There was one certainty this offseason, and it was the fact that Shohei Ohtani was going to get paid. There was some speculation as to how much he would get paid, and what team would be the one doing the paying, but the idea that Ohtani would break the record for richest-contract ever was basically reality the second the 2023 season started. Not even the offseason- once it was clear the Angels would not sign him to an extension, the world knew that Ohtani was about to get paid.
After a month or so of meetings, conversations, contract negotiations and getting angry at any team that even dared to breathe in a way that might elicit a suggestion that the team was talking to Ohtani, he finally signed with the Dodgers on Saturday for a staggering 10 years and 700 million dollars. Ohtani was leaving Los Angeles, the place he had been for the last six seasons, to go up the road to Los Angeles, where he will spend the next ten years, a staggering move for anyone, considering the traffic around and getting into Dodger Stadium.
Earlier this week, we found out that Ohtani was deferring $680 million of his $700 million contract, ostensibly turning it into a ten year contract paying him $2 million a season, before stretching on for another ten years, paying him $68 million a year. Basically, Ohtani signed the biggest contract ever, and then turned around and decided to be a super-charged Bobby Bonilla. To each their own.
Almost instantly, the message being shared around the Twitter-verse (I’ll stop calling it Twitter once Elon stops calling it Twitter) was that this was somehow bad for baseball. Look around any part of baseball Twitter, and you’ll find that sentiment quickly. How could a star player, who is a rare player who actually got their entire worth in a contract, give up most of that until 2033? How could that be good for the union, the MLBPA, and how could it be that the Dodgers getting the greatest baseball player of all time, basically on a budget, could be good for baseball?
I’m not here to say this is ostensibly ‘good for baseball.’ Money today is worth more than money tomorrow, and Ohtani’s 68 million in 2033 could feel a lot less than it does today. (There is the idea that he might not be in California when this would get paid out to him, so he could be making more just by not having to pay the taxes. I’m not a tax guy, which is why I’m writing this on a tax fraud charge in the Bahamas.) But it seems like Ohtani’s number one thing is to win, which also happens to be the same barometer we hold athletes up to when we look at their career under a microscope at the end of it, if they won or not. Ohtani going to the Dodgers, the winningest team of the 2010s, a team that hasn’t missed the playoffs since 2012, is a combination that makes sense. They have the money to pay for a player of Ohtani’s quality, and the organizational cajones to build around him in the years to come. The structure is also already sound, with stars like Freddie Freeman, Mookie Betts, Will Smith (not him) and more to round out and protect Ohtani.
Again, I’m not here to say this is good for baseball. I’m just asking, at this point, what is good for baseball?
It feels like whenever there is remotely anything going on in baseball, the question is if it’s good for baseball. At this point, that saying has lot all meaning, and a lot of times, it’s asked incorrectly.
Is it good for baseball when there’s only a few teams every year willing to pay players what they’re worth, trying to acquire stars, which is the whole point of organized sports as a business? Is it good for baseball when Ohtani, before his deferments, has a higher yearly salary than the entire payroll of a third of the league?
The Tampa Bay Rays compete every year on a shoestring budget, often relying on rookies, castoffs, injured or beleaguered pitchers suddenly figuring it out, and sometimes, a wunderkind predator who messes his whole career up just because, barely filling a stadium during an opening playoff series, and yet noone asks “Is this good for baseball?”
Is the universal DH, a position that gives qualified hitters 15 more jobs a year, while also increasing offense and making it so we never have to sit through an awful pitcher-trying-to-hit-at-bat ever again, good for baseball? Is interleague play and balanced schedules, allowing fans to see all the stars from every league more consistently, good for baseball? Is the draft lottery, which tries to de-incentivize tanking, good for baseball? Is the influx of highly-marketable and ultra-talented foreign players good for baseball? Is anything?
As long as baseball and MLB are around, the question will never be answered. It’s easier to decry what isn’t good for baseball, rather than make suggestions or say what is or what would be. In life, and in baseball, in the minds and hearts of these baseball cranks, change can never be good, and while your life might suck, there is nothing worth doing to fix it. It’s easier to ask questions than be answered.
