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Dodgers Trade Victor Gonzalez To Yankees

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11:03am: The two teams have announced the trade.

9:48am: The Yankees are acquiring left-handed reliever Victor Gonzalez and minor league infield prospect Jorbit Vivas from the Dodgers in exchange for minor league infielder Trey Sweeney, reports Alden Gonzalez of ESPN. Yesterday, Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic and Joel Sherman of the New York Post reported that the Yankees were acquiring a pair of 40-man players from the Dodgers in exchange for a prospect not on New York’s 40-man. The trade clears a pair of spots on L.A.’s roster to accommodate the signings of Shohei Ohtani and Joe Kelly.

Gonzalez, 28, has a minor league option remaining but also comes to the Yankees with a solid MLB track record. He’s capable of stepping directly into manager Aaron Boone’s bullpen and will likely be viewed as a favorite to do so. He has far more big league experience than fellow southpaw Matt Krook, making Gonzalez an option to join Nick Ramirez as a second southpaw option for Boone.

Gonzalez missed the 2022 season due to an elbow injury that required an arthroscopic debridement procedure, but he’s logged 89 1/3 innings for the Dodgers from 2020-23, pitching to a 3.22 earned run average with solid strikeout and walk rates (23.2% and 8.4%, respectively) in addition to a massive 58.1% grounder rate. The Yankees tend to gravitate toward relievers with plus ground-ball rates and better-than-average velocity, and Gonzalez checks both boxes, averaging just under 95 mph with a sinker that tops out in the upper 90s.

Gonzalez’s 2023 season wasn’t as sharp as his dominant 2020 MLB debut, but he still posted a 4.01 ERA with strikeout and walk rates that were actually improvements over their 2021 levels. The lefty is also among the game’s best in terms of inducing weak contact, evidenced by a career 84.9 mph average exit velocity and 30.7% hard-hit rate — both drastically lower than this past season’s respective league averages of 89 mph and 39.2%.

The Yankees can control Gonzalez for an additional three seasons. He’s projected by MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz to earn just a $1MM salary in 2024 and will be due subsequent raises building off that foundation in 2025 and 2026 before reaching the open market in the 2026-27 offseason. Gonzalez offers a similar skill set to that of free agent Wandy Peralta, whom the Yankees have reportedly had interest in re-signing, but Gonzalez will come at a fraction of the fiscal cost.

New York also acquires the 22-year-old Vivas, who’s generally considered one of the better prospects in a deep Dodgers farm. MLB.com pegs him tenth in the system, while FanGraphs had him 11th and Baseball America ranked him 20th. All of those rankings are dated by a few months now, but there’s little that Vivas did during his 2023 campaign to radically drop his stock. He posted an excellent .280/.391/.436 slash with 12 homers, 21 steals and more walks than strikeouts in 109 games as a 22-year-old against older competition in Double-A last year.

Vivas jumped to Triple-A late in the season and turned in a lackluster .225/.339/.294 showing at the top minor league level, but that came in a tiny sample of 121 plate appearances and still came with elite walk (12.4%) and strikeout (15.7%) rates. He’s seen time at both second base and third base, though scouting reports on him question whether he’ll have the arm to ultimately handle the hot corner in the Majors. Even if he doesn’t, Vivas is a close-to-MLB-ready second base prospect with a plus hit tool, double-digit home run power and solid baserunning instincts.

In exchange for an affordable Peralta replacement and a quality second base prospect, the Yankees will surrender Sweeney, whom they selected with the No. 20 overall selection in the 2021 draft. Sweeney briefly reached Double-A as a 22-year-old in 2022, but the 2023 season was his first year with notable experience at that level. The 23-year-old handled himself well, batting .252/.367/.411 in a generally pitcher-friendly setting, popping 13 homers and swiping 20 bases with a gaudy 13.8% walk rate and lower-than-average 19.1% strikeout rate.

Sweeney is a well-regarded prospect himself, but perhaps a step below the rung many Yankees fans would expect based on his draft pedigree. FanGraphs ranked him third in the Yankees’ system, but MLB.com had him eighth and Baseball America tabbed him 15th. Sweeney is a bat-first prospect whose long-term future hinges on whether he can stick at shortstop, move to third base on a full-time basis, or settle in as a utility infielder who can bounce around the diamond. He’s a relatively near-MLB addition to the Dodgers’ system, effectively replacing Vivas but doing so without requiring a spot on the 40-man roster until next offseason.

