All season long the talk surrounding the Los Angeles Angels has been about Shohei Ohtani’s impending free agency this winter, and how if the club hopes to re-sign him during the off-season then they’ll have to at the very least make the postseason. The front office has certainly tried pulling out all of the stops during the season, but barring an actual miracle, the Angels will not be postseason bound for the ninth straight season. They are currently 12.5 back in the AL wild card.
Despite building up the club’s depth over the winter, calling up top-100 prospect Zach Neto in the middle of April, and making some win-now trades over the course of the season when injuries arose, the Angels are out of contention following a sweep at the hands of the Oakland Athletics over the weekend, dropping the Halos to 64-73 on the year.
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At the end of a rough month of August in which they went just 8-19, the team placed a number of their win now additions on waivers in the hope of sneaking below the Competitive Balance Tax, with five of the six players being claimed. Those players landing elsewhere may not have been enough to get the Angels under the $233 million CBT, but there is a chance that their placement of Max Stassi on the restricted list may have done the trick.
With Ohtani potentially out the door, and Mike Trout telling reporters, “There are going to be some conversations in the winter, for sure. Just to see the direction of everything and what the plan is,” there could be a huge overhaul of the Angels roster this winter.
Ohtani in the clubhouse
Shohei Ohtani doesn’t talk to the media unless he wants to, so not much is known about what he desires in a team heading into his free agent offseason. Most people expect that he wants to win. When he was debating over where to sign initially, he preferred the west coast. Does that still ring true? Could the Angels somehow convince him to stick around? This winter is going to be filled with rumors claiming to have answers to all of these questions, but the only person who has the answers is Ohtani himself.
Before Friday’s game in Oakland, Ohtani was sitting in front of his locker laughing with teammates. This was the day after the waiver wire frenzy that had dominated the headlines. The clubhouse vibes were good; not at all what you’d expect for a team that has fallen out of the playoff picture and that could be in line to lose a generational talent (or two) this winter.
Ohtani seemed comfortable, and that is something other teams can promise, but the Angels have shown a willingness to let him call his own shots in regards to his career. If he wants to get Tommy John and continue pitching in 2025, they’d be on board. If he wants to skip the surgery and stick to hitting, the franchise would likely sign up for that Ohtani too. They will do anything they can to retain him, and they have shown that this season.
It wouldn’t be outside the realm of possibility for the Angels to offer him the most money, and this is pure speculation, but also an ownership stake in the team or some other similar incentive in order to sign on the dotted line. The Angels know how special Ohtani is and how much money he brings in. Without him, the team’s finances will take a big hit, so it should be expected that they’ll do everything they can to retain him.
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Angels GM Perry Minasian
In two trips to Oakland this season, GM Perry Minasian has been on the field pre-game and has seemed rather accessible to the media. This is not common practice for General Managers around the game. Before Friday’s game he felt that it was important to talk to the media about the waiver wire frenzy that had occurred the day before.
“This is the way it goes when you’re not playing well. We took a look at where we’re at and we felt like this was the best way to go.” Minasian mentioned that there was a financial aspect to placing players on waivers, but that the team also wanted to give some of the younger guys like Kyren Paris an opportunity to see what he can do.
Whether or not the moves Minasian made over the off-season and the trades he made during the regular season were the right ones is going to be hotly debated for months to come. That said, he has been operating with two seemingly intertwined goals: Make the playoffs and keep Shohei Ohtani. The former is a losing proposition, but could his aggressiveness over the past year end up persuading Ohtani to sign on long term by showing that they’re serious about fielding a competitive team?
Say what you will about the moves that were made, but Minasian has done a good job of addressing two of the team’s biggest issues since he took the GM job in 2020 by targeting more pitching for this club and attempting to build up their depth. Signing someone like Carlos Estévez in free agency and making him the team’s closer was a shrewd move. Estévez has 29 saves on the year, fourth-most in the American League, and he was one of the Angels’ three All-Stars along with Mike Trout and Shohei Ohtani. He was the team’s first All-Star pitcher since Hector Santiago in 2015, three years before Ohtani joined the club.
The Angels will be a fascinating team to follow this off-season with Ohtani on the open market, and if they don’t end up re-signing him, how Perry Minasian goes about building his roster for 2024.
The Future is Now?
While trying to keep Ohtani around past this season, the Angels have been aggressive with their minor league promotions. Neto, who was drafted 13th overall in 2022, debuted in the middle of April after 37 minor league games–none of them at Triple-A. Just in case that rise through the ranks wasn’t quick enough, they also called up their first round selection from this year’s Draft, Nolan Schanuel, after 22 games total. Just 17 of them were at Double-A. They also called up 21-year-old Kyren Paris before this weekend’s action, who was selected in the second round of the 2019 Draft.
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In 67 games, Neto hit .247 with a .315 OBP and a 98 wRC+ (100 is league average). He missed a month due to a left oblique strain, and is currently on the IL with lower back inflammation. In 12 games, Schanuel has hit .273 with a .429 OBP, ten walks, six strikeouts, and a 118 wRC+. Paris got his first big-league hit on Saturday afternoon against fellow East Bay native Paul Blackburn, going 1-for-7 over the weekend with three walks and a hit by pitch.
Minasian said that they called up some young players to try to make the team better, but it didn’t necessarily go as planned. “That’s baseball. You’re gonna have some good days, you’re gonna have some bad. This is a really good group and they’re gonna keep fighting.”
Will these players be in the big leagues next season with or without Ohtani, or will they be back in the minors next year for some extra development as the teams builds for the future? There are so many questions swirling around the Angels right now, and we won’t have any idea which direction the club is headed until Ohtani makes his decision.