I’m going to state the obvious here: I love watching Shohei Ohtani. As a lifelong baseball fan I know we’re seeing something that has never been done before and likely won’t be repeated. But let’s be real, this team isn’t going far with Ohtani. So what might happen if we trade him?
For this exercise I’m relying on the baseballtradevalues.com simulator and a little common sense. I’m sure you’ll find issues here and there, but these should be a decent gauge of how impactful a trade could be.
I’m thinking any trade needs to bring back “win now” type pieces that are either MLB ready or close to it. The Angels would be retooling more than rebuiling; adding pieces to a Trout led team and hopefully hitting the playoffs in 2023.
Let’s start with the unthinkable: sending him up the 5 to the bane of our existance.
Gavin Lux immediately becomes our best middle infielder. I went with Dustin May over Julio Urias here because 3 years of control is better than one. Bobby Miller is a stud and the piece LA would be most reluctant to throw in but if Perry could pry him away, he’d be our top pitching prospect and likely in the rotation in 2023. Diaz is a lottery ticket from an infield rich system.
Here’s another trade in our neighborhood:
The Angels desperately need quality infielders and Cronenworth provides that. A career OPS+ of 124 with three more years of control after this year provides immediate MLB help. The Padres have infield depth. They’d also be replacing a pitcher so 23 year old former top prospect with 5 years of control MacKenzie Gore heads to Anaheim.
A fun thing about Ohtani is that even small market clubs can afford him for the year and a half. Maybe Milwaukee wants him?
The Brew Crew are in the midst of a great run and small market teams don’t get a lot of chances like this. Here we’d see Milwaukee harken back to the CC Sabathia trade and really go for it. However, they’d get Ohtani for another year after the trade and at a rate they can afford. The Angels would pick up our best infielder in Urias, a decent arm to round out the rotation, and a near MLB read prospect at a position of need. That’s 3 years of Urias after this season and another 4 of Peralta.
Speaking of small markets, I know it is dangerous to trade with them but what if the Rays wanted to add some star power?
Stop me if you’ve heard this before…the Angels land their best infielder here. Brandon Lowe is an absolute stud. He’s off to a slow start by his standards this year but has 4 more years of control left. Josh Lowe is a near MLB ready outfielder and Jason Adam is a high quality bullpen piece with 3 years of control remaining.
The simulator is a tool and these trades have varying degrees of reality, but then again we’ve literally never seen a player like Ohtani before. However, I think this shows that we should be able to recoup what Ohtani gives us on both sides of the ball in aggregate. Considering how top heavy the Angels are, this might be a boon.
Imagine shedding Thor’s $25 million salary, replacing him with May and Miller, having a legit bat in Lux and money to spend. Or Lowe/Fletcher lengthening the lineup until the other Lowe arrives all while Adams helps shore up the bullpen. The Padres return might look light in comparison, but that’s a legit bat and Gore was a highly rated prospect recently.
It would hurt. Boy would it hurt. But it could also help greatly.
Alright!!! This one got people talkin’ just had to bust out the ol trade Ohtani headline
The simulator is a tool and it is a bad one.
None of these trades give us anything close to fair value. I don’t care what the simulator says. You need to get two young, star players and two prospects for Ohtani, mininum. Prospects and one or two marginal players don’t cut it. Not by a long shot. I mean the Dodgers trade is a joke.
A prospect is called a prospect because they haven’t proven anything at the MLB level. We have to do everything in our power to keep Ohtani. Until Shohei gives us a strong indication that he would not sign with us we should not even consider trading him.
I think the teams that would be willing to trade for him are ones prepared to sign him to the biggest contract ever:
Mets
Yankees
Dodgers
In that order. The Dodgers seem like the team that is good because they dont sell the farm and back up the Brinks truck.
So the question is: who are the Mets willing to offer? Eppler and Cohen seem like the only realistic fit that would YOLO this.
I think what everyone’s missing here are two huge factors. First, what does Ohtani’s mom have to say about all of this? Just how deep is her depth of knowledge when it comes to the evil that stalks the halls of the Angel’s office building? Because brilliant minds have told me he’s just gonna do what his mom says.
Also important, apparently, is how often the Angel’s 25 man roster is having sex. If Ohtani is aware that everyone’s f***ing then he’s sure to know that the team has no legs and no grit. This will surely lead to him leaving as fast as he can.
