Shohei Ohtani (LA Dodgers) is on an exciting ‘away’.
The official Major League Baseball website MLBcom highlighted Ohtani’s trip on the 26th (Korea Standard Time), saying, “Ohtani is on a plane heading to Toronto.” After completing three consecutive road trips to the Washington Nationals, the Dodgers will hold three consecutive road trips from the 27th to Toronto. Attention is focused on Ohtani’s “past.”
Toronto was active in recruiting Ohtani, who was released as a free agent last winter. According to MLBcom , Toronto respected Ohtani’s intention to keep the negotiations private and moved as carefully as possible. His whereabouts were so much of a concern that there were a series of inaccurate reports that Ohtani had been on a flight to Toronto.
Ohtani’s final choice was the Dodgers, not Toronto. He has decided to move to LA for a total of 700 million dollars in 10 years. This is the highest contract in the history of professional sports in the world, surpassing the 674 million dollar contract signed by Lionel Messi (current Inter Miami) of FC Barcelona for five years from 2017 to 2021. Ohtani was the first player in Major League history to sign a free agent contract for a total of 400 million dollars (550.7 billion won).
“Obviously, we were very disappointed with the outcome,” Toronto general manager Ross Atkins said after Ohtani’s fate was announced. “It was one of the most difficult calls of my career,” he said. “I think he had a particular appeal to this country, to this city, to this team. There was no doubt about it and the process was unbelievable, but we moved on,” he said, revealing his mixed feelings. According to Atkins, Ohtani also visited Toronto’s spring training facility in Dunedin, Florida, before signing with the Dodgers.
It’s not like we’ve built feelings for each other, either. Ahead of the Toronto trip, Ohtani said, “I met the Toronto team. My impression was that they’re such a great team. The fans were really friendly, and so was the city. I’m really looking forward to going to Toronto.” “Otani is an unbelievable player, an unbelievable player,” said Toronto coach John Schneider. “I hate seeing him in other dugouts, but I have to admit how good he is. It will be interesting to see how the fans welcome him.”
Ohtani has a batting average of 0.258 (39 hits in 109 at-bats) with six homers and 16 RBIs in 27 games this season. His on-base plus slugging percentage (0.419) and OPS are 1.089, ranking third overall in the Major League.