Blue Jays Made Competitive Offer To Shohei Ohtani

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Shohei Ohtani’s decision to sign with the Dodgers for a record-breaking ten-year, $700MM deal sent shockwaves around the sports world, though a particularly heavy dose of the impact settled in Toronto.  Blue Jays fans (and possibly the team itself ) spent much of Friday wondering if Ohtani had decided on the Jays as his next destination, and a pair of now-debunked media reports only added to the fever of speculation.

The full story of the Jays’ pursuit of the two-way star might not be known for some time, yet in pure financial terms, it seems as though the club at least came close to the final asking price.  Sportsnet’s Ben Nicholson-Smith hears from a source that the Blue Jays’ offer to Ohtani was “right there,” so it doesn’t appear as though the Dodgers’ $700MM deal was too far removed from what the Jays (or potentially other suitors) put on the table.

Given how Ohtani’s contract is so far beyond the normal stratosphere for baseball contracts or sports contracts in general, it is fair to assume that teams’ approach also differed greatly from a normal free agent courtship.  This was already apparent with the immense level of secrecy requested by Ohtani and his agent Nez Balelo, as every detail (true or exaggerated) that leaked out about Ohtani’s intentions was heavily scrutinized.

As Nicholson-Smith notes, there have already been conspiracy theories launched that Balelo and CAA used the Jays’ interest as a smokescreen to get the Dodgers to up their offer at the last minute since Los Angeles was Ohtani’s preferred choice all along.  Or, perhaps the simplest answer is true — the Blue Jays did enough to make themselves a genuine consideration in the two-time AL MVP’s mind, regardless of where the Dodgers may or may not have ranked for Ohtani heading into the offseason.

Learning that the Jays got within the ballpark of signing Ohtani probably doesn’t ease much or any of the sting for Toronto fans.  The fact that the Blue Jays were willing to spend perhaps upwards of $650MM, $675MM, or whatever the final bid was also doesn’t necessarily mean that the team has that much to spend in general this offseason, considering the special nature of Ohtani’s on-field ability and starpower.

Still, the Jays haven’t been shy about spending over the last few seasons, and the team has also been linked to such major free agents as Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Cody Bellinger, former Jay Matt Chapman, and a host of other players on the free agent and trade markets.  GM Ross Atkins has typically looked to at least check in on just about every notable free agent of the last few years, so this broad strategy could help the Blue Jays make a quick pivot as they explore their backup plans.

Yankees To Acquire Two 40-Man Roster Players From Dodgers

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The Yankees are poised to acquire two players on the Dodgers’ 40-man roster in exchange for a prospect not on the 40-man, according to Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic. The names of the players in the deal are not yet known. Joel Sherman of the New York Post confirms Rosenthal’s report while adding that the deal, which is pending a medical review, would send one “end of roster” pitcher to the Yankees alongside a prospect on the 40-man roster. The deal would clear 40-man roster spots for LA’s reported deals with right-hander Joe Kelly and superstar Shohei Ohtani.

While it’s unclear which players are changing hands in the deal, it’s hardly a surprise that the sides would get together on such a trade. After all, the Dodgers’ 40-man roster is currently full, meaning they already needed to clear space on the 40-man to formally add Kelly and Ohtani. On the other hand, the Yankees just cleared two spots from their own 40-man roster in a seven-player trade with the Padres that brought back star slugger Juan Soto. While the additions of both Soto and center fielder Trent Grisham take up 40-man roster spots, that’s more than made up for by the departures of right-handers Jhony Brito, Michael King, and Randy Vasquez as well as catcher Kyle Higashioka. A deal between the sides allows the Dodgers to recoup some value for players they likely would have had to part with anyway, while the Yankees figure to take advantage of LA’s roster crunch to begin rebuilding its pitching depth in the aftermath of the Soto deal.