Honestly I’m surprised he hasn’t just packed up and walked away like Bagger Vance already.
One thing I do know is we won’t trade him unless we know we can’t extend him. So if we are trying to trade him, GMs know that. We won’t be getting a small return for him, but we’re not getting a huge one either.
Of course my dream is to sign him and then up the payroll. But businesses exist to make money, so that’s a big maybe.
I’m not against the idea, but I’m not sure we need to trade Ohtani for an infielder. I’d rather get another cheap pitcher or two. We can get an IF some other way. In short, Moar pidging.
You know most men aren’t nearly as funny as they think they are. You got it all wrapped up in one post: the completely random sex joke to show how cool you are; the intentional misspelling moar pidgin!!! Oh that’s a good one shit, the clever name Gary Pettis and Bobby gritch worked in and the ironic Putin with his shirt off and on a horse no less profile pic. Plus the nugget of wisdom thrown in too, businesses exist to make money hitting us with sobering hard truth there at the end. Funnier than everyone smarter than everyone what you’re going for huh
What he’s going for?
Dude – he nails that with dagger-like accuracy day and night.
It’s like watching Ohtani – you just sit back and enjoy the Sho.
Gitcho is a 2-way beast at the keyboard. He kicks ass. Glad he’s on our team and sure – i’ll take my lumps from him here and there and move on from it.
#hardball
Damn. Sick burn bro. Your envy is showing.
See, I get it. If I were a bitter sad sack with a slow hard drive up top I’d be angsty about all of this too. I can’t imagine what it’s like to wake up, day after day, with a brain that has to work like it’s childbirth to have an original thought, and then it turns out it’s not original, and in fact, it’s the same thought you had twenty minutes ago.
You must assume that I work incredibly hard at being this f***ing awesome. Thing is I don’t. It just happens. And that’s because, obviously, I am a better person than you and God likes me more.
I also totally understand why you’re here. I can empathize. If my only redeeming quality was that I am breathing and I had to go through life every day knowing I have basically nothing to offer the world I’d also sign up on a baseball site so I could constantly shit on awesome players, wank about the team I “love”, and get into totally safe keyboard conflicts with my betters.
I understand Troutstrikeout. You need this, and we’re here to let you have it.
I don’t even know where to begin lol. Envy of your awesomeness? Ok. You obviously know I think you’re a try hard approval seeking bi*** with cliche jokes. Needing this? I just signed up yesterday, you’re the one who l see has been here for years hoping to capture some audience with your so called wit; hell you even have some fanboys who are happy to take “lumps” from you as some sort of spiritual blogging growth. Keyboard warrior safe keyboard conflicts? Whatevs no way you’d want to see me in real life if gonna actually fight like that’s just a joke, unless you’re actually built like a trout or a Syndergaard then ok I’d concede but it’d be close. Awesome players? Yeah Trouts a HOFer but he’s also overrated coddled and on the downside of his career. A lot of players I’d take over this injury prone mostly unclutch 200 strikeout a year guy who has a glaring hole in his swing with high heat and whose Obp is precipitously dropping from his prime, always major sign of aging and regression as if 0-26 and can’t catch up to high heat wasn’t enough. I love Ohtani who actually comes through when it matters, I mean I’m not the one who devoted a fanpost to trading him, think Sandoval is an awesome young pitcher. Trouts good he’s just overrated, turning into Griffey on the Reds. Griffey first year with reds was what .270 40 that’s trout now except more strikeouts. When was the last time trout played 150 games and now he needs to never attempt to steal and days off when Ohtani pitches and days off before days off to hopefully maybe hit the 140 game mark
DFA Trout. Now YOU have a fanboy. You’re awesome.
Trade Ohtani. He will almost certainly want to play for a big-market team and there is no way the Angels will be able to compete to keep him. He will demand a record-breaking contract. As for Trout let him waive his NTC and play elsewhere. Trout in Philly with Harper would certainly make them a team capable of the postseason. Blow this team up and start over. The return for Trout and Ohtani would be gigantic.
I have come to the conclusion: NO!!!!! Mr. Moreno get off your stinking ass and put a quality team on the field for both Trout and Ohtani. Enough of this bullshit trade crap.
