Shohei Ohtani’s $700M Dodgers Contract Is a Historic Risk. They Won’t Regret It

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After so much secrecy and oh-so-sweet time-taking, Shohei Ohtani’s free agency has reached a predictable conclusion. His contract? Exorbitant. His new team? A lot less hopeless than the Los Angeles Angels.

Nothing but good times is sure to be the message when the Los Angeles Dodgers introduce Ohtani after agreeing with him to an 10-year, $700M contract on Saturday, per ESPN’s Jeff Passan. There will be obligatory questions about what the two-way superstar’s recent elbow surgery means for his pitching future, but nobody is going to let those ruin the mood.

This is, after all, the biggest deal in not only Major League Baseball history, but sports history by several orders of magnitude. By the new Ohtani standard, Mike Trout ($426.5 million), Mookie Betts ($365 million) and Aaron Judge ($360 million) are paupers by comparison.

The basic logic of the pact is sound. It’s an extraordinary sum of money, but this particular 29-year-old is an extraordinary player. He actually is what we only think Babe Ruth was, for which his accolades include two unanimous MVPs (an MLB first) in the last three seasons.

As for Ohtani himself, he’s sure to follow up on his famed “it sucks to lose” proclamation by saying it wasn’t just the money that attracted him to the Dodgers.

Whereas he never sniffed the playoffs in six seasons with the Angels, he’s jumped ship to a franchise that’s 11-for-11 in making the playoffs with a league-high 1,031 wins in the regular season since 2013. The odds of him never donning Dodger Blue in October alongside two fellow MVPs in Betts and Freddie Freeman are practically zero.

And yet, it’s hard to buy into Ohtani ultimately being worth $700M without first reckoning with certain uncomfortable, yet fairly held pessimistic thoughts.

Ohtani the 2-Way Player Is Worth It

Maybe the best way to fully understand Ohtani’s brilliance as a hitter and a pitcher is to look through the lens of OPS.

Among 94 hitters who’ve taken at least 1,500 plate appearances since 2021, he’s second with a .964 OPS. Among 77 pitchers who’ve faced at least 1,500 batters, he’s third with a .607 OPS allowed. Per the names in his proximity on those lists, he’s as if Yordan Álvarez and Max Scherzer were one person.

Then there’s wins above replacement, for which Ohtani naturally reigns supreme. His 28.5 total rWAR puts him 7.5 ahead of any individual hitter and 11.7 ahead of any individual pitcher.

Ohtani’s hypothetical value for the last three seasons makes his new contract look, if anything, pretty fair. FanGraphs estimates that between his hitting and his pitching, he’s been worth $211.5 million. Or, roughly $70 million per year.

Ohtani’s bat should more than account for what J.D. Martinez, who’s a free agent, provided for the Dodgers’ second-ranked scoring offense in 2023. Swapping out an .893 OPS and 33 homers for a 1.066 OPS and 44 homers? Yeah, that works.

And as for what kind of all-time greatness an Ohtani-Betts-Freeman trio would be capable of, here’s a hint: they would have been only the fourth threesome of teammates to post at least a .300 average, 25 home runs and 6.0 rWAR this year.

Even if the Dodgers don’t also sign Yoshinobu Yamamoto or one of the market’s other top aces, Ohtani’s arm will still be a veteran prize among an array of homegrown hurlers come 2025. Bobby Miller will definitely be there, while prospects Nick Frasso and Gavin Stone should graduate from knocking on the door to walking through it at some point in 2024.

But Will Ohtani Be a 2-Way Player?

Ah, but talking about Ohtani’s two-way exploits may not be tantamount to a promise of things to come. It may be a mere stroll down memory lane.

The Tommy John surgery he had in 2018 basically cost him two years’ worth of pitching. All that’s public about his latest surgery is that it will keep him off the mound for all of 2024. Dylan Hernández of the Los Angeles Times seemed to report it was a second Tommy John, but it seems more likely that it was an internal brace procedure.

