Rafu Staff and Wire Service Reports

In the end, it was likely as much about winning as it was about money.

Expectations for the former are going to be high now, because there’s certainly a whole lot of the latter involved.

Now-former Angels star Shohei Ohtani is staying in Southern California but switching uniforms, agreeing to a 10-year, $700 million contract with the Dodgers in the richest deal in U.S. sports history, it was announced Saturday.

The deal’s total value eclipses Lionel Messi’s $673 million contract with football powerhouse Barcelona, according to CBS Sports.

The contract smashed the MLB record for the highest total value of $426.5 million, previously owned by Angels outfielder Mike Trout, Forbesmagazine reported, with a record annual average value of $70 million, surpassing Texas Rangers pitcher Max Scherzer’s record of $43.33 million.

“To all the fans and everyone involved in the baseball world, I apologize for taking so long to come to a decision,” Ohtani said in an Instagram post.

The announcement that the Dodgers had landed the once-in-a-generation player came a day after rumors and speculation had been flying – almost literally – around North America and the baseball world. A report Friday that Ohtani was on a chartered flight to make an announcement with the Blue Jays in Toronto was widely shared, then slowly retracted and ultimately debunked entirely.

Long before he set foot on a major league diamond, Ohtani made it clear that he wanted to win at the very highest level in the sport. As a teenager, he laid out his baseball goals in writing, setting milestones including winning his second World Series by age 30.

For more than a decade, the Dodgers have combined a solid player development program with liberal spending to churn out 10 National League West titles over the past 11 years without any help from Ohtani.

Having failed to land him as a high school pitcher in 2012 and a two-way experiment in 2017, the Dodgers are now poised to add baseball’s crown jewel to their horde of talent, and give Ohtani his first taste of team success in MLB.

In Ohtani’s six seasons as an Angel, the team never posted a winning record nor reached the postseason. At this year’s MLB All-Star Game, Ohtani said through interpreter Ippei Mizuhara, “It sucks to lose.”

Born in Oshu, Iwate Prefecture, the 29-year-old Ohtani burst onto the American baseball scene in 2018 when he hit 22 home runs in his first year with the Angels while going 4-2 with a 3.31 earned-run average in 10 games as a starting pitcher. He was selected as the American League Rookie of the Year.

His two-way prowess has only grown in subsequent years, drawing comparison to Babe Ruth, the only other player in MLB history with comparable success as both a batter and a pitcher. In his six seasons in Anaheim, Ohtani batted .274 with 171 home runs and 437 runs batted in, while going 38-19 on the mound with a career ERA of 3.01.

He was a unanimous selection as the American League’s Most Valuable Player in 2021 after hitting 46 home runs and posting a 9-2 record as a pitcher.

But the Angels struggled to compete during Ohtani’s tenure, failing to make the postseason even once despite the presence of fellow superstar Trout in the lineup. He hit a major league-leading 44 home runs in 2023, despite missing the Angels’ final 25 games after injuring his right oblique while taking batting practice at Angel Stadium on Sept. 4.

Once again he was the unanimous choice as AL MVP, becoming the first player to earn that honor unanimously on multiple occasions.

His free agency at the conclusion of the 2023 season touched off one of the most intense bidding wars in baseball history.

The Blue Jays, Chicago Cubs and San Francisco Giants were among the teams in the Ohtani sweepstakes until the Dodgers, who pursued Ohtani as a high school pitcher a decade ago, finally got their man.

There was a brief moment of concern during the recent MLB winter meetings after Dodgers manager Dave Roberts candidly revealed that his club had indeed met with Ohtani. Several reports indicated that Ohtani’s representatives had insisted on absolute secrecy over any discussions.

In signing with the Dodgers, Ohtani will play for a National League club for the first time after spending his first six MLB seasons in the American League. In 2018, the NL had not yet adopted the full-time designated hitter.

Ohtani is not expected to pitch again until at least 2025 after suffering a tear in his ulnar collateral ligament on Aug. 23 and undergoing surgery that ended his pitching season. He is expected to be ready to play full-time as a position player on Opening Day next season, but will concentrate on being a designated hitter in the 2024 season before returning to pitch again the following year.

According to ESPN, the deal with the Dodgers tops MLB’s previous richest contract – the $426.5 million deal signed by Trout with the Angels in 2019 – by more than $250 million.

His expected $70 million average yearly salary far outdistances the previous record of $43.3 million for pitchers Justin Verlander and Max Scherzer.

While details are forthcoming, it was been reported that Ohtani’s deal includes unprecedented deferments, allowing the Dodgers to continue to pursue other top players.

