Shohei Ohtani Opens Up on Contract Deferrals, Reveals Promise Dodgers Made to Him

When Shohei Ohtani signed with the Los Angeles Dodgers on a 10-year, $700 million deal last year, the baseball world was sent into a frenzy.

The Dodgers, who had dominated the National League West for the last decade but had just one shortened-season World Series victory to show for it, were adding arguably the greatest free agent ever to the largest free agent contract in MLB history.

That, alone, was enough to set the baseball world on fire. Then, the contract details emerged. Ohtani was deferring $680 million of the $700 million, paying him just $2 million per season for the 10 years he would play in L.A.

Dodgers Fan Favorite Fuels Nolan Arenado to LA Trade Rumors While non-Dodger fans were outraged by the contract, it was later revealed that Ohtani and his agent, Nez Balelo, offered that same structure to every team who wanted to sign him.

In fact, it was Ohtani’s idea. Almost a year after he signed the richest contract in MLB history, Ohtani spoke to Bob Nightengale of USA Today in an exclusive interview, where he spoke about those deferrals and the “promise” he and the Dodgers made to each other.

“You know, Mark (Walter), Andrew (Friedman), the owners, we all made a promise to each other that we would go out and create the best team to put out on the field,” Ohtani said.

“And we were able to win the World Series, so in that sense we were able to keep our promise towards each other.”

While winning the World Series was the ultimate goal, the Dodgers organization isn’t stopping there. The team signed one of the best free agents available this offseason in two-time Cy Young award winner Blake Snell to a five-year, $182 million deal (of course, with some deferred money).

They’re also in the midst of a $100 million renovation at Dodger Stadium.

Ohtani is taking notice of it all. “I know they’re renovating the field right now, putting in even more resources to sign possibly other players,” Ohtani said. “So it was refreshing and rewarding to know that we all did our part to help the Dodgers win the World Series.”

Balelo noted Ohtani’s “unselfishness,” and applauded him for having his vision come to fruition. “I don’t think we’ll ever see this type of unselfishness in an athlete to give up as much as he did,” Balelo said to Nightengale.

“It was a huge splash in the industry that’s never been done before to that level. It was very, very important to Shohei not to hamstring an organization.

He just said, ‘What would happen if we defer all or part of that salary? I’m fine financially.’ “It was important to him to allow the Dodgers to ultimately be competitive year after year and go out and be able to sign players to bring together a championship-caliber team. That was really his ultimate goal here.”

In year one, Ohtani and the Dodgers have already succeeded. However, the goal isn’t just to win one World Series. It’s to create a dynasty.

And for all the fans complaining about deferrals, Dodgers CEO Stan Kasten said this isn’t anything new.