Ohtani to Dodgers for an ungodly amount of money

[Dfan25]

6 minutes ago, 17 Seconds said:

the bats are going to be hoskins and candelario, aren't they

I would hope they consider JD Martinez if Ohtani goes to LA . Gives them a presence in the middle of the order at the least .

[thawv]

11 minutes ago, SOFNR said:

Ohtani's job is to play baseball wherever he ends up signing. He doesn't owe anything to random baseball fans sitting at home refreshing twitter. Bagging on the guy for asking that his professional negotiations to stay professional is wha'ts a joke. 

Hiding and threatening teams to not pick them if they talk about it is the joke.  Fans don't expect to be entertained by them in the winter.  But at least for me, I don't expect the way he's acted either.  It's just awful to do, and he's actually gone out of his way to do it.  Just be a FA and stop acting like some eccentric prim Donna.   This is a good way for a player to lose fans.  Also, hiding out and ignoring the media is very unprofessional. 

Edited December 6, 2023 by thawv

[Bertz]

2 minutes ago, thawv said:

Hiding and threatening teams to not pick them if they talk about it is the joke.  Fans don't expect to be entertained by them in the winter.  But at least for me, I don't expect the way he's acted either.  It's just awful to do, and he's actually gone out of his way to do it.  Just be a FA and stop acting like some eccentric prim Donna.   This is a good way for a player to lose fans.  Also, hiding out and ignoring the media is very unprofessional. 

 

 

[CubinNY]

3 minutes ago, thawv said:

Hiding and threatening teams to not pick them if they talk about it is the joke.  Fans don't expect to be entertained by them in the winter.  But at least for me, I don't expect the way he's acted either.  It's just awful to do, and he's actually gone out of his way to do it.  Just be a FA and stop acting like some eccentric prim Donna.   This is a good way for a player to lose fans.  Also, hiding out and ignoring the media is very unprofessional. 

Can you imagine the pressure he is feeling right now? I wouldn't want to talk to anyone outside of my wife and advisor. I think the cloak and dagger stuff is more on the agent than on Ohtani. 

[Stratos]

5 minutes ago, thawv said:

Hiding and threatening teams to not pick them if they talk about it is the joke.  Fans don't expect to be entertained by them in the winter.  But at least for me, I don't expect the way he's acted either.  It's just awful to do, and he's actually gone out of his way to do it.  Just be a FA and stop acting like some eccentric prim Donna.   This is a good way for a player to lose fans.

Imagine being a huge star and visiting a teams city and being hounded by journalists, cameras etc. everywhere you go.  Having fans and paparazzi etc follow you to your hotel etc.  I get it.

[thawv]

2 minutes ago, Stratos said:

Imagine being a huge star and visiting a teams city and being hounded by journalists, cameras etc. everywhere you go.  Having fans and paparazzi etc follow you to your hotel etc.  I get it.

Are you implying that he doesn't LOVE all this attention that he's getting by hiding out?  He's played in LA for 6 years and is the biggest thing in the city!  He LOVES the attention.

[thawv]

10 minutes ago, Bertz said:

 

 

Thank you for posting this.

[Cuzi]

14 minutes ago, thawv said:

Hiding and threatening teams to not pick them if they talk about it is the joke.  Fans don't expect to be entertained by them in the winter.  But at least for me, I don't expect the way he's acted either.  It's just awful to do, and he's actually gone out of his way to do it.  Just be a FA and stop acting like some eccentric prim Donna.   This is a good way for a player to lose fans.  Also, hiding out and ignoring the media is very unprofessional. 

Well, he is Japanese and the Japanese are fairly introverted as a culture. I have a feeling that you wouldn't feel the way you feel if it was looking like he was going to pick Chicago. Your opinion seems pretty biased.

[Outshined_One]

6 minutes ago, Bertz said:

 

 

I don't mind contractual tripwires, but there literally is no contract in play here.  This isn't about ensuring teams hold up their ends of the bargain, but instead it's a negotiating ploy meant to keep teams from posturing and leveraging against him to (in theory) maximize his contract.

The problem is, Ohtani's approach to free agency injected an element of hostility into his negotiations, to the point where teams are incentivized to engage in bizarre theatrics and cloak and dagger levels of secrecy.  So far as we know, he hasn't required teams to sign a non-disclosure agreement or non-disparagement agreement; this is just Ohtani making threats to teams based on some perceived nebulous invasion of privacy where no privacy can realistically be expected.

Again, he's entitled to handle his negotiations the way he wants, and I hope he gets the money he deserves, but that doesn't immunize him from criticism in how he's handling these negotiations.

[17 Seconds]

3 minutes ago, thawv said:

Thank you for posting this.

isn't that m&m anecdote making the opposite point as you?

[Transmogrified Tiger]

1 minute ago, Outshined_One said:

I don't mind contractual tripwires, but there literally is no contract in play here.  This isn't about ensuring teams hold up their ends of the bargain, but instead it's a negotiating ploy meant to keep teams from posturing and leveraging against him to (in theory) maximize his contract.

The problem is, Ohtani's approach to free agency injected an element of hostility into his negotiations, to the point where teams are incentivized to engage in bizarre theatrics and cloak and dagger levels of secrecy.  So far as we know, he hasn't required teams to sign a non-disclosure agreement or non-disparagement agreement; this is just Ohtani making threats to teams based on some perceived nebulous invasion of privacy where no privacy can realistically be expected.

