Overnight, we learned – well, Ken Rosenthal learned and had the good grace to share with everyone – that Shohei Ohtani is believed to have been in Florida yesterday, visiting with the Blue Jays at their Spring Training facility. Smart way to avoid the December weather in Toronto, where Ohtani already has plenty of experience. (The Cubs have no such luck, since he’s never played at Wrigley Field, and Chicago winter is what it is.)
Does that mean the Blue Jays now have the inside track, and these were the finishing touches on a monster deal? Well, it’s possible. But it’s possible only in the sense that nobody really knows anything. Still. Who had it on their docket that Ohtani would be taking an in-person visit with the Blue Jays in Florida on the Monday of the Winter Meetings? I can tell you who: nobody! The most well-informed insiders had it as perfectly plausible that Ohtani would choose his team BEFORE the Winter Meetings began, and now we’re led to believe it could wind up being way AFTER the Winter Meetings end. Let it continue to underscore that we just don’t know anything at all.
As an aside, though: interesting that meaningful, factual tidbits about the Toronto Blue Jays have leaked, but absolute nothing whatsoever about the Los Angeles Dodgers or Chicago Cubs.
Other Ohtani bits …
Although Ken Rosenthal had the Cubs still involved in his overnight report, Mark Feinsand’s late-night recap did not. It’s actually the first time since maybe Thanksgiving that I’ve seen the Cubs outright excluded like this: “The industry consensus all offseason has been that Ohtani will wind up moving 30 miles up I-5 to Dodger Stadium, but sources say that two other teams — the Blue Jays and Angels — remain firmly in play.” Is that just an oops? Has Feinsand heard that the Cubs are out, and others just haven’t heard yet? He didn’t technically say that the Cubs are out, just that their name wasn’t included by those sources. Either way, I don’t love it!
(In the same piece, the Cubs do get mentioned in the list of Yoshinobu Yamamoto suitors, so it’s not like he just forgot the Cubs existed. It’s a little unnerving.)
As of yesterday afternoon, Jon Heyman still had the five-ish finalists as the Dodgers, Blue Jays, Cubs, Angels, and Giants. And as of last evening, in addition to Rosenthal, the local Chicago crew at The Athletic certainly didn’t have the Cubs as out. So it could just be that, while they remain in the mix and pushing hard, they are still not seen – by Feinsand’s sources, at least – as a likely winner?
On the timing, Jim Bowden believes the Shohei Ohtani decision is still seven to ten days away. If so, I wonder if he really is a little torn about one or two or three of these suitors, and the sense around him is that he’ll need the time for more meetings, more conversation, more thinking, and so on and so forth.
… Or is it that it’s really down to just a team or two, but everyone involved knows there’s going to be significant tussling to get the precise contract terms down? This is not going to just be a, OK, here’s ten years and $500 million, deal is done, situation. The terms – and thus the negotiation about the terms and the differentiation among the teams – could be more complex than anything we’ve ever seen before. Not just because Ohtani is the biggest free agent ever, but also because he’s a one-of-a-kind two-way player who just underwent surgery on one of those two ways. And also because Ohtani may have some truly unique and particular requests in a contract that no one else really has access to. That negotiating process may, in turn, inform his comfort – or not – with these organizations that he’s potentially signing up to be attached to for the rest of his life.
A for-what-it’s-worth line:
The Blue Jays GM has the sales pitch GENERALLY to players LIKE Shohei Ohtani:
He also spoke about the speculation on where he was yesterday, but he actually wound up making a very thoughtful point about how hard huge deals are to put together:
The tea leaves, overall, haven’t looked great for the Cubs. The Dodgers remain the heavy favorite according to absolutely anyone who speaks on the matter, while the Blue Jays are the buzzy “other” team involved. How much does any of that actually MEAN? Doesn’t it remain possible that, truly, so very little is actually known that the speculation doesn’t have much value? Or am I just clinging to hope beyond hope because I desperately want Shohei Ohtani on the Cubs? It’s probably a mix of all of those things, but I do know it’s absolutely possible that the Cubs are as deep in and serious and possible as any team, given how incredibly quiet they can keep big moves.
NEWSLETTER