Latest On Luxury Tax Implications Of Shohei Ohtani’s Contract

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Two-way superstar Shohei Ohtani rocked the baseball world yesterday by agreeing to a ten-year, $700MM deal with the Dodgers. That record-setting contract, taken at face value, would have unparalleled impact on the club’s payroll as calculated for luxury tax purposes. If Ohtani’s contract indeed counted as a $70MM hit to the club’s tax payroll, it would single-handedly push the Dodgers across the first level of the luxury tax even as the club sat at just $174MM in payroll for tax purposes prior to the deal with Ohtani. While the big market Dodgers have never shied away from the tax in the past, paying into the tax during each of the past three seasons, the Ohtani deal would all but guarantee they would continue to do so for the next decade, leaving them vulnerable to escalating penalties.

As reported by Jeff Passan of ESPN, however, the reported deferrals in Ohtani’s deal could lessen the tax burden on LA considerably. Passan notes that Major League Baseball applies a discount to deferrals in luxury tax calculations to determine the present-day value of contracts. Given the fact that “most of” Ohtani’s contract is expected to be deferred, Passan suggests that Ohtani’s deal, for luxury tax purposes, is expected to settle in the range of $40MM to $50MM when all is said and done. While those numbers aren’t final and won’t figure to become exact until the contract is properly finalized and announced, that range substantially alters the impact Ohtani will have on LA’s luxury tax bill over his decade-long tenure with the club.

After all, if Ohtani’s luxury tax hit for the 2024 season were to shrink from the $70MM his on-paper AAV would suggest to a figure in the range of $45MM, that would put the club’s luxury tax payroll at roughly $219MM using the numbers supplied by RosterResource. For a Dodgers club that saw its luxury tax payroll land at $267MM last year after peaking at a whopping $293MM in 2022 (per Cot’s Baseball Contracts), that would leave the Dodgers with the ability to add upwards of $50MM before even matching their 2023 payroll for luxury tax purposes, and just under $75MM in room before their hit their all-time high.

That’s great news for Dodgers fans, as the club has plenty of work to do in improving its roster even after adding a once-in-a-lifetime talent like Ohtani. Their new DH should complement Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman well at the top of the lineup, but offense was never the primary concern of the Dodgers this winter. The club’s pitching staff was essentially middle-of-the-pack in 2023, with a 4.06 ERA that ranked 13th in the majors and a 4.23 FIP that ranked 15th. Looking ahead to 2024, the club’s only locked in starting pitcher is sophomore right-hander Bobby Miller. While he figures to be joined in the rotation by a veteran presence in the form Walker Buehler, Buehler hasn’t pitched in the majors since early 2022 due to the second Tommy John surgery of his career, casting doubt on his ability to be the durable, front-of-the-rotation arm that the Dodgers need.

While the Dodgers have been connected to plenty of top arms on the trade market this offseason such as Tyler Glasnow, Dylan Cease, and Corbin Burnes, Ohtani’s relatively reasonable luxury tax hit should allow the club to be more aggressive when it comes to top-of-the-market options in free agency. The free agent starting pitching market is of course headlined by NPB star Yoshinobu Yamamoto, for whom the Dodgers are considered to be a likely finalist. Looking beyond Yamamoto, the likes of 2023 NL Cy Young award winner Blake Snell and World Series champion Jordan Montgomery are still available. The market’s second tier of starting pitchers, meanwhile, includes interesting arms like Shota Imanaga, Marcus Stroman, and Lucas Giolito. The addition of any of these arms would surely bolster the club’s rotation headed into 2024, and is made all the more feasible by the deferrals reportedly built into Ohtani’s contract.

Shohei Ohtani Notes: Advertising Revenue, 40-Man Roster Move

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The baseball world is still reeling from the news of two-way superstar Shohei Ohtani signing a ten-year, $700MM deal with the Dodgers. Not only is it the largest contract in baseball history (by a mile), it is the most lucrative deal for any professional athlete, surpassing the four-year €555MM contract (approximately $674MM in USD) soccer star Lionel Messi signed with FC Barcelona in 2017. Given the unprecedented nature of the deal, it’s more than fair for fans to wonder if it makes financial sense. Is Ohtani genuinely worth nearly twice as much as Aaron Judge? Can a single player truly provide $70MM in value per year over the next ten years?