Again, he's entitled to handle his negotiations the way he wants, and I hope he gets the money he deserves, but that doesn't immunize him from criticism in how he's handling these negotiations.

I think this is a cynical interpretation of the motivations involved.  It might be right, but just as likely is he's a very private person potentially negotiating a move to a new city and with a new organization where he wants to be able to have trust in what they say(especially since he's not fluent in the language).  Having that trust demonstrated by respecting his wishes for secrecy is not outrageous in that context.

[SOFNR]

Player: "I don't want a big dog and pony show. Let's keep the negotiations private" 

Media still creates big dog and pony show but without actually having any clue what's going on.

Fans: "What a primma donna. He's making himself look bad" 

Ohtani is just living his life and making a career move in a professional manner. If you find yourself sitting at home disliking him based on various contradictory twitter rumors then I say that's all on you.

[thawv]

12 minutes ago, Cuzi said:

Well, he is Japanese and the Japanese are fairly introverted as a culture. I have a feeling that you wouldn't feel the way you feel if it was looking like he was going to pick Chicago. Your opinion seems pretty biased.

Nah.  I'm just a regular fan who like to follow the biggest sports story of the year.  I think it's unprofessional as an athlete to hide out and threaten teams not to choose them if they leak out anything.  

 

I don't expect him to do anything different than any other FA.  Just be a FA, and pick a team.  I will say this though.  I can't imagine that he's not loving all this attention he's getting while hiding out. 

 

To each his own.   As a fan, I don't like it.  That's all.

Edited December 6, 2023 by thawv

[thawv]

12 minutes ago, 17 Seconds said:

isn't that m&m anecdote making the opposite point as you?

I'm referring to the response to the tweet.  

[Ding Dong Johnson]

2 minutes ago, thawv said:

I'm referring to the response to the tweet.  

That was the original tweet. The M&M analogy was retweeting that with a more accurate context of the situation.

[Cuzi]

58 minutes ago, Bertz said:

Chicago's great but there's a world of difference between living in a somewhere as someone making like $50k a year and living somewhere making $50M a year.  Chicago does not have anywhere near the same caliber of super-high-end amenities to cater to the ultra rich that New York, San Fran, or LA does.  It also, if this matters to Shohei, does not really have much of a concentrated Japanese community.  And of course our winters are awful.

Like it's very reasonable that he looks at Chicago and goes "nah I'm good."

Possibly. But this is the 2nd time that Cubs have been a "finalist" for Ohtani. The first time around he wasn't a FA so it came down to how teams were going to use him since he wanted to be a 2 way player. I'm pretty sure Jed has a quote out there where he says that if the Cubs were able to offer him the DH spot like the Angels then he very much liked their chances of getting him.

They have the DH to offer him this time around. But this time around we've gone from going all in at the start to not optimistic about the chances. This time around it feels like the contract offer isn't as competitive as it would be if we were truly pushing all the chips in. It feels like the previous years where the market is zigging and the Cubs are hoping the player wishes to zag.

[squally1313]

15 minutes ago, thawv said:

Nah.  I'm just a regular fan who like to follow the biggest sports story of the year.  I think it's unprofessional as an athlete to hide out and threaten teams not to choose them if they leak out anything.  

 

I don't expect him to do anything different than any other FA.  Just be a FA, and pick a team.  I will say this though.  I can't imagine that he's not loving all this attention he's getting while hiding out. 

 

To each his own.   As a fan, I don't like it.  That's all.

 

[thawv]

1 minute ago, Ding Dong Johnson said:

That was the original tweet. The M&M analogy was retweeting that with a more accurate context of the situation.

We'll just disagree.  Be a FA, pick a team, and play baseball.  He's getting more attention this way though.  Which I'd bet he relishes.  You don't have to be on TV to get attention.  He plays in LA.  He's eating this up.  

 

[imb]

1 minute ago, thawv said:

We'll just disagree.  Be a FA, pick a team, and play baseball.  He's getting more attention this way though.  Which I'd bet he relishes.  You don't have to be on TV to get attention.  He plays in LA.  He's eating this up.  

 

im not getting this at all

[squally1313]

It's pretty rude of Ohtani to be the only free agent left who hasn't picked a team yet. We'd be able to start the baseball season if he just hurried up and made a decision to end the free agency period. 

[Rob]

If he was doing it for the attention, he'd be doing it how LeBron did. And he'd be getting paid extra for his troubles.

At worst, this seems to be an arguable case of the Streisand effect, where his intent to keep something secret has backfired. But honestly? I think there was zero chance a phenom like him wasn't going to get hounded about this decision during the offseason.

[We Got The Whole 9]

thawv, you draw your own conclusions too often. This is so you. 

[s2obed]

So now we're upset because of the secretness of his free agency? It sucks as a fan and for journalists but if that's what him and his agent want, then that's their right. 

I won't think any less of him for it.

Edited December 6, 2023 by s2obed

[thawv]

20 minutes ago, We Got The Whole 9 said:

thawv, you draw your own conclusions too often. This is so you. 

This is true!  But it is my conclusion.  It may not be the right one, and it may not be the wrong one.

[17 Seconds]

i don't get how this is even that different from other big free agents from past offseasons. we know the teams in on him, we have a general idea of what he's going to get, and it's only december 6th, so it's not like he's taking forever. it feels like every other big FA to me.

Edited December 6, 2023 by 17 Seconds