Ohtani to Dodgers for an ungodly amount of money

[Rcal10]

2 minutes ago, 1908_Cubs said:

Now I'm mad again. But this time at the Cubs.

If this is true, I agree. No reason the Cubs shouldn’t have done this if it truly was available to them. Hell, could have done even more. But I still think this steep a deferral wouldn’t have been taken by him from another team. 

[soccer10k]

1 hour ago, Transmogrified Tiger said:

If Ohtani signed a straight up 10/460 deal when others had offered more, would we want that voided?  There's basically zero difference between that hypothetical and the actual deal, to Ohtani or to the CBT.

No because he’d be getting paid that money over the life of the contract. But he signed a 10 year contact and will be paid $700M in actual dollars. Therefore the CBT should be $70M per year. This is no different than the Dodgers offering him a 15 year, $700M contract which I believe MLB wouldn’t allow since it would take him to age 43, past a reasonable playing age. I can’t seem to find it but I swear the Padres were prevented from doing this last winter. And I know hockey has voided multiple contracts for attempting to do the same thing.

[Bertz]

Interesting idea that this is a backdoor to an ownership stake.

 

[WhyCantWeWin]

1 hour ago, Transmogrified Tiger said:

LA Times Dodgers beat writer: 

 

I was coping with the thought that ohtani didn't offer this deferment to any other team. Disappointing to learn this. Dodgers just went out there and got their man

[Irrelevant Dude]

1 hour ago, 1908_Cubs said:

Now I'm mad again. But this time at the Cubs.

If the Cubs didn't beat $46M AAV in real world money, shame on them. That said, it probably didn't matter.

We will likely never know what they offered, but even if their offer was similar, I think he was always going to make this work with the Dodgers.

[Ding Dong Johnson]

 

[NorthsideAvenger]

I'm just going lol when the Dodgers fail yet again to win the WS in 2024. I wonder what their excuse be then?

[WrigleyField 22]

4 hours ago, imb said:

feels like more of an optics thing than a real issue

the $700m man playing for $2m a year so the best team in baseball can afford to consolidate even more good players. It sounds gross regardless of the LT implications

100% the case.  There may be some marginal interest rate arbitrage happening, but it could benefit Ohtani as easily as the Dodgers.

[WrigleyField 22]

3 hours ago, Bertz said:

Interesting idea that this is a backdoor to an ownership stake.

 

I admittedly don't know the ins and outs legally speaking, but I doubt this makes him a secured debt holder as a backdoor ownership route.  The CBA already has provisions to require funding of the present value of the contract.  So most of his deferred comp will sit in cash/equivalent assets.  And I'm sure the prescence of CBA will stop any backdoor ownership trickery as that's the type of thing a CBA is there to do (among many others)

 

Edit - or as a few of the comments point out he's unsecured anyways.

Edited December 12, 2023 by WrigleyField 22

[JHBulls]

3 hours ago, Irrelevant Dude said:

If the Cubs didn't beat $46M AAV in real world money, shame on them. That said, it probably didn't matter.

We will likely never know what they offered, but even if their offer was similar, I think he was always going to make this work with the Dodgers.

I call BS on Ohtani offering these terms to everyone. If he did that, then it was industry knowledge and apparently big spenders like Mets and Yankees weren’t involved in this process. It barely makes sense why they wouldn’t be if Shohei was offering this great deal. 
 

Edited December 12, 2023 by JHBulls

[WrigleyField 22]

12 minutes ago, JHBulls said:

I call BS on Ohtani offering these terms to everyone. If he did that, then it was industry knowledge and apparently big spenders like Mets and Yankees weren’t involved in this process. It barely makes sense why they wouldn’t be if Shohei was offering this great deal. 
 

It's possible some ownership groups didn't want to go as extreme?  While the net present value is what it is, maybe they felt the 70M annual was still too precedent setting ?

[JHBulls]

7 minutes ago, WrigleyField 22 said:

It's possible some ownership groups didn't want to go as extreme?  While the net present value is what it is, maybe they felt the 70M annual was still too precedent setting ?

You’re probably right and I am just being a conspiracy theorist about this. Anyway, what’s done is done. Hopefully we aren’t very far away from Jed doing something. 

[Jason Ross]

I think we already knew this, and now looking back, it was always going to be the Dodgers...but still, passing this along:

 

[Cuzi]

He wanted a contract longer than 6-7 years.

[UMFan83]

9 minutes ago, 1908_Cubs said:

I think we already knew this, and now looking back, it was always going to be the Dodgers...but still, passing this along:

 

I can't tell if Verducci is saying the Cubs didnt show much interest in Ohtani or Ohtani didnt show much interest in the Cubs, or both.  But like you said, it was probably always the Dodgers and Ohtani's camp probably didn't believe the Cubs would make a competitive enough offer to use in negotiations with the Dodgers.

[gflore34]

11 minutes ago, UMFan83 said:

I can't tell if Verducci is saying the Cubs didnt show much interest in Ohtani or Ohtani didnt show much interest in the Cubs, or both.  But like you said, it was probably always the Dodgers and Ohtani's camp probably didn't believe the Cubs would make a competitive enough offer to use in negotiations with the Dodgers.

I'm certain the Cubs interest was of the perfunctory going through motions sort, enough to their name mentioned with Ohtani.

[CubinNY]

1 hour ago, gflore34 said:

I'm certain the Cubs interest was of the perfunctory going through motions sort, enough to their name mentioned with Ohtani.

