Babe Ruth's path to baseball immortality began as a two-way player for the Boston Red Sox. A century later, Shohei Ohtani is earning deserved comparisons to Ruth, the icon of icons.
Ohtani has more or less dominated both on the mound and in the batter's box. He's the baseball equivalent of a unicorn. He's also drastically underpaid and will soon be in line for a raise from an Angels team already spending big money on a pair of other stars.
At the very least, a team like the Red Sox should be monitoring Ohtani's situation with hopes and dreams of one day luring him to Boston, perhaps finishing his career where Ruth started his.
Ohtani is still under his original contract through next season before hitting arbitration and eventually becoming a free agent following the 2023 season. The Angels should be motivated to keep him in SoCal forever.
But ESPN's Buster Olney raises an interesting dilemma faced by the Angels as it pertains to eventually paying Ohtani. Mike Trout will get $37 million per season for the next nine years. Anthony Rendon will make roughly $38 million per season in the next four years.
"What that means is that Angels are obligated to pay those two players about $75 million through the 2026 season -- and Ohtani may well be more expensive," Olney wrote.
As Olney points out, it's unlikely the Angels decide to trade Trout, this generation's Mickey Mantle, and it's unlikely they're able to trade Rendon, a 31-year-old hitting .240 with six home runs and 34 RBIs this season while playing just 58 games.
Ohtani is owed $5.5 million next season before a likely history-making arbitration bump for 2023. But it still might pale in comparison to what he'll make on the market, even as a 29-year-old playing a demanding two-way schedule with Tommy John surgery in his past.
"He'll get as many years as he wants. Let's say he gets five years (at) $50 million a year," an evaluator hypothesized to Olney.
"Signing Ohtani to a multiyear deal," Olney wrote, "might mean owing something in the range of $120 million to $130 million to just three players (Ohtani, Trout, Rendon)."
That doesn't exactly leave a lot of money for the other 22 players needed to field a big league club. If they decided to pinch pennies to fill out the roster, that would require needle-threading the Angels don't seem capable of doing. Even with Trout, the best player in the world, the Halos haven't made the playoffs since 2014.
So, let's really immerse ourselves in this fantasy land. Let's just assume the worst-case scenario for the Angels. They aren't able to unload any of Rendon's money, they remain committed to Trout and can't reach a deal with Ohtani.
Fast forward to the fall/winter of 2023-24, and Ohtani is a free agent -- could the Red Sox be a player for Ohtani?
They should be, even if he's committed to only hitting at that point. That he already has 38 home runs this year while pitching is something that doesn't get enough credit for its baseball insanity. He'd probably be the most sought-after free agent of his time. He'd easily get that $50 million per season.
Technically, the only player on Boston's current roster under a firm contract for 2023 is the recently extended Matt Barnes, who would make a reported $9.38 million (per the incredible @RedSoxPayroll).
There are also option numbers for Chris Sale and Xander Bogaerts. Sale feels like a safe bet to stay in Boston, and for the sake of the argument, let's just say Bogaerts does the same (albeit far less likely). If they're both here in 2023, it will cost the Red Sox $45.6 million.
There are also various options and arbitration, the most notable being Rafael Devers and Alex Verdugo. An extension for Devers should be Boston's top real-world contractual priority at this point. All told, Red Sox Payroll has the Sox on the hook for $78 million in 2023, not including arbitration. With arb and extensions, the number likely climbs to something like $110 million or $120 million.
Is a core of Ohtani, Sale, Bogaerts, Devers and Verdugo worth $170 million? It kind of feels like it, doesn't it? The problem with the exercise is we have no idea what the financial landscape will look like in 2023. It's likely there's a new collective bargaining agreement in place, and maybe the CBT will be a thing of the past. Maybe there's an even harder cap in place.
There's also the whole issue of needing to build a pitching staff.
Truthfully, it's all pretty unlikely. There are so many unknowns, and the Angels could end the conversation in a hurry by extending Ohtani this winter.
At the very least, though, Olney reminded us all the clock is ticking, and every team -- especially a big-market club like the Red Sox -- should be paying close attention to how things play out in Orange County.
And it's fun to dream, right?
