Dodgers sign Shohei Ohtani to a massive 10-year, $700 million contract
The Los Angeles Dodgers opened their wallets in historic fashion after signing Japanese superstar Shohei Ohtani to a massive $700 million deal.
NEWPORT BEACH, Calif. – Nez Balelo, wearing a white T-shirt, cream pants and tennis shoes, sips his vanilla latte and sits relaxed in room 640 at the Newport Beach Marriott on Friday morning.
No more hectic and secret recruiting trips.
No more hectic phone calls.
Stop listening to false reports.
No more negotiations.
The most lucrative free agent sweepstakes in sports history, which culminated with Shohei Ohtani signing a 10-year, $700 million contract with the Los Angeles Dodgers, is finally over.
And finally, very slowly, after six weeks of restless nights, Balelo breathes out.
“I think we're just very relieved that it's behind us now. “He knows where his home will be for a long, long time.”
Ohtani “should be commended” for the deferred payments
Balelo is widely celebrated for his historic deal, but also hears criticism. Ohtani's massive deferrals, which pay him $2 million a year and defer $68 million each year, bring the total value down to $460 million, according to Major League Baseball estimates.
“It was just a feeling of incredible accomplishment,” Balelo tells USA TODAY Sports in a 90-minute interview. “It's so surreal. Just take it all in, breathe deeply and detoxify from it all.”
Frankly, he and Ohtani don't care, and Balelo won't apologize for Ohtani's burning desire to win.
“There is no need to defend myself,” Balelo said, “because it is the most incredible act of selflessness and willingness to win that I have ever experienced in my life and will ever experience.” He didn't care at all about present value inflation. And you know what, me neither.
“He deserves praise for that. He didn't want to tie down a team with his salary. He said: “How can I contribute to a team and enable them to remain competitive? “So he was as selfless as possible and postponed everything.”
Putting that aside, deferred or not, it's still $700 million being paid to Ohtani, almost twice as much as any other baseball player in history.
“Even at $2 million, he will still be the highest-paid player in baseball for at least the next five years,” Balelo said. “He’s in such a unique position because he’s going to make so much money off the field.”
Ohtani is expected to earn at least $50 million in endorsements starting next year. So as long as no one makes more than $52 million a year, no one is getting paid better. Los Angeles Angels outfielder Mike Trout received the second-highest donation amount at just $5 million.
“Fundamentally,” says Balelo, “he is in the most unique position of any player in the history of the game to do this.” “It's not like we're setting a precedent for every player to now delay everything out of their contract .”
Agent rips 'reckless coverage' of Blue Jays
If there was a precedent, says Balelo, head of baseball at CAA Sports, it might be the way he handled negotiations with teams. The entire process was shrouded in secrecy, frustrating reporters and leading to a series of false reports a week ago that Ohtani had signed with the Toronto Blue Jays.
“I really felt very sorry for the country of Canada,” Balelo said. “And I felt really, really sorry for the Toronto Blue Jays organization. They are really good people. What they had to endure and the pain was not right. I felt so sorry for everyone that they had to go through that because it was an extreme emotional roller coaster of thinking they had him and then finding out they didn't.
“That was about the most ruthless coverage I’ve ever seen in this game.”
The false reports caused several teams to frantically call Balelo to find out exactly what was true. The Dodgers knew the reports were false because Balelo had asked them earlier in the day if they would be willing to agree to the request for the 10-year, $700 million contract, according to President of Baseball Operations Andrew Friedman to comply with a deferral of $680 million. The Blue Jays knew Ohtani wasn't on the plane to Toronto because nothing was scheduled. And certainly they were aware that Ohtani had not reached an agreement with them.
Balelo met with Ohtani at his home at 5 p.m. Friday when Ohtani told him he wanted to sign with the Dodgers. It wasn't a surprise for Balelo. The Dodgers were always at the forefront of discussions. They even laughed at the uproar that ensued when Dodgers manager Dave Roberts openly revealed at the winter meetings that the Dodgers and Ohtani had a private meeting at Dodger Stadium, recalling a published report that anything done publicly by one team comes, would be used against them.
“That was ridiculous,” Balelo said. “Those words never came out of my mouth. Doc swallowed an honest pill that day. There was nothing wrong with that at all.
“As you can see, it certainly had no effect, right?”
The most agonizing aspect of the ordeal was the teams being informed Saturday morning that Ohtani had not selected them. Balelo called Friedman at his son's soccer game in Anaheim on Saturday morning and told him that Ohtani had chosen the Dodgers and would soon announce his decision on his Instagram account. He called the Blue Jays. He called the San Francisco Giants. He called the Chicago Cubs. And he called the Los Angeles Angels, Ohtani's home for six years.
The Dodgers, despite reports, never suddenly increased their offer in the final moments to get Ohtani to change his mind. According to Giants president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi, the Giants actually had the same contract proposal on the table that Ohtani accepted with the Dodgers. The Blue Jays' proposal was similar. And the angels simply refused to keep up.
“The Angels are special for Shohei,” Balelo said at the Dodgers’ press conference on Thursday. “He’s been there for the last six years. Everyone has to understand it. We felt like they earned the right to at least have a discussion at the end. And that's exactly what we did. …
“The Angels had every opportunity. And we had every opportunity. But in the end it just didn’t work out.”