Moreover, various outlets have reported that the Dodgers significantly outbid the competition to secure Ohtani’s services. J.P. Hoornstra of Dodgers Nation reports that the Dodgers upped their offer by as much as $100MM on the final day of negotiations. Jon Heyman of the New York Post quotes a team source from one of the finalists, who claimed, “We certainly were not at 699 [million dollars].” Meanwhile, when asked if the Angels had made an offer close to that $700MM number, team president John Carpino simply responded, “No comment” (per Sarah Valenzuela of the L.A. Times).

However, it is critical to remember that Ohtani’s deal is not worth $700MM in present-day value, due to the deferred payments in the contract. As Jeff Passan of ESPN eloquently explained, “Money today is more valuable than money tomorrow, inflation being what it is.” Thus, the other finalists for Ohtani might not have offered him anywhere close to $700MM total, but that doesn’t mean the Dodgers blew any other offer out of the water in terms of present-day value.

More to the point, while Ohtani’s contract might be unprecedented, so too is Ohtani an unprecedented player. The value he will bring to his new organization goes beyond his performance on the field, and the Dodgers could be in for a windfall if they know how to market their brand-new international superstar. Sam Blum and Fabian Ardaya of The Athletic quote an anonymous MLB evaluator who claims the deal will “pay for itself within six or seven years… Even just on advertising alone.” That might be an exaggeration, but still, it’s clear how highly Ohtani is valued around the league.

As many sources have pointed out (including Bob Nightengale of USA Today), Ohtani earned approximately $40MM in endorsement deals last offseason. The MLB player with the next highest endorsement-related income was Mike Trout, who took home $5MM. If Ohtani can personally command so much money, the team he plays for should be able to cash in big as well.

According to Mike DiGiovanna of the L.A. Times, the Angels earned somewhere between $10MM and $20MM per year in “Ohtani-related advertising, promotions, [and] marketing revenue.” Nightengale believes that number was even higher, claiming Ohtani “brought in $25 million a year.” Both reporters suggest the Dodgers could double that revenue, thanks to their higher level of popularity, both locally and across the globe. At the high end of that estimation, the Dodgers would earn back more than half of Ohtani’s annual salary, and the team is surely hoping he will continue to bring extra value to the franchise long after his ten-year deal is complete.

On that note, it’s worth acknowledging that although the Dodgers are regularly big spenders, their front office has demonstrated a keen ability to get the best bang for its buck. While some high-spending teams have crashed and burned in recent years, the Dodgers have made the playoffs in 11 straight seasons, winning ten NL West division titles in that time. They have won over 100 games in four of the last five years, and the only year they didn’t, the shortened 2020 campaign, they went 43-17 (.717, a 116-win pace) en route to a World Series championship. This team spends in abundance, but they don’t spend frivolously. If the Dodgers are paying Ohtani $700MM, it’s because they think he’s worth even more, and they haven’t given us any reason to doubt their accounting so far.

In other Ohtani news, Jack Harris of the L.A. Times points out that the signing has not yet been made official. However, that doesn’t mean the deal is at risk of falling through. Ohtani himself has already confirmed the agreement, and it’s hard to imagine his physical would hold up the deal; the Dodgers already know he is recovering from his second UCL procedure and won’t pitch in 2024. Instead, Harris suggests that the Dodgers are still figuring out their corresponding 40-man roster move. The club’s roster is currently full, so they will need to make a trade or designate someone for assignment in order to finalize Ohtani’s contract. What’s more, they also need to free up a roster spot for veteran reliever Joe Kelly, whose one-year, $8MM contract has not been finalized either. Expect a trade or a roster move in the coming days.

NL Notes: Alonso, Yamamoto, Dodgers, Brewers

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The Mets and first baseman Pete Alonso have not engaged in extension talks this offseason, according to Tim Healey of Newsday. Healey adds that it’s as of yet unclear if the club intends to broach the subject of a long-term deal with Alonso this winter.

Reports last month indicated that Alonso hopes to surpass recent long-term deals signed by the likes of Matt Olson and Freddie Freeman, and the 29-year-old changed representation to the Boras Corporation earlier this offseason. For his part, Scott Boras told reporters (including Healey) at the Winter Meetings that he’s spoken to president of baseball operations David Stearns and that he and Alonso are “all ears” regarding potential negotiations. Healey goes on to suggest that Alonso could be on track to follow in the footsteps of teammate Brandon Nimmo. Much like Alonso, Nimmo switched representation to Boras in the final offseason before he hit the open market. Any contract discussions with the Mets that offseason didn’t result in an extension, leaving Nimmo to hit free agency that winter. Upon hitting the open market, he re-upped with the Mets on an eight-year, $162MM contract.

