SF Giants free-agent fit profile: Los Angeles Angels P/DH Shohei Ohtani
As the SF Giants look to make some significant upgrades via free agency, they will surely be trying to convince Shohei Ohtani (Top free agent) to sign with them. The Los Angeles Angels ace/designated hitter will surely receive a qualifying offer in the coming weeks, but no one expects that to keep him in Los Angeles. In a year with a relatively thin offensive free-agent class, Ohtani is the one, undeniable, superstar.
Angels superstar Shohei Ohtani (17) lines a ball during yet another MVP-caliber season (2023).
Orlando Ramirez-USA TODAY Sports
In the span of six years in MLB, Shohei Ohtani has cemented his legacy as an international superstar and one of the best to ever play the game. He's a modern-day Babe Ruth, a top-of-the-rotation ace who can open a playoff series while simultaneously being a premier power/speed threat in the DH role. He won MVP in 2021, finished top-five in both MVP and Cy Young voting in 2022, and will likely win another MVP award this offseason.
As a hitter last year, Ohtani ranked in the top 5% of the league for expected batting average, the top 2% for walk rate, and the top 1% for exit velocity (both average and maximum) and expected slugging %. He also barreled more balls than anyone in the league, which helped him lead the majors in home runs, OPS, and total bases. Ohtani swings and misses more than almost anyone in the league, but he posted a career-best strikeout rate last year (albeit below MLB average), and has posted top-10 OPS marks in each of the last three seasons.
Ohtani took a bit more time developing on the pitching side, but he's become as fearsome a starter as he is a hitter. After just 50 innings between 2018 and 2020, Ohtani has thrown between 130 and 166 innings in each of the past three years. He's posted ERAs of 3.18, 2.44, and 3.14 in that span, while ranking 9th, 3rd, and 6th in strikeout-per-inning rates for pitchers with at least 130 innings. This is the type of dominance that teams will expect from 'Shohei the pitcher' once he returns to the mound.
So, whoever wins the Ohtani sweepstakes will have reason to believe they have signed one of the best hitters in baseball, and a starter that can open a World Series.
That sentence, as hyperbolic as it sounds, is the core of why Ohtani is certain to earn the largest contract ever handed out in MLB free agency. As a hitter alone, he would easily be the best player on all but a handful of teams. As a pitcher alone, he would easily be the best player on all but a handful of teams. He can throw a complete game shutout in which his fastball hits 100 MPH. He can hit a walk-off home run 500 feet. And he can do it in the same game.
Ohtani might be the best free agent to hit the market since Barry Bonds, and the thing is, he might be even better value. Top-of-the-market free agent signings are often overpays, due to the high overall or AAV (average annual value) dollar marks and the near certainty that the player will be well past his prime by the end of the contract. The few players that defy this paradigm are the truly elite, the first-ballot Hall-of-Famers. Ohtani is one of them.
That's the hype. And it's warranted, because until proven otherwise, every plate appearance for Ohtani will be appointment viewing for the fans of his new digs. Still, unless he turns into an actual Superman, it's still worth going into the specifics of his gameplay..
First, let's be clear - he's almost certainly not going to pitch next season. That's a disappointment for two reasons; aside from not getting to see him in the field, Ohtani's now had two season-ending elbow injuries. Ultimately, his latest round of surgeries should help him maintain the longevity needed to justify baseball's biggest contract, but that's only a "should." Far weirder things have happened than a talented pitcher struggling to come back from recurring injuries.
It's also important to note that Ohtani certainly seems to come from the new school of pitching performance. He's simply not going to threaten 200 innings in a season if he continues like he has been. It puts a little bit of strain on a pitching staff when you're only expecting about 150 innings from your ace (or at least co-ace). Still, the quality of those innings is undeniable. Ohtani throws hard, gets strikeouts, and doesn't get hit very hard. You can quibble about the below-average walk rate and middling tertiary pitches, but overall it's an effective package.
