Like a lot of folks, I woke up this morning to the news: two-way superstar and impending free agent Shohei Ohtani has a tear in his UCL. He’s done pitching for the year, and his future suddenly has far more questions than it had just 12 hours ago.
Given the shock of the news and the limited period I’ve had to digest and process it, my head is still spinning a bit. More information is going to come out in time, there will be a kind of consensus clarifying on a number of related topics, and there will be additional twists and turns. Ohtani is reportedly getting a second opinion on the elbow before deciding what to do about it.
When the greatest impending free agent in the history of the sport suffers what could be a major injury, we can’t act like the fallout won’t be dramatic. It is going to impact Ohtani, obviously, as well as every team that was thinking about pursuing him, as well as every other top-tier free agent whose market can be impacted by the waterfall, and so on and so on. You can’t quite overstate the enormity of this story.
Let me try to get into some of the immediate thoughts and issues and concerns …
I guess let me just start with how much this sucks. Hopefully it doesn’t prove to be a pitching-ender or anything, but an elbow injury that imperils part of the career of one of the most incredible baseball players we’ve ever seen just makes me so sad. As a baseball fan, before even considering any of the future implications, it just makes me sad.
If this were Ohtani’s first UCL tear and first possible Tommy John surgery, I think there would be a little less consternation about his future. The medical technology gets better every year, but we know that a second Tommy John surgery is slightly less of a sure thing – in terms of getting back to your same level of effectiveness – than a first. (And obviously, once you’ve had that second one, a third Tommy John surgery is almost unprecedented territory. Cubs pitching prospect Ben Leeper is trying to come back from one right now, and reliever Johnny Venters famously came back for one more good season after a third Tommy John surgery.)
But will he even get surgery? That’s still TBD, as we do know that SOMETIMES guys can pitch through partial tears for a long time, receiving other kinds of treatment.
Of course, even if he doesn’t get surgery, that doesn’t really change the risk calculus for teams, since (1) you’ll already know that there’s the potential for a more complete tear at any moment, and (2) the best predictor of future injuries in general is past injuries. The fact of a second partially-torn UCL alone creates more pitching risk for Ohtani, regardless of whether projections/prognoses on surgery or treatment are optimistic or good.
Age is a factor here, as we know that it becomes increasingly difficult for the body to come back from major injuries and return to peak effectiveness as a person gets older. Ohtani is not old, but he will turn 30 next July. You’re already worried about pitchers in their 30s holding onto their velocity and stuff, so throwing a possible second Tommy John surgery into the mix only increases that worry.
None of this is to say that Ohtani’s pitching career is over. Guys do come back from a second Tommy John surgery, and Ohtani was such a dominant pitcher that even a degradation in that performance could still leave him a very good pitcher. It’s all about probabilities, and this news changes those probabilities a bit.
The fact that Ohtani can still hit (extremely well!) regardless of this particular injury is, of course, a tremendous buoy to his value. Even in a world where a team fears a second TJS – or knows that it’s happen before signing him – they can still use him as their DH for much of the recovery period, as the Angels did last time around.
… but of course, the difference in valuation between an outstanding 30-ish-year-old DH and a guy who is that PLUS an incredible starting pitcher is enormous.
Speaking of which, yes, that’s the biggest open question now: what does this news do to Ohtani’s free agent market and price tag? Well, we’re going to see a whole lot of opining about specific movements in the years and dollars, but I don’t know how useful that is right now. Ohtani will get a second opinion, decisions will be made, and there will be some of the most extensive and expensive medical reviews before we get to a point where we really know the range Ohtani can now seek.
I think the better way to discuss that topic today is simply to point to the risks. As far as I can see, this news adds to two major risks that I suppose were always there, but now have been ratcheted up SIGNIFICANTLY. The first risk is the obvious one: you sign a guy for $500 million to be a two-way player and it turns out that he either can’t return to pitching or returns but stinks. So you’ve just signed the most expensive DH in baseball history by a factor of like 3x. That risk, alone, could take a team or two out.
The second risk is the less obvious one, but it’s the one that could really crush Ohtani’s price tag. So much of the reason Ohtani was going to be worth $500+ million to a team is because he is a unicorn. A two-way superstar, and arguably the most talented player in baseball history. You want that guy because he can help you win, yes, but you also want him because then he gets to be associated with your organization for the rest of time. There is enormous value – literally direct financial value – in having that guy in your uniform for the next decade. But if he becomes just another DH while playing for your team? Even if a very good DH? Then your unicorn value goes poof. Whatever those massive extra revenue streams or revenue boosts you were hoping for are going to disappear.
Even if, in a world where Ohtani doesn’t pitch anymore, he could turn himself into a tremendous defensive outfielder (I wouldn’t bet against him!), you still lose the unicorn value. He’d be an international star, yes, but he wouldn’t be this singularity. Teams will see that as a massive, massive financial risk.
OK, but then, didn’t these risks already exist? I mean, Ohtani’s elbow could’ve popped next year after you signed him. Or the year after that. And none of us were talking about these particular risks in this particular way before this morning. … I suppose that’s true – I’m just thinking out loud to myself – but this news made those risks REAL. They have ACTUALLY been activated now. So maybe the risk of “loss of unicorn” just went from 10% to 50% or whatever. Teams will definitely have some actuaries on it …
Speaking of complex math, you better believe the contract structure is about to get even wilder now. Options and escalators based on health, opt ins and opt outs, insurance coverage, and all that. Look, it was already going to be a crazy contract in value, length, and structure, but I think it probably just got twice as crazy. We’re going to hear some of the most creative proposals ever.
Do I think the Cubs will still be involved? I do. The injury wouldn’t change their interest, because there’s still a chance that Ohtani would come back from this injury and continue being a two-way superstar. It’s not like it CAN’T happen. It’s just that the Cubs, like every other team, is going to have to re-assess the situation and their appetite for risk. I tend to think this news makes it even more likely than it already was that the wealthiest teams – the ones who can afford the most risk – would be the ones to land him.
You could argue this news makes it more likely that the Cubs re-sign Cody Bellinger – I know a lot of you are thinking it – but it’s just as likely that a dent in the market for Ohtani could create even more demand for Bellinger, and thus make it slightly less likely that the Cubs re-sign him. So I’ll leave that alone for now, and default to the reported position: the Cubs will probably wait to see what’s up with the Ohtani market before going full-bore on Bellinger.
This is not the end of the discussion. This is just me reacting initially after the news. I just said a whole lot of words, and yet I still don’t even entirely know what I think yet.
I suppose, to that end, I’ll wait for the news on Ohtani’s second opinion and his prognosis/plan, and we’ll think about how it might impact the Cubs’ (and other teams’) strategy heading into free agency.
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