Commentary: While Angels went all-in to impress Shohei Ohtani, Mariners played trade deadline smart

SEATTLE – Their records, at this point in the season, couldn’t be any closer.

The Mariners sit at 56-52, six back in the American League West standings and 3½ out of the final AL wild-card spot. The Angels are 56-53, 6½ games back in the AL West and four out of the wild card.

And yet these division rivals, who will play four games in Anaheim from Thursday through Sunday, took immensely different approaches to the trade deadline. Who do you think did it right?

The Mariners’ moves, for instance, had all the flavor of cucumber water. They dealt a solid-but-not-stratospheric closer in Paul Sewald to Arizona for an MIA bat (Jorge Rojas) and a kid who’s played 17 MLB games (Dominic Canzone) and prospect Ryan Bliss, then sent struggling outfielder AJ Pollock to the Giants and various minor leaguers to various teams.

The needle barely moved … but no members of the Mariners’ prized young core departed.

The Angels put all their chips in to try and woo their ace, or king, or jack (of all trades), or whatever you want to call him. Soon-to-be free agent Shohei Ohtani is perhaps the greatest baseball talent in history and is in the midst of what may end up being the most productive season since the color barrier was broken.

So the Halos loaded up in an attempt to win the pennant and woo the Japanese pitcher/designated hitter – mortgaging prospects galore for position players such as Eduardo Escobar, Mike Moustakas, C.J. Cron and Randal Grichuk along with pitchers Lucas Giolito, Reynaldo López and Dominic Leone – all of whom are set to be free agents at the end of the season.

Depending on your interpretation, you could call the short-term haul a necessary plan of attack to try and cash in on what might be Ohtani’s last year with the Angels – or a desperate act with a high probability of failure that could set the organization back for years. The Halos have lost their past two games, after all, and FanGraphs.com has their odds of making the playoffs at 12%.

I suppose one can laud Angels owner Arte Moreno and general manager Perry Minasian for giving it one last home-run swing by taking Ohtani off the trade market and surrounding him with more win-now talent. But as for the initial question about which of the two teams did it right at the deadline? I have to go with the Mariners on this one.

Now, “at the deadline” are the operative words here, because the Mariners have missed on plenty of moves before that point. This team has made the playoffs just once in the eight-year era featuring John Stanton as chairman, Jerry Dipoto as GM/president of baseball operations and Scott Servais as manager. The inability to nab a bat last offseason has nagged at the M’s all year – as have health issues, a step back by reigning Rookie of the Year Julio Rodriguez, and lackluster performances from 2023 add-ons such as Kolten Wong, Teoscar Hernandez and Pollock.

But if there was any temptation to “make a statement” to the fan base by going all-in at the deadline, it’s good that the Mariners’ brass resisted it.

As we’re seeing now, the M’s still have a decent chance to make the playoffs despite FanGraphs listing their odds at 17.5%. They have won four consecutive series, have one of the stronger starting-pitching rotations in baseball and still have upper-tier depth in the bullpen.

It’s perfectly understandable for Mariners fans to be frustrated about what’s transpired this season and be apprehensive about the future. But I also predict an out-of-the-playoffs finish for the Angels will serve as a warning for teams not to get overly emotional when the end of July rolls around each year.

To be sure, Ohtani is the reason these teams took different tacks. I mentioned to Servais that Shohei – whose WAR of 7.9 is about 50% better than anyone else in MLB – might be having the best season in 75 years.

“Seventy-five years? Probably more than that,” said the skipper. “He’s a special player. We’re going to see too much of him the next four days.”

Most fans would say you can never see enough of that guy. But you still have to consider the future. The Mariners aren’t better now than they were a week ago, but they still have a chance to be better in years to come.