Baseball is a business run largely by analytics, and the numbers are undoubtedly stacked against the Angels. According to Fangraphs.com, the odds of Arte Moreno's team making the playoffs this year are about 1 in 6, 16.8%. The Angels are 3½ games behind the Toronto Blue Jays in the running for the last wild-card spot, with the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees also in their way.
And yet, the Angels are going all-in, and if you're inside the team's bubble, sources indicate, the context for their choices this week feels very different. The Angels emerged from the All-Star break with a burst of success, seven wins in the first 10 games, including a sweep of the Yankees in Anaheim that seems to have had the effect of liquid courage. With the days ticking down to the trade deadline this week, Angels owner Arte Moreno told his general manager, Perry Minasian, that Shohei Ohtani would not be available for a trade -- and Minasian, apparently believing that it made no sense to maintain a roster status quo around Ohtani, decided to double down on the choice to keep him.
If the Angels don't make the playoffs, and if they don't re-sign Ohtani when he reaches free agency, Moreno will be convicted in industry circles of making Neanderthal mistakes that could set the team back years. Anybody working in the Angels organization almost certainly knows this. But Moreno decided that this year he wants to win -- and, moreover, that this is the path the Angels believe they must take if they're to have any shot of retaining the most unique, talented and marketable player in the league.
There is a belief in the organization that trading Ohtani now would end any chance that a player who has demonstrated a distinct preference for predictable structure could return to the only major league organization he knows, a place where everybody understands his habits and his needs and wants, a place where he enjoys a whole lot of, well, Ohtan-omy.
But to make the best case for that, the Angels also need to win. So under Moreno's orders, Minasian charged the market. He swapped two of the Angels' best prospects for veteran Lucas Giolito, a starting pitcher who can help stabilize a rotation that has sometimes been shaky around Ohtani's days on the mound. (Less than 24 hours later, Ohtani solidified his own standing with a one-hit shutout against the Detroit Tigers.) There probably will be more deals to come to help plug holes created by a rash of infielder injuries, and soon enough, Mike Trout will return from his hamate fracture.
In making the Giolito deal, Moreno grew his payroll beyond baseball's luxury tax threshold for the first time in his long tenure as Angels owner -- a surprising development that could be a sign of things to come. Before now, the perception of Moreno among other owners and player agents was someone who steadfastly painted within systematic boundaries. He'd given big deals to superstars before, from Albert Pujols to Josh Hamilton to Trout, but he would not pay extra to compete. But now he has, perhaps a tell to Ohtani that the offer he's going to get from the Angels could go way beyond his expectation.
Moreno doesn't know exactly what Ohtani wants or what he prefers, whether it's a consistent opportunity to contend for championships, or money, or warm weather or a locker near Trout's. But Moreno knows this: He might have a built-in advantage among possible Ohtani suitors because Ohtani already knows how he'll be treated by the Angels (very well) and what will be expected of him beyond his baseball production (very little).
He knows where he'll live and how many minutes it takes to walk to the Big A, and he's refined his routine in Anaheim. He knows he can talk to reporters as little or as much as he wants, engaging the media far less than Aaron Judge, Mookie Betts or Francisco Lindor do in other markets. He knows the Angels don't make a habit of asking him to go on display for sponsors or to make time for a minority owner's grand-nephew. "None of that sort of thing," said one source familiar with the rhythm of Ohtani's days.
Ohtani is a master of ingrained habits, and the Angels let him prepare to pitch the way he wants, take as many or as few swings as he prefers, and essentially dictate when he'll be available to pitch or to serve as the DH. They have learned to trust his instincts and listen to his lineup preferences. Ohtani doesn't actually know what the Dodgers, Giants, Padres, Mets or Yankees would expect of him. He doesn't know how the simple professional life that he apparently prefers would fit into the markets of L.A. or New York. He is accustomed to setting the terms in Anaheim, and the Angels are fine with that, too.
If the last piece of the puzzle is that the Angels win with him, now they will attempt to do so with a roster augmented by aggressive moves. Moreno is taking his last shot to keep Ohtani forever, just as one ownership source predicted last week, an effort to convince the player that the Angels are not a competitive sinkhole. These are flowers and candy disguised as a starting pitcher (Giolito) and a relief pitcher (Reynaldo Lopez).
The baseball analysis screams that the Angels should have traded Ohtani -- many front office types believe that, by the numbers, they should've offloaded him last summer for a talent package that could've turned around Moreno's franchise. Instead, at a time when almost all teams defer to statistical navigation systems, the choice for the Angels to go all-in now seems to outsiders as either foolishly brave or terribly foolhardy.
But Moreno's goal isn't only to earn a playoff spot. It's also to win over the best player in the universe.