If it was a second Tommy John surgery Ohtani had, well, success stories among pitchers who’ve had the operation twice are rare. If it was an internal brace procedure, here’s a complete list of starting pitchers who’ve come back from that and Tommy John:

Further, Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic reported in November that the “common belief” around the Angels was that Ohtani prefers hitting to pitching. Accordingly, there was a skeptical contingent of executives out there while he was making his rounds in free agency.

“Even if he wants to pitch, who knows how much he’ll be able to,” a National League exec told Rosenthal. “There’s some chance he won’t get over the hump and is done pitching, whether he wants to [continue] or not.”

As 14.2 of Ohtani’s 28.5 rWAR for the last three years has come from his arm, there goes half his established value if said arm is out of commission. And while his bat is mighty and his legs also have value, metrics such as oWAR, batting runs and runs created rate his offense as elite but not singularly exceptional.

If Ohtani is eventually converted from a designated hitter into an outfielder—a possibility proposed by one exec Rosenthal spoke to—he’ll be able to make up some of the difference on defense by way of his above average speed and (obviously) plus arm.

Even then, though, he’ll face tall odds in being a $70M player. The only outfielders who’ve fit the bill as being worth close to $60M within the last three years were Judge amid his 62-homer season in 2022 and Ronald Acuña Jr. amid his 41-homer, 73-steal campaign this year.

Asking Ohtani to emulate either example is unrealistic. And that’s at any age, much less in his age 37 to 39 seasons.

But Baseball Is a Business, Is It Not?

Then again, how much does any of the above matter?

It’s nice to think that a team’s return on investment in a player is solely related to what he does between the lines, but this hinges on the notion that things like home runs and strikeouts are currency. Which is, of course, ludicrous. Currency is currency.

The truth is that Ohtani justifying his contract is less about his on-field exploits and more about how many dollars he’ll tractor-beam into the Dodger franchise. Such things are hard to project from the outside looking in, yet it’s hard to imagine any scenario in which the Dodgers take a loss on his deal.

Even if he only has one or two years of pitching left in him, his history of putting more butts in seats than his fellow starters could result in tens of thousands of extra tickets sold. And while one can easily point to All-Star voting and jersey sales as telling evidence of Ohtani’s fame, those things somehow understate it.

There’s baseball famous, and then there’s actual famous. Betts, Judge and Trout are the former. Ohtani is the latter. Heck, there were moments when interest in him even rivaled Taylor Swift and Joe Biden.

The opportunity here is for the Dodgers’ brand to truly go international. Even locally speaking, Ohtani’s star power is especially appealing at a time when the ongoing collapse of regional sports networks points to a future where streaming is the only option to watch him play. Especially if blackout restrictions are phased out, he should sell a ton of subscriptions.

Besides, the present moment may only mark the beginning of Ohtani’s star power getting brighter. The MLB postseason has been calling his name since he arrived for his first spring training back in Feb. 2018. The Angels couldn’t get him there, but the Dodgers almost certainly will. And when they do, the effect could be akin to this year’s World Baseball Classic.

Ohtani was smack in the middle of Samurai Japan’s undefeated romp every step of the way, batting .435 with eight runs driven in and striking out 11 in 9.2 innings. And if there’s a more exemplary image of a baseball player living for The Big Moment more than Ohtani whiffing Trout to seal the deal, I challenge anyone to name it.

Oh, sure, Ohtani’s contract will inevitably cause headaches. Even as rich as they are, it won’t be easy for the Dodgers to build contenders around him while he’s taking up so much payroll every year. Especially not if age and an eventual outfield gig chip away at his value.

As with any gargantuan MLB contract, though, the thing to remember is that it’s not your money. Unlike the Dodgers, you’ll have the option of refusing to put hard-earned dollars into watching.

A day may come when many make that decision, but let’s be real and say that none of us will look away any time soon. Whether he’s pitching or not, to watch Ohtani is to behold a player who will live forever in MLB lore. It is history happening in real time.

One could say it’s hard to put a price on that, but the one the Dodgers came up with works just fine.