Seattle Sports Insider

3 Years of Ohtani or 6?

Posted by

11/17/17

Here's a typically intriguing comment from my man Zoom, who sez,

Somehow the length of the contract he would have continued with the Ham Fighters (2 years, until he is 25) has been applied to his contract with a team in MLB.

No.

He will get that signing bonus (probably somewhere between $2 mil and $3.5 mil from the team he selects, which is now determined, but then he becomes a regular rookie from (like most from Central America) who will only enter at League minimum, and wait for arbitration like anyone else.

THE TEAM THAT SIGNS HIM GETS HIM FOR SIX YEARS, NOT TWO YEARS.

So the trade of Viera for international pool money is not

Prorating 10% of Viera's value versus the amount of millions you are saving on Ohtani's contract over 6 years is miniscule.

So, DePoet tosses in $500 grand which he gets from another guy at the table for a 25% chance to take the pot.

We still don't know of Viera is gonna be a bona fide MLB star ... and I believe he might be.

But, hey, I want in for the big pot.

This article from USA Today (not a usual referral) specifies the M's are doing what they can to be in the game, and the descriptions of BabeRuth-san is rather comprehensive.

Sounds like his lifestyle fits in Seattle more than The Bronx.

Remember, finally, that our climate is more like that of Hokkaido than any other MLB city, and we have mountains with snow you can see right out the window, and fresh salmon (referenced in this article), a significant Japanese population, a history of acclimatized Japanese players, and the shorest plane ride home.

Plus, we might have a Darvish or Suzuki coming.

zoom

Well, now I'm confused. Oakland landed Yoenis Cespedes by offering him an out after 3-4 years, guaranteeing him free agency rather than arbitration, right? Cespedes was the equivalent of a pure free agent when he came to the U.S.

But come to think of it, Ichiro was posted to the U.S. and (as an unknown quantity) signed an M's contract that paid him $20M the first four years and then free agent type money after that. Baseball-reference's category for "Service to Team" -- which usually says Arb1, Arb2 or whatever -- has a bunch of question marks in it. LOL.

I had been pretty sure that an MLB team had the option of waiving its arbitration rights -- and so a player like Ohtani could select a team that would do so. But for some reason the specific players aren't coming to my mind who got to skip their arb years and go FA after three.

Here's an amusing article that characterizes Ohtani as a complete gym rat who literally spends less than $1,000 per month and who is interested in nothing but playing baseball and training.

BABVA,

Dr D

Blog:

Dr's R/X

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Shohei Ohtani

Comments

All of them have, Doc.

Tanaka, Darvish, Ichiro, Ssaski, Johjima...all of them. At all skill levels. All of them have had it written into their contract that they were unrestricted free agents after signing. Iwakuma even had it written in that he could not be QO'd at the end of his deal. As did Cespedes. As did the Cuban Missile Crisis (Chapman).

That is just expected.

Ohtani will do the same. They are all treated like free agents if they are being signed to start in the major leagues immediately.

You mean...

they all had written in that they were FA's after three years' worth of playing for their original teams?

Not sure of the precise language...

But I can't think of a single case where an international free agent who was signed to a deal intending to start in the bigs immediately where, at the end of the contract, they weren't free agents...

You mean at the end of a 3- or 4-year deal.

IIRC, Yoenis Cespedes' deal was 4 years and Beane swapped him away in the middle of the 4th year.

This has got to be based on --- > the agent demanding that the ballclub sign into the contract that it will not take the player to arbitration in year 5, 6, whatever.

3 vs 6 doesn't matter as much

3 vs 6 doesn't matter as much as you think. Hes highly likely to resign at a team friendly deal as long as he is happy.

Heh! Well, let's hope

But if I'm Shohei Ohtani there isn't much chance I'm giving up my free agency in 2021 because I like the communities in LA or Seattle.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think Ichiro signed a 4-year deal in Seattle in 2001, fully intending to re-sign in 2005, and then did re-sign in 2005 -- but for a fair wage from that point on.

