Angels' failed Shohei Ohtani trade would have made life miserable for the Mariners

Even given the playoff berths of 2022 and 2025, Shohei Ohtani leaving the AL West is one of the best things to happen to the Seattle Mariners in the last decade. He was a menace against Seattle between 2018 and 2023, homering 17 times as a hitter and posting a 1.87 ERA as a pitcher. Six years of that was enough.

Still, just imagine if six years of that had resulted in at least six more subsequent years of Junior Caminero.

It could have happened. As Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic tells the tale, the Los Angeles Angels seriously discussed trading Ohtani to the Tampa Bay Rays in 2023. The return would have been infielders Junior Caminero and Carson Williams, both of whom were among MLB's top prospects at the time.

What actually happened is an all-too-familiar case of the Angels playing themselves. Owner Arte Moreno refused to trade Ohtani, only to watch him leave for the Los Angeles Dodgers as a free agent months later. Moreno reportedly underestimated Ohtani's value, because of course he did.

Junior Caminero in the AL West? That would have been very bad for the Mariners.

Honestly, the compelling "What if?" here isn't what the 2023 Rays would have done with Ohtani.

It would have been a union between an eventual 99-win team and a guy who was about to win his second AL MVP, but that was the year Ohtani had to shut it down early because of oblique and elbow injuries. He didn't pitch after August 23 or play at all after September 3.

Now, Junior Caminero as an Angel. There's the scary part.

After some fits and starts in 2023 and 2024, he's now firmly established as one of the best sluggers in MLB. He's hit 58 home runs since the start of last season, the fifth-most of any hitter and almost as many as Ohtani himself (63). And Caminero is still only 22 years old.

Ever seen his numbers against the Mariners? They're rough. Albeit over just a nine-game sample, we're talking a .417 average, three home runs, three doubles and 12 runs batted in. The Rays are only 4-5 against Seattle in these games, but Caminero was very much front and center in a sweep of the Mariners last September. He drove in eight runs in three games.

Granted, the Angels would still be the Angels' resident joke even if they had landed Caminero in 2023. Having him and Zach Neto sharing the left side of the infield would at least give their fans something to root for. But at 17-33 this season, the Angels are simply in too deep into an era of incompetence that has left them out of the playoffs every year since 2014.

Still, you have to take your blessings where you can find them. And for the Mariners, that Caminero is not a guy they have to see 13 times a year is a big one.

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