LA Angels Tuesday News Crash: No Man’s Land

It seems revisionist to me because the significant Ohtani era was really short – it was just 2021-2023. From 2018-2020, he was just another player on the team. No one was really planning the Angels’ future around Ohtani, especially after his disastrous 2020 season, where nobody knew if he could even pitch and hit effectively again after the season ended. When Rendon was signed, he was billed to add offense for Mike Trout, not the other guy.

For that unprecedented 2021 all pitchers draft, I never thought that that for Ohtani’s benefit. I would argue it’s probably because his status as a pitcher was highly questionable that they overcompensated looking for future replacements and additions.

The 2022 draft notables were Neto, Joyce, Caden Dana, among others. Most everyone thought Neto was an excellent pick, Joyce was a worthy risk, and Caden has a promising future even if still far away. Doesn’t exactly scream “For Ohtani!!!”

I would argue that only the 2023 draft was the one done specifically with Ohtani in mind, getting Nolan so they can fast track him to the bigs and plug holes faster. Which indirectly led to the delusional buyer strategy at the deadline.

But other than 2023 I never felt like the Angels concentrated their draft capital and strategy to appease one man. If anything, most of the complaints during the Eppler and Minasian draft eras were that the Angels were drafting too high ceiling/risky players – Adell, Adams, Paris (Eppler), or solid but unspectacular like Bachman and Schanuel (Perry).