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Tungsten Arm O’Doyle be darned, the Los Angeles Angels have decided they’re going to go for it.
The Angels have not been particularly good for a significant period of time.
You have to go all the way back to 2015 to find the last time the organization finished over .500 (85-77) and one year further to find the last time it made the playoffs (98-64, swept in ALDS).
This is despite having Mike Trout, perhaps the best player of his generation. Oh, and they also added Shohei Ohtani to the mix, who is seemingly the best player in the generation to follow Trout.
In fact, Ohtani might just be the best player to have ever played the game of baseball.
Trout is no longer what he once was. But he’s still a fantastic player. And Ohtani is in the final year of his contract in LA.
The Angels currently sit at 52-49 on the season and are four games out the final AL Wild Card spot. This caused speculation that they could look to trade Ohtani before potentially (likely?) losing him for free in the offseason.
But that’s not happening.
Los Angeles doubled down on its plan to go all in on 2023 on Wednesday.
Not only did the Angels decide that they would hold on to Ohtani for the rest of the season, they also made a blockbuster move to acquire Chicago White Sox ace Lucas Giolito.
Giolito, an MLB All-Star in 2019, hasn’t been able to quite replicate that form, but he finished in the top 11 of the AL Cy Young voting in each year from 2019-2021.
To acquire Giolito, LA traded two of its top three prospects according to MLB pipeline: catcher Edgar Quero and left-hander Ky Bush. The top prospect on that list, Logan O’Hoppe, is already in the major leagues.
Who knows how the move works out for the Angels? But you can’t fault them for trying.