Angels, Shohei Ohtani Avoid Arbitration With One-Year, $30MM Contract For 2023
The Angels and Shohei Ohtani have avoided perhaps the most unique arbitration case in baseball history by agreeing to a one-year, $30MM pact for the 2023 season. Ohtani is still scheduled to reach free agency following the 2023 campaign. Ohtani is represented by CAA Sports.
The two-way star becomes the 20th player in baseball to receive a $30MM average annual value on a contract, and that $30MM figure also establishes two other notable thresholds. Ohtani will now receive the largest salary ever for an arbitration-eligible player, and he also gets the biggest year-to-year raise for an arb-eligible player, after he earned $5.5MM this season. That $5.5MM salary was established in an earlier extension that avoided arbitration, as Ohtani and the Angels agreed to a two-year, $8.5MM contract in February 2021 that covered the first two of his three arb-eligible years.
At the time of that deal, Ohtani has pitched only 1 2/3 total innings over the 2019-20 seasons, due to a Tommy John surgery and then a flexor strain. He was also coming off a mediocre year at the plate, hitting only .190/.291/.366 over 175 plate appearances during the pandemic-shortened 2020 season. Though Ohtani was hardly the only player to struggle under the unusual circumstances of the 2020 campaign, there was speculation that his 2018 rookie season might have been his peak, and that Ohtani would be better served by choosing either hitting or pitching.
Instead, Ohtani bounced back with two of the most extraordinary seasons in baseball history. Since Opening Day 2021, Ohtani has hit .267/.366/.560 with 80 home runs over 1282 plate appearances, while also posting a 2.72 ERA and an array of dazzling secondary metrics over 291 1/3 innings. After winning AL MVP honors in 2021, it looks as if Ohtani will be at worst a second-place finisher in this year’s MVP race (due to Aaron Judge‘s all-timer of a season), and he’ll also earn a good chunk of votes in the AL Cy Young Award race.
With this in mind, it can certainly be argued that $30MM is still a bargain from the Angels’ perspective, considering that Ohtani would earn hefty salaries if he was “only” an All-Star hitter or “only” an All-Star pitcher. It would’ve been fascinating to see what arbitration figures the Angels and Ohtani’s camp would’ve submitted in this unprecedented scenario, but this agreement sidesteps that possibility.
Los Angeles now has three players earning at least $30MM in 2023, as Ohtani joins Mike Trout ($35.45MM) and Anthony Rendon ($38MM). In practical terms, it doesn’t change much for the Angels’ payroll situation, as the team naturally figured it would be paying Ohtani some type of gigantic salary in his final arb-eligible year. In pure dollars and cents, it doesn’t actually represent much different from the Angels’ 2022 payroll, as the since-released Justin Upton was earning $28MM in the final year of his contract with the club.
Ohtani’s future beyond 2023 remains a mystery, as he’ll be heading into free agency presumably still in his prime both on the mound and at the plate. Though Ohtani turns 29 in July, his two-way ability might still land him the biggest contract in baseball history, topping the $365MM in new money given to Mookie Betts in his extension with the Dodgers prior to the 2020 season.
In reaching an agreement with Ohtani now, the Angels front office gets one big question mark settled heading into what might be one of the most uncertain offseasons in franchise history. Owner Arte Moreno is looking into a possible sale, and with this situation lingering over the organization, it isn’t clear how aggressive GM Perry Minasian will be allowed to be in upgrading the roster. The Halos are struggling through their seventh consecutive losing season, so while a teardown isn’t out of the question, it is also possible Moreno might order a final push to try and return to the postseason one final time under his ownership.
Until there’s more clarity with the potential sale, it is hard to gauge what will happen with Ohtani in Anaheim. Given that Ohtani has already expressed his displeasure with losing, it seems hard to believe that he would agree to an extension unless he was satisfied that the team was heading in the right direction — even if a new owner does take over within 7-8 months, their influence might not be apparent in the short window of time before Ohtani can test the open market. A new owner might bring a new willingness to exceed the luxury tax threshold, and thus it wouldn’t necessarily be an obstacle in adding a massive Ohtani deal worth more than $40MM (at least) in AAV on top of the long-term Trout and Rendon contracts.
A trade also can’t be ruled out, though it seems like the least likely scenario considering that Moreno vetoed any possibility that Ohtani would be swapped prior to the last trade deadline. As noted by The Athletic’s Fabian Ardaya, establishing Ohtani’s 2023 price tag early gives any interested trade partners more time to plan offers, yet not having Ohtani on the roster could also impact purchasing interest for any potential new owners. From a practical baseball sense, it is also hard to gauge what exactly an Ohtani trade would look like, considering his elite two-way talent but also just one remaining year of control.
