Is Shohei Ohtani being underpaid by the Los Angeles Dodgers?
While that may sound absolutely ridiculous, considering Ohtani had just signed a $700 million contract with the Dodgers in December 2023, however, the Boys in Blue’s front office may have got him on an absolute bargain.
According to former-MLB-All-Star-turned-analyst AJ Pierzynski, Ohtani is rumored to have helped the Dodgers bring in $120 million in just Year 1 with the team.
“How much did I tell you all that Ohtani made for the Dodgers?” Pierzynski said to his “Foul Territory” podcast co-hosts.
“For the Dodgers?” responded podcast co-host Scott Braun. “$120 million.”
Pierzynski corrected himself saying Ohtani may have brought in even more than that initial amount.
“Actually now, [I] was given more facts and there was more than that. So that was a that was an understatement by me. So I apologize,” he said in the Foul Territory podcast episode.
Ohtani’s rumored value to the Dodgers come as the 2-time MVP (likely three when MLB announces the 2024 winner next month) will make $2 million in base salary in each of the upcoming nine seasons after deciding to defer his salary. It won’t be until July 2034 when Ohtani will start making $68 million per year in base salary through 2043. Of course, the Dodger star makes well over the current $2 million base salary as he holds a long list of endorsement deals off the field.
While the Dodgers have not made any announcement on how much the team made just off Ohtani, neither the team, nor the coaching staff have shown any signs of buyer’s remorse after baseball’s “unicorn” put together a historic 2024 MLB season that ended with a “50-50 season” and a World Series title.
The evening Ohtani broke the 50-homer, 50-stolen base threshold to become baseball’s first 50-50 club member, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts told ESPN’s Scott Van Pelt in an interview that the free-agent signing could not have gotten any better.
“I don’t want to speak for Mark Walter, our owner,” Roberts said in the Sept. 2024 interview with Van Pelt. “He’s in finance, but I think he got the best return on investment with Shohei Ohtani with the $700 million.”
Not to mention the Year 1 success came without the attention and hype that comes with Shohei Ohtani, the starting pitcher.
“I do think that there was a concerted effort to kind of understand that this is an opportunity for [Ohtani] to be dynamic,” Roberts said of Ohtani, the designated hitter. “He is just an athlete that I’ve never seen before. And I got a chance to play against Barry Bonds and played with Barry certainly at the end of his career. But what Shohei is doing, you know, he’s head and shoulders above the field.”
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