Is Shohei Ohtani worth it?
This question is bounding around baseball. It's not a question you'd expect about the consensus best player in the world. Then again, no one has ever received anything like his 10-year, $700 million deal. Not even close.
The question of "worth" is a big one and can be approached in countless ways. With Ohtani's contract, the actual scale of the deal and its CBT implications for the Los Angeles Dodgers are muted by an unheard of level of salary deferral. There are numerous other factors as well, such as Ohtani's non-baseball revenue, both for himself and the team.
For today, let's consider the $700 million at face value and just focus on the baseball aspect. What might it look like if Ohtani produces enough wins for the Dodgers to justify a $700 million contract?
Given the range of skills Ohtani possesses when healthy, there are countless roles he can fill for a baseball team. Over the past three seasons, we've known him as a full-time DH and starting pitcher. Because of his Tommy John surgery, next season he'll just be a DH. But going forward, as his health fluctuates and his underlying skills evolve, he could end up as an everyday right fielder and give up pitching. He could end up as a DH/closer. Or a right fielder/closer. Maybe he'll even take a shot as a right fielder/starting pitcher or a first baseman/starting pitcher.
Here are a few roles Ohtani could play for the Dodgers over the next decade, given his unmatched skill set, and how that might look in terms of production -- in the context of a record contract that boggles the mind.
Ohtani the DH
Here, we're imagining Ohtani as a DH only, leaving the pitching aside.
In our Ohtani Calculator, the standard aging curve pegged Ohtani as likely to compile 43.1 bWAR over the next 10 years as a hitter. Over the past three seasons, he has averaged 4.8, which would translate to 48 bWAR over the next decade if his performance remained happily static. How realistic is this?
Playing time is a major factor. Ohtani has averaged 149 games and 635 plate appearances over the past three seasons, numbers dragged down a bit by 2023, when his season ended in early September. Over the course of his career, he's played in around 80% of the Los Angeles Angels' games as a hitter, or 130 per 162.
That's around 554 plate appearances per season. If he averaged that amount over the next 10 years, his static performance projection for the decade would land at roughly 4.2 bWAR per season, or 42 bWAR over the next 10 years for his hitting. A standard aging curve would knock this down to 37.7.
We'll continue to use the $8 million per win standard, though the real number will evolve. That's $301.6 million in on-field value produced by Ohtani the DH for his 37.7 bWAR.
This number should really be looked at as the floor for the contract. Sure, it could be even worse. Even the best players can hit a wall in their career, when their performance just dives. He could also have even worse injury luck than his two Tommy John surgeries in five years. Nothing is guaranteed.
Still, there are ways a DH-only Ohtani can mitigate some of the concerns. First, if he were to give up pitching, he might have better health luck that could bump up his games-per-season over the next decade into the 140-to-150 range.
Also, consider that Ohtani's hitting numbers have been somewhat diminished because of the dual role he usually plays on days he pitches. The rule change that allows him to remain in the game after he's done pitching now marks almost all of his hitting stats as DH stats. But before that, he hit just .197/.300/.426 as a pitcher. If there is indeed a major hit on his numbers when he pitches, that would go away.
The real question is how his skills might age. We can look at other premier DHs to get a sense.
During the DH era (since 1973), Ohtani already ranks 10th in homers (171) and ninth in bWAR (19.6) among players who have filled that role in at least half their appearances. Let's consider the top six of these career DHs, who could be the only ones still ahead of Ohtani on the homer list if he has what is, for him, a typical season at the plate in 2024.
In the aggregate, the elite DHs have held their value through their 30s. The stories vary. Frank Thomas fell off as injuries dogged him later in his career. Harold Baines' availability fell off because of his chronic knee trouble. On the flip side, David Ortiz, Nelson Cruz and Edgar Martinez all got better when they hit their 30s.
Again, this is anecdotal. But there are lots of reasons to believe that Ohtani's offensive value, built on the foundation of his top-of-the-charts power bat, will hold up very well over the next 10 years. For the sake of the next section, let's consider his baseline offensive WAR per season for the decade to be somewhere between the 3.7 that a standard aging curve suggests and the 4.2 that the DH comp list suggests he might be able to maintain. We'll go with an even 4.0 bWAR.
Ohtani the right fielder/first baseman
As with the previous section, we're imagining that Ohtani doesn't pitch again. Our starting point is that 4.0 average bWAR that we landed on for the DH-only version of Ohtani. That number goes up without Ohtani doing a thing because of the way positional values are handled in the WAR model.
For his career, Ohtani has lost 58 runs in positional value when he DHs, or about 10 runs per season, which is about one win. It's a theoretical number, one that drives many non-WAR fans up a wall, but it's baked into the model. Ohtani's elite DH brethren, many of whom spent a lot more time playing in the field than Ohtani has to this point, suffer the same penalty. Ortiz's career positional value was minus-204. For Martinez, it was minus-190. You get the idea.
If Ohtani were to give up pitching, he almost certainly would play a position. Given the strength of his arm, the most likely spot is probably right field, where he played during his limited outfield time in Japan. He's certainly flashed the sprint speed to play in center, though that figure fell off in 2023. Here are some estimates of what his career positional value would look like if he had played the past six years at other primary positions:
Center field: Plus-16
Right field: Minus-19
Left field: Minus-30
First base: Minus-41
Going forward, we know Ohtani won't play a position in 2024. It's hard to imagine it happening in 2025 either, since that will be his first season attempting a full-on return to pitching. For this scenario, let's imagine the decision is made to give up pitching and convert to a position in 2025.