The Changing Landscape Of The AL Cy Young Race
Two weeks ago, the Cy Young race in the American League looked like a two-horse race, with both Houston’s Justin Verlander and Tampa Bay’s Shane McClanahan hovering at or below the 2.00 ERA mark and racking up innings atop their teams’ respective rotations. McClanahan has the larger strikeout percentage and subsequently superior marks from fielding-independent metrics that some voters increasingly weigh. Verlander was averaging one extra out recorded per start prior to being lifted early his last time out, and his 16-3 win-loss record might hold some sway with traditionalist voters.
Or, all of that could be rendered moot.
Both Verlander and McClanahan are on the 15-day injured list, and Verlander, who had been improbably leading the Majors in ERA as a 39-year-old in his first season back from Tommy John surgery, sounds as though he’ll miss several weeks rather than just the 15-day minimum. McClanahan, a late scratch from his last start, is already throwing and seems likelier to make a quick return. However, the Rays could very well take a cautious approach and limit his innings after a two-week absence due to a shoulder impingement.
At the very least, the door is now open for further competition in Cy Young voting, ostensibly setting the stage for the closest AL vote we’ve seen since 2019, when Verlander and then-teammate Gerrit Cole finished in the top two positions on the ballot. Last year’s NL Cy Young voting sparked plenty of controversy and debate as well, and as things currently stand, we could get an encore of that scene in the AL this year.
If not Verlander or McClanahan, who are the top names to consider? Let’s dive in.
Dylan Cease, RHP, White Sox
Cease, following a near-no-hitter against the Twins that saw him go 8 2/3 before Luis Arraez cracked a ninth-inning single, may have leapfrogged both Verlander and McClanahan as the odds-on favorite in the American League. He’s sitting on MLB’s third-lowest ERA — sandwiched right between Verlander and McClanahan, no less — and that 2.13 mark is complemented by a 31.4% strikeout rate that ranks as the fourth-highest of any qualified starting pitcher in baseball.
At 5.5 wins above replacement (per Baseball Reference), Cease already leads American League pitchers — even over Verlander and McClanahan. That’d due largely to the fact that Cease is putting up these numbers in front of one of the game’s bottom-10 defenses.
It’s not all roses, as Cease has a 10.4% walk rate that sits dead last among qualified starters. He hasn’t been terribly efficient, either; where both Verlander and McClanahan have averaged comfortably more than six innings per start, Cease has averaged 5.77 innings per appearance this year.
Still, Chicagoans can no doubt see the parallels between Cease’s 2022 showing and the 2016 performance of another Chicago hurler — crosstown righty Jake Arrieta, when he rode a historic summer surge to Cy Young honors. Over his past 15 starts, Cease has tallied 93 innings of 1.45 ERA ball and held opponents to one or zero runs on a dozen occasions. Cease isn’t quite in Arrieta territory (0.86 ERA in his final 147 innings), but he’s not terribly far off, either. If he can sustain anything close to this pace, Cease will finish the season at or near the top of the AL in terms of innings pitched, ERA, total strikeouts and strikeout rate.
Alek Manoah, RHP, Blue Jays
Manoah looked borderline unhittable for the season’s first two months, carrying a 1.67 ERA in that time and allowing just 55 hits and a 0.59 HR/9 mark through June 13 (75 2/3 innings). He had a solid but closer-to-average run for much of the summer but has now yielded just three runs in his past 28 1/3 innings.
At 171 innings of 2.42 ERA ball on the year, the 24-year-old is on the periphery of the race at present. He ranks fourth in American League ERA but trails McClanahan, Cease and especially Verlander in that department. He lacks the gaudy strikeout ratios boasted by both Cease and McClanahan but limits hard contact better than any non-McClanahan pitcher in the AL, evidenced by a 31.3% hard-hit rate. (McClanahan leads qualified AL starters at 30.1%.)
However, Manoah’s 171 are second-most in the American League, and if he continues this hot streak, there’s a chance he could wind up among the league leaders in ERA, innings pitched and other key categories. In terms of wins and losses, everyone’s trailing Verlander’s 16 victories, but Manoah’s 14 are tied with Framber Valdez for second in the league. Speaking of which…
Framber Valdez, LHP, Astros
It’s easy to be overshadowed by the season Verlander is enjoying, but we should all probably be discussing Valdez’s outstanding year more than we are. The 28-year-old southpaw is just one-third of an inning behind Manoah at 170 2/3, and he also sits sixth in ERA (2.64) and ninth in bWAR (3.4).
Valdez has emerged as baseball’s preeminent ground-ball starting pitcher, and it’s not close; he leads all qualified pitchers in ground-ball rate at 66.7%, and Logan Webb‘s 57.5% rate is second-best. Even dropping the minimum to 50 innings as a starter, he still leads Alex Cobb (61.9%) and Andre Pallante (61.4%) by a wide margin.