Of course, it’s worth noting that Nimmo went through that process at a time when the Mets were a staunchly win-now team that ultimately won 101 games during his 2022 walk season. While the club has made clear that they plan for Alonso to be part of the Opening Day roster next season and that they hope to compete in 2024, the club’s focus appears to be on building for the future and it would hardly be a shock if Alonso were to find himself traded midseason if the Mets were to fall out of the race once again in 2024. Whether as a trade candidate or an extension candidate, Alonso is an attractive target as one of the game’s premiere power hitters. His 192 home runs lead the majors since he made his debut back in 2019, while only Aaron Judge, Olson, Kyle Schwarber, and Shohei Ohtani have crushed more dingers over the past three seasons than Alonso’s 123.

More from around the National League…

  • While the Dodgers made waves earlier today by agreeing to a record-setting $700MM deal with Ohtani, Jon Heyman of the New York Post indicates that landing the winter’s biggest fish won’t stop the club from pursuing other marquee free agents. Heyman indicates that even after factoring in Ohtani’s massive deal, the Dodgers still have both the desire and the necessary payroll capacity to sign NPB star Yoshinobu Yamamoto. Yamamoto, 25, is moving stateside on the heels of three consecutive sub-2.00 ERA campaigns in Japan. A report earlier this week suggested that the Dodgers were among seven teams considered to be finalists for the right-hander’s services, and Heyman even suggests that LA could be ahead except the Mets and Yankees in their pursuit of Yamamoto. The young righty is an obvious fit for a Dodgers roster with an otherworldly lineup but little certainty in the rotation. Sophomore right-hander Bobby Miller is joined by Walker Buehler as the only starters locked into the club’s Opening Day rotation as things stand, though even Buehler will be pitching for the first time since early 2022 after undergoing the second Tommy John surgery of his career.
  • The Brewers are continuing to finalize their coaching staff under new manager Pat Murphy, who was promoted from his role as bench coach following the departure of longtime manager Craig Counsell earlier this offseason. To that end, Will Sammon of The Athletic reports that the club is moving assistant director of player development Charlie Greene from the front office to the big league coaching staff, where he’ll take over as Milwaukee’s bullpen coach. Greene will take over for Jim Henderson, who in turn is becoming the club’s assistant pitching coach.

Roki Sasaki Asks To Be Posted For MLB Teams, Chiba Lotte Marines Likely To Deny Request

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Japanese pitching sensation Roki Sasaki has asked the Chiba Lotte Marines to make him available to MLB teams via the posting system this winter, according to Sponichi Annex (Japanese language link from Yahoo Japan).  Nippon Professional Baseball teams have until December 15 to post players for possible moves to Major League Baseball in advance of the 2024 season, and this brief timeline alone makes it highly unlikely that the Marines will grant Sasaki’s request.

In the broader picture, it is quite rare for Japanese players to ask to be posted so early in their careers, as the 22-year-old Sasaki has only played three seasons in NPB.  As per MLB’s posting rules, players must be at least 25 years and have at least six pro seasons under their belt in order to receive anything more than a minor league contract.  Big league clubs could also only pay such players money from their international bonus pools, and with this year’s international signing window yet to open on January 15, teams have long since committed the bulk of their pool money to prospects.  Shohei Ohtani faced these restrictions when he came to the majors at age 23, and thus received only a minors deal from the Angels and a $2.3MM signing bonus.

Jorge Castillo and Jack Harris of the Los Angeles Times profiled Sasaki last month, noting that Sasaki’s contract with the Marines “is thought to” have an escape clause that would allow the righty to leave for the majors at any time.  Ohtani enacted such a clause in 2017, though Ohtani had played five seasons with the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters.

