traded for Shintaro Fujinami) so it’s not like if you trade Shohei you are guaranteed to get back the building blocks for the next Angels dynasty. If you let him walk and get a comp pick there is a chance that pick is more valuable than any prospect you would get back in a trade.
Another thing about prospects is the fact that the Angels farm system is already one of the worst in the league so the fact that they traded 2 of their top 3 prospects is not nearly as big of a deal as if the Orioles or the Dodgers did. Edgar Quero is good but the Angels already have their catcher of the future and Ky Bush is not even a top 100 prospect by any systems ranking.
Trying to win is better than trying to lose. The Angels are having their best season since 2014 when they made the playoffs and to turn around and sell maybe the best baseball player in history would be so incredibly deflating to everyone in the organization from the front office down to the ball boys. Making a win now move sends a message to Shohei Ohtani and Mike Trout that the Angels are about winning and could potentially convince Shohei to resign in the offseason and keep Trout from demanding a trade after yet another disappointing season. If the Angels do make the playoffs and go on a run with Trout and Ohtani these moves would be seen as strokes of genius from a front office who wasn’t afraid to go for it. It may be an emotional case but the moves the Angels made have set themselves up for “how can you not be romantic about baseball” ending to the season.
The arguments against these moves
The Angels were almost certainly going to sell after they lost 11 of 13 games from June 28th to July 16th but then they went on a hot streak against the Yankees, Pirates and Tigers (3 of the worst teams in the league since April) and decided that they were going all in and traded 2 of their top 3 prospects for two rentals. They then went and lost 2 of 3 to the Blue Jays, the very team they have to catch to have a shot at a wild card. The Angels currently sit at 54 – 51 and are 4 games out of the wildcard. 4 games out with 2 months to go is not bad but the Yankees are ahead of them at 3 games back and they just got Aaron Judge and Carlos Rodon off the IL so expect them to be better this last couple months. The Red Sox are just 2 games back of the wild card and have been one of the hottest teams in the league over the past few months with Triston Casas and Bryan Bello coming into their own and they are expecting to have their starting rotation bolstered by Garrett Whitlock, Tanner Houck and Chris Sale coming off the IL. The Jays and Astros are the two bottom wild card teams, the Astros just got Yordan Alvarez and Jose Altuve back and the Blue Jays have the best record in the AL over the past 2 months. In order to make the playoffs the Angels would have to be better than 3 of these teams to get the very last wild card spot. Even if they had an easy schedule coming up it would be a tall task to outperform 3 of the best rosters in the AL but the Angels do not have an easy schedule coming up, they have series against the Braves, Mariners, Giants, Astros, Rangers, Rays and Redds before they get to play a team with a worse record then them. The Angels may look up after this stretch and find themselves under .500 and far from contention wishing they hadn’t made a win now move in 9th place.
I think that it is more likely the Angels get passed in the standings by the Mariners and the Guardians and up in 11th place than make the playoffs. Looking at the teams ahead of them in the standings and their remaining schedule I do not know how they justified not only not trading Shohei but trading their best prospects for 2 rentals. I understand fans getting excited after a good stretch against 3 of the worst teams in the league but the front office is getting paid to look at the big picture and do what is best for the team.
Here are some of the things people have said around the Angels trade deadline and how I feel about them
They don’t want to be remembered as the team that traded Shohei Ohtani
I’ve seen this applied to Arte Moreno and the GM Perry Minasian and in both cases this doesn’t make any sense. Arte Moreno I have bad news, there is no version of baseball history where you are remembered fondly. If you don’t trade Shohei and he walks you’re the guy who couldn’t win anything with Shohei who he had to get away from if he signs and then you don’t win anything because you have no talent in your farm system then you’re the guy who wasted Shohei’s entire career, if you sign him and then sell the team and the new owners win a World Series with him you’re the guy who was holding Shohei back.
As for Perry Minasian, if your owner is getting ready to sell the team you can start to count your days as it is very rare that General Managers survive ownership changes. You need to be able to defend your time as the Angels GM and I feel like having to make the unpopular decision to trade the star player for the good of the team is very defensible when you are applying to be GM of the Royals in a couple of years.
There is no way operating from a fear of how history will remember you can be healthy for a front office and it is classic Angels to be making decisions because they’re worried about how Ken Burns is going to frame their management of 2 of the greatest players in the history of Baseball.
Since Shohei would be a rental the Angels wouldn’t have gotten enough back to justify trading him.
Look no further than what the Angels had to trade to get a rental pitcher with an ERA of almost 4 to debunk this one. For Lucas Giolito and Reynaldo Lopez the Angels gave up 2 of the top 3 prospects. Shohei Ohtani is in the conversation for the greatest player of all time his ERA is 3.43 and he is on pace to tie Aaron Judge’s AL home run record I guarantee you the Angels could have looked at almost any contending team and said we’ll take 5 of your top ten prospects and somebody would have said yes. This was a rare opportunity for the Angels to reset their farm system. As hard as I have been on their front office most of the problems come from the previous regimes and with the prospect haul from Ohtani and whatever other rentals the Angels could shed like Estevez and Renfroe they could restock their farm system and build around your young players like Logan O’Hoppe, Zach Neto and Ben Joyce.
We’re showing Shohei that we want to win
The whole we’re making these moves so that Shohei can see we’re serious about winning is ridiculous. Shohei has been with the Angels since 2018, I don’t think his opinion is going to be swayed by one wildcard appearance. Also these moves are exactly why Shohei should be getting himself as far away from the Angels as possible. Ever since Mike Trout came up the Angels have tried to microwave their way contention with big free agent signings and trades and it has resulted in the longest active playoff drought in MLB. Even if the Angels farm system is terrible the idea that you would trade 2 of your top 3 prospects for 2 rental pitchers is crazy and if you are going to do that the return should be 2 awesome pitchers and in this case they got 2 pretty good pitchers. This trade deadline is a perfect summary of what the Angels have been for the last 10 years short sighted and still not enough.
The Bottom Line
Arte Moreno tried to sell the team this past offseason and wasn’t able to. A big part of the hold up was Shohei Ohtani’s contract status. A team with Shohei is much more valuable than a team without Shohei. Moreno couldn’t promise the new owners that Ohtani would stay so nobody was willing to pay up. Moreno then took the team off the market to cash in on one more year of Japanese advertising money before Shohei walks at the end of the season he doesn’t want to trade Shohei because then he’d lose those advertisers and all the Japanese coverage that helps make some of the numbers for the sale look good so he needs to have Ohtani for the rest of the year.
The Dishwasher 
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