So, if we do deal Ohtani, what would be the long term strategy?
There are two problems, I think. First, a lot of Angels’ payroll is tied up in just a few players–not too terrible by itself, but terrible in conjunction with the team’s unwillingness to spend on depth, which is what keeps the roster top heavy. Second, the pitching (development) situation, quite frankly, sucks. The numbers suggesting that pitchers who come here get worse seems to be a damning sign: either we acquire players on the verge of collapse (an indictment on scouting) or the coaching/conditioning/development is failing.
What I’m not thrilled about the idea of trading Ohtani is that it addresses neither failings. It does potentially slow down the further imbalance in the payroll, but it’ll be for nought if the money “saved” gets tied up on another expensive single player instead of building depth. (Which, I think, is almost inevitable). Dealing Ohtani won’t add that much depth –just a few pieces that will buy us a little bit of respite for a short time. Getting the roster fixed up (from bottom up) will need patient invest of a lot of resources which I don’t think the organization is capable of. So, Ohtani goes and nothing much changes for the better. I don’t oppose the idea because I, too, think he’ll walk as soon as he can..but, on that front, we know nothing, I guess.
All in all, the talk of trading Ohtani just sounds like negativity masquerading as pragmatism: it does nothing to really address the problem beyond putting a bandage to hide the real wounds, and that will be a very costly bandage.
Yeah trade the best player in baseball, once in a century player 2 players in 1 guy so we can build around the guy who couldn’t even put the ball in play with a man on 3rd and 0 outs down 12-11 in the 11th, par for the course.. A guy who barring injury can reach the 200k plateau every year the rest of his career and might reach it this year in only 145-150 games. The average defender, station to station 0 steals “leader” of the 14 game losing streak, 0-26 when it mattered most. The 1-14 with 2ks his only playoffs tho I’m sure if he made the playoffs today it be 3-14 with 2 solo home runs when game out of hand and 8ks. That hole in his swing can’t hit a fastball up in the zone to save his life ain’t getting better as he ages. Hasn’t hit .300 since 26, a .280 35-40 180-200k guy now and has to be the least clutch most overrated superstar I’ve ever seen. I assume Mays and Mantle and all the other goats at some point during 14 straight just wouldn’t have let that happen no matter how bad the team was. But it was Ohtani who didn’t let it happen pitching and hitting just to get us out of it. And now we want to trade him??? Lol
Ohtani comes around once in a century and even then only one team gets the privilege. If you can’t win with 2 players in one with that guy then well then you’re the Angels. But you run it back. You have Ohtani in his prime paired with the “goat” strikeout king, you don’t break it up early. Run it back 2023 the 27-17 start showed it’s not so far away. Something is just off with this teams culture which no trade will cure and trout a part of that culture he’s not a leader. You can always blow it up go young lose 100 3 years in a row but the Ohtani opportunity is rare and have to take advantage or at least try. Astros can lose springer and Correa to free agency and still be a top team lol. If we just lost Walsh we’d be even more dead lol if possible. What a pathetic organization
cuda, I don’t think its kosher to have two accounts here.
Cuda slang for over under on Troutk tonight 1.5? Oh wait we already lost series game don’t matter will hit solo shot in 1st and then only get 1k
by the way, “welcome” to the site
I don’t have two accounts. Go riot in Portland with Antifa, clown..
Trade him. The “let’s build around him” crowd are delusional.
Yeah let’s continue building around guy we have for the past 10 years who couldn’t put the ball in play with man on 3rd and 0 outs last night in the 11th. Who barring injury can reach 200ks and 0 steals. that’s a great plan!
If Arte keeps Ohtani we’ll have $100M in annual salary tied up around two players. Throw Rendon into the mix and it gets worse., Arte is not taking payroll to $250M annually, so the question is why would the future be different than the last 4 years having both Trout and Ohtani?
The reason why Ohtani and Trout consuming all that payroll does not make sense is because the farm system is still crap. Without the pipeline of low cost talent, this will never get better.
If you really think that trading Ohtani is going to solve the Halo’s problem, you are the one who is delusional.
Trading him is not to solve the organization’s problems.
You don’t get it.
Shohei is not the problem. We will never get an adequate return for his skill set.
