Description
These words stimulated a superstar who was thirsty for victory. Shohei Ohtani (29) judged the LA Dodgers to be a team with such great aspirations for the championship that he described the past 10 years as a 'failure' and signed the highest contract in American professional sports history. Ohtani once again showed his strong will to win by agreeing to a huge 10-year contract worth $700 million (about 906 billion won) with the Dodgers.
Ohtani attended his introductory press conference held at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles, California, USA on the 15th (Korean time). Dodgers owner Mark Walter, baseball president Andrew Friedman, and manager Dave Roberts attended and welcomed the superstar who will wear the Dodgers uniform for the next 10 years.
The Dodgers actively entered the race to recruit Ohtani as soon as the free agent market opened this winter. As the San Francisco Giants, Toronto Blue Jays, Chicago Cubs, Atlanta Braves, and LA Angels competed fiercely, the price, which was expected to be around $500 million to $600 million, soared beyond imagination. Until the end, the Dodgers, San Francisco, and Toronto worked hard to recruit Ohtani, and in the end, the Dodgers, who spent 700 million dollars, enjoyed the joy of victory. After the contract was announced, there was talk that San Francisco also spent $700 million, but Ohtani chose the Dodgers.
Is that why? The reporters who attended the induction ceremony persistently asked, “Why did you choose the Dodgers despite courtship from other teams?” Every time a question comes up, Otani says, "Stove League is still going on." He avoided answering, saying, “Mentioning other clubs could be problematic.”
Instead, he clearly explained why he chose the Dodgers. In the end, it's a win. Ohtani said, “I met and talked to several teams, and I liked all the teams I met and talked to. I had to choose a team, and that was the Dodgers. “The decisive reason for choosing the Dodgers was that when we met, the team’s leaders said that they considered winning the World Series once in the past 10 years as a failure,” he said.
He continued, “I want to win the World Series. “I hope that when people look back on the championship, they will say that I was a key member and a big part of the championship team,” he added.
The Dodgers are the strongest team representing the Western Division of the National League, and are a big market that can spend $700 million on Ohtani. In addition to Ohtani, the team has many MVP players that will remain in Major League history, including Mookie Betts, Freddie Freeman, and Clayton Kershaw. The players who went through the Dodgers, including Ryu Hyun-jin, Manny Machado, Kenley Jansen, Zack Greinke, and Justin Turner, are also impressive.
The Dodgers have won the National League West Division a total of 21 times. This is the highest record ever. In the 11 years from 2013 to this year, they won the district championship 10 times, except once in 2021. The problem was the next hurdle. Although he is always considered a candidate to win the World Series, in the 21st century, he only won a World Series ring once in 2020. Some say that 2020 was half-baked because the season was shortened to 60 games in the aftermath of COVID-19. The Dodgers have won the World Series championship a total of seven times in 1955, 1959, 1963, 1965, 1981, 1988, and 2020, but most of them are in the long past, so they are always thirsty for the championship. This is why the club leadership explained to Ohtani, “We failed.”
Ohtani is a player who has a thirst for winning just as much as the Dodgers. Ohtani received appeals from as many as 27 clubs when entering the U.S. Major League ahead of the 2018 season, but he picked and chose the LA Angels. The Angels were the team that presented the most realistic roadmap to Ohtani, who dreams of becoming a pitcher in the major leagues.
The Angels also made Ohtani's dream a reality. It took Ohtani a full three years to create a routine of playing one season as a pitcher and designated hitter. After starting 10 games in 2018, he developed elbow problems and underwent Tommy John surgery, missing the entire 2019 season as a pitcher. As time went by, there were more and more negative views that it was unreasonable to double-hit in modern baseball, but Ohtani did not give up and finally made history in 2021, his fourth year. In 155 games as a batter, he had a batting average of 0.257 (138 hits in 537 at-bats), 46 home runs, 100 RBIs, and an OPS of 0.965. As a pitcher, he started 23 games and recorded 9 wins, 2 losses, 130⅓ innings, 156 strikeouts, and an ERA of 3.18. While doing so, he had his first MVP season. It was the first year that he proved that double-hitting was no longer a dream, and Ohtani immediately became an idol for young baseball players dreaming of becoming a major league player.
Since then, he has consistently performed well as a two-hitting star. This year, he appeared in 135 games as a hitter with a batting average of 0.304 (151 hits in 497 at-bats), OPS 1.066, 44 home runs, 95 RBI, and 102 runs. As a pitcher, he started 23 games and recorded 10 wins, 5 losses, 132 innings, 167 strikeouts, and average. He had his second MVP season with an earned run average of 3.14. Although he was unable to maintain the starting rotation until the end of the season due to elbow pain, there were no problems in winning the MVP unanimously.
Personally, Ohtani had a series of successes during his six years with the Angels, but the lack of “team championship” was hardly filled. The Angels never made the playoffs in the six years they had Ohtani.
In a separate interview with Los Angeles-area broadcaster 'SportsNet LA' that day, Ohtani said,' His biggest goal is to win the World Series. Personally, I have never experienced the playoffs yet. “Playing in a playoff game is also my goal,” he said. This part shows how much Otani wanted to play fall baseball.
As a pitcher, Ohtani is unlikely to be able to help the Dodgers right away starting next season. Ohtani underwent elbow surgery performed by Dr. Neil Elatrace last September. Opinions were divided on whether he underwent traditional Tommy John surgery, but Ohtani chose a non-traditional surgical method in order to quickly return to the field as a hitter. Dr. Elatrice explained at the time, “We added tissue to reinforce healthy ligaments and at the same time extend the life of the elbow.”
When Ohtani was asked a related question at the induction ceremony, he confirmed that it was "completely different" from the Tommy John surgery he first underwent in 2018. At the same time, he said, "I recently started swinging lightly, and I'm working on getting my body in shape to be able to play on the opening day." He added, "He will be able to appear as a designated hitter in the opening game."