In an age where starters are yanked from the game earlier than ever before, Valdez is a throwback. He’s worked at least six innings in every one of his starts since April 25, completing seven or more innings on 11 occasions and twice going the distance with a complete game. Over his past five starts, Valdez has 35 2/3 innings of 1.77 ERA ball. It’ll be a challenge for him to drop his ERA into the low 2.00s, and he can’t match Cease or McClanahan in terms of strikeouts, but Valdez will likely be the American League innings leader and finish with a mid-2.00s ERA and MLB-leading ground-ball rate.
Shohei Ohtani, RHP, Angels
When Ohtani pitched to a 3.99 ERA through the first six weeks of the season, it looked as if we were in for an (almost) mortal season out of the two-way phenom. He averaged just over five innings per start, and while the strikeouts were still there in droves, he was also unusually homer-prone. A Cy Young pursuit did not appear to be on the horizon.
In 88 2/3 innings since that time? Ohtani has a 1.83 ERA with fewer homers allowed (six) than in his first 47 1/3 innings (seven). He at one point rattled off six consecutive starts with double-digit strikeout totals, and opponents have batted .199/.249/.301 against him during this stretch.
Ohtani’s 33% strikeout rate on the season leads qualified starting pitchers (though would trail Braves phenom Spencer Strider by a good margin if Strider had a few more innings), and while many fans and Ohtani detractors bristle at the notion, it’s hard not to consider that he does all this while also serving as a middle-of-the-order slugger who ranks among the league’s top power threats.
Ultimately, with just 136 innings pitched this season, it’s hard to imagine that Ohtani will actually garner many (if any) first-place Cy Young votes. Yes, he’s sporting a 2.58 ERA, leading the league with a 33% strikeout rate and sitting second among AL starters with 4.7 bWAR. But Ohtani is ultimately going to be up against multiple starters with better bottom-line run prevention numbers and as many as 40 to 50 additional innings pitched. Corbin Burnes won an NL Cy Young last year with just 167 frames, but the top names in the American League this year have had better seasons.
Kevin Gausman, RHP, Blue Jays
Gausman will be the analytic darling in this year’s field. I debated whether to mention him at all for this breakdown, as he’d need a pretty dominant finish to push his way in among the leaders in more traditional categories, but the right-hander is second in the American League at FanGraphs with 5.2 wins above replacement. fWAR is based on fielding-independent pitching rather than actual runs allowed, and Gausman has been quite good this season — 3.12 ERA in 147 innings — despite being one of the game’s least-fortunate pitchers in terms of balls in play. He’s lugging around an MLB-worst .368 BABIP, and the next-highest mark (Jordan Lyles at .323) isn’t even close.
There’s perhaps some temptation to think that Gausman is then yielding far too much hard contact, but that’s not necessarily the case. He’s not managing contact as well as any of the others profiled here, but his 89 mph average exit velocity and 39% hard-hit rate are barely north of the respective 88.6 mph and 38.3% league averages in those regards.
Gausman has the game’s third-best walk rate (3.8%), the tenth-best strikeout rate (27.9%) and is sixth-best in the differential between those two (24.1 K-BB%). He’s averaging just 5 2/3 innings per start, however, and isn’t particularly helping his cause down the stretch (3.99 ERA over his past five outings… again, with a .370 BABIP).
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A lot can (and will) change between now and season’s end, but since this is all just for debate anyhow, I’ll include a poll to close this out:
Who will win the American League Cy Young Award?
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Justin Verlander 36% (657)
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Dylan Cease 26% (472)
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Alek Manoah 14% (250)
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Shane McClanahan 10% (177)
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Shohei Ohtani 9% (170)
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Framber Valdez 3% (46)
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Other (specify in comments) 2% (31)
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Kevin Gausman 1% (17)
Total votes: 1,820
Latest On Angels’ Potential Sale
The Angels appear set for a major shake-up, as owner Arte Moreno announced Tuesday he’d retained financial advisors to explore a potential sale of the franchise. The news came as a surprise publicly, but Ken Rosenthal of the Athletic reports that Moreno had planned to look into selling the team for a while before making the announcement. One source tells Rosenthal a sale has been under consideration for upwards of two months.
Precisely when Moreno settled upon this course of action isn’t clear, but it appears to have been at some point in June at the latest. As Rosenthal points out, that provides some interesting context for the Halos’ approach to the trade deadline — specifically with the organization’s handling of reigning AL MVP Shohei Ohtani. Reports emerged in late July the Angels were listening to trade offers on Ohtani, but any speculation was quickly dashed when the Halos took the two-way star off the market by August 1.
Jon Heyman of the New York Post reported shortly after the deadline that Moreno forbade the front office from exploring Ohtani trades at a time when fellow superstar Mike Trout was on the injured list. Buster Olney of ESPN relayed a similar sentiment this week, writing that the club’s baseball operations department viewed this summer as the ideal time to extract a maximum return for Ohtani, who is arbitration-eligible for a final time before reaching free agency after 2023. Moreno, however, stepped in and indicated he wouldn’t approve a trade.
