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[juliushandle]

this story gets crazier. the giants offered a similar contract to othani. why did he choose the dodgers?

6 yrs ago the dodgers wanted to make a pitch to othani to join their team but othani, at the time, wanted to go to an American league team because he wanted to pitch and DH. that pitch never happened.

in preparation for that pitch 6 years ago, the dodgers asked friend of the franchise and an athelete othani admired and respected, Kobe Bryant, to make a video talking to othani directly. saying how the dodgers and los angeles was where he needed to be.

well those sneaky dodgers pulled this video out of their vault to play for othani during their pitch last week.

who's to say the dodgers didn't use AI to doctor that kobe footage for drama; add some harp strings, echo kobe's voice?

 

[Fox Mulder]

The giants also suck and are in the same division as the dodgers who regularly win 100+ games. He wants to win and the dodgers are stacked. Betts, Ohtani, and Freeman alone is gonna be crazy.

 

[DeepEnigma]

Nah, salary cap is fucking commie bullshit.

Wouldn't that be the opposite? Commie bullshit is restrictions on how much one could make or spend.

Either way, teams not making the playoffs like Red Sox or Yankees this year show that mega spending doesn't always equate to success.

 

[Trogdor1123]

Money is a shorthand for value but it is not the value someone add to society.
It represent the value he add to the Franchise, to the shareholders, etc, not the value of his work, or his value as a Human being.

You can pay people to dig a hole and fill it back up and you'll generate value just the same.
A doctor in an NGO that doesn't take a huge salary out of principle doesn't have less value because they don't get a 700M salary, that's nonsense.



* In the modern era.
Highest paid athlete ever is famously Gaius Appuleius Diocles, just his winning would be around 15B$ today.
His fortune was enough to pay for his own army of legionnaire if he wanted.

I’m assuming he was a gladiator or something?

 

[Ballthyrm]

I’m assuming he was a gladiator or something?

The Roman equivalent of Formula1, Charriot Racing !
It was actually a lot more popular than Gladiators at the time.

 

[Outlier]

People still watch baseball, enough to warrant such a contract!? O_O

All I ever see being pushed around is Football and Futbol.

Man... The world feels so big yet so small at the same time.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

The giants also suck and are in the same division as the dodgers who regularly win 100+ games. He wants to win and the dodgers are stacked. Betts, Ohtani, and Freeman alone is gonna be crazy.

The Giants aren't some terrible basement dwelling team, the NL West is arguably the strongest division in MLB by a wide margin. And the Giants were still in the wild card race until nearly the end of regular season.

That said, there's no way Shohei would pick the Giants over the Dodgers if his goal was to win, win soon, and win lots. Baseball is a very financially unequal pro sport, if you want to actually give yourself a high chance to win there aren't very many real choices of teams.

Also there is quietly a financial crisis going on in MLB due to the collapse of regional sports networks caused by cord cutting. Traditionally, baseball teams had their games broadcast by regional sports networks following TV contracts they negotiated themselves. The richest MLB teams even have their own networks. This is different from how the NFL owns and controls all football broadcasts and the league manages a league TV contract for all teams and doles out payments to teams. 17 MLB teams have already seen their local regional sports networks go insolvent and MLB has set up a lifeline where the team can sign up with MLB and the MLB will prop up their broadcasting rights and pay their TV contracts but this is at best a short term solution.

In the long term, MLB will probably end up having to fund and operate broadcasting operations for the smaller teams which will greatly disadvantage them financially compared to rich teams who have their own networks like the Yankees and Red Sox. Something will eventually need to be done about this or the league will always only ever have about 3 teams which have enough money actually win and this will kill the league once every fan of the teams not those 3 just quit being fans and stop watching and spending money.

The NFL strictly enforces their salary cap, keeps it low, and heavily penalizes teams who try to financially cheat for this reason. Enforcing parity through financial engineering ensures that fans of every NFL team can realistically expect their team has a shot of winning every year, preserving fan bases and ensuring steady income and financial health for the league as a whole. This is something the NBA has fought hard to get to the same point on, because the NBA has also seen the effects of a very unequal league where only about 3 teams have a chance of winning championships and they figured out how bad this is in the long term for the league and everyone involved.

 

[SlimySnake]

The Giants aren't some terrible basement dwelling team, the NL West is arguably the strongest division in MLB by a wide margin. And the Giants were still in the wild card race until nearly the end of regular season.

That said, there's no way Shohei would pick the Giants over the Dodgers if his goal was to win, win soon, and win lots. Baseball is a very financially unequal pro sport, if you want to actually give yourself a high chance to win there aren't very many real choices of teams.

Also there is quietly a financial crisis going on in MLB due to the collapse of regional sports networks caused by cord cutting. Traditionally, baseball teams had their games broadcast by regional sports networks following TV contracts they negotiated themselves. The richest MLB teams even have their own networks. This is different from how the NFL owns and controls all football broadcasts and the league manages a league TV contract for all teams and doles out payments to teams. 17 MLB teams have already seen their local regional sports networks go insolvent and MLB has set up a lifeline where the team can sign up with MLB and the MLB will prop up their broadcasting rights and pay their TV contracts but this is at best a short term solution.

In the long term, MLB will probably end up having to fund and operate broadcasting operations for the smaller teams which will greatly disadvantage them financially compared to rich teams who have their own networks like the Yankees and Red Sox. Something will eventually need to be done about this or the league will always only ever have about 3 teams which have enough money actually win and this will kill the league once every fan of the teams not those 3 just quit being fans and stop watching and spending money.

The NFL strictly enforces their salary cap, keeps it low, and heavily penalizes teams who try to financially cheat for this reason. Enforcing parity through financial engineering ensures that fans of every NFL team can realistically expect their team has a shot of winning every year, preserving fan bases and ensuring steady income and financial health for the league as a whole. This is something the NBA has fought hard to get to the same point on, because the NBA has also seen the effects of a very unequal league where only about 3 teams have a chance of winning championships and they figured out how bad this is in the long term for the league and everyone involved.

All 30 MLB teams share tv revenue.

So if one regional network collapses, all teams suffer but at the same time, not really because the revenue is split anyway.

Small market owners just pocket that revenue instead of putting it in the teams. With the expanded playoffs, a small market team like the diamondbacks can beat 100+ win big market teams and make it to the world series. Baseball playoffs are a crapshoot and its never been easier to make it.

All Shohei wouldve had to do was help Giants win one of the six playoff spots in the National league which should be pretty easy considering the diamondbacks got in with just 84 wins this year. Once you are in, he can make an instant difference in 3-5 game playoff series by starting 1-2 games, and get them through to the 7 game national league championship series.

 

[HoodWinked]

Dodgers also picked up Yamamoto.

 

[Yoshi97]

ohtani and yamamoto, been rough to be a cubs fan lately..

 

[flying_sq]

* Screams in Mets

 

[Unknown Soldier]

At some point the Dodgers will finally have too much talent and will no longer be able to choke the postseason away every year

 

[StreetsofBeige]

At some point the Dodgers will finally have too much talent and will no longer be able to choke the postseason away every year

Granted they did win Covid* year. lol.

I just checked their regular season records. For a team that has been rock solid for 10 years, it's amazing how they flame out of the playoffs so often so fast despite stacked teams.