Calls for the Los Angeles Angels to trade Shohei Ohtani have been pouring in after news broke that slugger Mike Trout will miss up to two months with an injury. This time, Fox Sports weighed in.
Fox Sports columnist Ben Verlander published an article titled “Why Angels should trade Shohei Ohtani at the deadline” on July 7. Ben Verlander is the younger brother of Justin Verlander (New York Mets) and is a columnist and commentator for the outlet.
He wrote, “The time has come for the Angels to make the most painful move of any franchise in major league history. ‘The Angels are still more than five games over .500, but they went through hell around July 4. It was a few days when everything took a turn for the worst.
He’s referring to injuries to three key players, including Trout. On July 4, Trout injured his left hand while fouling off a Nick Martinez fly ball in the eighth inning against the San Diego Padres. Tests revealed a cracked metacarpal bone, located between the pinky and wrist. Rehabilitation will take a minimum of four weeks and a maximum of eight weeks. That means he’ll be out until early August at the earliest, early September at the latest.
“In my experience, injuries like that take close to two months to recover from,” said Verlander, who noted that a day later, Ohtani went off the mound in San Diego with a blister on his finger and Anthony Rendon suffered a bruised calf on a foul ball.
‘Ohtani should be fine for his first start of the second half after the All-Star break, and Rendon could return to the lineup this weekend. However, the collateral damage from these three injuries tells us what we need to do at the trade deadline. Specifically, we need to trade Ohtani.
The reason why Verlander is so adamant about trading Ohtani is simple. The Angels are unlikely to make the playoffs this year, and they can’t hold onto Ohtani, who becomes a free agent after the season.
As of today, the Angels are 45-44, in third place in the AL West, seven games behind the first-place Texas Rangers and four games behind the third wild card, the New York Yankees. It’s a gap that Verlander said can never be closed.
The Angels were 41-33 and in the second wild-card spot through Aug. 20. Their playoff chances, as updated daily by Fangraphs, were 47.3 percent at the time, the highest since mid-April at the start of the season. As of today, however, that number is down to 17.4%. That’s a one-third drop in 16 days.
That means the Angels’ power is unstable. The Angels’ late-June surge was fueled by Ohtani’s breakout performance, which earned him monthly MVP honors, as well as Trout breaking out of his slump.
“There is no substitute for a healthy Trout,” Verlander said, “and it’s becoming clear that the Angels need to be sellers as the trade deadline approaches. That means trading Ohtani,” he reiterated.
If the Angels don’t trade Ohtani at this time, they will only receive one draft pick in return in free agency later this year, and there is a very real possibility that another team will snatch him up. The Los Angeles Dodgers, New York Yankees, New York Mets, San Diego Padres, Seattle Mariners, and other rich clubs are sure to be in the mix. On top of that, the teams coveting Ohtani are not only better than the Angels, they’re also favorites to win the World Series. These teams are attractive to Ohtani, who has been quoted as saying, “I want to win.”카지노사이트
However, if the Angels were to trade Ohtani this summer, they would not only receive a number of prospects, but also a major league starter. Ohtani’s trade value. “The Angels could be trading away a lot of their future assets by moving Ohtani,” said Verlander. “Not every trade will work, but there is an example of a trade where San Diego sent James Shields to the Chicago White Sox for Fernando Tatis Jr.
Tatis Jr. was traded to San Diego in June 2016, when he was just a rookie with the White Sox, and a few years later he became one of the best hitters in the majors. The Angels could also trade Ohtani and receive a prospect with tremendous potential.
“They could sell him and be very successful, but that would be a huge disappointment for Angels fans,” said Verlander, adding that the Angels could use Ohtani as leverage and give up the remaining 73 games of the season to perfectly fill the gaps in their lineup.