The Sponichi article didn’t give any mention about such a contractual opt-out, though the unusual timing of Sasaki’s request perhaps does indicate that he has some leverage to take this rather immediate plunge into the posting system.  Castillo/Harris wrote that the Dodgers, Padres, and Giants have all “intensely scouted” Sasaki in Japan, and at one point, the Dodgers thought that Sasaki would be available as early as this offseason.

Sasaki wouldn’t achieve full free agency until he has nine seasons of service time, and in general, NPB teams don’t post players early until they’re a year or two away from that nine-season threshold.  For instance, Yoshinobu Yamamoto played seven seasons with the Orix Buffaloes before the Buffaloes agreed to post the star righty this winter, and the 25-year-old Yamamoto now looks poised to command a contract well north of $200MM.

Yamamoto’s combination of youth and skill has all but guaranteed a huge contract, yet even his number could pale in comparison to what Sasaki might receive.  Though he would seemingly be limited to a minor league deal at first and would have to wait at least a few seasons into an MLB career to sign an extension without drawing attention from the league office, that might be a risk Sasaki is willing to take given the potential huge payoff down the road.  In the interim, he won’t be lacking in compensation, since a jump to the majors would surely boost his endorsement appeal.

Over 283 2/3 career innings with the Marines, Sasaki has a 2.00 ERA, 34.4% strikeout rate, and 5.12% walk rate, and these video-game numbers are only part of Sasaki’s burgeoning legend.  His fastball routinely sits in the upper-90s and has topped out at 102.5mph, and his forkball is arguably an even deadlier pitch.  Sasaki’s pitched well for Japan’s gold medal-winning team at the 2023 World Baseball Classic, and he has two NPB All-Star appearances on his resume.  Most famously, Sasaki came within an inning of back-to-back perfect games — he tossed a perfecto against the Buffaloes in April 2022 that saw him record 13 straight strikeouts amidst an NPB-record 19 K’s in his masterpiece of a start.  Incredibly, Sasaki followed that up with eight perfect innings in his next outing before being pulled before the start of the ninth due to pitch count reasons (102 pitches).

The Marines’ desire to preserve Sasaki’s arm and overall health has been a main storyline of his career.  He was the first overall pick of the 2019 NPB draft, yet he didn’t make his debut with Chiba until May 2021, as the team wanted to ease his development into pro ball.  Sasaki missed about six weeks this season due to an oblique strain, limiting him to 91 innings for the 2023 campaign.  As MLB’s Dai Takegami Podziewski noted in his last installment of the NPB Players To Watch feature, durability is basically the last question Sasaki has to really answer about his long-term potential, and the righty’s 6’4″, 203-pound frame would suggest that he is perhaps built to hold up under the larger workloads faced by Major League pitchers.

While it remains to be seen if Sasaki will actually be able to enter the 2023-24 free agent market, it would obviously be a game changer in a winter that already has a lot of high-end starters still on the board.  If nothing else, Sasaki’s request might well be setting a stage for a posting next winter, when he could join another loaded pitching class that might include Corbin Burnes, Max Fried, Walker Buehler, Shane Bieber, Tyler Glasnow, Max Scherzer, Justin Verlander, and possibly even Gerrit Cole if the Yankees don’t enact a contract clause preventing Cole from opting out.

Shohei Ohtani Decision Reportedly “Imminent”

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Shohei Ohtani’s cloak-and-dagger free agent saga has held up the top end of the free-agent and trade markets alike through the offseason’s first several weeks, but a decision from the two-time AL MVP is “imminent” and could be announced at some point today, per MLB.com’s Jon Morosi. In a segment on MLB Network (video link), Morosi adds that the Blue Jays have improved their standing in the Ohtani derby this week and are a finalist alongside the Dodgers, at the very least.

At last check, the Jays, Dodgers, Giants, Angels and Cubs were all involved in the bidding. The possibility of a dark-horse suitor that’s flown under the radar to this point can’t be ruled out, given the secretive nature of Ohtani’s free agency. Anecdotally, it’s of note that Friday marks six years, to the day, since Ohtani made his last free-agent decision, when he signed with the Angels.