He’s leaving after next year anyway. May as well get something for him
Yeah let’s continue building around the guy we have for the last decade! That works!
Yeah let’s build around the guy who couldn’t put the ball in play with a man on third and 0 outs in the 11th
Yeah. Let’s repeat our same two thoughts over and over again till we’re nothing but a 65IQ point joke!
I just signed up and it said my posts weren’t posting; they appeared deleted so I repeated it a few times. . But hey at least I had a point, something which can’t be said about your pointless posts other than showing you fancy yourself as some sort of comedian
Don’t poke the bear.
I’d say they’re evenly matched. One guy comes in, complaint guns blazing. Other guy rehashes his complaining about the complainers counterattack and were at a stalemate.
Which well worn path will win? 🥱
A guy named strikeout will last three swings and be done.
Arte does trade Ohtani. He trades Trout before he trades Ohtani.
Ohtani it worth more to Arte than Trout will ever be.
Note I said worth to Arte and not the team.
That said, if it did happen we would need to demand more than 97.5 value back. Ohtani is a Top pitcher and Hitter in MLB coming off an MVP season and is worth “Two” roster spots which is invaluable to a playoff team. We would need to be blown away by offers.
A perspective from another team who thought they held on too long to their core, but at least they got one championship out of it:
https://sports.yahoo.com/jed-hoyer-cubs-were-too-202544893.html
The question with Ohtani is will he be able to be a successful two way player in three years?, in four years? What is his worth just as a pitcher or just as a hitter? If he were to blow out his arm, is his just a DH albeit one with a career .879 OPS? These are difficult decisions. His value is in his uniqueness as a starting pitcher who can hit but can that last for 10 years?
Interesting ideas and read, thanks for sharing!
Can we get a 2002 20 yr anniversary thread going? I’m assuming there will be more at the Big A than just a first pitch type thing.
The simulator is just that: a projection of what might happen. What if the team trades (again) for another player who fails to meet expectations (Rendon for example)? We are right back where we started minus the riches we gave away.
Ohtani is a known quantity. Trading for what might be is foolish. Better decision making in acquisitions is the medicine this team needs. And Dr. Minasian needs to go.
I’m not sure there is a “win now” option available with any of the trades you purposed. The Angels would be losing arguably their number #1 starter and your second best hitter, and to get those numbers back in any trade by the Angels brain trust is a reach at best. Any life long suffering Angel fan is well aware of the halos trade history.
How about offering of Ohtani and Marsh or Adell to the SF Giants for Logan Webb, Luis Gonzales and Thario Estrada, this trade would not be much of a “win now” scenario but it could be the start of a very much needed top to bottom organizational restructure.
Listen, as a huge lifetime baseball fan I love going to the yard and watching the greatest Sho in baseball and am proud he’s an Angel and would be crushed to see him with another team.
Gavin Lux has gradually improved each season in the majors. He’s 24 and currently posting an OPS+ of 111. That’s a building block piece.
Brandon Lowe and Shohei have nearly identical career OPS+ numbers. Lowe is 27 and still has plenty of prime years.
Cronenworth is a career 124 OPS+ to Ohtani’s 137. A decent dip, but not all that far off.
Each of those trades comes with pitching help.
May has a career ERA+ of 147 and is 23 years old. Building block.
Miller is the highest rated, most MLB ready arm in a stacked Dodgers system.
Mackenzie Gore is 23 and strikes out over a guy per inning.
These are all guys who step in and take the places of guys like Wade and Velasquez on a night by night basis. And with Ohtani out of the picture, we likely go back to a 5 man rotation so we also dump our worst starter.
Wade and Velazquez replacements, sold.
“…strikes out over a guy per inning.” I believe that’s pretty normal now. We’ve played 71 games and struck out 671 times. That’s 9.45 times per game. I think the extra inning games balance off the times we haven’t needed to bat in the bottom of the 9th so we, as a team, strike out over one guy per inning. Gore is at 10.1 per inning.
It would hurt a lot…but help lots more.
Jeff made a comment above about “this team isn’t going far with Ohtani.”
So, he suggests the logical choice is to trade him?
This makes absolutely no sense at all.
In fact, as an Angels fan, it pisses me off.
“The team isn’t going far” because of management’s choices in roster construction, a poor farm system, and a revolving door of changing managers.
