At the end of this year, the Los Angeles Dodgers, which is considered the club to most actively tackle free agent Shohei Ohtani, draws attention by officially revealing the club’s position on the issue.
Dodgers baseball president Andrew Friedman recently told the Orange County Register, a local newspaper, “I think we’ve been consistently doing everything we can to build a winning streak. Our team has maintained that ethos every moment.” To be clear, I’m not referring to specific players, but also our motto is never, ‘Hey, let’s wait a year or two or three years for this’.”
He did not answer the question asking ‘whether he recruited Ohtani’, but he did not deny it either.
Reporter Bill Plunkett, who wrote an article about this, said, ‘When the Dodgers turned away from elite free agents last winter, many stories came out. The Dodgers have saved money and reset their payroll below the luxury tax threshold, so they can do their best to embrace Shohei Ohtani, who becomes a free agent later this year. Rather than doing it, he made a move to be willing to give up the year 2023 (perhaps missing the playoffs for the first time in 10 years).”
In other words, as they postponed the reinforcement work last winter, they saw that even if they failed in the playoffs this year, they could focus their efforts on recruiting Ohtani. As of the 28th, the Dodgers are 2nd in the NL West with 13 wins and 13 losses. It is one game behind the leader Arizona Diamondbacks. It is clear that the Dodgers power has weakened.
The Dodgers were included in the final 7 teams Ohtani selected in December 2017 when he promoted to join the major leagues through the posting system. This is the second attempt to flirt with Otani again this year.
“We’ve done a lot of reinforcements over the last three or four years, so it’s not something I’m paying much attention to,” he said. “Is it filled with talented players? We have the resources internally, and last winter we thought it was time to bring up the young prospects who had been waiting for an opportunity.”
At the same time, President Friedman cited catcher Will Smith, outfielder Alex Verdugo, and pitchers Tony Gonsolin and Dustin May, who debuted in the major leagues in 2019, as examples. He emphasized that he has been actively working on nurturing and raising promising players in the team. 토토사이트
It could be a smoke screen operation. No club has revealed plans for free agency. Same with the Dodgers. Even if you are interested in Ohtani, it is not appropriate to openly discuss what happened 7 months later.
But the media is different. Considering the reason the Dodgers were quiet in the free agent market last winter, it could be interpreted that the move was with Ohtani in mind. Reporter Plunkett seems to have come up with the same interpretation.
The Angels are very likely to trade Ohtani if they determine that their postseason chances have become slim this summer. The Dodgers have a farm that can fit the trade card well enough. It also has enough financial resources to cover Ohtani’s ransom, which is valued at more than $500 million.
The movement of the Dodgers team in relation to Ohtani is bound to draw attention throughout this season.