In the event you exist on a airplane exterior the insular world of sports activities Twitter (sports activities X?), you won’t remember that the world presently hinges on MLB free agent Shohei Ohtani choosing a brand new baseball group. Till mentioned group is chosen, these of us left behind within the bubble can do nothing however hit “refresh” on the social media accounts of Ken Rosenthal, Jeff Passan, Susan Slusser, and their ilk till such time as Ohtani sees match to launch us from MLB purgatory.
As a result of those that dwell for MLB view the Winter Conferences as a bucolic oasis of baseball within the midst of the winter sports activities — soccer, basketball, hockey — we’re spending our days hanging on each tweet, each column, each dispatch that may give us some perception on the place a myriad of our favourite gamers will likely be subsequent summer season. Will our groups be winners or losers, thereby turning us into winners or losers by affiliation? Solely the information crawler on the backside of MLB Community broadcasts is aware of!
I’m attempting to color an image right here of how determined MLB followers — a month previous the top of the World Collection and a month away from their numerous group fanfests — are for MLB information. Having been a devoted member of Cubs Twitter since round twenty aught eight, I really feel certified to collect the kids across the campfire and inform tales of how we discovered that the Cubs signed Alfonso Soriano (after which instantly realized it was a 7-year deal, completely insane on the time) and the time we realized the group had traded away all the core of the 2016 World Collection group, as a result of the homeowners determined that one World Championship was a lot for us.
Which brings me again to the person of the hour, Shohei Ohtani, and his reported want for secrecy whereas he flirts with half a dozen fortunate MLB groups. You might need seen Ohtani catching stray tweets from just a few media members, however I wasn’t conscious this was “a thing” till Craig Calcaterra identified Buster Olney’s ESPN column in his e-newsletter this morning. Olney claims that Ohtani’s choice “is being handled like delicate negotiations over a secret spy swap. There is silence and threats, with club executives rolling their eyes as they describe the warnings they have been given from Ohtani’s camp about publicly discussing their efforts to sign the most dynamic and popular talent on earth.”
Over at ESPN, Jeff Passan has reported that Ohtani’s camp says that public experiences from any groups about their conferences will “be held against the team” in Ohtani’s decision-making.
There have been just a few tweets from beat writers as nicely, whinging on about all the data they aren’t getting. All of the methods life is unfair to them — blah blah blah. Typical fare from a sure kind and technology of MLB beat reporter. The rationale all of this issues is as a result of the primary massive free-agent domino often must fall earlier than the free-agent signing frenzy begins, and this 12 months, Ohtani is the most important domino of all. Till Ohtani indicators, and the groups that lose out on the sweepstakes are pressured to look elsewhere for an enormous bat and beginning pitcher in two completely different individuals, we’re all simply going to take a seat right here, poking the Winter Conferences with a stick, begging it to do one thing.
However regardless of the hand-wringing, details about Ohtani is getting out, due to guys like Dodgers supervisor Dave Roberts, who spoke candidly about Ohtani being the Dodgers’ high offseason precedence, a lot to the dismay of GM Brandon Gomes. “I don’t feel like lying is something that I do,” Roberts mentioned. “I was asked a question (about Ohtani), and to be forthright in the situation, we kept it quiet. But I think it’s going to come out at some point that we met.”
Certainly. Is there anybody on the market that thinks the Dodgers wouldn’t meet with Ohtani? Or that LA wouldn’t be one of many finalists for his companies? I’d submit that there’s not. Reviews of Ohtani meeting with the Blue Jays in Florida was solely a semi-surprise due to his well-known want to remain on the West Coast. Ohtani assembly with the Reds? The Marlins? Now these would have been bombshells. However to this point, a lot of the imprecise experiences about who Ohtani is contemplating are precisely the groups all of us guessed he was contemplating. The Dodgers, Giants, Angels, possibly the Cubs, possibly the Mariners. Most likely nobody on the East Coast, but when he was going to satisfy with a group on the jap half of the continent, my guess would have been Toronto. (What are you even doing, Yankees? Try to be in on this.)
As a result of whereas Ohtani has the proper to conduct his free company search in any method he desires, preserving issues on the down low isn’t actually how the Winter Conferences work. Certain, each on occasion we’re shocked with an actual humdinger of a dark-horse deal, however group reps on the Winter Conferences have cameras and digital recorders caught of their faces repeatedly, and everybody desires to learn about Ohtani. And that’s earlier than we even contemplate all of the assistants working round Nashville who’ve covert relationships with the media. Then take into consideration the front-office staffers who didn’t go to Nashville, however are looped in on who the group is assembly with. That’s lots of people to maintain quiet. Somebody was all the time going to leak it to the press. Dave Roberts simply beat them to it.
If Ohtani desires to make use of leaking to the media as a part of his standards for selecting a group, it’s his proper, however it additionally appears very shortsighted. There are already solely a handful of groups that may afford Ohtani and dinging a group just like the Dodgers, who seem to verify all of the bins Ohtani reportedly cares about, simply because their supervisor admitted that they need to signal Ohtani and have met with him, looks like an actual weirdo transfer. In fact, Ohtani isn’t like several participant we’ve ever seen.
Perhaps he desires to see what group will honor his request as a part of the analysis course of. Maybe it issues to him due to a want to guard the main points of his non-public life. Perhaps wage negotiations are distasteful and embarrassing to him. Perhaps it’s all a lark to see what number of hoops he could make groups bounce by way of. Regardless of the purpose, it was by no means really going to work. Not with the fishbowl in Nashville and reporters skulking across the foyer hiding behind potted crops and frantically tweeting out no matter bits of knowledge they handle to glean. The general public having no thought of what groups Ohtani is speaking to was all the time a pipe dream. Anybody on MLB Twitter may have advised him that.