Ohtani's hitting is even more interesting, because he goes even more all in on being an absolute physical specimen. He's a perpetual threat to lead the league in home runs, and he gets walked more than just about anyone else because of it. But he will swing and miss; he struck out 189 times in 2021, and whiffed more often than all but 3% of qualified hitters that year. He still swings through balls more than almost anyone in the league, but he cut his strikeout rate. The strikeouts seem like more of a bug than a feature, but Ohtani has a legitimate shot to close up that one hole in his game if he concentrates solely on hitting.
And one final thing - it's easy to forget that Ohtani provides plenty of positive value on the bases. He stole 20 bases last year, right around what guys like Randy Arozarena and Cody Bellinger did. His personal best is 26 stolen bases in 155 games, and his sprint speed is above-average but not elite. If he was also the second coming of Ricky Henderson, he might be a billionaire after this next contract, but he's a smart player who gets on base a lot and can do some damage when he's there.
Ohtani is a superstar's superstar. He's one of the biggest, fastest, and strongest, and smartest players on the field wherever he goes, and he's instantly marketable on both sides of the Pacific Ocean. In short, he's the most valuable player in the sport, which would instantly make him the most valuable player on whichever team he signs with.
Which makes Ohtani a fit for just about every team in baseball. But the Giants in particular should be especially desperate to sign him. They need a heart-of-the-order bat to anchor what has largely been a roster of spare parts. Ohtani checks that box. They need to add an instant star to one of the few teams in baseball that actually dropped in attendance last year. Ohtani checks that box, too. They don't have anyone except Logan Webb and Mitch Haniger signed past 2025, and if Mitch Haniger keeps you from picking up Shohei Ohtani, you've officially failed as a franchise.
Of the obstacles to signing Ohtani, two of them are short-term. Those are the fact that he probably won't pitch in 2024, and the fear that Ohtani subsequently won't be able to live up to his contract during one or two of those extra-valuable prime years.
Per FanGraphs, Ohtani's combined value last year as a DH and a starter was worth $72 million. But more than $50 million of that came from his value as a slugger, and if he can't pitch, he'll have an opportunity to expand on his productivity from that side. And that says nothing of the marketing opportunities from employing Ohtani that should more than offset any fluctuation in his performance. So long as Ohtani doesn't continue to sustain season-ending injuries, the Giants can manage without his pitching in 2024.
Plus, Ohtani's availability dovetails nicely into the Giants' current roster construction, where their rotation for 2025 would consist of Webb, Ohtani, hopefully Harrison, and then a whole lot of blanks. That gives the Giants the one thing they truly love - flexibility. Maybe the Giants crash in hard on Yoshinobu Yamamoto, and Mason Black or Carson Wisenhunt breaks out in 2024. Maybe the Giants bide their time for Zack Wheeler to join them once again, and Tristan Beck and Keaton Winn keep filling out the back of the rotation. By the time Ohtani can pitch again, the Giants can become an absolute menace on that side of the ball, a luxury Ohtani never enjoyed in Los Angeles.
The long-term obstacle here is a little more cookie cutter - how well the contract is likely to age. With a bidding war likely, the length of the contract could get pushed to as many as 14 years, which would take Ohtani through his age-43 season. There have been productive 43-year-old players, but very, very few, and fewer worth $50 million or so a year. The Giants, like every other team, aren't looking forward to paying that much money to a guy who might be a below-average with four or five years left on the deal.
But it's important to remember that these contracts always look less onerous in hindsight. In 2012, Albert Pujols signed a 10-year, $240 million contract. It still looked pretty bad by the end, but $24 million by itself isn't going to stop a savvy organization from maximizing their opportunities. And the SF Giants have certainly avoided getting bogged down with bad contracts, with Logan Webb their only player signed past 2026. It's been far too long since the Giants have pushed all their chips into the middle of the table, and for a guy like Shohei Ohtani, they should mortgage the damn house if they need to.