In the aftermath of the announcement that Moreno was exploring a sale, there was plenty of speculation among rival fanbases that an Ohtani trade next offseason could be more viable than it was this summer. Yet Rosenthal feels that’s unlikely, reasoning that Moreno’s refusal to deal Ohtani at the deadline while already planning to explore a sale of the franchise seems unlikely to change over the winter.
It isn’t known how long the sales process will take, but it could extend well into the offseason. For reference, the Lerner family announced shortly after Opening Day they were exploring a sale of the Nationals. Earlier this week, Barry Svrulga, Ben Strauss and Chelsea Janes of the Washington Post suggested that process could be wrapped up by November, around seven months after the team’s announcement a sale was under consideration. If the Angels’ process follows a similar timetable, it’d push near Opening Day 2023. Each situation is individual, of course, and one can’t know precisely at this stage how long the possible sale of the Anaheim franchise might take. Yet the Nationals situation serves as an example of the complexity of a deal of this magnitude, and it seems likely Moreno will retain ownership at least for the early stages of the offseason.
Ohtani’s future is just one of many key decisions the Angels face as the franchise prepares for a possible monumental change. The club will have to settle upon a manager, with Phil Nevin currently holding the role on an interim basis after the team dismissed Joe Maddon in early June. General manager Perry Minasian and his staff will also be tasked with trying to overcome what’s set to be a seventh straight losing season and presumably make another push for contention in 2023. How much financial flexibility will be at the front office’s disposal remains to be seen.
The Halos entered this season with a franchise-record payroll north of $188MM, according to Cot’s Baseball Contracts. Jason Martinez of Roster Recourse estimates the club has a bit above $103MM in guaranteed money on the books for next season. That doesn’t include what’ll surely be a massive raise for Ohtani over this season’s $5.5MM salary, and the team will also see first baseman Jared Walsh reach arbitration for the first time. The Halos aren’t facing many significant free agent departures, but they could arguably stand to use external help at shortstop, left field, catcher and in both the rotation and the bullpen.
Angels Notes: Trout, Lorenzen, Duffy, Bradley, Moniak, Iglesias
Mike Trout has been cleared to run and throw, and the former MVP is scheduled to take batting practice on the field today. Trout and Angels head trainer Mike Frostad spoke with reporters (including Jeff Fletcher of the Orange County Register) yesterday, with Trout expressing confidence that he’ll be able to return to the lineup “sooner rather than later.” A more specific timeline isn’t yet known, as Trout may require a minor league rehab assignment.
Trout has now missed a full month of action due to left ribcage inflammation and back spasms, and Frostad’s past update about Trout’s larger-scale back problems (a costovertebral dysfunction) left concern over both Trout’s short-term and near-term future. Given that Trout ended up missing almost all of the 2021 season due to a calf problem that just kept lingering, fans probably won’t be fully relieved until they actually see Trout back on the field, no matter this latest positive news about his rib injury.
More on the Halos…
- Frostad also provided details on several other injured Angels players, including 60-day injured list members Michael Lorenzen, Matt Duffy, and Archie Bradley. Lorenzen has thrown two bullpen sessions this week and will face live batters on Tuesday. The right-hander (who has sidelined by a shoulder strain) is tentatively expected to be activated from the 60-day IL when first eligible on September 2. Duffy’s first eligible activation date is August 26, and the infielder is slated to start a minor league rehab assignment next week as he makes his return from back spasms. The news isn’t as good on Bradley, who has been out since late June with a fractured right elbow and has yet to start throwing, though Frostad suggested that Bradley could start throwing this week. Given Bradley’s long layoff and the amount of rehab still to come, he might not pitch again in 2022.
- Mickey Moniak‘s season was though to be in jeopardy when the outfielder fractured the tip of his left middle finger, which sent him to the 10-day IL on August 7. Frostad said that Moniak’s stitches were removed yesterday, and depending on how he heals, might be able to return even if Moniak might still be playing through some discomfort. Acquired from the Phillies as part of the Noah Syndergaard trade at the deadline, Moniak played just five games for the Angels before hitting the injured list.
- The Mets and Yankees were among the teams also interested in acquiring Raisel Iglesias prior to the deadline, the New York Post’s Jon Heyman writes. However, neither New York club was willing to cover all of the $51.5MM remaining on Iglesias’ contract, while other teams were willing to take that deal entirely off the Angels’ books. Los Angeles ended up moving Iglesias to the Braves for Tucker Davidson and Jesse Chavez, but though the Halos dealt Iglesias and Syndergaard, Shohei Ohtani remained. “Half the teams or more” around baseball inquired about Ohtani, Heyman reports, and Heyman views owner Arte Moreno’s refusal to trade Ohtani as a missed chance. With Ohtani set for free agency after the 2023 season, there has already been a lot of speculation that he could be on his way out of Anaheim, and in search of a potential record-setting contract that reflects his unique two-way skillset.
