Shohei Ohtani Contract Signing Doesn’t Make the Dodgers World Series Favorites—Yet

Shohei Ohtani and Mookie BettsRonald Martinez/Getty Images

By now, you’ve surely heard the news that the Los Angeles Dodgers won the Shohei Ohtani sweepstakes. After a weeks-long saga that included, among other things, speculation about the mystery name of his dog, an infamous flight to Toronto that he wasn’t on and just a whole lot of guesswork amid the secrecy of the whole process, Ohtani signed with the Dodgers for a flabbergasting $700 million.

Now, what’s next for Dodgers?

Landing the two-time AL MVP was massive.

The Dodgers now have a 1-2-3 punch of Mookie Betts, Freddie Freeman and Ohtani that should rank among the greatest in the history of Major League Baseball, right up there with The Big Red Machine’s Pete Rose, Johnny Bench and Joe Morgan as well as the New York Yankees’ Murderer’s Row featuring Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig and Tony Lazzeri.

But Ohtani just spent six years across town alongside Mike Trout in a lineup which at various points also included Albert Pujols, Justin Upton and Anthony Rendon, and Ohtani has yet to play for a team that posted a winning record, let alone won a World Series.

This isn’t the NBA where you can just combine LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh and cruise to four consecutive conference championships.

Three elite hitters is a wonderful start, but that’s all it is so far.

Getting Ohtani and more was always the plan for the Dodgers’ offseason.

Freddie FreemanRobert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

If we’re being real, there’s no upper limit to how much the Dodgers are willing to spend in pursuit of what they hope will a bunch of World Series rings.

The whole “escalating penalty for repeat offenders of the competitive balance tax limit” factor keeps them somewhat in check. But they’ve finished six of the past 11 seasons with the highest 40-man payroll in the majors, even ending up with the fourth-highest mark this past season while clearly trying to get below the luxury tax threshold in preparation for exceeding it if and when they signed Ohtani.

Let’s just pretend for a moment, though, that the Dodgers do have some sort of self-imposed salary cap. And let’s say it’s the average of their opening day payroll from the past three seasons: $250.4 million.

Well, after removing from last year’s payroll the likes of Clayton Kershaw ($20M), Julio Urías ($14.5M), J.D. Martinez ($10M), David Peralta ($8M), Blake Treinen ($8M), Daniel Hudson ($6.5M), the portion of Lance Lynn’s salary they absorbed ($6.5M) and more than $30 million in dead/retained money for Trevor Bauer and Noah Syndergaard, the Dodgers entered this past weekend with an estimated payroll for their projected 26-man roster at approximately $156 million.

In other words, they had about $100 million to play with, and that’s using a conservative estimate of what they’re willing to spend.

With Ohtani now in tow, it’s likely they’ll be willing to enter 2024 with a payroll north of $300 million.

Suffice it to say, there’s a reason the Dodgers kept showing up as one of the top landing spots every time we put together one of those articles about one of the most coveted free agents.

It’s not because we’re rooting for the Dodgers.

It’s because we all knew they had plenty of money to spend.

As the official structure of Ohtani’s contract comes to light, we’ve been told that a significant portion of his salary is being deferred. It’s a 10-year, $700 million deal, but it may well be $35 million per year paid out over 20 years, or even $20 million per year paid out over 35 years. In which case, the Dodgers’ payroll for 2024 is probably still below $200 million.

And that’s good news for LA, because this starting rotation needs a ton of work.

Los Angeles’ Pitching Woes

After posting a 4.92 ERA in 13 appearances as a rookie, is Emmet Sheehan going to be in LA’s opening day starting rotation?Jayne Kamin-Oncea/Getty Images

Why couldn’t the Angels ever win with Trout and Ohtani?

Largely because, aside from Ohtani, their most valuable pitchers over the past six seasons were Patrick Sandoval and Andrew Heaney, at a combined total of 15.0 fWAR. They were permanently on the hunt for even one reliable arm to pair with Ohtani’s.

But as things currently stand, the Dodgers’ rotation isn’t in any better shape than what the Angels had in recent years.

Of the nine pitchers who made at least nine starts for the Dodgers in 2023, four are no longer on the roster (Kershaw, Urías, Lynn and Syndergaard), two are recovering from major elbow surgery and might not pitch in 2024 (Tony Gonsolin and Dustin May), two were rookies who didn’t pitch well (Michael Grove and Emmet Sheehan) and, well, at least Bobby Miller was solid.

But aside from Miller, they’ve got Walker Buehler who hasn’t pitched since undergoing his second Tommy John surgery late in the 2022 season. Ryan Yarbrough, who has a 4.80 ERA over the past three seasons and has never been a full-time starting pitcher. Then some combination of Sheehan, Grove and Ryan Pepiot rounding out the rotation.

Not exactly an ideal situation.

When the Dodgers first started really making plans to sign Ohtani a year ago, not only did they assume he would be pitching, but they were probably banking on Gonsolin, May and Kershaw all being healthy and on the opening day roster in 2024. Throw in Buehler and whichever rookie looked best in 2023 and they could’ve had one hell of a six-man rotation to limit the workload on both Ohtani and Kershaw.

Obviously, things didn’t work out that way, and they now need to sign at least one of the top starting pitchers still available (Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Blake Snell or Jordan Montgomery) and probably even one of the guys in the next tier of arms (Shota Imanaga, Lucas Gioltio, Marcus Stroman, etc.) before we can really consider the Dodgers the favorites to even make the World Series, let alone win it.

Trading for Dylan Cease, Shane Bieber, Tyler Glasnow or Corbin Burnes is certainly on the table thanks to their top 10 farm system.

Yes, the betting odds spiked in Los Angeles’ favor once the Ohtani news broke, because of course they did. But the Atlanta Braves and arguably even the Philadelphia Phillies have a more complete roster right now, as do the New York Yankees, Houston Astros and reigning champion Texas Rangers.

The other reason the Dodgers’ World Series odds jumped to a league-low +550, though, is it’s pretty well assumed they will soon go out and acquire the arms necessary to become the team to beat.

However, if they are unable to make at least a couple more significant ripples this offseason—can we really call anything a ‘splash’ compared to landing Ohtani?—the Dodgers run the risk of wasting a year of Ohtani’s prime just like the Angels, and at a drastically greater cost.

Ohtani in blue and white is secured. Now it’s time to show Shohei why he bet the rest of his career on their franchise.