Signing(s): Shohei Ohtani signs with the Dodgers (10 years, $700 million)

[Ben Grimm]

Report: Shohei Ohtani to defer all but $20M of his $700M Dodgers contract until after its completion in 2034

Ohtani reportedly won't see $680 million of his groundbreaking contract for more than a decade. The deferral was reportedly his idea.

sports.yahoo.com

Should this be legal?

 

[MMC]

So he offered this deal to every team and the Dodgers are the bad guys for accepting it? Is that the hot take now?

The guy wasn't leaving California. The "Ohtani to Blue Jays" train wreck was must see twitter implosion that lived up to the hype.

No one's saying that, if anyone is upset about this, it's at the league for allowing it

 

[Cubs2024wildcard]

No one's saying that, if anyone is upset about this, it's at the league for allowing it

Why wouldn't they?

It benefits both the team and the player. It's in the CBA, it's a non issue outside of the internet.

 

[Ben Grimm]

Why wouldn't they? It benefits both the team and the player. It's in the CBA, it's a non-issue outside of the internet.

You're so right. Internet content is not generated by people that exist outside of the internet.

 

[John Price]

I guess MMC wasn't wrong when he said the Angels were the best at rehabbing him

At the end of the day he didn't want to play for a loser and there was no way Arte could redeem that team. He was out the door the second he became a FA.

大谷翔平ドジャース移籍の裏に、エンゼルスGMの「信頼関係ぶち壊す失言」 「残留」目指してエンゼルスが尽くした手、大谷側の怒り買う | JBpress (ジェイビープレス)

それはまさに「電撃」だった。ロサンゼルス・エンゼルスからFAとなっていた大谷翔平投手のロサンゼルス・ドジャースへの移籍が決定。同じ「ロサンゼルス」をチーム名とする球団を新天地として(5/6)

jbpress.ismedia.jp

The Angels front office, led by GM Minassian, made a strong appeal to Ohtani and his agent, Valero, citing Ohtani's own past Tommy John surgery in October 2018, saying, 'We are the only Angels who know the rehabilitation system for two way players. ...

GM Minassian threatened him, saying, "If you move to another team, you will be turning us, the Angels, who know everything about Shohei Ohtani, into your enemy.

However, this resulted in Ohtani's distrust and anger, and it seems to have turned out to be a "big mistake. It was a complete strategic error on the part of GM Minassian.

 

[bobholly39]

Outside of the consideration of whether this should be legal or not by the CBA....I personally cannot comprehend the player wanting/accepting to do that.

Deferring $680M for 10 years? I'd want the money in the bank ASAP, you never know what can happen....there are always risks you won't get paid. Obviously it's not like the Dodgers are going to go bankrupt and be unable to pay him, but we've all seen stories of teams terminating contracts before, and you never know what might happen.

Hypothetical - Ohtani gets in a bad DUI or domestic violence situation in ~year 8 - Dodges have cause to terminate his contract for behavioural issues. Do they get away with having only paid him $16M out of a total of $700M, and not owe him the rest? How insane would that be.

 

[#37]

It could only be through deferment.

Imagine the Dodgers calling around trying to get quotes on an insurance policy for a guy just coming off his second Tommy John surgery in 5 years while earning $70,000,000 a year.

 

[bobholly39]

I don't know MLB's contract rules by heart obviously, but in the NHL just recently Evander Kane and Galchenyuk had their contracts temrinated for cause. There's been other cases too I think, whether in NHL or other sports. Does Ohtani have protection against that?

What if something like that happens to Ohtani in year 9 or 10? He misses out on $680M? Seems like an insane risk to me, even if it seems very unlikely.

 

[BigBadBruins7708]

Outside of the consideration of whether this should be legal or not by the CBA....I personally cannot comprehend the player wanting/accepting to do that.

Deferring $680M for 10 years? I'd want the money in the bank ASAP, you never know what can happen....there are always risks you won't get paid. Obviously it's not like the Dodgers are going to go bankrupt and be unable to pay him, but we've all seen stories of teams terminating contracts before, and you never know what might happen.

Hypothetical - Ohtani gets in a bad DUI or domestic violence situation in ~year 8 - Dodges have cause to terminate his contract for behavioural issues. Do they get away with having only paid him $16M out of a total of $700M, and not owe him the rest? How insane would that be.

