A Big Deal
The Los Angeles Dodgers new $700 million man.
The best baseball player on the planet got the biggest contract in American sports history to bring his immaculate game to Blue Heaven.
Oh, what a glorious day it was yesterday for the Dodgers organization and its fans. We got him! Hats off to Andrew Friedman
Shohei Ohtani will play the rest of his Major League Baseball career for the Los Angeles Dodgers, to the mind-blowing tune of ten years and seven hundred million dollars. Crazy, right? That’s three hundred million dollars more than the total career earnings of the other huge international sports star currently playing in Los Angeles: LeBron James. Have you heard of him? Fans and the media speculated all season long as to how much money Shohei would command once he hit free agency, and the final result blew that speculation away—shot right by it like a shinkansen streaking across the Kansai. What did we expect? The Dodgers are the second wealthiest team in the Majors, and they weren’t going to let baseball’s unicorn slip away a second time. The Dodgers were going to outspend everyone, so the money was never an issue. Shohei also wanted to play for a winner, and baseball deserves to see him play in meaningful games. Everyone is happy.
This move doesn’t guarantee the Dodgers any World Series titles, but it improves their chances to win it all next season and several more seasons after that. Next year, one of the best offenses in baseball is now significantly better. The top of the Dodgers lineup will probably feature some combination of Mookie Betts, Ohtani, and Freddie Freeman. M-V-Ps. Shohei is the reigning American League MVP, and I bet he has his eyes set on winning the National League MVP. Who’s going to be against him doing it in the next five years? Shohei is in his prime. Now that he’s on a well-managed team—from top to bottom—that is always in the mix of World Series contenders, what is he capable of. We saw it for six years with the Angels. They sucked, and yet he was still incredible. My guess is that he’s going to destroy baseball. He’s in the perfect place to do it. He’s always going to have good hitters around him. The team culture will create radical synergy with the bushido spirit. When Shohei returns to pitching in 2025, he’ll have good pitchers around him. When he steps into the batter’s box for the first time in Dodger Stadium, when the games count next season, he’s going to have all of Dodger Nation behind him, chanting his name to the Blue Heaven, Shohei, Shohei Shohei, on both sides of the Pacific Ocean.
The team still needs a couple of arms to bolster the bullpen and the rotation, but Christmas came early for us this year, Dodger Nation. The off-season looks so merry and bright.