Ichiro was paid something

Ichiro was paid something like a 1/3rd of his market value until his eventual decline in 2011. He was grossly underpaid. He was making peanuts, but people assumed he was expensive at the time because he didn't have much power.

Tanaka just took way less to opt in with the Yankees. Iwakuma extended under market several times for us until he declined.

Its highly likely that Ohtani would be a similar situation. You would likely be able to extend him inexpensively as long as he is happy. Even moreso since money seems to matter even less to him.

Wellll ... he gave us a great deal for sure

When he did that first re-sign for about $13M per year (or whatever it was) he could have gotten $20M no problemo. When he did the second re-sign, as I recall, he got like $18M. Quick look at fangraphs has him netting us $25-30M worth of bases per year for us, although nobody would have paid him $30M per season in 2007 of course.

Combination of a non-greedy, magnanimous attitude with a failure to FULLY appreciate that his 5 WAR per season were never going anywhere, as they did with Chone and many soft-skills players like him.

James had Ichiro easily in his Top 50 superduperstar list the other week (going back to 1900 or whenever). And that's despite the fact that he got started 5 years late ...

Could Ichiro have been a power hitter?

Eno Sarris has a piece on it, in which he quotes Ichiro as saying he could hit 40 homers -- if he were willing to hit .220.

Sarris uses launch/angle data to speculate on it, saying merely that --- > probably Ichiro was right to play the way he did. Um, ok, probably Ichiro would be right about anything he said on any subject, much less Ichiro being right about what he says about Ichiro's baseball playing.

Would be interested to hear Taro's, and IceX's, opinion though as to whether Ichiro could have hit (say) .275 with 32 homers a year.

...........

Off the top of my head I can't think of one single player with a greater claim to baseball uniqueness than Ichiro. Well, next year maybe.....

Thought it was a 3 year deal for Ichiro

worth about the same amount as the posting fee (FanGraphs' financial section says it was a $14mil/3 years first contract, and a posting fee of $13mil) which would put his average annual cost at $9mil for the first three years. After that there's a gap (I thought it was like $11mil/year on his second contract?) but starting in 2008 (his third contract) he was paid $16.5mil/year for five years.

At the time, a FA win was valued (by net-sabes) at ~$4mil per. Easy to forgive the first contract, but the second contract did indeed underpay him pretty badly if my memory is close on the $11mil/year number. The third contract was about what he was worth, all things considered (pending decline) so really it's that second contract that undervalued him. He should have been making the $15mil+ number starting on his second contract.

Just goes to show how much of a Company Guy he really was while here.

Minor League Contract

The difference that some may be missing is that Ohtani MUST sign a minor league contract. That means when he throws his first pitch, he will be playing for the league minimum and his arbitration clock will start. As any international amateur (under 25), his contract cannot include free agency after 3 years. (Now, a team could secretly pass a note to his agents with invisible ink saying in 2021 we'll release you or, better yet, we'll sign you to a $1 Billion extension, but MLB says that's not allowed).

This would be a game-changer

Thanks Hannibal.

1) One point that gets discussed a lot: a wink and nod from NYY about Ohtani's $200M deal following his free service. I'm seriously convinced that MLB is not going to tolerate that in this case. I don't think the handshake understandings are much of a factor here.

2) Doesn't Boras get a lot of his college players a guarantee of an MLB contract starting (say) 2 months after their first game?

You raise a great point for sure. If Shohei Ohtani really were a 6-year player that would be mind-boggling. I'd be floored if that were true, though. It's funny that nobody here knows for sure which one it is, since there's never been an u-25 NPB player come over.

Arb records

MLBtraderumors.com gives the following high-water marks for arb pitchers:

Arb1 - Keuchel, $7.25M

Arb2 - Arrieta, $10.7M

Arb3 - Scherzer, $15.5M

Arb4 - Price, $19.75M (naturally, Ohtani will be a Super Two player if that still exists)

Assuming that Ohtani is what they say he is, his year 3-6 salaries exceed all of the above numbers anyway. Considering he lives on less than $1k per month anyway, he'd probably be 100% fine with the numbers here.

LOL!