Well, now the Los Angeles Dodgers really need Shohei Ohtani.
The anguished cries may be coming from Chavez Ravine, but it was in Arizona that the Dodgers’ season came to an end on Wednesday. The Diamondbacks swept them right out of town with a 4-2 win in Game 3 of the National League Division Series. The Dodgers never even had a lead in any of the three games.
This is the third straight year that the Dodgers crossed the 100-win threshold in the regular season only to get knocked out of the playoffs by a team that didn’t even crack 90 wins. Go ahead and picture the 2023 Diamondbacks high-fiving the 2022 San Diego Padres and Atlanta’s 2021 squad, because it’s appropriate.
It feels like diminishing returns, but can you really say the returns are diminishing when the broader pattern is one of falling short? So it is with the Dodgers, who are 1-for-11 in turning playoff berths into World Series championships since 2013.
But, hey, at least the best way forward is clear.
Let’s imagine a “Shohei Ohtani Desperation Meter,” which rates teams as fits for the two-way superstar not according to how likely they are to sign him (Jon Heyman of the New York Post is on point there) as a free agent, but just how badly they need to.
If there was such a thing, the Dodgers would be a 10 out of 10.
The Dodgers and Ohtani Need Each Other
Say what you will about the Dodgers, so long as you don’t say they’re a dynasty.
Their 1,031 regular season wins since 2013 are easily the most of any team, but their only successful championship run came in the shortened 2020 season. Setting aside opinions on the validity of that one, even they were granting last year that it generally takes multiple championships to solidify a dynasty.
There’s no better way for the Dodgers to hurdle this hump than by adding the best baseball player in the world, and whether they can afford to is not even a question.
Though you can find the Dodgers’ payroll in the No. 6 spot in MLB right now, they only rank 11th in commitments for 2024. You’d swear this was by design, and it probably is.
Another non-question is whether the 29-year-old Ohtani, all but certain to win his second MVP after pacing the American League with a 1.066 OPS and 44 home runs, is needed in the Dodgers’ offense.
Even though the Dodgers trailed only Atlanta in runs and home runs this year, Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman had a bit too much to do with that. The two of them had a combined 165 wRC+. The median wRC+ for the other 12 Dodgers hitters who took at least 100 plate appearances was a mere 100.
4️⃣9️⃣3️⃣ feet for No. 30!
Shohei Ohtani is UNREAL! pic.twitter.com/W7TxBembrj
— MLB (@MLB) July 1, 2023
After having elbow surgery in September, what Ohtani won’t do in 2024 is pitch. Yet the Dodgers are better positioned than most to deal with that. Even if they don’t bring back Clayton Kershaw or Lance Lynn, Bobby Miller, Walker Buehler, Dustin May, Emmett Sheehan, Ryan Pepiot and Gavin Stone and prospects Nick Frasso, River Ryan and Landon Knack could man the rotation until Ohtani is ready to get back on the mound.
As much as anything, though, a quality of Ohtani’s that should appeal to the Dodgers is how badly he wants to win after not tasting the playoffs even once in six seasons with the Angels.
“Those feelings get stronger year by year,” Ohtani said through his interpreter, Ippei Mizuhara, in July. “It sucks to lose. He wants to win, so it gets stronger every year.”
Between Betts, Freeman, Kershaw and other luminaries like J.D. Martinez, Will Smith and Max Muncy, Dodgers teams of recent years haven’t been lacking in guys who have been there and done that. But the way they’re trending in October makes one wonder if this is no longer an asset; that maybe what they don’t need is more experience.
Maybe, just maybe, what they need is a guy who can remind them how to be hungry.
There Could Be Competition in the NL West
As to other Ohtani suitors, the Shohei Ohtani Desperation Meter for the San Francisco Giants and the San Diego Padres is at a 9 out of 10.
The Giants need a bat in the worst way after finishing second-to-last in the National League in runs amid a 79-83 season, but even noting this is missing the forest for the trees. After trying and failing for Giancarlo Stanton, Bryce Harper, Aaron Judge and Carlos Correa, the Giants are overdue to land a superstar who could help them escape Boringsville, USA.