2 points.

1. He counts at $46m a year against the luxury tax threshold, so they arent circumventing that.

2. By deferring he saves nearly $30m a year in tax ($25m to the feds and $5m to California). Especially if he moves out of the country at/early in the deferral payouts

 

[Cas]

I don't know MLB's contract rules by heart obviously, but in the NHL just recently Evander Kane and Galchenyuk had their contracts temrinated for cause. There's been other cases too I think, whether in NHL or other sports. Does Ohtani have protection against that?

What if something like that happens to Ohtani in year 9 or 10? He misses out on $680M? Seems like an insane risk to me, even if it seems very unlikely.

It's not a risk if you don't drink and drive, or hit your wife, or lie about your vaccination status.

 

[BMOK33]

I'd assume next CBA will prevent you from deferring more than like 25-35% of a contract after this but reality is most players are not stupid enough to make a decision like this anyway so it likely never would occur again

 

[TheGreenTBer]

I guess MMC wasn't wrong when he said the Angels were the best at rehabbing him

At the end of the day he didn't want to play for a loser and there was no way Arte could redeem that team. He was out the door the second he became a FA.

大谷翔平ドジャース移籍の裏に、エンゼルスGMの「信頼関係ぶち壊す失言」 「残留」目指してエンゼルスが尽くした手、大谷側の怒り買う | JBpress (ジェイビープレス)

それはまさに「電撃」だった。ロサンゼルス・エンゼルスからFAとなっていた大谷翔平投手のロサンゼルス・ドジャースへの移籍が決定。同じ「ロサンゼルス」をチーム名とする球団を新天地として(5/6)

jbpress.ismedia.jp

The Angels front office, led by GM Minassian, made a strong appeal to Ohtani and his agent, Valero, citing Ohtani's own past Tommy John surgery in October 2018, saying, 'We are the only Angels who know the rehabilitation system for two way players. ...

GM Minassian threatened him, saying, "If you move to another team, you will be turning us, the Angels, who know everything about Shohei Ohtani, into your enemy.

However, this resulted in Ohtani's distrust and anger, and it seems to have turned out to be a "big mistake. It was a complete strategic error on the part of GM Minassian.

I'm hoping the message was distorted in translation, because that's hilarious and pathetic if true on the Angels' part.

 

[John Price]

 

[StreetHawk]

Report: Shohei Ohtani to defer all but $20M of his $700M Dodgers contract until after its completion in 2034

Ohtani reportedly won't see $680 million of his groundbreaking contract for more than a decade. The deferral was reportedly his idea.

sports.yahoo.com

Should this be legal?

Seems like it's legal within the MLB CBA rules.

I assume that there is an interest rate to that deferred money.
Not sure how the Dodgers are going to operate in the 10 years after he is done when you have $68 mill per year committed to someone not on the roster? Are they going to be investing the "savings" over the next decade so that money is then used to pay him down the line?

That liability/debt will certainly be factored into any sale price of the Dodgers should they be sold in the next 20 years.

 

[bobholly39]

It's not a risk if you don't drink and drive, or hit your wife, or lie about your vaccination status.

He has a nervous breakdown, gets super depressed, and needs to quite baseball because he just can't hack it anymore in....year 8 of his contract.

Does he get the rest of the money? Or is it considered he quit on the team, so the money is void?

There are different ways a contract could end, 10 years is a long time.

Also - from a sport perspective - does this mean he can never be traded? Hypothetical - if Dodgers trade him in year....7 of his contract, to NY. Who pays the 680M? Is it Dodgers, or NY?

 

[Filthy Dangles]

He has a nervous breakdown, gets super depressed, and needs to quite baseball because he just can't hack it anymore in....year 8 of his contract.

Does he get the rest of the money? Or is it considered he quit on the team, so the money is void?

There are different ways a contract could end, 10 years is a long time.

Also - from a sport perspective - does this mean he can never be traded? Hypothetical - if Dodgers trade him in year....7 of his contract, to NY. Who pays the 680M? Is it Dodgers, or NY?

If he were to retire early, they'd likely work out an agreement where he gets at least a significant portion of the payments contingent on % of his contract he played out and circumstances of his retirement. If he retired for medical reasons, he might get all of the payments. That just happened with Strasburg, but his contract was uninsured to make things more complicated.

