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2024 MLB Season: Paul Skenes to Debut On Saturday (5.11) Against the Cubs

dartsndeacs said:
I'd say it worked out OK for Brady and Duncan
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They didn’t do anything this extreme. They got paid below market salary despite being all time greats.
 
deacon14 said:
I mean his circumstance is unique enough that I really don’t think it’s comparable to anything we’ve seen before.

I don’t think structuring a contract this way should be allowed, but I get it from Ohtani’s perspective
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Agreed - from a baseball fan/competitive balance perspective, I don’t think it should be allowed, but it is by the current CBA (something I would expect to now be heavily negotiated next time around). From Ohtani’s perspective, it doesn’t seem crazy at all - we only know what’s been publicly reported, but by all accounts, he wanted a west coast, winning team and the deferral idea came from his side.
 
He makes $45M a year in endorsement deals. He can afford to take $2M a year to allow the team to build around him and win
 
WindyCityDeac said:
He makes $45M a year in endorsement deals. He can afford to take $2M a year to allow the team to build around him and win
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The lead owner for the Dodgers with worth $5.8B. They can afford to pay all the players they need to win a World Series.
 
I realize the Dodgers have enough money and more. But it's hard to imagine it NOT being funny when the Dodgers are paying a retired player $68MM per year.

Unless they've won multiple championships by then, the jerks.
 
but I thought he was a horrible teammate.

www.theplayerstribune.com

Can You Believe This Right Now? | By Lars Nootbaar

Playing for a historic franchise, in front of the best fans in the league, with guys like Nolan and Goldy and Waino? I couldn’t imagine anything better.
www.theplayerstribune.com www.theplayerstribune.com

Look, I know you’ve read and heard a lot about Shohei by this point. You’ve seen him play. You know what he can do. You get it. I get it.

But I’m here to tell you that Shohei Ohtani is an even better person than he is a baseball player. And I’ve never met anyone who is as comfortable in his own skin as Shohei. None of it is a show, either. You can absolutely tell.

The first time I met him I was in the clubhouse, feeling a bit on my own — didn’t know anyone, didn’t speak the language, nerves all over the place. I’m fumbling around trying to put stuff away in my locker, and I turn around and … Shohei and Ippei are standing there looking at me. And I’m not too proud to say that I was starstruck right then. But Shohei, he just gives me this huge smile, and, in English, he says: “Hey, Lars. How’s your family?” It immediately put me at ease.

And all throughout the tournament, he was just one of the boys. In Japan, age and respect are everything. But with Shohei, even though he was a little older than some of the players on that team, he was always telling us: “Treat me like I’m the same age as you! Talk to me as an equal!” He was always wanting to just be one of the guys.

So to be that talented, and then, at the same time, that humble and kind? It really was inspiring to me. I can’t say enough good things about him. And now, I’m so proud to call him my friend.
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It would be funny if Shohei is also making his agent take the deferred payment. No doubt he’s just taking care of it now.

The no interest thing is noteworthy.
 
MichDeac25 said:
So the Dodges are gonna be awesome for at least the next 5 years and then absolutely suck from 2034-2045?
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They are betting on the fact that payroll will continue to go up over the next ten years, and paying this amount of money over that time frame will be less detrimental than doing it now. It is kind of interesting though, I think there's an argument to be made that paying him like $10-15M per year over the next 10 years to lessen the hit from 2034-2045 would be better than for the Dodgers than what they are doing.

Also, big market teams can stomach a single bad contract and typically be fine. The Yankees are paying Giancarlo Stanton ~$30M annually through 2028 and they are still going to be just fine. So I'm sure the Dodgers will find a way to make it work even while paying a retired Ohtani significant money every year.
 
FWIW, the Ohtani/Dodgers massive contract payment deferral helps a little a bit as far as the luxury tax goes, but not as much as people think. From MLBTR:

Earlier today, we learned that Shohei Ohtani’s $700MM contract with the Dodgers has a stunning deferral structure: he’ll earn a mere $2MM in each of the ten seasons he’s agreed to play baseball for the club, and then $68MM per year from 2034-43.

Based on what I’ve seen on social media tonight, a lot of baseball fans think the purpose of these deferrals is for the Dodgers to “dodge” the competitive balance tax (yes, t-shirts are already being drawn up). Here’s why that’s wrong.

The collective bargaining agreement has a section for calculating the CBT hit for a contract that includes deferred money. According to reports, that calculation works out to a $46MM average annual value and accompanying CBT hit for the Dodgers and Ohtani. As you can see here, $46MM tops Max Scherzer’s previous AAV record of $43,333,333.33. It’s $6MM beyond Aaron Judge’s $40MM AAV, which was the highest for a player on a deal of more than three years.

Not only is $46MM a record AAV, but it’s entirely in line with expectations. MLBTR predicted a $44MM AAV for Ohtani. Most other prognosticators were in that range. In fact, the median Ohtani AAV prediction of the other six outlets we’re tracking was $45,984,849. It would be almost impossible for Ohtani’s luxury tax AAV to have met expectations any harder.

The problem is the initially reported $70MM AAV. That was the first number people saw, and it gets ingrained for fans after being seen in thousands of headlines. The agent certainly didn’t mind. Though news of significant deferred money quickly followed and ESPN’s Jeff Passan narrowed it down to $40-50MM yesterday, more precise numbers weren’t known until today.
 
Sure, but the Dodgers will be much more willing to go higher into the tax in the next decade considering the amount of money they are currently saving on the Ohtani contract.
 
From today's Wall Street Journal:

...Under baseball’s collective bargaining agreement, there is no limit to the amount of deferred money a player can have on his contract. According to league and union sources, MLB has in the past proposed limits on deferred salary—including a full ban on deferred money in a 2021 proposal—but the MLB Players Association has rejected the idea.

Agents said the use of deferred compensation can get a club to increase the total nominal value of a contract from what they may offer in present-day dollars. Doing so has allowed some players to set records for compensation. Mookie Betts, who will line up alongside Ohtani for the Dodgers, set the record for largest-ever contract extension, at $365 million over 12 years, though $120 million of that is deferred beginning in 2033.

It’s unclear if Ohtani received offers from other clubs that exceeded the $460 million present-day value of his contract with the Dodgers, but he is said to have offered the same deferral structure to other teams in negotiations.

“The team has to be willing to do it,” said Sean Packard, tax director at OFS Wealth, which helps athletes manage their finances. “And two, the player’s got to be in a situation to where he’s OK deferring all that money. A lot of guys want the money now.”
 
So do I have it right the 14 year Judge deal would have been vetoed as an attempt to game luxury tax but deferred payments are not because the CBT payroll is based on NPV? This just frees up the Dodgers to spend more cash payroll to fill out roster.
 
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