A.J. Preller, Mike Rizzo Discuss Juan Soto Trade
We’re a week removed from one of the biggest blockbusters in MLB history, the deal that sent Juan Soto and Josh Bell from the Nationals to the Padres for five young players and first baseman Luke Voit. Jeff Passan of ESPN takes a long look into the process that eventually led to the deal in a piece that’s well worth a read in full.
A Soto trade seemed unfathomable around a month before the deadline, with Washington general manager Mike Rizzo flatly stating the club wouldn’t deal him. That was before Soto passed on a 15-year, $440MM extension offer that apparently represented the Nationals final offer. At that point, Rizzo and his staff reversed course and turned their attention to the trade market. Passan writes the Nationals identified the Padres, Dodgers, Yankees, Cardinals, Mariners, Rays, Rangers and Blue Jays as a preliminary list of teams with the kind of young talent to pull off a deal.
According to Passan, the Nats had whittled that down to a trio of the Cardinals, Dodgers and Padres by the final week of July. With St. Louis reportedly reluctant to include Dylan Carlson in a package that also included a number of top prospects, Los Angeles and San Diego became the final two. Passan relays that San Diego and Washington higher-ups really gathered momentum late into the evening of August 1, the night before the trade deadline. A late entrant to discussions was the inclusion of Bell, one of the top rental bats available, to convince the Friars to part with high-upside 18-year-old pitcher Jarlin Susana. By the middle of the night on August 1-2, Passan reports, the parties agreed to the package of young talent that’d go back to Washington pending review of medical records the next morning. (Passan adds the humorous anecdote that San Diego president of baseball operations A.J. Preller then continued working deep into the night on additional trade possibilities before falling asleep in the middle of a conversation with a member of his scouting staff).
While the initial iteration of the deal included Eric Hosmer going to Washington, the first baseman exercised his limited no-trade protection to block the deal. San Diego pivoted and traded Hosmer to the Red Sox, and Passan writes that San Diego and Washington had each previously agreed that one of Voit or Wil Myers could take Hosmer’s place in the event he refused to waive his no-trade clause.
“We did as well as we could do,” Rizzo opined to Passan. “You lost a Hall of Famer at 23, but I think we expedited our reboot. When you’re looking at the alternative, the same narrative would’ve been out there this winter. If you don’t trade him now, what are you doing in the offseason? I give the Padres’ ownership credit. And I give A.J. credit because he’s not afraid to make a trade like this. And I give our ownership credit.”
Preller went into detail about his team’s involvement in the Soto discussions during an appearance this afternoon on The Show, a podcast from the New York Post with Jon Heyman and Joel Sherman. The San Diego baseball operations leader confirmed the Nationals identified his system as one of a handful that could support a blockbuster of this magnitude early in the process.
“We could tell we were going to be one of the final teams if we wanted to participate,” Preller told the Post. “You never know if you’re going to be the team. It’s like anything else, there’s going to be two or three teams that all have really strong packages. … There was just a lot of debate and discussion for us over the next few weeks about the right thing to do, the right players to give up.”
Once the sides were nearing agreement on the prospect return, the onus fell on San Diego to push the deal across the finish line, Preller explains. “At the end, you have to decide. Do you want to do this or not? That’s kind of the gut-check at the end, when the Nats put it on you: ‘this five or six-player package gets it done.’ That’s when you come back into the room with your small group of people and (owner) Peter Seidler. It’s on the table if we want to do this. And if we don’t do it, ultimately we have to live with the fact that he may go elsewhere. … At the end of the day, you have to make that decision.”
Obviously, Preller and his group decided to pull the trigger, although he indicated the club wasn’t narrowly focused on a Soto deal. Preller confirmed to the Post that San Diego was involved in discussions with the Angels about Shohei Ohtani. He said there was some but not entire overlap in the young players of interest to both Washington and Anaheim but indicated the Angels were ultimately unwilling to part with Ohtani. Heyman reported last week that Angels owner Arte Moreno wouldn’t sign off on an Ohtani trade while Mike Trout is on the injured list.
Padres fans and/or anyone interested in additional details about San Diego’s trade talks will want to check out Preller’s interview with Heyman and Sherman in full. Preller also discussed the necessity of balancing a roster with star talent and depth, the acquisition of All-Star reliever Josh Hader from the Brewers, plans for rehabbing star Fernando Tatis Jr., and his team’s struggles against the Dodgers among other topics.
Angels Planning To Keep Shohei Ohtani, No Longer Listening To Offers
The Angels have listened to offers on reigning AL MVP Shohei Ohtani for the past several days, but Jon Heyman of the New York Post reports that they’re no longer doing so. The Yankees, Padres and White Sox were among the teams to submit trade offers for Ohtani, per the report, but Heyman writes that owner Arte Moreno ultimately proved “unwilling” to part with Ohtani.