The solution isn’t to trade Ohtani. The solution is to strengthen the farm system, bring a solid network of scout, coaches, managers, and administrative personnel and stick with them, and stop with the terrible long-term contracts for suspect players.
If you trade Ohtani and don’t cure the cancer in the organization nothing will change.
The Angels need to construct a culture of winning and excellence and start to build traditions and protocols that will allow for consistency and excellence on the playing field and in the relationship with the Anaheim community.
Jeff, if the best recommendation you can make is to trade Ohtani after the excitement and quality of baseball he’s brought to the Angels, you’ve lost me….
To be fair to Jeff, the idea is to trade one player, with one year left (2023) on his relatively cheap contract, to obtain several players who would be able to fill meaningful gaps in the roster for several years to come.
So essentially making 2022-23 a wash, and getting better thereafter.
Absolutely. I’m not saying that trading Ohtani is necessarily the right move, but it’s certainly not an outlandish one.
Farm systems take years to develop talent and get it to the MLB level. We have Ohtani under contract through the 2023 season. That’s probably not enough time for the farm to produce much of anything.
But we are in agreement that better roster construction and an influx of young talent are needed.
Hence trading 1.5 years of 1 player for multiple years of other young, talented players.
I’m not saying I want to do it, but something like this would likely be the return.
Ohtani sighing with the Angels was a gift.
And what did the Halos do about it?
Nothing.
Then didn’t surround Ohtani and Trout with enough talent to be two things:
CONSISTENT
COMPETITIVE
Damn, the lineup is top heavy. If Ohtani, Ward, Trout, and Walsh slump there is NOONE down in the order to carry the slack.
We can hardly manufacture runs from the middle of the order to the ninth spot.
We had, and still have, a gift in Ohtani.
And, everyone on the board wants to trade him?
He made 3 million in 2021, the MVP year.
He’s making 5.5 million this year.
Ohtani is offering tremendous value to the team. The Angels should have taken advantage of that and done something good with it.
Instead of squandering it.
The point is we are top heavy now, resigning Shohei means that we will be not spending to contend as everything would come from the minors and junk heap. Trading Ohtani would make it easier to winning with some cost control. I hate losing Shohei, but if we do resign him and Arte does not step up to Dodger type payroll how do we ever get to the playoffs?
“re-signing” 🙂
He wants to play for a winner and the Angels won’t be doing that anytime soon. Better to trade him before he just leaves as a free agent
I think…he wants the Japanese faithful watching from overseas to see him in a world series as a champion and not on a subpar team like the Nippon Hamfighters were for so many years. Money and what team he plays for is less critical. I remember watcing him last year in the 2nd half, he looked disgusted watching the team play.
Exactly.
The Angels have squandered the opportunity to ride Ohtani and Trout to the promised land.
Now do they squander the gift and let him walk or get some talent back for him?
Actually, Jeff, I am in agreement with you.
I think the Angels should trade Ohtani.
They have to.
With Trout and Rendon contracts active, there is no way Arte would splurge for a massive Ohtani contract extension.
It’s not in his DNA to do so.
Plus, Ohtani signed with the Angels to play with Trout, who is well respected in Japan – for good reason. Now that Ohtani has seen the massive incompetence, greed, and poor treatment of personnel in the Angel’s organization, no amount of money would bring him back.
It is hard to be an Angels fan in the Arte Moreno era.
The Angels have to get something back in return for Ohtani now. But, what they will get back will in no way come close to compensating for the lost. With Ohtani’s arbitration year coming up, the Angels have no leverage in negotiations to trade hime.
Spilled milk called. He said to stop crying.
Great write-up, Jeff. I have thought about this too. I agree with you that it is beneficial to see, visually, what we could hypothetically get for Shohei using an analysis that is strictly baseball-worth-driven.
However, how much is Ohtani really worth to a franchise– and in particular, this franchise, that has a modus operandi of extracting poster value out of its players? In this sense, Ohtani is probably worth much, much more than a few “equally” rated players in aggregate. Even worth more than Trout, imo. Let that sink in. Ohtani is worth more than Trout. What I mean is, Trout is huge in the baseball world, but almost non-existent outside of it. Ohtani on the other hand, is an international star, that many people recognize who are not even into baseball.