A senior executive familiar with the Angels' negotiations said team owner Arte Moreno refused to accept the significant shifts. The Angels don't have a single player on deferred money and didn't want to start now.
If the Angels had agreed to the Dodgers' offer, would Ohtani have chosen to stay with the Angels?
“We’ll never know,” Balelo said, “right?”
What we do know is that Ohtani may spend the rest of his career with the Dodgers, where 70 million people watched his televised 8 a.m. press conference in Japan.
The biggest star in the game now plays for one of baseball's storied franchises, which has only one World Series title, in the COVID-shortened 2020 season, since Kirk Gibson's 1988 home run was heard “around the world.”
There's no clause in his contract that says the Dodgers have to be competitive, but considering they've reached the postseason 11 straight years with 10 NL West titles, it's obvious the Dodgers are in the We won't be rebuilding in the next few years.
Ohtani's unprecedented contract, which brings the competition balance to $46 million instead of $70 million, is already paying off. The Dodgers used those savings to acquire Tampa Bay Rays star Tyler Glasnow in a trade on Friday, giving him a five-year, $135 million contract that includes $110 million in new money.
Yes, Sho-Time started in Los Angeles before he even put on his first pair of spikes.
Ohtani, who officially signed his contract Thursday afternoon just before the press conference at Dodger Stadium, ended his day by thanking Balelo and hugging him. They did this together and completed a deal that no one expected would reach historic levels.
Sure, maybe $500 million. OK, maybe $600 million. But $700 million for a two-way player who had elbow surgery in September and won't pitch again until 2025 at the earliest?
It actually started in spring training when Ohtani decided to test the free agent market after the season. He privately informed the angels that they did not want to negotiate during the year, and the angels followed his wishes. They didn't trade him at the deadline hoping they could make the postseason, which would help keep him.
Ohtani, a private citizen who didn't even reveal the name of his new dog (Dekopin or Decoy in English) until the press conference, never shied away from letting everyone know how important the win was to him. You could see it at the World Baseball Classic. As he led Japan to the WBC gold medal, defeating teammate Mike Trout in the final, he realized what it felt like to be on the biggest stage after never reaching the postseason with the Angels.
“When I walked onto the field and hugged him,” Balelo said, “I can honestly say I’ve never seen that glow from him before. I knew how important this moment was for him and his country. He understood the impact he had on the country of Japan.
“There was such a feeling of relief, like, 'I did it!'
“Of all the incredible things I’ve seen him do, this really showed who he really is as an athlete.”
Ohtani, 29, one of the most prepared and meticulous athletes in the world, handled his free agency with Balelo in the same way. They invited everyone to talk. They distinguished the serious bidders from those who were only bidding for advertising reasons. And they developed a strategy to ensure that everything was handled professionally and not like a circus.
What happened at the general manager meetings?
When general manager meetings began at the Omni Scottsdale Resort & Spa in Scottsdale, Arizona, Balelo was in town but at a different hotel. The only people who saw him were team managers who visited Balelo and conducted their recruitment interviews.
“I felt like the GM meetings were a good indicator of how much interest there was,” Balelo said, “to understand who was serious and who was really just kicking tires.” There were a lot of teams , who were unable to take part in the game due to their level [money] where they all felt like this was going to happen. So that pretty much eliminated half the field.
“But the preparation began when Shohei told me that we would definitely exercise our rights and our free hand. We wanted to move on and explore the market. So you start thinking up scenarios in your head about how you approach free agency, how you approach teams, how you approach negotiations. It's not about just going to the GM meetings and figuring it out. It was strategic. “It was a well-thought-out approach, but we knew there would be audible noises along the way.”
The key to the negotiations, Balelo said, was privacy. There was never any media hype. No one really knew who was out, who was in, who was in the lead, or what places Ohtani visited.
Balelo asked teams to keep everything private and all teams readily agreed. In fact, it's the way teams would prefer to operate. Who would like to give their competition a tip? And no one wants to be a loser in high-stakes competitions.
“I’m so glad we did it that way and I would do the same thing over and over again,” Balelo said. “I don’t even have a question in my mind. The clubs appreciated it and respected it. There wasn't a team that said, “You know what, let's just put this out there.”
“Shohei and I wanted to be able to control the narrative and the teams were okay with that. I've heard some members of the media feel like I need to share information because this is a historic moment, but I 100% disagree. I can't even imagine how that makes sense. There must be a certain level of confidentiality. …
“This was probably the most exposed free agent ever on the market and I ended up getting the best result. So how can you judge and criticize the way I approached this?”
In the end everything worked out the way it was supposed to.
Ohtani, who insisted he was ready to play in colder climates, is now allowed to stay in Southern California.
The Dodgers are getting baseball's biggest and brightest star where they can expand globally.
Major League Baseball has real TV ratings, with Ohtani appearing in the second-largest market in the country.
And baseball has a hero who forfeits his now-valuable paychecks for possible future World Series championships.
“I don’t think we’ll ever see something like this again,” Balelo said.
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