Last Updated on 07/06/2023 by てんしょく飯
Unstoppable momentum
The Los Angels’ Shohei Ohtani is truly a Warrioress.
Shohei Ohtani of the Los Angels made a full appearance at “No. 3 DH” in a game against the Arizona Diamondbacks on July 2 (local time), and hit a solo shot No. 31 over the right field wall for the first time in two games in the fourth at bat with a two-run lead in the eighth inning.
As of July 2, he is seven behind Luis Roberto Jr. of the Chicago White Sox, who is second in the American League, and three ahead of Matt Olson of the Atlanta Braves, who is first in the National League in MLB. His 68 runs batted in as of July 2 also remains first in the A-League, and he is tied for first in MLB overall with the aforementioned Olson.
He is also the only MLB hitter with an OPS (OPS is the sum of on-base percentage and slugging percentage) of 1.060, and his .607 slugging percentage is unquestionably the best among all 30 MLB teams. His .360 batting average also ranks fourth in the A-League, showing how consistently Ohtani has been getting hits this season.
Furthermore, he hit an astonishing 15 home runs in the month of June, a record for the month. The 15 home runs Otani hit in June broke the records set by Tim Salmon in June 1996, Mo Bourn in May 2000, Albert Pujols in June 2015, Mike Trout in July 2019, and his own record of 13 home runs in June 2021, setting a new team record. He is also the first Japanese major leaguer to reach the record in a single season since 2007.
As for Japanese major leaguers, he also broke the previous monthly record of 13 for the month set by Hideki Matsui of the then New York Yankees in July 2007 and by Otani himself in June 2021, as mentioned above.
He also became the fourth player in MLB history to hit 15 homers in a month in June, the first in 62 years since Babe Ruth in 1930, Bob Johnson in 1934, and Roger Maris in 1961.
As a pitcher, he is tied with Yusei Kikuchi of the Toronto Blue Jays for the most wins by a Japanese pitcher this season, and is tied for 10th in the entire league, with 7 wins (3 losses), 127 strikeouts (2nd in the league), a 3.02 earned run average (4th in the league), and a WHIP (Whip-Hit Index) of 1.01, which indicates how many runs a pitcher allows in one inning after adding the number of walks and hits allowed. His WHIP of 1.04 (5th in the league), a pitcher’s index that measures the number of runs allowed per inning by adding the number of walks and hits allowed to the number of runs allowed per inning, all indicate that he has done well enough.
If he pitches well in his next start, scheduled for July 4 against the San Diego Padres, these results will naturally improve further.
Ohtani is also scheduled to play in the July 11 All-Star Game at Seattle’s T-Mobile Park for the third consecutive year as a DH and pitcher. What will happen next for the two-sport superstar who continues to surprise the world almost every day?
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MLB officials are watching Ohtani’s “new contract” with bated breath.
The final results of Ohtani’s season, which are expected to be a career high, and his individual titles, including his second league MVP selection, the team’s postseason run, the possibility of a trade to another team before the August 1 trade deadline, which is said to be “almost gone,” and the possibility of a surprise trade to another team during this season, as well as the possibility of a postseason trade to a team after this offseason. And, the post-FA departure this offseason…. Among the various focuses, the latest buzz among MLB insiders regarding Ohtani is that his new contract will be an unprecedented mega-deal.
On June 27, SPOTRAC, a U.S. website that provides detailed information on professional athletes’ contracts, calculated the size of Ohtani’s new contract, which is worth $202 million over six years as a pitcher and $326 million over nine years as a hitter. The total value of the contract is estimated to be $326 million for nine years as a pitcher and $47.184 billion as a hitter. The combined value for pitching and hitting was calculated to be $528 million, the highest total in history, and this figure has just caused a huge stir among MLB experts and others involved in the game.
The previous MLB record for a fielder was set by teammate Mike Trout, who signed with the Angels in 2019 for $426.5 million over 12 years, which is also the record for all of professional sports in North America. It was considered to be a “mega-deal” and “no one will ever be able to top it.
However, just four years later, Trout’s colleague, a once-in-a-lifetime Japanese major leaguer, has just received a “Super Mega Deal” and is about to surpass it.
Some say “at least 0 million in total.
The U.S. media has even stated that the amount calculated by “SPOTRAC” is “just the minimum line” and that “the total amount will be 700 million dollars (about 10,381 million yen) or more,” and the situation has reached the ceiling.
Some may think that this is ridiculous, but the value of Ohtani in the MLB has actually “skyrocketed” to that level. In fact, many MLB insiders have pointed out that if Ohtani is to continue his record-setting performance and set career highs in both pitching and hitting this season, his new contract after FA will not be worth more than $700 million.
One source from the A-League, which belongs to the same league as the Angels, said, “Our team doesn’t have enough money, so even if we wanted him, we wouldn’t be able to get him,” he added.
But we can’t afford it because our team doesn’t have enough money,” he added. “It wouldn’t be irregular at all to offer $1 billion (about 144.888 billion yen) for Otani. There are several teams that are working out the money to acquire him, assuming that he will reach that level. If they are able to acquire Otani, they will of course have to be prepared to pay the luxury tax. If that happens, there will be only a limited number of teams that will be able to bring Otani on board after next season.
Based on the information available at this point, the Los Angeles Dodgers are the most likely candidates for Otani, as they are believed to have been steadily accumulating funds to acquire Otani without making any major reinforcements last offseason. The New York Mets, who are struggling this season but boast enormous financial resources, and whose owner, Steve Cohen, is trying to turn things around, and the San Francisco Giants, who have recently surfaced among MLB insiders, are among the teams that have been mentioned.
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The contract amount is getting bigger and bigger even if Otani does not want it.
The source continued, “Needless to say, staying with the team is one of Otani’s options.
Needless to say, staying with the team is an option for Ohtani, but whether or not Angels owner Arturo Moreno will give the go-ahead for Ohtani’s big deal, which is reportedly worth as much as $1 billion, is a question that remains to be seen. The “Big Deal” is expected to be worth $1 billion. Moreno, who has been ridiculed as “Clyde” for his negative attitude toward luxury tax payments, would have to make a major decision to change his policy and bend his own beliefs in order to let Ohtani stay.
On the other hand, a Dodgers executive, after declaring to those around him that he was “off the record,” went so far as to say, “I don’t care how much I have to pay for Otani,” which, if taken the wrong way, could be construed as tampering. It is evident that he is prepared to play the money game.
It is said that Ohtani himself is not interested in a big deal and wants to play for a team that can win the world championship, but regardless of whether he wants to or not, the more he plays well, the more his new contract will rise in proportion to the value of his contract. In that sense, the number of teams that can prepare “$1 billion” for Ohtani and also have a high team strength, which is the top factor, will inevitably be very limited.
In any case, there is no doubt that Shohei Otani will continue to dominate the global sports scene for some time to come.
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