Shohei Ohtani Just Put on a Free Agency Master Class

The best baseball player on planet Earth has finally made a decision. Shohei Ohtani is a Los Angeles Dodger.

Shohei Ohtani’s $700 million contract calls for him to be paid only $2 million a year for the next 10 seasons, with $680 million deferred until the end of the deal, sources confirm to ESPN.

The CBT hit on the contract is going to be around $46 million, a huge discount for L.A.

— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) December 11, 2023

Shohei Ohtani agreed to an insane contract where he essentially gets paid a billion dollars long after he retires. Either way, the Dodgers are giving this man $700 million to play baseball.

But it was the way Shohei forced LA to come up with this crazy contract that deserves a deeper dive.

How did Shohei Ohtani finesse the Dodgers AND the Blue Jays?

Shohei Ohtani was never going to play for the Toronto Blue Jays.

His mind was set on staying in Los Angeles from day one.

He and his team used Toronto to leverage a few extra millions out of the Dodgers and it worked.

First, they warned teams not to leak out their meetings. He threatened to refuse signing with any team that spoke to the media about their meeting.

Over the weekend, it was reported that Ohtani was on the way to Toronto and it was essentially over.

Ohtani was a Blue Jay.

But it gets nastier.

Here’s a deleted tweet from a burner account linked to Ohtani’s talent agency.

It looks like Ohtani’s team faked a plane trip to Toronto, it got picked up by MLB media and then Ohtani used the agreed-upon silence with these teams to stop people within the Blue Jays organization from telling reporters they had no idea if Ohtani was actually on his way or not.

Jon Morosi is a reporter for MLB Network.

He reported that Ohtani was flying to Toronto implying he was going to sign there.

Morosi would eventually have to apologize for this tweet. He was fed bad information. I imagine from Ohtani.

Ohtani then used this incident to trick the Dodgers into sending over a dramatic 10-year $700 million contract and Shohei signed that shit as soon as he could.

Shohei comes off as an ‘aw shucks’ foreigner who just wants to smile and quietly play a children’s game when he’s actually a shark who understands the power of his brand and how invisible he would become if he played in Toronto.

Like, I promise you this man didn’t come to America to end up in Canada.

I apologize to Ohtani. I was not familiar with his game.

What’s next for Toronto?

As a Yankees fan, I’m excited to not have Ohtani come to town every month to beat our ass but it still sucks for Blue Jays fans. Toronto needs a lefty bat in the middle of their lineup.

I don’t see Cody Bellinger coming without a gross overpay.

Joey Votto’s time with Cincinnati came to an end and he’s a Toronto native.

Perhaps this is his homecoming to the 6.

I don’t know how much Votto has left in the tank but I imagine he’s better than Danny Jenson, a backup catcher who hit .228 last season.

I know it sucks to be a ‘small market’ team and feel as if the top guys don’t want to play in your city but if you draft and scout well, maybe your team will end up with a Vladimir Guerrero Jr or Bo Bichette. Maybe.

29 other teams failed to sign him too.

The Blue Jays should be thankful they were even considered.

A generational talent giving you the time of day is nice enough. Maybe put some pieces together for Mike Trout since the Angels don’t seem to care about these Hall of Famers.

Why didn’t Shohei Ohtani win in Anaheim?

Before we explore the Dodgers side of this deal, I want to try and figure out why the Angels, with Ohtani and Mike Trout, resulted in absolutely zero playoff appearances.

In Ohtani’s second year with the team, a team employee was handing out drugs to the players. Tyler Skaggs overdosed on the oxy’s being based around.

Just think about that for a second. It wasn’t even a secret.

The team was on opioids for a couple years. Imagine how productive your job would be if the HR manager was handing out fentanyl at the door.

Matt Harvey coming in wide awake from the night before with cocaine dripping from his pores.

The Angels didn’t stand a fucking chance of winning.

Do you know the perfect example to explain why the Angels can’t win: They didn’t trade Ohtani at the deadline.

The Angels currently have the 28th ranked farm system.

They don’t draft well and passed up on a golden opportunity to rejuvenate their minor leagues with top talent for a guy you knew for a fact was never playing for your team again.

This is the fault of the owner, Arte Moreno.

Perhaps he doesn’t understand what to do so he can’t fix a problem he doesn’t understand but success in modern baseball is almost entirely based on the development of young talent.

It’s why the Rays and Astros and Braves are the top teams every year.

It’s as if they’re creating superstars in a lab.

When the Angels went to the 2002 World Series, their roster was stuffed with guys full of they groomed in their farm system. Guys like Tim Salmon and Darin Erstad and John Lackey and Troy Percival and Troy Glaus and Garrett Anderson. All homegrown talents that helped win that championship.

Honestly, I bet Ohtani was tricked into signing with the Angels.

This Japanese kid saw they were in Los Angeles and he knew Mike Trout was a tremendous player only to get there and realize they play in Anaheim, Mike Trout is always injured and everyone in the clubhouse is off a perc.

The Angels are not a serious organization.

They just hired Ron Washington as their manager. A team responsible for giving their players drugs hired a man who was popped for doing cocaine when he was the manager of the Rangers in 2010.

Get Shohei out of Anaheim before we find him with a needle in his arm in the Disney Land teacups.

Does Shohei Ohtani make the Dodgers Unstoppable?

What makes Ohtani special is his ability to not only be both a hitter and pitcher but being one of the best pitchers in the game.

Well, that version of Ohtani might not exist anymore

. He just had elbow surgery on his throwing arm.

The second elbow surgery of his career.

He won’t be able to pitch this season.

And we are making a huge assumption to believe he’ll be back to his Cy Young level form.

That being said, he still hit .304 with 44 homers, 94 RBIs and an 184 OPS+. If he never pitches again, he’s still one of the best hitters in the league and any lineup with Mookie Betts, Shohei Ohtani and Freddie Freeman as the 1-2-3 hitters is going to be a PROBLEM for opposing teams.

I can be a hater all day long and I most likely will when the season starts but they have a decade to win a ring. I’m sure they’ll get one.

Especially when Clayton Kershaw is gone so there would be a starting pitcher on the roster who automatically loses every playoff game they appear in.

I really just wanted to end this on a Clayton Kershaw shot.

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