The whew in the title has nothing to do with any sort of relief I may be feeling that I do not have to shave my balls, because anyone with a brain knew that there was no chance in hell that Shohei Ohtani was going to sign with the Atlanta Braves. I would’ve felt comfortable betting my house that Ohtani wasn’t going to sign with the Braves, frankly. The whew in the title really is just in regards to how much there is to unpack, now that the free agent of the millennium has finally been signed and taken off the table and the rest of MLB can move on with its tumultuous life.
It actually happened a few days ago, and I just didn’t have the opportunity to sit down and put all my knee-jerk reactions down to text, but for those who missed it, uber-star Shohei Ohtani ended his not-so silent quest for a free agent contract, and has chosen to sign with the Los Angeles Dodgers, up the I-5 from Anaheim, at an earth-shattering $700 million dollars over the next ten years.
This wasn’t just the most expensive contract in Major League Baseball history, this is supposedly the biggest professional athlete contract in all sports’ histories, surpassing even guys like Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo much less Aaron Judge, Bryce Harper and Max Scherzer. Do the math, and it’s a guy who’s going to be getting paid $70 million dollars a year to play a children’s game.
And the thing is, most people haven’t bothered to care or learn, but Ohtani’s ability to pitch is completely off the table until like 2025, as he will be recovering from major elbow surgery over the span of now until most of 2024. The Dodgers knew this, and they still were comfortable with giving him the biggest contract in history; he’s a remarkable hitter no doubt, but I can think of 2-3 guys I’d have pursued alternatively instead of dropping $700M on someone whom I’ll only be getting half their skillset for the start of the contract.
Whatever though, the goose chase is over, and Ohtani is going to be a Dodger for the next decade, and the rest of MLB fanbases can bemoan the rich getting richer, as the Dodgers pick up yet another marquee free agent, and their payroll looks to balloon way past what the Mets just set the bar to the year prior. Frankly I’m not surprised that he went to the Dodgers, because as much as I knew he wasn’t going to land on the Braves, I figured he was probably either going to stay with the Angels, or go to the Dodgers or the Phillies, because those seem to be the only two teams that players actively want to end up going to these days. And in spite of some gallant efforts by the Toronto Blue Jays, I’m sure Ohtani’s camp reminded him of the colossal pain in the ass that playing in Canada is like with all the constant customs hangups as well as Canada’s high taxes for services that he’d probably never use.
The thing is, after the breaking news of Ohtani’s signing occurred, what I really was the most curious about was the minute details of the contract, namely opt-out clauses as well as my favorite footnote in sport contracts, deferred monies. At first, it was really hush-hush, leading people to believe that he was just going to get $70M a year, plain and simple, but baseball contracts are never plain and simple, and are astounding when they are.
When the news first came out, none of these details were made available, but ironically in the time between breaking news to when I could actually have some time to write about it, the things I cared about emerged, and hoo boy, are they some really interesting and unprecedented things.
Firstly, there are no opt-out clauses, so that means Shohei Ohtani, short of getting traded or outright cut by the team, will definitively be a member of the Dodgers until the end of the 2033 season. No chance of him having an abnormally great season in 2026, opting out of his contract and trying to get an 8-year, $800M contract, or any other poor-optic grabs for moar money. This is a refreshing thing to see, because it does demonstrate commitment on Ohtani’s behalf for wanting to win and succeed for the Dodgers and nobody else.
But the thing I was obviously the most curious about was, just how much money was the Dodgers going to defer? Because I didn’t think there was any possibility that the Dodgers were going to just plunk down $70M a year for Ohtani, especially when they’re plunking down massive salaries for Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman among other multi-million dollar salaries throughout their 25-man roster. And the Dodgers, much to my amusement, live and die by the tactic of deferring payment, and they’ve been doing it as far back as like when they did for Andruw Jones in 2008 after he left the Braves and immediately forgot how to play baseball, and they needed to figure out how to get rid of him without hamstringing themselves too badly.
This wasn’t revealed at first, but no facts stay hidden forever, and it was recently revealed that Shohei Ohtani would be deferring a staggering $680M of his contract, to not begin collecting on, until 2034, the year after he finishes his ten-year pact with the team. Do the math, and now Shohei Ohtani has actually signed with the Dodgers for 10 years/$20M, with a $680M trust fund at the end of his journey. He will be making a plebian $2M a year for the playing life of his contract, which means that there will be guys on the bench, or stashed away in Triple-A who could potentially be making more him, which is a laughable notion.
But the rationale for such a decision is that Shohei Ohtani, after the better part of a decade toiling away on a mediocre Angels team that couldn’t seem to win even if they were holding onto a star and the blue shell on the final lap of Mario Kart, really, really wants to win, and has agreed to such terms, so that the Dodgers can still have the financial flexibility to sign moar free agents and spend money on retaining quality talent, and not be handcuffed by $70M installments for him.
So, the door is open for the Dodgers to not only have landed Shohei Ohtani, but still have the freedom to keep on searching for more talent to pad their roster with, and if I’m a betting man, there’s a very realistic chance that they now go after the latest Japanese sensation, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, whom also has stated that he wishes to play on a team with other Japanese players, and if the Dodgers succeed in getting him, they will be the de facto team to beat, with all the pressure in the world to succeed, while everyone else in baseball roots against them because nobody likes the free-spending Yankees, even if it another team being them.