This means, simply, constant and predictable baseline revenue for Arte and his team, regardless of how it performs.
This is why Arte will work out a huge deal for Ohtani before any of these trades for some names that will be forgotten in five or ten years (with all due respect to the Gavin Luz and Luis Urias types).
Now that I’ve bursted your Ohtani-for-goods bubble, I do think there is an outside chance that Arte spends big once to get more players; but I only think this comes if Ohtani can put real and believable pressure on the organization that he will walk to any team that can promise him that they will put hi on a winning WS team.
The problem that Ohtani is going to have, however, is that his worth itself might preclude any team that wishes to compete from having the cash to both pay Ohtani and to build the team around him that can actually win anything without going way over budget.
This will be an interesting year coming up for Ohtani and the Angels.
He could be worth $45-50M+ a year on a short term deal, factoring in his public appeal and people wanting to take their familiy to watch him play. Dodgers or Giants could pay that. I believe the Angels will first attempt to trade Rendon by attaching prospects if that don’t work, is there a choice?
I think he would sign for one dollar less per year than what Trout makes. Money is not the motivator here.
But winning baseball is. If we signed Shoei for 130 yen less per year that Trout, then what? Someone would need to take a paycut if we are at our threshold or Arte would need to bust the luxury limit. It’s just a proven, bad way to construct a winning baseball team.
Yeah, my gut feeling is that Perry is going to try to shoehorn an Ohtani extension into the payroll and offset that cost with an almost completely homegrown pitching staff. Hence the 2021 draft.
In short, we’ll continue to be the top heavy org we’ve been for the last decade. And likely get the same results.
So true. Either sign Shohei for big bucks and then big bucks for more guys to plug the holes and we win. But who will play SS? That train left the station. I just don’t see Moreno doing Dodger money to win. Although with the team winning it is not hard to see 45,000 coming out each night. But again, that takes a heap of money that he has in the past not spent.
You can’t just plug holes into a pitching staff or the line-up. That is where we are today with an affordable Shohei.
Yes, we will need Arte to fork up Dodger types of money to keep Ohtani, I predict. There is an outside chance of that if Shohei gets what he wants, imo.
Something tells me this would have to coincide with Arte also getting what he wants with the Stadium.
It’s worse: the first few years the current Dodger ownership took over, they willingly added a lot of bad contracts (most of whom they quickly released) to preserve/build the farm even if they bled tons of cash in the short term. I just don’t see Arte willingly tossing a lot of cash like that in the short term, even if that same worry does not seem to stop him from tying up tons of long term cash in veterans with short expiration dates.
If history tells us anything, you are probably correct. Top-heavy is a great word for it.
There is, however, a wild-card here that Ohtani will be able to choose what he thinks best for Ohtani. You can bet that Shohei, the person, will be getting every sort of life-changing offer you could imagine, and many of these will be directly pitted against the Angels’ losing tendencies and presumed inabilities to help him with his goals.
Shohei has proven to be an intelligent and very mentally strong person, so ultimately it will be up to Shohei.
You sure about that? You don’t think drafting 21 pitchers won’t turn out something? We have to get at least 3-4 MLB arms out of that don’t we?
Bingo. Unless Arte is willing to take payroll to $250M annually, and if his goal is to win championships, keeping Trout and Ohtani makes zero sense.
Ohtani will pay for almost any contract he’d command fairly quickly if the team that acquires and signs him to an extension is any good at international marketing. (Unfortunately, this means the Dodgers, alas ).
I could see Jeff’s trade scenario with them as quite plausible and, in fact, we might even be able to squeeze them a bit more. Dodgers can certainly afford to pay him well and market him profitably. Their farm is deep enough that they can trade a lot of prospects and even proven young talent.
Of course, on the other hand, such a trade would infuriate me to no end…..
I actually believe that if we don’t trade him (now or in the off season) he will walk away and we will have nothing. The question I have is in your shopping, are you looking for a rotation piece to replace him plus middle infield (ss), also are you anticipating going back to a 5 man rotation?
I’m not sure about the 5 or 6 man rotation. But I am a huge fan of young pitching and our most glaring weakness is the infield. And I think it is logical for a trade partner to include an MLB level pitcher as Ohtani will be taking his spot anyway.
You need about a 10 deep starting staff nowadays.