The fact that Ohtani is staying put is hardly shocking. Even when reports emerged of that the Angels were listening to trade offers, it still seemed unlikely that a deal would come together. Given Ohtani’s unprecedented contributions to the team in recent years, it was always expected that a massive package would have to be put on the table in order for the Angels to pull the trigger on a deal. With the Angels mired in another miserable season that’s seen them fall well out of contention, it made sense to listen to offers on the superstar given that he’s now just over a year away from free agency. Despite those three clubs apparently putting together serious offers, it seems none of them were close to the understandably high asking price of the Angels.
The reigning AL MVP, Ohtani is putting together another historic season to add to his already impressive list of accolades. His power has fallen off slightly, as his 22 home runs on the year puts him on pace to fall short of last year’s 46. But apart from that, his .255/.352/.495 slash line this year isn’t too far from last year’s .257/.372/.592. His 135 wRC+ this year is seventeen points behind last year, but still 35% better than the league average hitter. On the pitching side of things, he’s actually improved relative to the previous season. He’s dropped his ERA from 3.18 to 2.81, increased his strikeout rate from 29.3% to 36.4% and lowered his walk rate from 8.3% to 5.8%.
Given that he’s producing excellent results on both sides of the ball and making a modest $5.5MM salary, it’s hard to fathom a team that wouldn’t be interested in making use of his services. The Yankees are known to be looking for rotation help, having checked in on some of the top available names like Frankie Montas and Luis Castillo, before the latter was traded to the Mariners. They’ve also checked in on offensive upgrades, recently acquiring Andrew Benintendi. Acquiring Ohtani would have crowded the DH mix a little, though the Yanks were surely willing to find a way to work with that situation for such a historic player.
The Padres already have a rotation surplus but have been considering trading away from it as a way to reduce their payroll commitments. It’s possible that they could have combined an Ohtani trade with a trade of Blake Snell or Mike Clevinger, in order to get Ohtani into the rotation and then also upgrade the lineup.
The White Sox have a solid five-man rotation right now but have been exploring the market for upgrades anyway, with Michael Kopech perhaps working his way towards some load management as the season goes on. He’s already thrown 88 1/3 innings this year after only throwing 69 1/3 frames over the three previous seasons combined.
Regardless of how much sense Ohtani would have made for those teams, it doesn’t appear as though the Angels came close to a deal that they gave serious consideration to. It’s perfectly logical for them to want to hang onto such an unprecedented talent, though this decision won’t provide any long-term clarity. The Angels are still 43-59 and destined to finish another season watching the postseason from home. That will leave 2023 as the club’s last chance to build a winning roster around Ohtani, unless they are able to work out an extension.
That latter course will surely be appealing to Angels’ fans but will come with complications for the front office. The latest reporting indicated that Ohtani and his camp were looking to surpass Max Scherzer‘s record for annual average value of a contract, $43.3MM. That number would be added to a payroll that already includes Mike Trout getting over $37MM per year through 2028 while Anthony Rendon getting paid similarly through 2026. That could leave the Halos paying around $120MM per season to just three players. That wouldn’t leave a lot of wiggle room for a team that’s never run an Opening Day payroll above $190MM. If an extension can’t be worked out, then perhaps Ohtani’s name will show up in trade rumors in more serious fashion one year from now.
NL West Notes: Estrada, Blackmon, Dodgers, Peralta, Ohtani
Giants infielder Thairo Estrada is likely going to be placed on the seven-day concussion injured list after he was hit in the head by a Mark Leiter Jr. pitch in last night’s game. Estrada was able to leave the field under his own power, after initially spending time on the ground being evaluated by team medical staff. Estrada has hit .262/.316/.406 over 342 plate appearances this season, a step behind his solid numbers from 2021 but still good for an above-average 106 wRC+.
Between this respectable bat and his defensive versatility, Estrada has been a valuable member of San Francisco’s roster, but his likely absence will leave the Giants quite thin at shortstop. With Brandon Crawford on the 10-day IL and yet to begin a rehab assignment, Jason Vosler is the only player on the active roster with any time at shortstop this season. It seems likely that one of Isan Diaz or Donovan Walton will need to be called up from Triple-A to fill that void, unless the Giants make another move in advance of the trade deadline. Since the Giants could be sellers at the deadline, Estrada’s injury probably ensures that he’ll remain in San Francisco beyond August 2, though his team control through the 2026 season already made him one of the Giants players less likely to be moved.
More from around the NL West…
- Rockies GM Bill Schmidt told reporters (including Patrick Saunders of The Denver Post) that the club hasn’t received any trade asks about Charlie Blackmon, though it doesn’t seem like Blackmon would waive his 10-and-5 rights to allow a deal anyway. Blackmon has spent his entire professional career in the Colorado organization, and “I think it would be much more fulfilling for me to be successful with the Rockies than it would be to do it somewhere else, after what I’ve been through and the commitment from both sides.” Blackmon already said last October that he was planning to exercise his 2023 player option (worth at least $10MM), and intimated to Saunders and other reporters that his perspective hadn’t changed.