As for a trade, that would definitely have to be negotiated in the trade terms. The Dodgers would most certainly take on most if not all of the payments since he would have played out most of the contract under them. The acquiring team would likely take on at least some small portion of payments, or perhaps larger if Ohtani is still a valuable player at that point and they take on that money to lessen the prospect and trade haul it would cost.

 

[SoupNazi]

He has a nervous breakdown, gets super depressed, and needs to quite baseball because he just can't hack it anymore in....year 8 of his contract.

Does he get the rest of the money? Or is it considered he quit on the team, so the money is void?

There are different ways a contract could end, 10 years is a long time.

Also - from a sport perspective - does this mean he can never be traded? Hypothetical - if Dodgers trade him in year....7 of his contract, to NY. Who pays the 680M? Is it Dodgers, or NY?

My guess here is that it's probably based on however many years he plays for the Dodgers. If he plays years 1 - 7 of the contract with LAD, the Dodgers pay the $68m per for each of those years. My guess would be that the acquiring team would probably try to negotiate for LAD to pay more, though.

 

[TheMoreYouKnow]

You gotta give Ohtani some kudos (or question his sanity?). That's a lot of faith in U.S. monetary policy.

 

[kingsholygrail]

I'd assume next CBA will prevent you from deferring more than like 25-35% of a contract after this but reality is most players are not stupid enough to make a decision like this anyway so it likely never would occur again

I only seeing it become a point of discussion if it becomes a trend.

 

[Unholy Diver]

Seems like it's legal within the MLB CBA rules.

I assume that there is an interest rate to that deferred money.
Not sure how the Dodgers are going to operate in the 10 years after he is done when you have $68 mill per year committed to someone not on the roster? Are they going to be investing the "savings" over the next decade so that money is then used to pay him down the line?

That liability/debt will certainly be factored into any sale price of the Dodgers should they be sold in the next 20 years.

It was reported that he took the deferments at zero interest


Looks like the Giants offered the same deal, and it was all the players idea about the deferrals and Zaidi says there is no limit on how much can be deferred in the CBA

Giants And Dodgers Made Same Offer To Ohtani

Giants president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi conducted a conference call with reporters on Tuesday evening. San Francisco's baseball operations …

www.mlbtraderumors.com

 

[BiolaRunner]

From an investment perspective, money now is better than money later, but from a baseball perspective this is a hell of an arrangement.

From Ohtani's perspective, this erases the negative aspect of playing/living in a high tax state.

 

[TheGreenTBer]

From Ohtani's perspective, this erases the negative aspect of playing/living in a high tax state.

I understand that, I was speaking more from a general sense. If he leaves California and goes to like Singapore or some shit it'll be different.

 

[Voight]

I don't blame him. He just saw his former team waste his greatness. Making the playoffs would be nice.

Outside of the consideration of whether this should be legal or not by the CBA....I personally cannot comprehend the player wanting/accepting to do that.

Deferring $680M for 10 years? I'd want the money in the bank ASAP, you never know what can happen....there are always risks you won't get paid. Obviously it's not like the Dodgers are going to go bankrupt and be unable to pay him, but we've all seen stories of teams terminating contracts before, and you never know what might happen.

Hypothetical - Ohtani gets in a bad DUI or domestic violence situation in ~year 8 - Dodges have cause to terminate his contract for behavioural issues. Do they get away with having only paid him $16M out of a total of $700M, and not owe him the rest? How insane would that be.

Yup & who knows what the world will look like in a. decade.

 

[Voight]

Seems like it's legal within the MLB CBA rules.

I assume that there is an interest rate to that deferred money.
Not sure how the Dodgers are going to operate in the 10 years after he is done when you have $68 mill per year committed to someone not on the roster? Are they going to be investing the "savings" over the next decade so that money is then used to pay him down the line?

That liability/debt will certainly be factored into any sale price of the Dodgers should they be sold in the next 20 years.

There isn't. He agreed to the deferment interest free.

The 3o for 30 on this is going to be lit.

 

[Terry Yake]

as much as people clown on the oilers, they've still at least managed to win a few playoff series' with mcdavid/draisaitl

the angels had two of the best players in the world for 6 seasons and couldn't manage to even come close to making the playoffs. hell, they've had trout for 12 seasons now and have one measly playoff appearance with 0 wins to show for it. not sure how you pull that off even if you try