I think they were very serious about their offer. The problem is the offer wasn’t serious. 
 

I’ve posted this several times, but i don’t necessarily have a problem with them setting a limit on what they are willing to do. I do have a problem with them leaving their fans to believe they were willing to go the distance. There’s no shame in saying we gave our best and Ohtani is going in a different direction. 

[Thusly Boned]

On 12/11/2023 at 9:55 PM, JHBulls said:

I call BS on Ohtani offering these terms to everyone. If he did that, then it was industry knowledge and apparently big spenders like Mets and Yankees weren’t involved in this process. It barely makes sense why they wouldn’t be if Shohei was offering this great deal. 
 

Apparently the Giants were shown the exact same terms the Dodgers got, and they were amenable to it, but he chose the Dodgers anyway. It was only going to be the Dodgers, the rest was barely more than a charade.

And there is a ton of circumstantial evidence/reporting out there that Ohtani simply wasn't going to play in NYC, almost regardless of anything else. I mean he probably wasn't ever leaving SoCal, but he was never going to the East Coast. I think I read that the Mets didn't even get a cursory phone call from Ohtani's agent. We never really heard any serious linkage between Ohtani and the NYC teams, and it's because he just wasn't at all interested in dealing with that scene.

[WhyCantWeWin]

Saw Ohtani can possibly opt out if ownership changes or if Friedman leaves. Basically an anti tank/rebuild clause in his contract. Cubs probably didn't want to offer that since they are one of the few big market teams that enjoy doing a rebuild every 5 years 

[Stratos]

On 12/11/2023 at 7:10 PM, imb said:

feels like more of an optics thing than a real issue

the $700m man playing for $2m a year so the best team in baseball can afford to consolidate even more good players. It sounds gross regardless of the LT implications

The terms of the contract are insane. Ohtani as a man and a competitor is a freaking legend, regardless of what he does on the diamond from this point forward.  No other player is going to defer being mega-wealthy in order to win.  This is a league filled with players who risked their longterm health and life expectancy for more money via PED's.

Edited December 14, 2023 by Stratos

[Stratos]

On 12/11/2023 at 7:05 PM, 1908_Cubs said:

Now I'm mad again. But this time at the Cubs.

Cubs didn't have a chance.  The Dodgers are the better team, better org, and have a proven commitment to spending and winning.  For any player who wants to win over the next 10 years like Ohtani does, LA is the place to sing.  Cubs were outclassed again by the Dodgers.

What sucks even more is the Dodgers now have a whole bunch of extra money to spend this offseason from what they're saving by the Ohtani money deferral.  That's probably going to cost us Glasnow or Yamamoto or someone else significant.  At least Ricketts will get us LA's sloppy leftovers LOL.

[Stratos]

On 12/11/2023 at 6:08 PM, Rob said:

Manfred always has the "best interests of baseball" clause. But he's unlikely to utilize it here.

What if most the other owners are super PO'd at this?  They're his boss.

No sooner did they sign the new collective agreement that teams doing cartwheels trying to circumvent it, including last offseason.   They have to stop this, it's bad for baseball.  Maybe add a clause next agreement that players need to be paid in the season they perform.

[Stratos]

9 hours ago, UMFan83 said:

I can't tell if Verducci is saying the Cubs didnt show much interest in Ohtani or Ohtani didnt show much interest in the Cubs, or both.  But like you said, it was probably always the Dodgers and Ohtani's camp probably didn't believe the Cubs would make a competitive enough offer to use in negotiations with the Dodgers.

More like Ohtani didn't think the Cubs ownership was serious enough about winning and spending what it takes to remain a top team in the MLB.  Cubs can make all the presentations they want, past spending behaviour speaks for itself.

[Rob]

5 hours ago, Stratos said:

What if most the other owners are super PO'd at this?  They're his boss.

No sooner did they sign the new collective agreement that teams doing cartwheels trying to circumvent it, including last offseason.   They have to stop this, it's bad for baseball.  Maybe add a clause next agreement that players need to be paid in the season they perform.

I still don't see it. There are bigger issues at stake. Namely, the league's antitrust exemption, which has been under constant fire in the last decade.

As has been stated previously in this thread, there is a specific rule governing deferrals. And it states that there is no limit. This is what the sides bargained for.

The point of the "best interests of baseball" clause is largely flexibility to deal with unforeseen circumstances. But since the owners and players bargained about this exact point, it would be an incredibly aggressive use of the clause. And having a commissioner with virtually unchecked power who uses that power aggressively would give those arguing against the league's antitrust exemption a very strong data point on their side.

And again, I would caution against thinking of this as an end-run circumventing the rules. It's not a loophole. Think of it as two separate agreements. (1) Ohtani signed a 10/$460M deal. (2) Ohtani agreed to loan the Dodgers $44M per year of that deal at ~5% interest over an additional ten years. Neither of those agreements would violate any rules on their own. There's nothing about this that is obviously bad for the game.

[Andy]

5 hours ago, Stratos said:

What if most the other owners are super PO'd at this?  They're his boss.

No sooner did they sign the new collective agreement that teams doing cartwheels trying to circumvent it, including last offseason.   They have to stop this, it's bad for baseball.  Maybe add a clause next agreement that players need to be paid in the season they perform.

I don't think they should go that far - if a guy wants to defer money, let him do it - but the CBT ramifications should be tightened. I don't like the luxury tax or any other move to suppress spending, but if you're going to have it, you shouldn't be able to have this straightforward way to circumvent it.