It is rare that a prospect of Shohei Ohtani’s magnitude can live up to the massive hype, but that is exactly what the now 29-year-old has done. Unfortunately, he’s spent all five of his MLB seasons with the Los Angeles Angels, an organization determined to waste the prime of baseball’s unicorn.
Heading into the 2023 trade deadline, it does now seem that the rubber has met the road and the Angels will have to deal their cash cow to a serious baseball organization—or they will risk losing him for nothing in free agency this offseason for nothing.
There is no shortage of teams that have thrown their hats into the ring interest-wise, but not everyone has what it takes to land the two-way superstar. Let’s check out four contenders and 4 pretenders in the Ohtani Sweepstakes.
Contender – New York Mets
With Steve Cohen calling the shots in Queens, anything is possible. The former hedge-fund manager has taken his savage deal-making from Wall Street to the MLB hot stove and he is determined to make the Mets a perennial winner, no matter the cost.
Inking a deal to bring Ohtani to town and extending him long-term would be his magnum opus.
Pretender – Baltimore Orioles
The Orioles being in contention for the AL East crown in 2023 has been a pleasant, yet undeserved surprise—not for the fans, but for the ownership group that has done everything this side of directly sabotaging the team’s success over the past couple of seasons.
With Ohtani owed a relatively minuscule sum of $10 million for the remainder of the 2023 season, Baltimore has been linked to the Angels star, but folks are putting the cart before the horse with this one.
