Dodgers’ ‘pinch-me’ moment happens as Shohei Ohtani is finally wearing blue
Andrew Friedman was at his son’s soccer game — in Anaheim of all places — conducting a Zoom meeting with a free agent on Saturday when the multi-tasking Dodgers president of baseball operations was interrupted by the call that could change the trajectory of one of baseball’s most storied franchises for the next decade.
On the line was Nez Balelo, who represents the most sought-after free agent in baseball history, two-way phenom Shohei Ohtani, the former Angels star and two-time American League most valuable player whom the Dodgers had coveted for years.
“I said, ‘Hey, this is a phone call I gotta take,’ and I abruptly got off [the call with the player],” Friedman said. “I was walking out on the field, and I don’t even remember what Nez said, other than that Shohei was going to be a Dodger, and it was going to be announced soon on Instagram.”
Sure enough, within minutes, Ohtani announced on social media that he had agreed to a record 10-year, $700-million contract with the Dodgers, whose successful pursuit of the global superstar culminated with a Thursday introductory news conference in the stadium’s center-field plaza, under a sign that read “Blue Heaven on Earth.”
“I’m still in the pinch-me phase, to be quite honest,” said Dodgers manager Dave Roberts, who hasn’t decided how he will align Mookie Betts, Freddie Freeman and Ohtani, who have won four MVP awards between them, at the top of the lineup.
“I’m still kind of being present, excited. I can’t believe we’re going to get an opportunity to have one of the best players to ever play the game in a Dodgers uniform.”
After six years with the Angels, Ohtani’s introduction in Los Angeles on Thursday was a spectacle, with more than 300 media members in attendance and countless more fans watching Ohtani don his blue-and-white No. 17 Dodgers jersey for the first time on live television in the U.S. and Japan.
The Dodgers also are getting right-hander and outfielder Manuel Margot in exchange for pitcher Ryan Pepiot and outfielder Jonny DeLuca.
“I would like to thank the Los Angeles Dodgers organization for giving me an opportunity to play here,” Ohtani, speaking publicly for the first time since Aug. 9, said through interpreter Ippei Mizuhara. “I can’t wait to play for the Dodgers. They share the same passion as me, a vision and a history of winning.”
The Angels did not have one winning season with Ohtani in Anaheim, and Ohtani made it clear during his recruiting process — in which the San Francisco Giants, Toronto Blue Jays, Chicago Cubs and Angels pursued him most aggressively — that his top priority was to sign with a championship-caliber club.
The Dodgers have won 10 National League West titles and reached the playoffs in each of the last 11 seasons, they won the World Series in the pandemic-shortened 2020 season and reached the World Series in 2017 and 2018. But they were bounced out in the first round of the playoffs in 2022 and 2023 despite winning 100 games or more in each season.
“There’s a lot of reasons I chose the Dodgers, but the one thing that really stands out in my head is when I had the meeting with them, the ownership group, they said when they look back at the last 10 years, even though they’ve been to the playoffs every single year, won one World Series ring, they consider that a failure,” Ohtani said.
“And when I heard that, I knew that they were all about winning, and that’s exactly how I feel, so that’s one of the things that stood out.”
As an added bonus, Ohtani offered to defer $680 million of his contract until after its completion, thus reducing his annual salary figure for competitive balance tax purposes to about $46 million a year and freeing up money for the Dodgers to spend elsewhere.
“I was aware of the deferral program, or the structure, and usually when there’s a big contract with MLB, deferrals are involved, not all the time, but a lot of the time,” Ohtani said. “I was looking into it and doing some calculations, and I figured if I can defer as much money as I can, that’s going to help the CBT, and that’s going to help the Dodgers be able to sign better players and make a better team.”
The Dodgers didn’t waste time putting those extra resources to work, reportedly agreeing to a trade to acquire top-of-the-rotation right-hander Tyler Glasnow, who will make $25 million in 2024, from the Tampa Bay Rays.
“Yeah, I wouldn’t have had the guts to propose it, to have done that,” Friedman said, when asked how floored he was when he heard how much money Ohtani wanted to defer. “But as Nez walked through it and laid it out, it was incredibly consistent with everything he said throughout the process.”
Friedman said the deal Ohtani eventually signed was essentially agreed to on Friday morning, but the Dodgers had to withstand a wild flurry of rumors Friday afternoon and evening before securing Ohtani, who will be limited to hitting in 2024 while he recovers from a second Tommy John surgery.
A Dodgers fan site reported in the middle of the day on Friday that Ohtani had decided to sign with the Blue Jays, and later that afternoon, a prominent national baseball writer posted on X, formerly Twitter, that Ohtani was on a plane headed for Toronto.
The latter speculation was likely fueled by internet sleuths who were tracking a private jet flight from Orange County to Toronto, but when the Bombardier Global 5000 landed at Pearson Airport on Friday afternoon, out stepped the family of Canadian businessman Robert Herjavec of “Shark Tank” fame. And no Ohtani.
“That’s part of what contributed to the emotional roller coaster of Friday,” Friedman said. “People who said the Dodgers were out, we knew that wasn’t true because we knew no one would ever know we were out and that it would happen on Instagram. So to get that call [from Balelo on Saturday] was incredible.”
Shohei Ohtani, baseball’s top free agent, agrees to a $700-million deal with the Dodgers. Here’s everything you need to know about Ohtani joining the Dodgers.
What was Friday like for Friedman?
“You know those crazy games where there are late lead changes and they graph it like that [on the Fangraphs website]? I think that’s a little bit my range of emotions,” Friedman said.
“There were times I felt more confident. There were times I felt extremely low. It definitely took some time off my life. I don’t know how much time exactly, but it was some.”
Friedman and the Dodgers could finally breathe easy on Saturday, and on Thursday, they didn’t have to pinch themselves. Ohtani, one of the game’s most lethal left-handed sluggers and best right-handed pitchers, was a Dodger, eager and highly motivated to make a 100-win team even better.
“Personally, as you saw, my contract is 10 years, and I’m not sure how long I’m gonna be able to play the game,” Ohtani said. “So I do prioritize winning. That’s on the top of my list, and that will probably never change. That was one of the reasons why I chose this team.”
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