There is one question that looms above all others as Major League Baseball approaches its trade deadline on August 1: What is going to happen to Los Angeles Angels star Shohei Ohtani? The best baseball player on the planet has been dominant on the mound and is having his best year yet at the plate, all while staring down free agency this summer where he’s expected to get the most lucrative contract from someone in the sport’s history.
In the midst of all of this, the Angels are 45-46, which puts them in fourth place and seven games back of the Texas Rangers in the AL West. Their prospects of a Wild Card berth aren’t much better, as they’re five games out after going 1-9 in the 10 games prior to the All-Star Break. Keeping him, making a playoff push, and hoping to convince him to re-sign this offseason would make sense, but according to Jon Morosi of MLB Network, the Angels aren’t going to dismiss the possibility of a trade without listening to what’s out there.
“As I reported on @mlb Network this morning, sources tell me the Angels front office will consider incoming trade inquiries for Shohei Ohtani,” Morosi wrote on his Threads account. “The club is not ruling out the possibility of a deadline deal, even though the standard to move Ohtani is extraordinarily high.”
Morosi did make it a point to note that a trade is “viewed as unlikely,” and that things could change based on how the Angels start the second half of the MLB calendar — Los Angeles has a 9-game homestand that runs from July 14-23 with three matchups against each of the Houston Astros, New York Yankees, and Pittsburgh Pirates. Earlier this week, Buster Olney of ESPN said that teams like the Texas Rangers and Tampa Bay Rays would be interested in acquiring Ohtani in a trade, but called the Yankees “potentially” the “most motivated.”
Source: https://uproxx.com/sports/angels-consider-trade-inquiries-shohei-ohtani-mlb-rumors/
