ANAHEIM, Calif. — Between now and the Aug. 1 trade deadline, the Angels will face one of the most gut-wrenching decisions a baseball team could face.
Should they trade Shohei Ohtani?
The industry expectation is that the Angels will not trade Ohtani, and the team’s current three-game winning streak has only reinforced that. Still, each loss in the next 10 games will raise the volume of the discussion throughout the sport.
The question within the question, then, is what can the Angels get for him?
According to former MLB general manager Jim Duquette and an anonymous current MLB executive, the prospect haul could be limited because Ohtani is a rental, albeit the greatest rental in history.
“There are many teams that will say, ‘I don’t care how good a rental he is, I can’t give you hundreds of millions of dollars of future value,’” the executive said. “That’s going to wipe out a handful of clubs. … I just don’t know where the obvious fit is, where someone is desperate to give that complete overpay.”
Duquette, now an analyst for MLB Network Radio, said the fair market value for Ohtani might not match the perceived value, in the eyes of Angels owner Arte Moreno or fans.
“That’s why it’s so difficult to trade him,” Duquette said. “Anything less and you feel like you’re getting cheated. And you have to sell Arte Moreno, who is one of the most difficult owners in the sport.”
The best comp for an Ohtani trade in recent years is probably a trade in which there were two premium players moved; Ace Max Scherzer and shortstop Trea Turner were traded from the Washington Nationals to the Dodgers at the deadline in 2021.
Scherzer was a rental pitcher, like Ohtani. Turner is obviously not as valuable offensively as Ohtani, but he plays shortstop and – more important – had a whole year of control remaining.
Duquette said it’s “fair” to say Ohtani is worth about the same as Scherzer-Turner, from a pure baseball value perspective. The executive also said that’s “probably pretty good,” in terms of a comparison.
The top prospects in that trade were catcher Keibert Ruiz, who was ranked No. 57 by MLB Pipeline, and right-hander Josiah Gray, who was ranked No. 58. The Nationals also got right-hander Gerardo Carrillo and outfielder Donavan Casey. Neither were considered top prospects.
Gray, an All-Star this season, has a 3.59 ERA after struggling in 2022. Ruiz has been the Nationals’ primary catcher for the last two seasons, providing average offensive production for the position. Carrillo is currently No. 27 in the Nationals’ system and Casey is unranked.
If the Angels got a similar package for Ohtani, would that be enough to satisfy Moreno or Angels fans?
Duquette doesn’t think so.
“People would be outraged if you look at it that way,” he said. “But that’s the reality. Within the Anaheim fanbase, you’d say that isn’t enough.”
Looking at other deals for premium rental players in the past decade, the highest-rated prospect to be moved was infielder Gleyber Torres, who was 28th when the Chicago Cubs moved him to the New York Yankees for closer Aroldis Chapman in 2016.
When the Dodgers acquired right-hander Yu Darvish in 2017, the highest-rated player among the three they shipped to the Texas Rangers was outfielder Willie Calhoun (82nd).
The best of the five players the Dodgers shipped the Baltimore Orioles for Manny Machado in 2018 was outfielder Yusniel Diaz (84th).
The Houston Astros traded four players to the Arizona Diamondbacks in 2019 for Zack Greinke. The highest-rated was outfielder Seth Beer (100th).
Even if you combine the returns from two of those deals to acknowledge that Ohtani is two players, it would still be players from the back end of the top 100 and some quantity of “lottery tickets.”
While the objective “fair” value for Ohtani in a trade might be the Scherzer-Turner return, or less, it doesn’t mean that some emotionally driven owner or GM from another team won’t still go beyond that.
“Perry doesn’t need a bunch of teams,” the executive said of Angels general manager Perry Minasian. “He just needs one.”
To determine which teams those might be, start with the contenders who have the most top 100 prospects: the Dodgers (8), Orioles (8), Rangers (5), Milwaukee Brewers (5), San Francisco Giants (4) and Tampa Bay Rays (4).
It would be difficult to imagine Moreno agreeing to trade Ohtani up the freeway to the Dodgers unless they dramatically overpay. The Dodgers are unlikely to do that because they could consider themselves already the favorites to sign him over the winter.
That raises the question of how much 2024 comes into play when teams are deciding what talent they would give up to get Ohtani in 2023.
If a team like the Rays gets Ohtani, they would do so knowing they had almost no chance to re-sign him. However, a team like the Yankees or Boston Red Sox could view an Ohtani deal in terms of giving them a leg up on a deal for 2024.
“I think that’s a huge advantage,” Duquette said.
The executive said a team could not calculate the trade value based on re-signing Ohtani, though.
“I just don’t think it’s realistic that you’re really going to have any feel for whether you can sign this guy long-term,” he said.
Unfortunately for the Angels, several of the teams considered prime landing spots for Ohtani as a free agent – the New York Mets, Seattle Mariners and Padres – have played poorly this year. It’s unlikely any of those teams would give up the required prospect capital simply to get two months to woo Ohtani while they miss the playoffs.
“If the Padres were in it, they would be one of (the teams willing to overpay),” the executive said.
The price the Angels would need to get back for Ohtani also likely hinges on how they play. The more the Angels win between now and the deadline, the better they can feel about keeping Ohtani and making a run for the playoffs.
Moreno insisted in spring training that the Angels would not trade Ohtani if they were in contention. FanGraphs calculated their playoff odds at 13.9% on Thursday morning.
Moreno and Minasian have both said they want to keep Ohtani in the long-term, and the Angels believe trading him away in 2023 significantly hurts their chances of re-signing him after the season.
Duquette agreed: “You have a percentage chance (to re-sign him), but if you trade him, no chance.”
All of that is why most around the industry still don’t believe a trade will happen.
“I would be shocked if Arte allowed Perry to trade Ohtani for anything less than a massive trade package,” the executive said. “Even if it’s the right thing to do academically, emotionally that’s going to be such a hard pill to swallow. The Angels are either going to have to sink or Perry is going to have to deliver an incredible value that the Angels can’t say no to.”
