I know I will get verbally beat up by the anonymous hooligans on Reddit but hear me out ….

I would rather not spend the projected ~$600 million for the 10+ years on Ohtani who is 29 years old right now. Trading him for a significant prospect package (3-5 top prospects) will give us a chance to sign a player like Juan Soto who still has very productive years ahead of him for about half of that amount.

Shohei is incredible, not denying that. But how long will his body hold out on doing both pitching and hitting at an high level. I fear he will have maybe 4-5 quality years left and then his contract is an anchor around the franchise’s neck (like Wells, Hamilton, Pujols, Upton, etc.). Hell, he has already had Tommy John, any injury is catastrophic to his projections.

Baseball is in the near end of a stage of its evolution where you pay for what a player has done, not what he will do. You get a good small percentage out of a player and then it is a disaster (Stanton, Cano, Price). I would rather develop younger players and get a Soto, Acuna, Carroll, or Trout like player from the last 5 years with Shohei, not a $600 million anchor.

Oh, and Arte sucks and will ruin everything no matter what happens. But still, our future is handcuffed for 10 years if we sign Shohei which likely isn’t possibly so something is better than being the butt of all jokes again.