2023 MLB trade deadline: Did the Los Angeles Angels do enough to win with Shohei Ohtani?

Nobody had higher stakes at the MLB trade deadline than the Los Angeles Angels. With Shohei Ohtani set to hit free agency at season’s end and stating a desire to win, the Angels decided to keep him and try to deliver his first postseason appearance. In other words, this is the going-for-it-iest going-for-it situation you’ve ever seen.

As the dust settles from the 2023 deadline, is this team better positioned to take Ohtani and Mike Trout (currently on the injured list) to the clearly-not-promised land of the postseason?

At this juncture, the 2023 Angels are 56-51, which comes out to .523 baseball. To get to 86 wins, which was the lowest bar for making the playoff field last year, they would indeed need to improve — that would require .545 baseball (30-25) the rest of the way.

So let’s assess how general manager Perry Minasian did on his mission to break the Angels’ depressing pattern. Will it be enough?

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The pitching: Lucas Giolito, Reynaldo López join the staff

The pitching staff remains the biggest question. With Ohtani doing his best work on the hitting side this season, the club has struggled to stay above average in the run-prevention realm. Considering that it took two of the Angels’ top three prospects to land Giolito and López from the Chicago White Sox, quibbles might be pointless.

Forced to lean on his slider more, Giolito (3.85 ERA this season, 4.44 ERA since the start of 2022) hasn’t quite returned to the consistency of his 2019-21 performance. Unless there’s a tweak on the horizon, he mostly fits in with a pack of starters hovering around average; Chase Silseth, Patrick Sandoval, Reid Detmers and Griffin Canning all have park-adjusted ERA- marks between 92 and 103, with 100 denoting average.

In a lot of ways, that’s great. Giolito offers further insurance against injury and provides at least some upside, having shown more not too long ago. In other ways, it’s more of the same for an Angels team that has never found a true ace or No. 2 to go with Ohtani, famously missing out on Gerrit Cole and failing to help any lesser-pedigreed pitchers take the leap to stardom.

Perhaps a deal was just not going to come together, but Jordan Montgomery, whom the rival Texas Rangers acquired from the St. Louis Cardinals, has been a more solid option than Giolito recently, with a 3.46 ERA (87 ERA-) since the start of 2022. And no one with the Angels is going to look forward to facing fellow Rangers acquisition Max Scherzer or Justin Verlander as he returns to the Houston Astros.

López throws very hard and fits the Angels’ bullpen ethos — too many walks for comfort but mostly OK. He fired 11 innings in July without allowing a run, so perhaps the Angels have captured a hot hand for the stretch run.

Is it better? Sure.

Is it significantly better? Mmmm, not really.

The hitting: C.J. Cron, Randal Grichuk return to the club

Injuries keep tripping up what has been an overall productive Angels offense. As you might expect, given … the entire recent history of the franchise ... it can be a bit top-heavy. Ohtani is batting .305/.407/.680, good for a 187 wRC+ (meaning he has been 87% better than a league-average hitter). Trout, before going down with a wrist injury, had a 136 wRC+.

The rest of the crew has been a mix-and-match of young players hurried to the major-league front lines and journeyman veterans taking at-bats. Former No. 1 draft pick Mickey Moniak has been a big pleasant surprise, but injuries (Logan O’Hoppe, Anthony Rendon, now Taylor Ward) and ineffectiveness (Jared Walsh, Eduardo Escobar) have kept the Angels in need of help on the margins.

To answer that bell, they went back to two former Angels. Cron, whom the Angels drafted in the first round in 2011, played with the club from 2014 to '17. He has tapped into more power since departing — not just because of Colorado — and should solidify a first-base spot that has been a drag for the Angels, running a .236/.287/.392 line. Grichuk provides cover for the Ward injury, mashes lefties and can stand in center field until Trout returns if need be.

In tandem with earlier trade acquisition Mike Moustakas, Cron and Grichuk spread a basic level of major-league ability across some positions that had been lacking, a necessity Minasian has repeatedly worked to address. It’s also worth noting that Minasian jumped to get both of these guys from the Colorado Rockies a bit before the frenzy, which looked especially smart once the hitting market largely dried up, thanks to the Chicago Cubs and others deciding to buy instead of sell.

Is it better? Yes.

Is it significantly better? Actually, yes. Lengthening the lineup could be a major factor in playing up the strengths of this team.

The competition: How the Angels’ haul stacks up

The endeavor to lift Ohtani into the October spotlight isn’t happening in a vacuum. It’s not just about the Angels improving; it’s also about how they compare to their foes in the AL wild-card hunt. The Angels are one of seven teams vying for essentially three spots.

With the Baltimore Orioles and Tampa Bay Rays significantly ahead of the pack, they will battle over the AL East and the top wild-card spot. The Minnesota Twins wouldn’t be in this picture at all except for the fact that the AL Central has to have a postseason representative — sorry, I know, those are the rules — but that absorbs another postseason ticket. So it’s the AL West, which the Angels have a very remote chance of winning (4.1%, per FanGraphs), and the more realistic second and third AL wild cards.

Currently, the Texas Rangers sit first in the AL West, and the Houston Astros and Toronto Blue Jays have the two playoff spots that are really up for grabs. The Boston Red Sox are 2.5 games behind Toronto in the wild-card picture, and the Angels are next, three games back of the Blue Jays. The Seattle Mariners and New York Yankees are a half-game behind the Angels.

There are two important things to know: Did those teams get better? And which of those teams do the Angels play the rest of the way?

Good news for Ohtani fans: Seattle and New York had very wishy-washy deadlines. The Mariners sold off closer Paul Sewald for three young hitters who are far from sure things. In the short timeframe of the rest of the season, moving a single relief pitcher shouldn’t necessarily diminish the Mariners all that much, but they essentially declined to make significant improvements one year after ending their postseason drought.

The Boston Red Sox stood pat, as they seem to love doing. They swapped a minor-leaguer for struggling infielder Luis Urias, who was promptly optioned to the minors himself.

The development that might help the Angels’ chances isn’t something anyone was rooting for: Blue Jays star Bo Bichette left Monday’s game due to a knee injury that puts his status in doubt and could take a bite out of the Toronto lineup.

Worse news: The Rangers and Astros were aggressive in upgrading their pitching. Giolito is useful but pales in comparison to the Astros’ deal for Justin Verlander or the Rangers’ moves to get Montgomery and Scherzer — more significant reinforcements that project to keep the Texas teams a cut above.

As for the schedule, the Angels will get their shot at the league’s best, which might not be a great thing. They play the Rangers six more times, including three times on the road during a circle-it-on-the-calendar trip that also takes them to Houston for three games. They have three games coming against the AL East-leading Baltimore Orioles and six against the similarly excellent Tampa Bay Rays.

On the flip side, the Angels have seven games against the Mariners and six against the Oakland A’s that will loom as key opportunities to pick up wins.

Overall, FanGraphs currently projects the Angels to have the toughest remaining schedule in the AL, though those margins are admittedly small and fluid.

Is it better? In this case, I’m asking if the Angels’ situation is better. Against all odds, yes, it seems they came out of the deadline with a pretty ideal mix of uninspiring and nonthreatening behavior from their main competitors.

Is it significantly better? Probably not. The Angels are still going to run headlong into the Astros and Rangers, teams they don’t necessarily need to overtake but do need to win against. There are plenty of more complete teams than theirs, as there have been relentlessly for the past decade. The Angels’ chances of vaulting over a couple of them to get that breakthrough playoff appearance probably improved only slightly at the deadline, and that came mostly from rolling the dice at staying in the race — not actively changing their fortunes.