It was a long time coming, but Los Angeles has finally landed the sport’s biggest superstar.
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00:00 Shohei Ohtani is a Dodger and here's everything you need to know about it.
00:04 Ohtani is a unicorn and so is this contract.
00:08 $700 million over 10 years.
00:12 That's a record for any athlete, eclipsing the old mark of $674 million to Lionel Messi.
00:19 Now Ohtani had an idea which he gave to his agent, Nez Bolelo, to defer more than half
00:25 of those $700 million.
00:27 Why?
00:28 Well, Ohtani wants to reduce the hit the Dodgers will take with his salary against the competitive
00:35 balance tax.
00:37 By deferring money with interest below market value after the end of this contract, Ohtani
00:44 can reduce that number from $70 million a year to something in the range of $50 to $60
00:49 million a year.
00:51 That math can be worked out by the Commissioner's Office and by the Players Association.
00:57 Ohtani now gives the Dodgers a lineup with Mookie Betts at the top, Ohtani hitting second,
01:02 Freddie Freeman hitting third, and Will Smith hitting fourth.
01:06 That is a killer lineup.
01:09 Keep in mind the Dodgers have tried to sign Ohtani since he was a high school senior.
01:15 They thought they had him signed, but Ohtani was drafted and signed with the Nippon Ham
01:20 Fighters.
01:21 The Dodgers then thought they had Ohtani in 2017 when he came to MLB as an international
01:27 free agent.
01:29 But the National League did not have a DH at the time and he signed with the Angels.
01:33 For the last six years, Ohtani not only missed the playoffs every year, but never came within
01:40 fewer than 10 games of reaching the postseason with the Angels.
01:45 That's why the chance to play in a World Series and to compete every year was important to
01:49 Ohtani.
01:51 The Dodgers have not played a meaningless game in the past 11 years, reaching the postseason
01:57 every year.
01:58 The Blue Jays, the other finalists in the Ohtani sweepstakes, have been in the postseason
02:04 five times in the last 11 years.
02:07 And Ohtani, when he met with the Dodgers on December 1st, asked them about their player
02:11 development philosophy and their minor league system.
02:15 He wants the Dodgers to continue to be competitive.
02:19 Midway through the season, the Dodgers farm system was ranked number six in Baseball by
02:23 MLB.com.
02:24 The Blue Jays farm system was ranked 25th.
02:29 And there's also this, as one rival executive told me, this wound up exactly where everybody
02:36 thought it would, with Ohtani signing with the Dodgers.
02:41 And no one, this executive said, wanted to be that stalking horse.
02:46 And in this case, as this executive put it, the plane ride worked.
02:52 Remember on Friday, there was a report that Ohtani was on a plane going from Orange County
02:57 to Toronto to sign with the Blue Jays.
03:00 The report was 100% erroneous, false, no truth whatsoever to it.
03:06 But the Dodgers weren't sure about it.
03:09 As one executive of the Dodgers told me, it created an uncomfortable feeling Friday night
03:14 when Dodgers executives convened to talk about their chances of signing Ohtani.
03:20 As it turned out, they signed Ohtani the next day, ending what has been an 11-year pursuit
03:28 of putting Ohtani in a Dodger uniform.
03:30 (upbeat music)
03:33 (upbeat music)