A one-of-a-kind talent who needs no introduction received a Hollywood intro anyway as Shohei Ohtani began his new chapter with the Los Angeles Dodgers on Thursday.
“I can’t wait to join the Dodgers,” Ohtani said during his introductory news conference. “They share the same passion as I do, they have a vision and history all about winning, and I share the same values.”
Ohtani was arguably the most coveted free agent in MLB history this offseason after his historic six-year run with the Los Angeles Angels, where he signed in December 2017 after five seasons in Japan with the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters. His free agency captivated the sports world and he revealed his highly anticipated decision on Instagram on Dec. 9.
“As far as why I chose the Dodgers, there’s not really one reason, there are a lot of reasons,” he said. “I met with a few teams at the end of the negotiation process. Honestly, every team I met with and had a chance to talk to, they were all great and it was really a tough decision for me. At the end of the day, I had to choose one team, and the Dodgers were my choice.”
Ohtani slipped into the team’s iconic home uniform for the first time while on stage with interpreter Ippei Mizuhara who came with him from the Angels as well as Dodgers owner Mark Walter, Andrew Friedman, the team’s president of baseball operations and Ohtani’s agent, Nez Balelo.
He declined to go into detail about his conversations with other teams — the Toronto Blue Jays were considered to be a strong contender to sign him — or about the particulars of the surgery he underwent in September to repair a UCL tear in his right elbow.
Ohtani signed a 10-year, $700 million deal with the Dodgers that is believed to be the richest in worldwide sports history. The deal was structured in a unique way that will see Ohtani defer the vast majority of his salary. He will defer $68 million of his annual salary and earn $2 million a year during the contract. The deferrals will be paid out yearly from 2034 to 2043.
The contract gives the Dodgers the ability to continue to strengthen the team despite the massive cost of the deal. The Dodgers are already looking to take advantage, having met with Orix Buffaloes pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto, who is available to MLB teams via the posting system, on Tuesday. According to The Athletic, Ohtani was among the players present for the talks with the right-hander.
“I figured if I could defer as much money as I can, if that’s going to help the Dodgers be able to sign better players and make a better team, I felt like that was worth it and I was willing to go in that direction,” he said.
Ohtani has rewritten the MLB record book countless times during his career. He is MLB’s first true two-way player since Babe Ruth and has even surpassed the baseball legend in some ways.
The 29-year-old Iwate Prefecture native has a .274 average, 171 home runs, 437 RBIs, 86 stolen bases and a .922 OPS in six seasons as a hitter. He is 38-19 with a 3.01 ERA and 608 strikeouts in 481⅔ career innings on the mound. His career wins above replacement, per Baseball Reference, is 19.6 as a hitter and 15.1 as a pitcher.
Ohtani will not pitch in 2024 as he continues to recover from his elbow procedure. He still adds an elite bat to a Dodgers lineup that was second in MLB in runs scored in 2023 behind Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman, who were finalists for the National League MVP award, and Max Muncy. All three finished with at least 100 RBIs last season.
Ohtani was the unanimous selection as the American League MVP in 2021 and 2023 — when he led MLB with a 1.066 OPS and topped the AL with 44 home runs — and was the runner-up in 2022. He was also the 2018 AL Rookie of the Year and has won two Silver Slugger Awards, which recognizes the best offensive players at each position, as a designated hitter.
He became the first player to make an All-Star team as both a hitter and pitcher in 2021 and repeated the feat in each of the next two seasons.
“Shohei is arguably the most talented player to ever play this game,” said Andrew Friedman, the Dodgers’ president of baseball operations.
Ohtani said he was swayed by the Dodgers’ commitment to winning.
Ohtani’s teams reached the postseason twice during his five seasons with the Fighters in NPB, including in 2016, when he helped lead the team to the Pacific League pennant and Japan Series title.
The Japanese star found team success harder to come by in MLB. Despite teaming with superstar outfielder Mike Trout, a three-time AL MVP, Ohtani never came close to reaching the postseason with the Angels.
The Dodgers, meanwhile, have not played a meaningless game in over a decade. The club has made the playoffs in 11 straight seasons, winning 10 NL West division titles during that run, and have won at least 100 games in four straight 162-game campaigns. The Dodgers reached the World Series in 2017 and 2018 and won the crown in 2020.
Despite that, Ohtani said the members of the Dodgers’ ownership group told him they considered the past 10 years a failure with just one title to show for all their success, which appealed to the two-way star’s competitive fire.
“When I heard that, I knew they were all about winning,” he said.
Ohtani will become the 11th Japan-𝐛𝐨𝐫𝐧 player to suit up for the Dodgers, joining a list that began with MLB trailblazer Hideo Nomo in 1995 and includes current Dodgers manager Dave Roberts, who was 𝐛𝐨𝐫𝐧 in Naha to a Japanese mother and American father.
“The Dodgers have a long and rich history in Japan, starting with Walter O’Malley and Akihiro ‘Ike’ Ikuhara, which ultimately led to Hideo Nomo, Hiroki Kuroda, Kenta Maeda and countless others and continuing in the most significant way we can imagine with this announcement today,” Friedman said.