- Before the Diamondbacks traded David Peralta to the Rays yesterday, The Athletic’s Fabian Ardaya reports that the Dodgers had interest in Peralta’s services. With Cody Bellinger and Max Muncy struggling all season long, the Dodgers could use some more help from the left side of the plate, and the team has the flexibility to explore options ranging from platoon options to superstars like Juan Soto. As for Peralta, it could be that the D’Backs preferred the Rays’ offer to whatever the Dodgers were willing to give up, or perhaps Arizona wanted more in exchange for moving Peralta to a division rival.
- Speaking of big left-handed bats, “the Dodgers have tried to engage the Angels” about a possible Shohei Ohtani trade, MLB Network’s Jon Morosi tweets. The Angels are reportedly at least listening to other teams’ offers for Ohtani, even if Anaheim’s asking price is said to be huge, and a trade seems quite unlikely. Morosi’s specific phrasing implies that the Angels weren’t willing to truly “engage” with the Dodgers in talks, which perhaps isn’t surprising — as Morosi notes, “many in the industry are skeptical that Ohtani would be dealt to the Angels’ geographic rival.”
Angels Have Listened To Offers On Shohei Ohtani; Trade Seen As Unlikely
A deadline season that already has one of the highest-profile trade candidates ever in Juan Soto could add another to the list. Jon Heyman and Joel Sherman of the New York Post report that while a deal is ultimately unlikely, the Angels have not turned away interested teams as they’ve made inquiries and submitted trade proposals for two-way star and reigning AL MVP Shohei Ohtani. The Post duo spoke with three executives whose teams have reached out to the Angels, all of whom characterized the chances of a trade as extremely low due to an unsurprisingly enormous asking price.
The mere notion of an Ohtani trade will ignite a frenzy of speculation and wishful thinking — and with good reason. The 28-year-old is in the midst of yet another incredible season, having pitched to a 2.81 ERA with a 36.4% strikeout rate and 5.8% walk rate through 99 1/3 innings. He’s also hitting .254/.349/.486 with 21 home runs and 11 stolen bases. Dating back to last season, Ohtani has hit .256/.363/.550 with 67 home runs in 1052 plate appearances while also pitching 229 2/3 innings of 3.02 ERA ball with a 32.3% strikeout rate. It’s a legitimately historic performance, the likes of which current fans have not seen in their lifetimes.
That the Angels will at least listen is certainly of note and is only understandable in light of yet another disastrous season. Despite Ohtani and three-time MVP Mike Trout anchoring the roster, the Halos are sitting on a 42-57 record and find themselves already all but eliminated from postseason contention. Incredibly, that’s a common refrain in Anaheim, where the Angels haven’t reached the playoffs since way back in 2014 — three seasons prior to Ohtani’s MLB debut. Repeated injuries up and down the pitching staff have regularly coupled with immediate declines from high-priced stars like Josh Hamilton, Albert Pujols and Anthony Rendon to leave the Angels with a top-heavy roster that has rarely even sniffed playoff contention.
Ohtani, meanwhile, has arguably been the game’s greatest bargain since arriving on the scene. Rather than wait until he was old enough to qualify as a professional player on the international market (25 years old), he instead opted to make the jump to Major League Baseball at just 23 years old. In doing so, Ohtani knowingly subjected himself to the international bonus pool restrictions that govern MLB teams’ signing of amateur players, leaving hundreds of millions of dollars on the table in order to accelerate his path to the world’s top league.
Shocking as that was at the time, Ohtani could yet find himself positioned for a historic contract before long. He’s currently playing on just a $5MM salary in his second year of arbitration eligibility, but he’ll receive a presumably massive raise this winter and is eligible to become a free agent following the 2023 season. Any team submitting offers for Ohtani will do so knowing they can only control him for one and a half seasons, and that the right to do so will cost them an enormous segment of the farm system. One executive who spoke to Heyman and Sherman indicated that the Angels “want something like your top four prospects” in exchange for Ohtani’s final season-plus of club control.
With that remaining control dwindling, however, the Angels have a dilemma. On the one hand, it’s easy to say they should be willing to do whatever is necessary to ink Ohtani to the historic contract extension he’d surely command. At the same time, the Angels already have both Trout and Rendon on the books at more than $35MM annually for the foreseeable future — Rendon through 2026, Trout through 2030. Ohtani would undoubtedly add another annual salary of more than $35MM to the ledger (perhaps well north of that sum).
