One of the big narratives this baseball offseason is, where will Shohei Ohtani go??? He’s basically the best player in the game right now and an unrestricted free agent, so the sky is the limit to where he’s going to go and for how much. For months, people have been throwing around price tags of $500M for like 15 years in order to secure him, and ordinarily every time I hear such absurd numbers, I always think, sometimes say, that no human being alive in existence is worth that kind of money, but in the case of Ohtani, if there were ever a place to begin the conversation of the value of a person, his name should probably be up there.
However, one of the more obnoxious things that I’ve been seeing in recent days, is the Atlanta Braves’ name being mentioned in the same breath as Shohei Ohtani, as if they have any modicum of a chance at being able to get their hooks into the guy that is so far above Babe Ruth as Babe Ruth was above all of the rest of us in baseball talent. Spouting all sorts of bullshit rhetoric that Ohtani wants to play for a winner, and seeing as how the Braves have been doing well for themselves over the last few years, Atlanta should not be discounted as a possible destination. Bullshit claims from anonymously fake sources that Ohtani is “intrigued” by the Braves.
It also doesn’t help that the Braves are currently cleaning house internally, and they just non-tendered and traded a bunch of players to clear them off the 40-man roster, but from the last reports I heard, they’re really only saving like $14M in doing such, and it’s clear that the end game really were the roster spots, with the salary savings being a minute bonus. Many of the names were recognizable and not just some minor league fodder, but given the circumstances over the last year or two, none of these should be surprising, or seen as that much of a loss.
But make no mistake, there is no fucking chance in hell that the Braves are going to get Ohtani, and I’d be really appreciative if the conversation of such asinine speculation would just stop, because all it’s doing is making a bunch of Braves homers look like idiots in thinking that there’s any iota chance of hell that he’ll suit up for the Braves.
This isn’t one of those lame attempts to reverse jinx and tempt the fates at trying to control the universe, and have the Braves miraculously secure him in order to make me be a man of my word and shave my balls, I just so genuinely feel strongly that there’s no chance that the Braves will get him, and I just wish people would stop even making the speculation because it just makes everyone doing so, and everyone who gets hope, look dumb.
I would legitimately feel comfortable in betting my house that it’s not going to happen, because even if Ohtani were interested in Atlanta’s strength at getting into the postseason, there’s no way the Braves would be even close to meeting his financial demands. Ohtani is likely going to want $500M, and due to the unending escalation of player salaries, will command $500M, and the Braves are going to haggle and be all Braves-ey and ask him to drop down to $295M for 13 years, and try to sell him on the chances of World Series glory at a discount, and then Ohtani is going to be insulted and annoyed that he wasted his time even entertaining the thought of coming to Atlanta.
Then he’ll end up signing with the Dodgers or the Phillies because those are the only two teams anyone seems to want to go to anymore, and worse off, he won’t forget the disrespect from the Braves, and use it as fuel to crush Atlanta whenever they play against each other in the regular season, and then when the Braves inevitably meet up with whatever team Ohtani ends up on in the NLDS, Ohtani will throw a post-season no-hitter against them while clubbing 3 HR and driving in 8 RBI en route to an NLDS MVP* and helping with yet another NLDS exit for the Braves.
*for the record I know that there’s no such thing as an NLDS MVP award but I’m just flexing my baseball humor for the time where some pitcher on the Cardinals had a clause in his contract for a bonus for winning NLDS MVP
Plus the Braves haven’t exactly had a stellar history when it comes to accommodating Asian baseball players. Jung Bong was basically an ace in Korea, and barely amounted to a fourth starter for the Braves. Chien-Ming Wang, the greatest Taiwanese pitcher of all time, decided that he’d rather go play indy ball than play for the Gwinnett Braves when he was trying to return from injury. And then there was fellow Japanese pitcher Kenshin Kawakami, who is probably texting Ohtani telling him to stay the fuck away from Atlanta, if he has his number or any means of getting in contact with him.
Instead, the Braves will bring in some 2 or 3-tier starting pitchers at economical contracts, that will be expected to overperform, bounce back, or be veteran leaders for the next wave of Mike Sorokas, Kyle Wrights, Braden Shewmakes and other promising young starting pitchers that will ultimately be unloaded for relievers later on, and even if they play well during the regular season, they’ll be too old and tired or injured by the time October rolls around.
For real though, can we all just stop with the embarrassment of speculating Ohtani to the Braves? It’s not going to happen, and everyone who gives into hoping that it will is just setting themselves up for as much disappointment as whenever the Braves make the playoffs and people think they’ll actually get out of the NLDS. I ain’t having anymore kids, so it’s never going to happen again, and the chances of me having to shave my balls is more than likely even less.
