The Athletic has live coverage of Shohei Ohtani’s first Dodgers press conference
I wrote in August that I thought Shohei Ohtani would still get a record-breaking contract even after his elbow injury that precludes him from pitching until 2025, and that he’d still end up underpaid relative to his actual value to his team. I was half right: He got paid, but I’m not sure I could argue he’s underpaid, at least not without knowing a lot more about the Dodgers’ revenues now that he’s signed with the boys in blue.
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Ohtani’s 10-year, $700 million deal has some significant deferred money in it, so the AAV of $70 million isn’t quite an accurate rendering of how much he’s going to be paid … but that’s pedantic when it’s the largest contract guarantee to any professional athlete in any sport. He’s a unicorn, and the most valuable player in the sport, whether you’re talking about the postseason award of that name, sabermetric measures of value, or the total revenue he brings to his club just by virtue of being on the roster. It’s possible that $70 million a year isn’t enough to cover it, although I feel more comfortable saying that I just don’t know if he’s underpaid or not, and at least he’s getting paid something close to his actual value.
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The Dodgers didn’t lack for production at DH last year, with a .268/.332/.529 line from all their designated hitters in 2023, mostly from the now-departed J.D. Martinez, but Ohtani is obviously an upgrade for every team at DH. He was worth about 4 WAR more than all of the Dodgers’ designated hitters combined last year, referring only to Ohtani’s WAR as a hitter. His .412 OBP in 2023 came from reaching base 245 times in 599 plate appearances, meaning Ohtani reached base more times than all of the Dodgers’ DHs combined in 105 fewer plate appearances. To put it another way, per that same 599 PA, it’s about 48 more times on base — that is, 48 fewer outs made. The value of that varies a little by year, but even if those extra times on base were just walks and singles, it would be worth about 20-25 more runs to the Dodgers’ offense.
Los Angeles had the second-best offense in the NL last year, and they got better. No matter how you slice it, the Dodgers are way better off just for having Ohtani’s bat, before we talk about what his pitching might do for them in 2025 and beyond, or any of that ancillary revenue that drove his contract to new heights.
The Dodgers do still need pitching, and Ohtani doesn’t help them in that department for 2024, and probably not that much in 2025. I expect him to pitch at a high level when he returns from elbow surgery after this upcoming season, but perhaps not to pitch very much; after his October 2018 Tommy John surgery, he threw only 1 2/3 innings during the shortened 2020 season after suffering discomfort in his right forearm and then made 23 starts for 130 innings in his first full season back on the mound in 2021. That 2021 season was worth 3.0 fWAR just for his pitching … which would have led the 2023 Dodgers’ pitching staff. Right now, that potential 2025 Dodgers rotation comprises Bobby Miller (2.8 fWAR in 22 starts), Ohtani, and I’m really not sure who to even pencil in beyond that because even their 2024 rotation is so unsettled.
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The Dodgers have internal options, but nobody is a sure thing — not even Walker Buehler, who was one of the best starters in baseball from 2019-21 before his elbow snapped again. Ryan Pepiot was outstanding in five September starts this past season, throwing more strikes than he ever has in pro ball, although four were against some of the lowest-scoring offenses in baseball. Emmet Sheehan and Gavin Stone struggled in their MLB debuts this past year. Tony Gonsolin had Tommy John surgery this past August and will probably return in 2025, but be at least as limited as Ohtani, and Gonsolin has never had a full season as an MLB starter. It all points to a glaring need for the Dodgers to add a starter this winter who can help them not just this season but for several seasons to come — which means bringing back Clayton Kershaw isn’t enough.
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How Ohtani’s signing impacts the other 29 teams, especially the Angels, Blue Jays and Giants
As for the 29 teams that missed out, they all could have used Ohtani, but no team is worse off for this than the Angels, who squandered the peak years of Mike Trout and likely the peak years of Ohtani, too.
The Angels had a league-average offense in 2023, and a league-average OBP at .317 — funny how those two things often go together — and there’s no real reason to believe they can stay above that mark in 2024, given who’s out there in free agency and who they have still in the organization. They could get more than a half-season of Trout, and they’ll get a full season of Nolan Schanuel, who at least seems to have solid on-base skills, and hey, maybe this is the year Anthony Rendon shows up but I’m not holding my breath. It’ll take an incredible amount of luck for them to even be a league-average offense, and they also lost their only starter with a sub-4 ERA. The farm system offers very little hope in the near term, and not much more hope in the long term. It’s time for the Angels to tear it down, and the sooner the owner accepts that, the better off they’ll be.
The Blue Jays appear to have been the runners-up for Ohtani, and while I’m sure their fans are disappointed, especially after bogus rumors swirled on social media that Toronto had landed him, I’d be heartened by two points. One is that ownership was clearly ready to spend big on a superstar. The second is the front office went after a guy who addresses their need for more offense, as they were right at league average in run-scoring and are losing an above-average offensive player in Matt Chapman.
It’s cold comfort to Jays fans, but at least this front office went heavy for a guy who addresses their biggest need, and there was at least room in the budget to bring in a player of Ohtani’s caliber and price. We’ll see if that translates into spending on any other free agents, especially in a free-agent market that doesn’t offer a ton on the position player side, as they could really stand to add some power to keep pace with the other AL East contenders.
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It’s unclear whether the Giants were in the bidding for Ohtani at the end, but they might be almost as badly off as the Angels. In this case, not only do they miss out on a player who would have immediately helped their offense, which had the second-worst OBP in the NL last year and was second-worst in runs per game (funny how those two go hand in hand…), but now they have to face Ohtani a dozen times a year, and compete directly with the team that employs him. I don’t see much of a silver lining here, and while they could go spend on Cody Bellinger, Ohtani was the only player out there who you might argue could fix the Giants’ offense more or less by himself.
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(Top photo of Ohtani in Colorado: John Leyba / USA Today)