That’d be a justifiable expenditure, but it takes two to strike a deal. Ohtani has spoken multiple times in the past about his desire to play for a contending club and reach the MLB postseason, and the Angels have instead stumbled through a difficult-to-fathom stretch of futility during his time with the organization. Asked just last night about his desire to remain with the Angels long-term, Ohtani told The Athletic’s Sam Blum:
“Regardless of where I’m playing, I want to give it my all, try to win the ball game that’s right in front of me. I’m with the Angels right now, and I’m very thankful for what they’ve done. I really love the team. I love my teammates. Right now I’m an Angel, and that’s all I can really focus on at this point.”
While that’s far from a direct declaration that he hopes to be traded, it’s of course notable that, when presented with the opportunity, Ohtani did not express a hope to remain with the Angels for the long haul. Perhaps a record-setting offer would still lead to an agreement, but that can’t be known. It’s generally fair to assume that when discussing MLB contracts, money wins out at the end of the day. As previously noted, however, Ohtani has already once forgone what might have been a $200MM+ contract as an international free agent to instead sign for a $2.315MM signing bonus — which wasn’t even the top available bonus to him at the time of his original agreement with the Angels in 2017.
Even if a deal is highly unlikely to come together in such a short amount of time, it’s nevertheless a fascinating wrinkle added to what’s already shaping up to be one of the most interesting deadlines in MLB history. There’s been almost no movement of note to this point, which generally sets the stage for unbridled chaos in the final 48 to 72 hours leading up to Tuesday’s 6pm ET deadline.
NL West Notes: Ohtani, Padres, Walker, Rodon, Giants, Bard
The Angels reportedly don’t have any interest in trading Shohei Ohtani, but that hasn’t stopped the team from at least listening to offers out of due diligence, Jon Heyman and Joel Sherman of the New York Post write. The Padres are one of those teams who have called about Ohtani, according to The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal, who adds that this is the type of aggressive move that has become typical of San Diego president of baseball operations A.J. Preller. There doesn’t seem to be any indication that the Padres have caught the Halos’ attention, except in the broader sense that the Padres have the depth of premium young talent that the Angels would undoubtedly want if they actually did considering sending Ohtani elsewhere.
Frankie Montas and Luis Castillo have also been linked to the Padres in trade rumors, and as Rosenthal notes, it is noteworthy in itself that San Diego is looking at pitchers despite having plenty of rotation depth on paper. However, MacKenzie Gore was recently placed on the injured list, Sean Manaea has struggled as of late, and the Padres could be trying to land a pitcher controlled through at least 2023 considering that Manaea, Joe Musgrove, Mike Clevinger, and Nick Martinez could all potentially enter the free agent market this winter. Furthermore, someone like Blake Snell could be dealt to try and stay under the luxury tax threshold, as avoiding another tax payment is another consideration for Preller to manage as the deadline approaches.
More from around the NL West…
- Also from Rosenthal, Diamondbacks officials are “doubtful” that Christian Walker will be traded. The first baseman’s name has been mentioned in trade speculation, but the D’Backs understandably have a high asking price for an all-around productive player who is under team control through the 2024 season.
- A seven-game losing streak has dropped the Giants to 48-50, but as of last night, the team wasn’t planning on selling at the deadline, ESPN’s Buster Olney tweets. Chasing down the Dodgers for first place is probably out of the question, but San Francisco is still only 3.5 games out of the final wild card spot, and a +26 run differential argues that the Giants are at least a little better than their losing record indicates. That said, the Giants have several intriguing trade options, including Carlos Rodon (who can opt out of his deal after the season) as a rental piece. SKOR North’s Darren Wolfson speculates that the Twins would be one of many interested parties if the Giants did shop Rodon, as Minnesota “were right there” in trying to sign Rodon last winter.
- Rockies closer Daniel Bard is drawing interest from more than one team, MLB.com’s Mark Feinsand reports. Bard (who turned 37 last month) is enjoying a career revival as the Rockies’ ninth-inning man, recording 21 saves and posting a 1.91 ERA over 37 2/3 innings. Despite these numbers and the fact that Bard is a free agent after the year, however, most of the buzz around Bard has focused on Colorado’s efforts to extend him, rather than shop him at the deadline.
Angels Not Planning To Move Ohtani
Although teams are calling the Angels about the availability of two-way standout Shohei Ohtani, the Angels have no plans to move their international superstar, per Jon Morosi of the MLB Network (via Twitter).
The Angels are again mired in a disappointing season, one that has already resulted in the firing of manager Joe Maddon. At 39-54, the Halos are 15 games under .500 and more than 20 games behind the Astros for the division lead. They’re more than 10 games behind the last wild card spot. It certainly would seem like another lost season for Los Angeles.
But holding onto Ohtani is a reasonable position to take, even considering the current state of the club. Ohtani is an All-Star for the second consecutive season, and he’s again producing on both sides of the ball. At the plate, Ohtani is slashing .256/.347/.482 over 386 plate appearances. He also owns a 2.80 ERA/2.41 FIP across 93 1/3 innings. All together, Ohtani could very well be looking at another MVP season.