The Angels’ general manager never snapped as he explained, repeatedly, that Ohtani and his representatives said they didn’t think he needed imaging before that. It was just a finger cramp, after all. And besides, he explained, this UCL tear is in a different place than his previous one. The symptoms weren’t the same, so they didn’t see it coming.
But Minasian might as well have been screaming from behind that fortress of joviality because every word he said — and the fact that he called a mini news conference just to say them — was intended to make one thing clear: The Angels could not have done anything differently with the most treasured star this sport has had in years. He broke. They did not break him.
“Maybe now I can go to Japan,” Minasian said with half a laugh when the cameras lowered and the mics pulled away. He joked with a few Japanese reporters that he might need a bodyguard to do it. Having Ohtani on his roster is a blessing. Having Ohtani, failing to build a roster that could get him to the postseason before he hit free agency, gutting the farm system at the trade deadline in a last-ditch attempt to do it, then watching him tear his UCL with the team plummeting out of contention anyway — well, who could blame Minasian for wondering whether his team is cursed?
“It’s a relationship of trust, right? The player and I, we’ve done it for three years. I believe he’s had three pretty good seasons doing it the way we did it. I personally have zero regrets,” Minasian said. “It happens. There’s injuries that happen in baseball. This is an unfortunate one that is obviously tough for us, tough for him and tough for the game.”
The funny thing about Minasian answering all these questions and handling all the scrutiny is that the man sweating in front of the cameras seems to have little say about what happens to Ohtani now. That power lies with the 29-year-old who leaned back in his chair in the visiting clubhouse Sunday morning, staring at an iPad, uninterrupted by anyone because no one approaches Ohtani without the people around him approving it first.
Those people — such as agent Nez Balelo, interpreter Ippei Mizuhara and the rest of his small inner circle — are in charge of handling his injury plans from here, Minasian said. They are in charge of how to secure a second opinion on the UCL tear. They will decide whether he needs Tommy John surgery and, if so, when he will have it. And Minasian made clear that Ohtani’s people will dictate whether he plays out the rest of what might be his final Angels season or decides to end it sooner with surgery. That is how Ohtani ended up serving as the designated hitter in the second game of a doubleheader mere minutes after he learned about the tear.
“He was motivated to play,” Minasian said.
Given that he has hit in every Angels game since, Ohtani seems to want to continue playing. What isn’t clear is how long he plans to keep that up — and the ramifications of his decision are substantial.
If he needs surgery — and almost every UCL tear eventually does — Ohtani could be hitting a few months afterward. He hit during the 2019 season, even though he was not able to pitch after having Tommy John surgery in October 2018. Philadelphia Phillies slugger Bryce Harper recently returned to their lineup 160 days after Tommy John, but his healing process was remarkably quick. Ohtani will be undergoing his second Tommy John procedure and will need to rehab with an eye toward pitching again, so he might not be able to duplicate Harper’s timeline. Say Ohtani needs 180 days from surgery before he can hit again — best-case scenario. Then do the math.
If Ohtani decides to play the rest of this season, to stick around and add to his MLB-leading 44 homers despite the Angels sitting 10½ games out of a wild-card spot with 31 to play, the soonest he could get surgery would be the first week of October. If he needs six months before he can hit, he could return as soon as May, maybe even April. But if he has surgery now or in the next few weeks, he could be in position to hit closer to Opening Day.
So if Ohtani waits, then signs with a new team as a free agent, that team might get a month or two less of his bat in its lineup than if he were to get the surgery right away. Would Ohtani rather play meaningless games now or play potentially meaningful games for a new team sooner? And does his decision offer insight into whether he plans to stay or go?
People around the Angels say Ohtani just wants to play. Playing baseball is what he does. Maybe his calculations are simple as this: He can still play, so he will.
But Ohtani is firmly in control — in this case of information about his intentions and priorities. He has not spoken publicly since the injury, so he has not offered any insights into his thought process. He rarely does, leaving endless room for speculation and parsing of his every move and word. Even Minasian regularly defers to Ohtani, saying the question of why he has decided to play through the injury is one better asked of him.
“It’s his decision to play,” Minasian said Saturday. “And we’ll support him.”
Minasian also said that while he speaks to Balelo and Ohtani regularly, he is operating under the assumption that Ohtani plans to continue playing “for the foreseeable future” — until Ohtani tells the team he is not playing anymore. The Angels initially wooed Ohtani with the promise that they would let him pitch and hit, that he could do what he wanted when other teams wanted more control. They are not going to yank back the reins now, mere weeks before Ohtani decides whether he will re-sign with them.
If Ohtani needed a playoff run to convince him to stay, he is not playing for that now. Mike Trout went back on the injured list last week after struggling with pain in his broken hand just one game after his initial return. Anthony Rendon is rehabbing an injury with no clear indication of when he will come back. Multiple trade deadline deals couldn’t make the Angels good enough to overcome those absences, though they haven’t won with everyone healthy, either. Again, the pieces did not click. Again, the Angels are left playing out a season as the traveling entourage of a reluctant one-man show. What happens next with that man’s right arm and his career is now out of their hands.
