Yankees legend Alex Rodriguez has new Ohtani trade strategy for Angels

Yankees legend Alex Rodriguez has taken it on the chin from former teammates. Now, he’s bracing himself for some blowback from fans.

Appearing alongside David Ortiz and Derek Jeter on Fox Sports’ pre-coverage of the Home Run Derby on Monday, the three-time AL MVP threw his hat in with those who think Shohei Ohtani should be traded. He even went a step further, saying they need to do that and more.

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“I think the Angels win a championship in five years, if they do this,” Rodriguez said. “First, you trade Ohtani. Then, you trade (Mike) Trout and you try to get five or six players, you load up with first rounders and the next thing that you have to do is bring in a guy like Theo Epstein, give him ownership and let him run the shop.”

The Angels, who have just one postseason appearance in 14 years, entered the All-Star break having lost five consecutive games. They’re 1-9 in their last 10 games and have fallen to fourth place in the AL West.

The move would certainly aid in strengthening a weak farm system - the Angels system currently ranks 28th in MLB. Just two of their prospects have cracked the top 100 MLB prospects list, Logan O’Hoppe (30) and Edgar Quero (68).

At the same time, moves of this magnitude are rare and are followed by even more years of irrelevancy before yielding real results. It took the Red Sox 84 years to recover from trading Babe Ruth to the Yankees. Rodriguez should know, he was there.

For former Yankees teammate and co-host, Jeter, trading Ohtani is easier said than done.

“If you do it, I understand it. We talked about the Hershel Walker trade, but you can’t get that wrong,” he said. “If you do it you can’t get it wrong. So we’ll see over the next couple of weeks, but you also don’t want to be known as the owner that traded Ohtani.”

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The MLB trade deadline is on August 1st. We’ll see if Rodriguez is right soon enough.