3 Angels who deserve the most blame for Shohei Ohtani jumping ship, joining Dodgers

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Shohei Ohtani has officially departed the Los Angeles Angels organization and will join their crosstown rivals, the Los Angeles Dodgers. Ohtani joins a loaded Dodgers team eyeing the first postseason appearance of his career.

The Angels will try and rebound from this, but that's easier said than done. This team didn't make the postseason a single time with him in the six years he was here. He took home two MVP awards in the last three seasons, and the team never won more than 77 games in those seasons. Just astonishing stuff.

The $700 million obviously played a role in Ohtani signing with the Dodgers, but the fact that Ohtani knows he's going to join a contender was what made the Dodgers the favorites all along.

With Ohtani now gone, we can blame some Angels who are most responsible for this transpiring.

3) Anthony Rendon

Anthony Rendon was signed to a mega-deal to join the Angels after he helped lead the Washington Nationals to a World Series victory in 2019. Rendon had established himself as one of, if not the best third baseman in baseball, and Billy Eppler paid him like it.

Rendon had a solid first season with the Angels in the shortened 2020 season, but everything since then has been an utter disaster.

Rendon has not played more than 58 games in any of his four seasons with the Angels. He has not topped the 50 game mark in each of the last two years. He's dealt with season-ending injuries in each of the last three years. No, injuries are not completely his fault, but the Angels are not paying him the money he's owed for him to appear in less than one third of their games.

In the rare times Rendon has actually played, he has been a subpar hitter. Sure, he's gotten on base and done well in the clutch, but Rendon has a 94 OPS+ since the start of 2021. He has objectively been below-average, which is something the Angels could've never expected this quickly.

Rendon being as much of a disappointment as he has been not only forced them to dip into their non-existent depth, but the Angels were unable to make many moves with Rendon handcuffing them financially. It's very hard to win when your most expensive player doesn't do anything positive. That's the situation the Angels were in with Rendon while Ohtani was here.

2) Perry Minasian

Billy Eppler is undoubtedly one of, if not the worst GM the Angels have had in their team history. He failed to build a winner, but he did, at the very least, sign Ohtani. Additionally, he didn't have Ohtani at his absolute best.

Minasian replaced Eppler ahead of the 2021 season. The 2021 season just so happened to be Shohei Ohtani's first MVP year. Ohtani was then the AL MVP runner-up in 2022, and won it in 2023. Three straight dominant seasons from Ohtani and nothing to show for it. The Angels never won more than 77 games.

Injuries hurt the Angels in a big way in each season, mainly to co-star Mike Trout, but Minasian never built a roster capable of winning around Shohei. That simply cannot be disputed.

The Angels went all in this past season, trading prospects and even going over the luxury tax at one point only to finish with the same record as 2022. 73-89. No, Minasian does not deserve blame for not trading Ohtani. There's no way Arte Moreno would've given him the green light to do so. He does deserve blame for the players he acquired.

The entire 2023 trade deadline will go down as one of, if not the worst in baseball history. The Angels traded away their best prospects for players who did not produce and were instantly gone. Just an absolute disaster. Minasian has done some things well, but his failures around Ohtani is what he will be remembered for.

1) Arte Moreno

There's a reason Angels fans were celebrating as if they had won the World Series when Arte Moreno announced he was going to explore a sale of the team. There's a reason Angels fans were as distraught as they had ever been once it was announced that Moreno was pulling the team off the market. His tenure as the team's owner has been an utter failure, with the Ohtani departure being the latest knock.

Fans for the last couple of years have criticized the Angels for their refusal to trade Ohtani and rebuild while the team failed to win enough. The reason why was Arte Moreno. He did not want to lose the money Ohtani generated for his team. He didn't want to spend it either.

Moreno has always been against going over the luxury tax. He's finished one season of the 20 he's owned this team over the luxury tax. That season was his first as the team's owner. It looked like the Angels were headed there for the second time this season, but the Angels wound up placing six players on waivers, losing five, and just barely skating under.

The only way this Angels team would've won anything would've been if they went crazy with their payroll, but Moreno's refusal to spend like a big market team negated that. The reason the Angels had to spend to win, is because they haven't been able to develop talent internally. The reason the Angels haven't been able to develop talent internally is because of Arte Moreno's refusal to give the Angels an adequate budget in that area. It's player payroll and nothing else, and he doesn't even go all in on the MLB payroll.

Arte Moreno has long been the worst owner in MLB, and Ohtani jumping ship only validates that statement further. The only positive that comes from Shohei leaving is it might push Moreno to finally sell the team. That's what Angels fans have to look forward to.

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3) Anthony Rendon

2) Perry Minasian

1) Arte Moreno

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