We are officially less than ten days away from the August 1 MLB trade deadline. Trade rumors are generating quicker than Jhoan Duran’s fastball, with Shohei Ohtani being the winning prize.
Many around baseball want to see the two-way baseball sensation land with a different team, as the Los Angeles Angels haven’t been able to make the playoffs since the Japanese superstar joined the club back in 2018. Obviously, the Angels and their fanbase don’t feel the same way.
Heading into July, an eventual Ohtani trade seemed all but certain for the leading candidate to win his second AL MVP award. In the final year of his contract, with the Angels then fading out of the playoff picture, speculation not only began to mount, it became hard to tune out.
But now Los Angeles has won four in a row and suddenly is just four games out of the AL Wild Card picture. While there’s no way to know who will emerge in the Hunt for October, trading their best player now surely takes the Angels out of the running for good.
Hence why MLB insider Jon Morosi is now indicating that if the Angels can gain ground and even surpass the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox, Ohtani is ‘expected‘ to finish out the season with the Angels.
The World Series race often causes a lot of shifts in the market, and with the Angels still having nine games to play before the trade deadline, it only makes sense to sit and see where they stand before making the biggest decision in franchise history.