Did somebody say superstars? Well, the Padres have plenty of those. What they don’t have is stability at designated hitter and, even more so, any tangible reason to think 2024 will go any better than 2023.
Judging from all the tea that spilled out of the Padres’ clubhouse in September, it’s a miracle they won even 82 games. Signing Ohtani would mercifully shift everyone’s attention onto 2024 and, well, why not? It feels like an all-in year sort of year, as it’s Juan Soto’s walk year and the writing is on the wall that it’s a “prove it” year for A.J. Preller and Bob Melvin.
There Are Also Fits in New York
Meanwhile in the Big Apple, let’s put the Shohei Ohtani Desperation Meter for the New York Yankees and New York Mets at 8 and 7 out of 10, respectively.
Albeit without the clubhouse discord, the Yankees also won just 82 games this year. None of their problems is more baffling than their near-total lack of production from the left side of the plate. The short porch at Yankee Stadium is [waves hands] right there, guys!
There’s a catch, though. Well, two. As long as Stanton is in town, the Yankees already have a guy who must be a full-time DH. And unless Carlos Rodón gets his act together, Gerrit Cole can’t wait until 2025 to get a proper co-ace.
Could the Mets use Ohtani? The Mets could absolutely use Ohtani. They can do better than Daniel Vogelbach at DH, and Ohtani would form a powerhouse starting duo with Japanese countryman Kodai Senga starting in 2025.
The timing is the issue. The Mets’ reportedly shifted focus to 2025 or 2026 when they blew up their $350 million payroll in the middle of their 87-loss season. If true, this winter would be a weird moment for them to pursue a guy whose price tag could exceed $500 million.
And Then There’s the Field
The next-highest readings on the Shohei Ohtani Desperation Meter belong to the Chicago Cubs and Seattle Mariners at 7 out of 10.
That both just narrowly missed the playoffs suggests they’re less than a super-duper-star away from succeeding next time. But both could use a top-tier slugger, especially considering that both stand to lose a core hitter to free agency: Cody Bellinger for Chicago and Teoscar Hernández for Seattle.
Eyebrows raised when Heyman tabbed the Boston Red Sox as a “real threat” to sign Ohtani, but their meter is at best a 6 out of 10. They may be coming off a last-place finish, but they’re already loaded with left-handed hitting and they need pitching now yesterday.
This just leaves the Los Angeles Angels, and let’s put them at, oh, a 5 out of 10.
Too low? Nah. If anything, too high. They supposedly like their chances to retain Ohtani as long as the bidding stays under $500 million, but A) fat chance and B) what would be the point anyway?
The Angels went nowhere with Ohtani between 2018 and 2023, and their prospects for 2024 and beyond are worse than dismal. They’re coming off 89 losses, their books are already bogged down by $671.5 million worth of contracts for Mike Trout and Anthony Rendon and their farm system is one of MLB’s worst.
If the Angels were to bring Ohtani back, they’d be paying a whole bunch of money for more of the same experience: That of a generally watchable, yet a tragically bad baseball team.
Bottom Line: Ohtani Is the Guy for the Dodgers
As much as these other teams would surely like to have Ohtani, the gist is that none of them simply has to have him like the Dodgers do.
If they miss out, it’ll be for one of three reasons.
If it turns out that Ohtani simply doesn’t want to play for the Dodgers, well, there’s not much they can do about that. It’s hard to lament an opportunity as missed if it was never there.
But then there are the other potential outcomes, in which the Dodgers never even pursue Ohtani or do and just plain fail. Both would border on inexcusable, and would be elevated to unforgivable if Ohtani were to end up elsewhere in the NL West with the Giants or Padres.
It’s not like there will be any suitable Plan Bs out there, after all. The next-best free agent after Ohtani is Bellinger, and that’s one reunion that probably won’t be happening. The best trade target is Soto, and there’s no universe in which the Padres send him to the Dodgers.
It’s pretty much Ohtani or bust. And by now, “bust” is a concept the Dodgers should be sick of.
