Before Shohei Ohtani ever reached free agency and signed with the Los Angeles Dodgers, the question hanging over him was simple: what would a trade have cost? The answer, at least in the minds of people around the New York Mets, got pretty massive.
On October 24, 2022, SNY’s Danny Abriano laid out what he believed was the Mets’ best package for Ohtani. The timing matters. The Mets had just suffered that painful ending against the San Diego Padres in the NLWC, and in that moment, just about everybody in the organization felt available.
Abriano’s proposal was a monster by any standard. Francisco Alvarez was the one Mets prospect left out, but nearly everyone else was in play.
The headliners were three top 100 prospects: Brett Baty, ranked 18th, Kevin Parada at 37th, and Alex Ramirez at 85th. The deal also included two prospects outside the top 15.
At the time, that sort of package looked hefty. But looking back now, it reads like the kind of trade that would have tilted hard in the Mets’ favor.
Christian Scott, ranked 25th in the system then, would have been the biggest real loss for New York among that group. A number of the other names in the Mets’ top 15 - Simon Juan, Jaylen Palmer, Joel Diaz, Dom Hamel and others - haven’t done much at the big-league level and don’t appear headed there anytime soon.
For one year of Ohtani, three top 100 prospects would have felt like a serious price. That part hasn’t changed. What has changed is the view of those prospects themselves.
Baty has settled in as a so-so major leaguer trying to find his place after several seasons in the show. He’s more of a utility option now, useful in his own way, but not the kind of centerpiece you’d want to hang on to if Ohtani were the return. He’s valuable enough, but not in the same zip code as a Hall of Fame lock.
The real twist is how far Parada and Ramirez have fallen. Parada is still basically a Double-A player, even if he has somehow hit .264 in Triple-A while hitting only .228 in Double-A.
Ramirez, meanwhile, was released by the Mets after the 2025 season and then hit .277 with 46 stolen bases for the Chicago Cubs’ Double-A club in 2026. At 23, the question is whether that late bounce came from a change of scenery, a different coaching approach, or just natural growth.
That’s what makes these hypothetical trades so strange. More often than not, the prospects you swear are the heart of the deal don’t become what you expected. In a package like this, if Scott had been the only real miss for the Mets, it would have looked like an all-time robbery.
And that’s the part we’ll never get to see for real: what an actual Ohtani trade package would have looked like, because he never moved before free agency. Would the Angels have gotten enough back?
You’d think a haul with three top 100 prospects would count for something. In this version, it would have been another painfully familiar ending for the Angels.
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