Angels News: Halos Insider Not Confident Team Will Re-Sign Shohei Ohtani Long Term
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Angels star Shohei Ohtani won't be a free agent for another nine months, but now that all of this offseason's big free agents have signed, Ohtani has become a hot topic of conversation. That topic intensified a bit recently when Arte Moreno decided to keep ownership of the Halos instead of selling them as he had planned.
Will Moreno's continuing ownership impact the team's ability to re-sign Ohtani? Sam Blum of The Athletic thinks it might. Blum was on the Locked On Angels podcast with Jon and Mike Frisch this week, and he talked about the Angels' chances of bringing back Shohei after 2023.
“If you read between the lines on everything Ohtani has said, and just looking at the situation as we know it to be with his contract, with free agency and what that might mean, I can’t imagine this helps. There’s just no equation in my mind where this helps.
"That’s not to say it’s impossible for them to re-sign him. I do think he likes playing for the Angels … he’s been there for five years, he’s developed relationships. I think the Angels have handled him well, in terms of giving him the autonomy to kind of train as he thinks he’s fit, to go and play in the World Baseball Classic and maybe not necessarily be there in spring to train. He’s really kind of does his own thing and they give him that space, and I think that they handle him perfectly, really, I do think that. And I think that goes a long way with how he views his experience in Anaheim.
"That being said, you have to just look at the money and the way Arte spends it. Is he gonna go above the luxury tax threshold? He hasn’t yet. He increased payroll a little bit this year. But to keep Ohtani, it’s gonna be upwards or close to I think $400 to $500 million at a minimum, really, for whatever number of years that is. So if you’re talking about an eight-year deal at $500 million, it’s going to be ridiculous. You’re gonna have to be spending $40 million a year on top of the $38 [million] you’re spending on Anthony Rendon who’s gonna be mid-30s next year and all this injury issues. You’re gonna have Mike Trout who’s had some injury issues the last couple of years, also making over $35 million a year.
"So you’re gonna have three guys well upwards of $100 million, and then I don’t know how you fill out the roster, especially since there are already some other guys they owe money to, like David Fletcher, Max Stassi, it’s not insignificant, really. So I don’t know how they’re gonna build a roster that stays under the luxury tax threshold that includes Shohei Ohtani, who’s also gonna be aging, quite frankly. … Unless Arte’s gonna up that payroll and really, really do what it takes to keep him and build a roster around him, because that’s gonna be critical for him, too. Shohei’s not just gonna want to get his bag in Anaheim and then play for a team that continues to lose, because he can get it anywhere.”
Blum's numbers even undersell the point a bit, because an eight-year deal worth $500 million would be $62.5 million per year. To get Ohtani down to that $40 million number that Blum already thinks is too high, we'd be looking at 12 or 13 years, probably.
Could the Angels afford that? Probably. We never get to see any financials, but the fact that Moreno chose to keep the team rather than get a couple billion dollars for it suggests it's probably pretty profitable, and Ohtani surely contributes to a lot of that profitability.
But yeah, it's hard to see Moreno being willing to blow past the luxury tax when thus far he hasn't even gotten within shouting distance of it. Which probably means Ohtani is headed out.
Check out the whole conversation between the Frisch brothers and Blum. Locked On Angels is an excellent podcast, and I'm not just saying that because I host a show on the same network.
