A's Owner John Fisher is a Trendsetter
When the reporting started coming out about how the deferrals were set in Shohei Ohtani's contract with the Los Angeles Dodgers, you know that A's owner John Fisher was in a room pumping his fist somewhere.
Over the weekend, Ohtani announced that he has agreed to sign with the Dodgers, a deal that is reportedly worth $700 million for ten years. However, 97% of that contract will be paid to him during the ten years after that contract is up. That's right, he'll be getting $2 million per season for the next ten years, and then have the other $680 million paid to him the following ten. This is in an effort to make his contract not hurt the team so much when pushing up against some of the tax thresholds in the CBA.
In a way, John Fisher is a trendsetter. Sure, the A's had Moneyball in the early 2000's, but that was before Fisher bought the team. Instead, Fisher made his mark on the game when he offered free agent Marcus Semien (a hometown favorite) a one year, $12.5 million deal with $2.5 million upfront, and then one million to be paid each year over the course of ten years.
Not only is Fisher a genius, but he's also apparently a big spender. He has three, count 'em three, players set to make more than Ohtani is owed next season. First up, there's Aledmys Díaz, who is owed $8 million in 2024, which is the equivalent of four seasons of Ohtani.
The other two players are in arbitration, but they are estimated to make over $2 million. The first of those is starter Paul Blackburn, who has a projected salary of $3.2 million, and the other is outfielder Seth Brown, who is projected at $2.4 million.
Fisher said things would be different when the ballpark situation was resolved, but A's fans never thought he'd follow through on that promise. Boy were they wrong!
Jokes aside, it should also be noted that the ballpark situation is far from resolved and there is the tricky little detail of how the A's owner is coming up with his portion of the $1.5 billion project.
People tend to fret over the teams that are spending money, like the San Diego Padres last winter or the Dodgers with the Ohtani contract, but at least those teams are trying to win. Meanwhile the A's have just three players that are set to make over $2 million next season after losing 112 games in 2023. Those are the teams that there should be outcry over in an attempt to raise the bar.
Instead, people are bemoaning how much the Dodgers are spending and how they're doing it, when having the highest payroll (or even the best team) doesn't necessarily guarantee success in the postseason. The Dodgers have won 10 of the last 11 NL West titles, and have one World Series trophy to show for it.
The A's have won a series in the playoffs twice since 1993, and one of those was just a Wild Card round win that got them to the Division Series. If the A's operated more like the Dodgers, fans wouldn't have given up on this team long ago. Players would have been retained and there would have been a reason to show up and buy jerseys and feel a connection to the team.
They didn't do any of that, so now they are attempting to figure out a way to gain popularity in Las Vegas where they aren't even wanted, even if their owner is spending "Ohtani money."