Japanese baseball superstar Shohei Ohtani is headed to the Los Angeles Dodgers. The player made the announcement to leave the LA Angels on Instagram on December 9, rocking the Major League Baseball world. He has signed a historic 10-year, $700 million contract with the team, making it one of the largest deals in sports history. Otani joins other former MVPs on the team, including Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman. Dodgers fans hope the newest addition will guarantee a 2024 World Series win. KCRW talks about the deal with Jason and Randy Sklar, co-hosts of the podcast View from the Cheap Seats.
Ohtani is the proverbial unicorn of baseball, Randy Sklar says, because of his athletic ability. He is also deferring much of the $700 million contract — the Dodgers will pay the majority of the income later — so the Dodgers can spend on other parts of the team.
Randy Sklar compares the contract’s magnitude to the $100,000 deal the New York Yankees made to acquire Babe Ruth from the Boston Red Sox in 1920.
“Everyone thought, ‘Oh my god.’ It probably felt like $700 million to them back then. But we're talking about a player here who can pitch on the highest level. Two years ago, he struck out over 200 batters. He had 44 home runs last year, and he made The Angels $10-20 million in endorsements, advertisements. There's now [an] international audience. The price of tickets will go up. I mean, this is huge, not just for the Dodgers, it's huge for baseball,” the Sklar brothers explain.
Next year, Ohtani will not pitch, however. The player is recovering from his second UCL (ulnar collateral ligament) injury.
“This will give him a chance to heal his right elbow and arm, and so he will just focus on hitting, of which he is an amazing hitter,” Randy Sklar explains.
Meanwhile, Jason Sklar says Ohtani’s placement on the roster might benefit all the players: "It's not even just [Ohtani] at the plate. If he is a batter that teams don't want to face, then the batter who bats right before him in the lineup is going to see better pitches.”
Randy Sklar adds, “So Freddie Freeman gets better pitches, and he won a batting title. Mookie Betts was an MVP. He'll get better pitches. So it helps the whole team.”
The Sklars predict that within a few years, Ohtani will be the biggest star athlete in Los Angeles: “For people who don't know Shohei Otani, he speaks through an interpreter. He's not a super Americanized player. So it's truly an international player that is going to be coming to this team, which I think is wonderful. … It's big for Japan. It's big for Los Angeles. He's gonna be the biggest star, and he is such a fun guy to root for. It doesn't hurt that he's 6’4,” 210 pounds, good-looking guy. He has everything you need. He's like a superhero.”
Randy Sklar adds, “I put it in the context of historical figures. If you had a chance to go see Babe Ruth play — I think it's that big. … We'll see how he'll do. The only thing that could stop him would be an injury.”