Ohtani and the Blue Jays are believed to have met at the team’s spring training complex in Florida this week. Dodgers skipper Dave Roberts acknowledged during the Winter Meetings that his club had met with Ohtani and considered him their “top priority,” prompting some hand-wringing among Dodger fans that even such a basic acknowledgment of the obvious might work to their detriment. The Giants are reported to have met with Ohtani last weekend at Oracle Park. The incumbent Angels, of course, are already a known and familiar commodity for Ohtani. The Cubs’ status in the bidding remains least certain, though president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer publicly denied reports this week suggesting that his team’s optimism regarding Ohtani had waned.

Bidding on Ohtani was widely expected to eclipse $500MM, even after the slugger/ace underwent elbow surgery following the 2023 season. He’s not expected to pitch in 2024 but is on track to be ready to be in his next team’s Opening Day lineup as a designated hitter. There’s been some speculation this week that the bidding could push closer to a staggering $600MM. It’s heavily speculative at this juncture, given the by-design quiet nature of Ohtani’s foray into the open market.

Ohtani, 29, will be a transformative presence in any lineup he joins. A career .274/.366/.556 hitter, he’s stepped up his offensive game in recent seasons. He’s not quite on the same level as Aaron Judge or longtime teammate Mike Trout in terms of per-game production, but Ohtani has also been in the lineup more than both players over the past three seasons, even after missing the final several weeks of the ’23 campaign due to that elbow injury and an oblique strain. Since 2021, only Judge, Kyle Schwarber and Matt Olson have hit more than Ohtani’s 124 home runs. Only Judge, Trout and Yordan Alvarez have topped Ohtani’s massive 157 wRC+ (indicating that he’s been 57% better than a league average hitter after weighting for home park and league run-scoring environment). In that time, Ohtani carries a .277/.379/.585 batting line.

That’s only half the story with Ohtani, who finished fourth in 2022 American League Cy Young voting and has emerged as a legitimate top-of-the-rotation starter — when healthy. That’s a massive caveat in light of an earlier Tommy John surgery and now a second elbow procedure (details of which remain nebulous to public onlookers). But over the past three seasons, Ohtani has pitched 428 1/3 innings 2.84 ERA ball with an elite 31.4% strikeout rate and an 8.3% walk rate.

If Ohtani is able to return to those heights following a second elbow surgery, there’s a very feasible path to him simultaneously winning a league MVP and Cy Young Award. His ability to regain that form, of course, is the single largest question mark surrounding him. There’s no doubt that Ohtani will pitch again in some capacity, but his expected level of success will remain a talking point until he actually takes the mound. At this point, he’s proven that it’s foolish to bet against him — but even if Ohtani can’t recapture that ace form, there’s plenty of value in him beyond that of a pure designated hitter. If he could pitch even as a capable mid-rotation starter or perhaps effective reliever, that’d be immensely valuable in and of itself.

And, even if Ohtani is simply never able to regain his form as a viable MLB pitcher, there’s no reason to think he’d “only” be a designated hitter. He’s played in the outfield both in Japan and (far more briefly) with the Angels. Ohtani still possesses above-average sprint speed, per Statcast, and there’s some reason to think he could improve upon last year’s 63rd-percentile ranking if he were focusing only on hitting and playing the outfield. He’s swiped 86 bases in his career, including a 20-for-26 showing this past season. The arm strength is clearly there, as is the raw athleticism needed to handle the position. At that point, Ohtani could be viewed in a somewhat comparable light to that of Judge, who signed a nine-year, $360MM contract when he was two years older than Ohtani is at present.

The off-field value associated with Ohtani can’t be discounted, either. Any team signing him will be tapping into a global fanbase that’ll boost merchandise sales, ticket sales, television ratings and more. Ohtani’s broad-reaching brand won’t pay for his salary on its own, but it’s a clear factor that any interested club will be weighing and attempting to contextualize/value when putting forth its best offer.

With a decision looming on Ohtani, let’s open it up for MLBTR readers with a poll:

Latest On Corbin Burnes

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Brewers ace Corbin Burnes, one year away from reaching the open market, is among the most compelling names on the trade market for starting pitchers this offseason. The Brewers haven’t actively shopped Burnes, but that hasn’t stopped other clubs from expressing interest. Jon Heyman of the New York Post tweets that executives with other clubs are of the impression that there’s a legitimate chance of Burnes ultimately being moved. Adam McCalvy of MLB.com, however, frames things differently, noting that Milwaukee GM Matt Arnold said this week that he still expects Burnes to be his Opening Day starter.

