Baseball

Ohtani Shows Unfortunate Reality in Negotiations

by Drew Duffy 8/24/23

The day is April 8th, 2022. Aaron Judge had now approached his self-imposed deadline to restructure a new contract with the New York Yankees. An offer of 7 additional years and $230.5 million had come to Judge and his agents, but they declined. Many around the baseball world were surprised. For what had been an “injury-prone” outfielder, that contract seemed to be as good as it gets. How much more money could he really earn in the next season that would outweigh the risks of not accepting that lucrative contract? Well, all Judge did was post one of the best offensive seasons ever, hit a record 62 home runs, lead his team back into the ALCS, and win the American League’s Most Valuable Player award. 

For Judge, the risk paid off, and boy did it pay. Almost 8 months to the day, Judge agreed to a 9 year / $360 million deal with the Yankees. For those counting at home, Judge’s 2022 season earned him roughly $130 million dollars. Most important to this historically great season was his availability. Judge played in a career-high 157 games in 2022. This proved that when healthy, he was a top two player on the planet. He bet on himself, and it was one of the best bets in history. 

Now, fast forward to Opening Day of 2023. Shohei Ohtani, the best player on the planet, took the mound as the Angels’ starting pitcher against the Oakland Athletics. Ohtani had just come off a dazzling performance at the World Baseball Classic with team Japan. He shared a similar reality to that of Judge. Ohtani would be entering the final year of his contract without certainty on what his future held, besides the fact that it would be with hundreds of millions to his name. 

In the 2023 season, Ohtani has done what many cannot truly appreciate. He is the runaway MVP award winner in the American League. His 9.6 bWAR (Wins Above Replacement) are good for the best in the MLB. The next closest is Mookie Betts with 6.5. Ohtani is one of the best pitchers and hitters on the planet, and speculation surrounding his next contract has been building ever since. Some pundits predicted numbers starting with a 6. That is, $600 million dollars. 

Just last night, news that no fan wanted to hear broke. Ohtani has a tear in his UCL, the ligament in the elbow that often requires Tommy John surgery. Ohtani, for all his accomplishments and superhuman performance, reminded us all of the fragility of baseball and sports. As Jeff Passan of ESPN perfectly put, “It was his body and its capacity to withstand everything he asked of it. Ligaments do not care about legend”. 

This was something that Ohtani has experienced before, undergoing Tommy John surgery before the 2019 season. Since returning from that, he has morphed into possibly the greatest baseball player to ever play. Ohtani’s short term and long term future remain in question. Will he undergo another UCL surgery? Will this affect the length or compensation in his next contract? Is it worth it for him to grudgingly relinquish his pitching duties and focus on full time hitting? Many questions remain to be answered, but there is a great lesson that we can learn from this season. 

Players play the game because they love the game. Many are not worried about injuries. They focus all of their time and energy into being the best versions of themselves on and off the field. For Judge in 2022, his performance validated his reputation as one of the best in the game and he was compensated as such. Though he has missed significant time in 2023, Judge has proved time and again how valuable he is to a dysfunctional Yankee team. Shohei Ohtani answered questions about a looming new contract in a similar fashion, by letting his game do the talking. Unfortunately, he received a bad break here. It may affect his next contract or it may not. 

In both cases, the art of contract negotiations remains as fickle and unpredictable as ever. Sometimes players leave money on the table and never get that money back. Sometimes they choose to take a lesser contract than their perceived “worth” in order to have a sense of security. Even sometimes, they prove that they deserve more than an original offer. It goes to show just how difficult the process is for both players and teams alike. At the end of the day, both sides do what they think is best for themselves, and hopefully, that makes it all okay in the end.

Sources:
https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/38249798/shohei-ohtani-ucl-tear-magic-jeff-passan

https://www.mlb.com/news/shohei-ohtani-vs-aaron-judge-2022-al-mvp-debate