Going into this year’s MLB offseason the biggest story was where reigning AL MVP Shohei Ohtani would land and more importantly for how much. Ohtani is an anomaly and a first of his kind. He’s a two way player which has never been done in the modern era of baseball. And it’s not just the fact he both pitches and hits, it’s the fact he’s among the best at both of them. So there was a lot of anticipation among fans and media members about how many hundreds of millions of dollars Ohtani would rake in, even with him coming off of Tommy John surgery the number was expected to be absurd.
Well this past Saturday everything became a lot clearer as Shohei announced on his instagram account with a post of a grainy picture of the Los Angeles Dodgers logo. Minutes later it came out the deal would be for 700 million dollars over the next 10 seasons. Making him the highest paid athlete in North-American sports history. So every sports fan is thinking “wow he’s making 70 million dollars every season for the next 10 seasons”. That’s not quite the case. 2 days after the announcement the news broke that Ohtani would be deferring 680 of the 700 million until after the contract was over. Meaning during the next 10 years he’ll only be making 2 million every year from now until 2034 which then he’ll be raking in a whopping 68 million dollars every year until 2043. Yes, this contract will not be over until 20 years from now. I don’t know about other baseball fans but this has absolutely broken my brain. Quite possibly the best player in major league history will only be getting paid 2 million dollars which puts him well below the MLB average salary. More importantly this gives the Dodgers an insane amount of flexibility to spend money on other players to win with Ohtani.
Let’s start first with the size of Ohtani’s contract. To be honest 700 million dollars may be an underpay for a guy like this. What Ohtani brings to the table on and off the field the organization will probably be making that much money back in 3 or 4 years. Between the amount of merchandise, tickets, and TV rights both nationally and internationally this is an excellent business move as much as a baseball move. With Ohtani being a godlike figure back in Japan the money they spend to watch him and support is only more money going into the Dodgers pockets.
Next is the unprecedented decision by the two way superstar to choose to defer 97% of the money until the time when he’ll probably already be retired. Is it legal? Yes. Should it be? No. This gives the Dodgers a significant advantage by having the best player in baseball on top of all the great players they already have with an extra 24 million dollars in luxury tax money. I know this sounds like modern nerd baseball fan speak but what it basically means is the Dodgers are going to buy players year after year no matter the cost more than they already do because of Ohtani’s deferral. But to give credit where credit is due, what Shohei has done is genius. The problem at his former home with the Angels was not winning because there was no help around him. He’s ensuring that won’t be the case this time around. As a New York Mets fan I’m scared the Dodgers will steal any players Steve Cohen and the Mets want and ultimately won’t get back to the World Series for at least another decade. What else is new?
