As Major League Baseball inches closer and closer to the dog days of summer, the talk surrounding the future of Shohei Ohtani is only going to continue to heat up. The Los Angeles Angels are currently in third place in the American League West and are on the outside looking in as far as a Wild Card spot is concerned.
With a little more than half of the season remaining, there’s still a lot of baseball left to play. But, the Angels will have a decision to make on Ohtani by the time the trade deadline rolls around, as the team seems unlikely to keep the two-way superstar beyond next season.
That begs the question: Are the Angels going to trade Ohtani?
Right now, the answer appears to be pretty obvious, especially when considering the team is right in the thick of the AL playoff race. So, while the bundle of prospects that the Angels would receive for Ohtani would be enticing, it looks as if they’re ready to push in all their chips to the middle of the table, further kicking that can down the road.
Still, with the trade deadline nearly a month away, those in the world of Major League Baseball have to draw intrigue somewhere. And that seems to include trade proposals that would send Ohtani elsewhere. Well, MLB Network’s Bo Porter, the former Houston Astros manager, cooked up a proposal of his own that has drawn quite a reaction on social media.
Porter is proposing that the Angels trade Ohtani, along with three other big leaguers—Anthony Rendon, Hunter Renfroe and Chris Devenski—to the New York Mets in exchange for an insane trade package. In this proposed deal, Los Angeles would acquire Bretty Baty, Eduardo Escobar, Starling Marte and Tylor Megill, as well as Ronny Mauricio, Kevin Parada, Blade Tidwell and Dominic Hamel, who are all top prospects in the team’s farm system.
Needless to say, those in the world of Major League Baseball shared their thoughts on social media:
This stuff just cracks me up. People want Ohtani out of Anaheim in the worst way.
Yes, let’s make an insanely unrealistic trade package for a team in the playoff picture to trade away their best player and have him go to a team 7 games out of a playoff spot. https://t.co/QrwkjNc3aX
— MattMooreFan1973 (Not 1st Place AL West) (@TheAngelsBlow) June 23, 2023
[John Frascella on Twitter]