If the Brewers are shopping Burnes at all, Arnold isn’t tipping his hand on the matter either in public comments or in comments made to Burnes’ agent, Scott Boras. As McCalvy writes, Boras said at this week’s Winter Meetings that “everything I’ve heard from Milwaukee is that they’re putting together a competitive team to win the division in ’24.” Boras added that the Brewers haven’t approached him about a long-term extension, but it seems they’ve also not given any signal that Burnes could be on the move.

Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic once again brought up the possibility of a Burnes/Willy Adames package heading to the Dodgers, noting that Wisconsin native Gavin Lux could be of interest to a Brewers club with some infield uncertainty (which would only be exacerbated by a trade of Adames, of course). There’s no clear indication that a trade of that nature is currently being discussed, to be clear. Similarly, Rosenthal’s colleague Brendan Kuty speculated this morning that if the Yankees ultimately miss out on NPB ace Yoshinobu Yamamoto, they could turn their focus to Burnes. Again, that’s not a firm report that talks have taken place, but Burnes is a logical option both for clubs that miss out on top free agents (e.g. Yamamoto, Blake Snell, Jordan Montgomery) and for teams that have no intention of spending at the levels necessary to sign those free agents in the first place.

[Related: Looking for a Match in a Corbin Burnes trade]

Arnold openly acknowledged this week that demand for Burnes has been high (link via Todd Rosiak of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel). The GM unsurprisingly didn’t tip his hand one way or another, but speaking in more general terms did note that the Winter Meetings are often a place where groundwork on larger trades can be done. Arnold explained to Rosiak and others that much of the framework of last year’s three-team Sean Murphy/William Contreras/Esteury Ruiz trade was put into place at the Winter Meetings, but a trade didn’t come together for several more days while the Brewers, A’s and Braves worked out the complementary pieces in the swap.

Burnes, 29, pitched to a 3.39 ERA with a 25.5% strikeout rate and 8.4% walk rate in 193 2/3 innings atop Milwaukee’s rotation this past season. Over the past four years, he’s compiled a 2.86 earned run average with a 30.9% strikeout rate, 7.1% walk rate and 46.4% ground-ball rate in 622 1/3 innings. He’s been highly durable, pitching in 105 games during that time and only hitting the injured list for an oblique strain that sidelined him less than a month. MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz projects a $15.1MM salary for Burnes in his final season of arbitration.

Braves, Dodgers Have Shown Interest In Tyler Glasnow

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Tyler Glasnow remains on the Rays coming out of what had been a fairly quiet Winter Meetings until recently. That doesn’t mean trade talks have slowed down, however, as the 6’8″ righty is one of the sport’s highest-profile trade candidates.

Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times writes that upwards of half the league has been in contact with the front office on Glasnow’s availability. Topkin lists the Dodgers and Braves among that group, while some teams within the AL East have also inquired on the possibility of an intra-division swap.

Atlanta has spent the past few weeks searching for rotation help. The Braves have brought in Reynaldo López with an eye towards a possible rotation move. President of baseball operations Alex Anthopoulos recently noted that the starting staff still “has room” for an addition (link via Mark Bowman of MLB.com).

The Braves have Spencer Strider, Max Fried and Charlie Morton locked into three spots. López, Bryce Elder, AJ Smith-Shawver and Dylan Dodd are among the in-house options for the last two roles. Last year’s first round pick Hurston Waldrep could factor into the mix at some point. There’s talent but also room for one more impact arm as a finishing touch on arguably the sport’s best roster.

Los Angeles has been mentioned as a team to watch on almost every starting pitcher of note, so it’s little surprise they’ve also checked in on Glasnow. The Dodgers’ starting staff is headlined by Walker Buehler and Bobby Miller with very little certainty beyond that duo. They’re clearly going to acquire multiple starting pitchers; Glasnow is one of myriad possibilities.

Atlanta and the Dodgers are far from the only teams still in the bidding. The Angels are hunting for a top-end starter and have been involved on Glasnow. The Cubs have been a frequently mentioned suitor over the last few weeks. Jon Heyman of the New York Post tweeted on Wednesday afternoon that they’re still in the mix.

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