The top of that wish list could very well include Japanese pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto, who has been made available to MLB teams through the posting system.

The NFL’s richest contract is believed to belong to Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes at $450 million over 10 years. NBA stars Jaylen Brown, Nikola Jokic and Bradley Beal have contracts worth more than $250 million.

The Dodgers are scheduled to open the 2024 season against the San Diego Padres in Seoul, South Korea.

Many Japanese have played for the Dodgers since Hideo Nomo had a sensational rookie season in 1995. Among them are pitchers Kazuhisa Ishii, Hiroki Kuroda and Kenta Maeda.

Ohtani’s signing with the Dodgers is expected to continue to bring Japanese tourists and businesses to Southern California in the coming years.

Shortly after news of the Dodgers deal broke on Saturday, several fans arrived at Dodger Stadium to visit the team store or to take photos at the stadium entrance.

“This is amazing – I wish it was baseball season now so I could see him play,” said Naoya Morihyo, a student who happened to be visiting Los Angeles from Japan. “I’ve never been a real basebal fan, but Ohtani is so incredible … Now I will pay more attention.”

At around the same time Morihyo was headed to shop for Dodgers merchandise, a very different mood and scene was playing out 45 miles to the south, where crews were removing Ohtani’s huge photo from the Angel Stadium facade.

Wasting no time at all, the Dodgers had Ohtani jerseys available for pre-order at their official retail outlets by Monday afternoon. He will continue to wear No. 17 after relief pitcher Joe Kelly, who had been wearing it and has been re-signed by the Dodgers, offered to change.

Ohtani’s development as a two-way superstar is a story not just of supreme physical skill and dedication, but also of a rare confluence of circumstances that allowed him to defy professional baseball’s belief that success as both a pitcher and hitter was impossible.

“No MLB team is going to pay millions of dollars to a pitcher who can throw 100 miles an hour and then risk that arm by letting him bat,” said a scout for one MLB team in 2016, echoing the consensus of teams on both sides of the Pacific about Ohtani’s chances of being a two-way player at the MLB level.

Prior to Nippon Professional Baseball’s 2012 new-player entry draft, Ohtani, who because of his arm was on no one’s radar as anything but a pitcher, stunned Japan’s pro baseball community by announcing he would turn pro with an MLB team.

The announcement deterred 11 of Japan’s 12 teams from taking a chance on Ohtani in the draft. The Pacific League’s Nippon Ham Fighters, however, took him in the first round and then executed an extensive campaign to keep him in Japan.

The Fighters presented case studies of the high failure rate of Japanese teenagers attempting to play pro sports abroad, while manager Hideki Kuriyama offered Ohtani something no one else would – a unique opportunity to both hit and pitch in pro baseball.

It was a move made out of desperation, and was widely and continually criticized by former players even after Ohtani proved in 2016 that he could excel at both.

That year, Ohtani led the Fighters to a Japan Series championship and was voted the Pacific League’s best pitcher, best designated hitter and most valuable player.

Having established both his hitting and pitching credentials in Japan, Ohtani took a huge pay cut to move to MLB as a 23-year-old rather than waiting to make the jump at 25 when he could have raked in many times his Japan salary.

And because he was in high demand, Ohtani had earned the leverage he needed to only sign with a team that would let him pitch and hit. In 2017, a Dodgers official told Kyodo News the club had mapped out a plan to get Ohtani over 200 at-bats as a position player between starts in a league without a designated hitter.

Instead, Ohtani chose the Angels, a young, welcoming team that, because of the DH rule, offered fertile ground for his development as a hitter. This was particularly true from 2021, when then-manager Joe Madden let Ohtani bat every day, and he went on to become the American League MVP.

In Ohtani’s home prefecture in northeastern Japan, excitement over his new deal spread quickly.

“I can’t take my eyes off Otani’s moves,” said an excited Tsubasa Kamata, a 41-year-old in Morioka, the Iwate Prefecture’s capital city. “It’s impressive that he has agreed to the biggest contract ever. I hope he’ll do his best without pushing himself too hard or getting injured.”

The local Iwate Nipponewspaper published about 16,000 copies of an extra edition the same day, reporting on Ohtani’s decision with the headline in Dodger blue.

“His desire to win might’ve been the decisive factor (for choosing the Dodgers),” Hisako Mikami, 46, said with a smile. “I want him to hit a lot of home runs for his new team.”

A formal announcement from the Dodgers had not been issued by Monday afternoon, but more details are expected in the coming days.

Ohtani said in his Instagram post, “The six years I spent with the Angels will remain etched in my heart forever … And to all Dodgers fans, I pledge to always do what’s best for the team and always continue to give it my all to be the best version of myself.”

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