Obviously, the choices of Ohtani have left many puzzled on how to feel, because whenever a marquee free agent signs for a gozillion dollars, they’re subject to all sorts of criticisms of being greedy or valuing money over everything. Statgeek fans are always ready with ammunition of how silly a team is going to look when a 38-year old making $70M is sitting on the bench or is sitting on like 0.8 WAR and is nowhere near worth the money they’re being paid, while Hotshot Martinez is tearing shit up in Double-A but the team is handcuffed to the paychecks and doesn’t want to give in to sunk cost fallacy.
Even casual fans are often turned off at guys making a ton of money, because we’re all inherently jealous fatties who don’t want to see people getting rich. But despite the fact that it’s all hidden in the backend, it’s hard to hate on a guy that will be making just $2M a year for a decade, when Giancarlo Stanton will be making $30M a year to suck as bad as he has been.
Even I’m left a little conflicted by his choice to defer all his money, because there’s something inherently forgivable about him making a billion dollars later because he still wants to win right now, and taking relative peanuts now to increase his chances of actually finding MLB success is respectable, and even though I know he will hamstring the Dodgers eventually, I don’t hate it all.
But make no mistake, as altruistic and team-friendly as things might seem, every single decision that Shohei Ohtani and his camp have been made are obviously cerebral, calculated, and done deliberately.
Ohtani has already cleared $42M in MLB salary up to this point, and considering even the most mediocre MLB players can change their lives from 1-2 years of making the league minimum, it’s safe to say that Ohtani isn’t in a position where he needs to start cashing $70M paychecks right now. There’s something refreshing about him taking a salary of $2M a year, because it’s basically him saying “nah, I’m good, my money will still be waiting for me,” because he’s already got a giant $40M cushion already built up, and that doesn’t even factor in the litany of endorsement money he’s made in the US as well as in Japan.
So the deets are, that once his deal is up in 2033, in 2034, regardless if Ohtani has decided to hang up his cleats at age 39, or continue to play baseball, the Dodgers will then, begin paying out the remaining $680M of his contract, at $68M a year; whether interest is due or not has yet to be revealed, but even if it isn’t, $68M a year is still the highest annual value in history at the time I’m writing this, and there’s the possibility that a guy that’s not even playing will be getting it.
Also pointed out is that, if Shohei Ohtani decides to relocate in 2034, namely somewhere not California, be it Japan or Florida or Texas, those $68M payments are not taxable to California standards, which means there’s a high chance he gets to keep more of it if he plays his cards right.
Needless to say, this shatters and obliterates the standard that has been ironically declared and enjoyed for years now, that is Bobby Bonilla Day, where every July 1st, Bonilla gets a check from the Mets for $1.19M until 2035, all because the Mets wanted to dodge paying him $5M in 2001. In Ohtani’s first deferred payment of $68M, he will have more than doubled the money that Bonilla had made in 25 years, which seems kind of appropriate, because much like he did with comparisons to Babe Ruth, he will absolutely demolish any and all comparisons to Bobby Bonilla Day in one fell swoop.
2034 and 2035 will be amusing, because those will be the two years in which Bobby Bonilla Day and Shohei Ohtani Day will overlap, and as the AI-generated post image I made illustrates the metaphorical passing of the torch of bilking MLB teams through deferred payments, there will be a fuck-ton of deferred money being paid out from just two guys alone, and guys like Christian Yelich, Chris Davis and Max Scherzer will be breathing sighs of relief at not being the benchmarks of deferred money handcuffs.
$68M to a single player, if applied right now, would eclipse the total team payroll of eight MLB franchises, and just the way baseball operates, I doubt won’t be much different in ten years either. When I do the annual Bobby Bonilla Day analysis in ten years, it probably won’t be as fun, unless I always have an asterisk next to Shohei Ohtani, as in *not factoring in Shohei Ohtani’s $68M payment.
Either way, I’m glad that the Shohei Ohtani sweepstakes is over. I have to give the guy a lot of credit, because he’s always seemed like a pretty good personality, and his performance in the World Baseball Classic shows that he’s an ultimate gamer, and I’m glad to see that whether its right now, or in ten years, man is getting PAID. Although I maintain that no human alive is worth what most professional athletes make, I am glad to see a talented guy be recognized for his talents and get compensated for it, egregious as the numbers might be.
I respect that he didn’t make it a spectacle or drag it out until February, and frankly I’m glad that the Braves didn’t end up getting him. As excited as I would be to see a mega talent like Ohtani suit up for the Braves, I don’t think it would be good for the franchise that I’m the worst fan of, to be committed to the tune of $700M that would’ve taken 20 years to clear the books, if not more, knowing the cheap and tightwad Braves.
But all the same, Bobby Bonilla better enjoy the notoriety of his day while it lasts, because once 2034 rolls around, whether he wants to or not, that torch is getting passed, and we’ll be celebrating Shohei Ohtani Day from there on out.
