Report: Ohtani off trade market, Angels to buy at deadline
Shohei Ohtani is staying put, and his Los Angeles Angels will look to add - not subtract - ahead of the trade deadline Tuesday, reports Sports Illustrated's Tom Verducci.
L.A. listened to several offers for the two-way superstar and discussed his future internally over the last two days before opting to pull the pending free agent from the market, Verducci adds.
"(Owner Arte Moreno) is committed to making a run this season, along with having Angels fans see Ohtani through September and hopefully into October," a team source told SoCal News Group's Jeff Fletcher. "The best way to try to make the postseason is through addition, not subtraction."
The club began play Wednesday sitting four games back of a wild-card spot and 6.5 games behind the first-place Texas Rangers in the American League West. The Angels, who are 52-49 this season, saw their contest against the Detroit Tigers rained out Wednesday.
The Angels fell to 46-48 on July 16 after blowing a ninth-inning lead in a loss to the Houston Astros. That prompted inquiries from other clubs about Ohtani's availability, but the talks didn't progress far and L.A. has since won six of seven games to vault back into the wild-card race.
Ohtani came into Wednesday leading the majors in home runs (36), slugging percentage (.668), and OPS (1.066), with an average of .299 and an on-base percentage of .398. On the mound, the 29-year-old is 8-5 with a 3.71 ERA, a 1.12 WHIP, 148 strikeouts, and 47 walks over 111 2/3 innings across 19 starts in 2023.
Fellow Angels star Mike Trout has been out since early July with a broken hamate bone but is expected back in mid-August.
The Angels haven't made the playoffs since 2014. They're tied with the Tigers for the longest current postseason drought.