Shohei Ohtani’s comments about LA Angels future are slightly worrying

Shohei Ohtani has done quite literally everything for the LA Angels.

Now, he can’t even do everything as much as he was for most of this season because his teammates can’t hit behind him in the lineup.

He’s still been the best player in baseball by far, he’s still having one of the two greatest seasons ever, and he’s still the AL MVP. It has to be incredibly frustrating to be having this historic season, and not being able to take those talents into the postseason.

Shohei Ohtani is happy, but he makes it clear that winning needs to be a priority moving forward with the LA Angels.

It’s understandable, as the LA Angels have 100% let Shohei Ohtani down this season. When asked about his long-term future with the club, Ohtani wasn’t afraid to talk about how important winning is to him.

“I really like the team,” said Ohtani. “I love the fans, I love the atmosphere of the team, but more than that, I want to win. That’s the biggest thing for me. I’ll leave it at that.”

This season, the Angels have experienced some of the most injuries in the entire Major Leagues. Franchise player Mike Trout was hurt for the last four a half months of the season, another $35 million man in Anthony Rendon out for a high majority of the year, Max Stassi taking many stints on the injured list, and $23 million outfielder Justin Upton hurt basically since late June. Alex Cobb’s injury really hurt the pitching staff as well.

The fact that Ohtani, who leads the Majors with a 7.8 fWAR, has the Angels even at 74 wins right now is even insane in itself. Again, there shouldn’t even be a world where Ohtani can have this ridiculous of a season and not make the playoffs. These injuries have made this possible.

Regardless, it’s understandably frustrating. I will add, however, that it is possible these comments were taken a bit out of context. Check this out:

Regardless, Joe Maddon and Trout have recently came out and spoken about how the team does indeed need to make changes to win.

The opportunity is there for the taking. Arte Moreno has a lot of money that he can spend this offseason. If it’s not next year for the Angels, I don’t know what year it will be.

This team needs to make the playoffs. If we can even get a Wild Card game, I like our chances of taking it with a Shohei Ohtani on our team.

Getting to an ALDS needs to be the goal for next year at a minimum. The team was already supposed to be there this year.