Barring some sort of baseball miracle, the Angels are going to miss the playoffs again in 2023. After their dramatic late-July announcement that they were keeping Shohei Ohtani, and the subsequent trade with the White Sox for pitchers Lucas Giolito and Reynaldo Lopez, the proverbial wheels quickly fell off.
The Angels opened August with seven consecutive losses, and even after their win Wednesday night against the Giants — Ohtani threw six innings without allowing an earned run and scored the go-ahead run in the sixth — they’re seven games out of the third AL wild card, with the Mariners, Red Sox and Yankees ahead of them in the close-but-not-quite club.
They’re 10 1/2 out of the AL West race. Baseball-Reference puts their playoff chances at 1.2 percent. Over at FanGraphs, that number is 1.9 percent.
Want the hardest truth? The chances of Ohtani wearing an Angels uniform after the 2023 season are even lower than the club’s chances of making the postseason this year. He’ll leave as a free agent, and the only thing the Angels will get in return is a compensation pick, after the second round of next year’s draft.
If you know an Angels fan, give ’em a hug.
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It’s almost incomprehensible to think that the Angels will have had Ohtani — and Mike Trout! — for six seasons, failed to make the playoffs all six seasons (three of which, Ohtani did things we’ve never seen on the baseball field) and then, in a final blow to the franchise and fan base, he’ll leave with barely a return.
The worst part? This debacle was entirely avoidable. It didn’t have to be like this, folks. The story of the best player of the century — and an equally good, fan-friendly person — should be a tale of celebration. Instead, it’s been the opposite.
The blame rests primarily with one person, Angels owner Arte Moreno, for a never-ending series of bad decisions, half-measures and band-aid fixes that have led to this moment. The final bad decision was the choice not to trade Ohtani when it was pretty clear that a miracle would be needed for this broken club to reach the postseason. It would have hurt, sure, but the Angels could have gotten three or four young players who could have helped fix the club’s issues by saying goodbye to Ohtani at the start of August instead of the start of October.
Moreno made that decision with his heart. Too bad his heart didn’t tell him to spare no expense the previous couple seasons to build a team around Trout and Ohtani.
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Why is everyone so sure that he’s leaving as a free agent? Because Ohtani’s as smart as he is talented, and he understands why teams win and why they don’t. The idea that he would have reconsidered if somehow the Angels magically made a miracle run into the playoffs is quite honestly pretty insulting. He understands the Angels made, essentially, panic moves right before the Aug. 1 trade deadline, instead of months earlier, as they should have if they were truly committed to winning. Sure, the trade for Giolito & Lopez, and the deal for C.J. Cron and Randal Grichuk, were solid. Would have been better in June, right? Even the All-Star break.
Ohtani was watching when Arte Moreno’s Sports Illustrated interview published this spring, the one where the Angels’ owner said he wouldn’t trade Ohtani if the club was in playoff contention. And Ohtani was watching in the weeks and month after that, when Moreno’s team failed to do anything of significance to improve the club. You can bet that carried more weight in Ohtani’s decision-making process than an offseason interview full of empty promises.
Because the thing is, Ohtani didn’t just start watching this spring. He’s been paying close attention during his entire stay with the Angels, especially the past three seasons, when he’s been healthy and otherworldly. He’s seen the constant futility, the signing of potential reclamation projects and hope-for-a-rebound fliers. He’s played in more games free of even a hint of playoff implications than he cares to remember.
He’s seen his team’s record, folks. No team has a longer postseason drought.
The Angels haven’t missed the postseason because of a little bad luck or a few key injuries, or maybe just being good in the wrong year. Nothing like 2021, when the Mariners and Blue Jays both reach the 90-win plateau but missed October because it took 92 wins to earn a berth in the AL. Speaking of that, remember Seattle’s infamous playoff drought, which finally ended last season? There absolutely was a bad-timing element; in the 20 years they missed the postseason, they twice won 93 games, won 90 another time, 89 another time and 88 yet another year.
Forget about October, the Angels never even won the battle to reach the .500 mark in Othani’s first five seasons. Their best year was Ohtani’s first year, when they finished 80-82 in 2018. They wound up 23 games out of first place in the AL West and 10 games out of the final AL wild-card spot. They were 18 under .500 in 2019, 8 under in the pandemic-shortened season of 2020, 8 under again in 2021 and 16 under in 2022.
After the Ohtani-led win Wednesday, the Angels are exactly .500, at 58-58. This is their best season of the Ohtani era, and they are 10th in the American League. Yeah.
Tell me again how Moreno’s wish for a magical happening in 2023 was going to change the mind of a player who has said over and over that winning is No. 1 on his priority list.
It’s nonsense.
Ohtani is tired of losing. He wants to win.You saw him playing for Japan in the World Baseball Classic this spring, right? The joy on his face, the intensity of his performance. Striking out Trout, his Angels teammate, to seal the title for Japan is one of the most iconic baseball moments of the past decade.
There is zero chance he’s going to willingly tie himself to this same franchise of futility for the next decade. Nothing the Angels have done over the past six years has given any indication the club is ready to win consistently. And, let’s be honest, that’s probably been more evident in 2023 than ever before.
Ohtani leads all AL non-pitchers in bWAR, which is mind-boggling for a designated hitter. The highest bWAR for any player with at least 80 percent of their games at DH is 7.0, by Edgar Martinez in 1995. Ohtani’s at 5.5 in early August; only 10 designated hitters have finished an entire season higher than that.
And none of them were elite starting pitchers. Ohtani has a 3.5 bWAR on the mound, too. Oh yeah. Consider these W/L numbers ...
The Angels are 14-8 in games he starts on the mound, 44-50 when he doesn’t.
The Angels are 22-14 in games when he homers, 36-44 when he doesn’t leave the yard.
And it’s not just about the home runs. When Ohtani hits like an MVP, the Angels win. When he’s a mere mortal, they lose.
In Angels’ wins: 58 games, .348 average, 1.280 OPS, 26 homers, 54 RBIs
In Angels’ losses: 58 games, .267 average, .883 OPS, 14 homers, 29 RBIs.
Let’s stop short of calling Ohtani’s time with the Angels a complete waste. Of course, that’s too much. Ohtani has been great for baseball, and great for the Angels. He’s brought much-needed global attention to the sport. He’s captured the fascination of millions of fans around the world, many of them new fans of the sport. He’s been wonderful.
But from strictly a baseball perspective, where winning is what matters? The Angels wasted their time with Ohtani. They wasted the past three years of the best performances we’ve ever seen from a baseball player. They didn’t win with him, and they didn’t use him to help the club win in 2024 and beyond.
Seriously, find an Angels fan and do something nice for them.