What you can imagine is a pattern where Othani would play some in center and some in right for the next three to four years, especially considering how often the Dodgers like to move players around, including superstars like Mookie Betts. Then perhaps he becomes a fixture on a corner, perhaps right, or perhaps left if Betts is on the opposite corner, having given up playing in the infield. Then maybe he transitions into a corner-rotation role (if Freddie Freeman isn't around at first base in Ohtani's later L.A. years) or even returns to full-time DHing.
Taking a stab: Ohtani ends up at minus-21 runs in positional value over the next 10 years, which factors in a 2024 season as a full-time DH. That's a hit of around two runs per season on his WAR calculation, which adds on, let's say, about 0.8 to his baseline. So now he's a 4.8 WAR position player over the last nine years of his deal.
Focusing on positional value leaves aside a key facet, which is how good he actually plays the position. And who would suggest that Ohtani, if focused on one spot, would be anything other than upper-crust? He's super athletic in terms of speed and arm, he's a perfectionist, his work ethic is epic. As an outfielder, his arm would likely rate with the likes of Adolis Garcia and Nolan Jones, though we have to consider that possibly that would be a weakened skill because of his injuries.
Let's assume Ohtani is able to translate his superior skill set into elite defense quickly and become a top-rate defender. It's hard to put a precise number on it but we can imagine Ohtani saving at least five runs per season with his defensive work, on average over the next decade, even considering a 2024 when he DHs.
How? Most of the positive value would be piled up in the early years of this conversion, boosting the overall 10-year average. The league leader in runs saved in right field typically falls in the 15-25 runs saved range, so Ohtani could bank some runs pretty quickly. The minus-5 average could be conservative if Ohtani becomes the kind of Gold Glove-level fielder we envision.
If we're right on this, that bumps his WAR baseline up to 5.3 over the final nine seasons of his career as a full-time position player, or 47.7 bWAR. Add back in his 2024 DH season and we're at 51.7 for the duration of the contract. At $8 million per win, that's $414 million. And in this scenario, Ohtani has not pitched an inning.
Ohtani the starting pitcher
We're not going to consider Ohtani as a pitcher only, just as a continuation of what we've seen from him as a full-time two-way player. At this point, it just doesn't feel like anything would be learned by trying to imagine Ohtani giving up hitting. It's just not going to happen, while him giving up pitching is much more realistic.
After two Tommy John surgeries, it's possible we've seen the best we're going to see of Ohtani on the mound. And that refers mostly to his 2022 season, when he went 15-9 with a 2.33 ERA, 219 strikeouts and enough innings (166) to qualify for the ERA title. We aren't likely to see that again, at least in terms of quantity. Then again, this is Ohtani we're talking about, so you really can't put a ceiling on anything he does.
Even if Ohtani going forward is capped at 140 to 150 innings, that's not to say that Ohtani wouldn't have made another successful return to the mound. We've already seen him do it once, and others have come back well from a second Tommy John procedure with Nathan Eovaldi and Jameson Taillon among the success stories. He may well recover full velocity and go on to record similar peak ERAs and strikeout rates. What we are unlikely to see is the same kind of bulk.
There are a few reasons for a lower innings cap. First, he'll (probably) continue to work in six-man rotations, which is one factor that's kept his inning totals down already.
Second, the Dodgers can afford to avoid overextending their starting pitchers. L.A. will push an ace into the 180-200-inning range, but it's hard to imagine the Dodgers doing that with Ohtani. They simply don't need to. The Dodgers will never be an absolute cinch to be in the playoffs, because that's just not how baseball works. But they will be as close to a lock as we're likely to see. They don't need Ohtani to qualify for an ERA title; they need him to be available for five to seven starts in October.
So when Othani returns to the mound in 2025, that means a reasonable expectation would be for 130-140 innings, but probably even fewer than that. Even including his 2022 showing, over the past three seasons he's averaged 143 innings, enough bulk to post 4.7 bWAR on average. That's the baseline we used in the Ohtani Calculator and, given a standard aging curve for pitchers, we landed on 42.3 WAR expectation for the next decade for his pitching.
That was already an overly idealistic projection and it feels especially so now that he's been injured again. We can already take 2024 out of the calculation, which drops the number to 37.7. We can't say what will happen, but let's do this: Since Ohtani went three seasons of mostly good health after his first Tommy John surgery, let's give him three more, 2025 to 2027, which translates to 13.5 bWAR.
While many of the estimates in this fantasy are a bit idealistic, this one might be a bit conservative. Even so, if we tack this on to Ohtani's DH-only outlook (40.0 bWAR), we're up to 53.5. That converts to $428 million in on-field value.
Now, you might look at that and say, "Wait! The Dodgers would do just as well to just stick Ohtani in center field." Things are never as simple as that, though the topic would make for a meaningful debate. But here the point is moot, because cutting off Ohtani's rotation career at three more seasons is not to suggest it's the only way he can compile pitching value.
Ohtani the closer
You can imagine the scenario. Ohtani returns to the mound in 2025, throws 130 innings and posts a 2.50 ERA. That's basically what Clayton Kershaw did last season, when the future Hall of Famer put up 3.7 bWAR. In 2026 and back to full strength, Ohtani rolls to 160 innings and 5.5 pitching bWAR. He gets off to a similar start in 2027, but then his forearm feels a little tight during an outing in July.
Uh-oh. Well, let's be optimistic and say it's just a strain, and after six weeks off, the Dodgers decide to let Ohtani return to the mound. But during the interim, they've added a key starter at the trade deadline as insurance. And since Ohtani isn't stretched out, they deploy him as a reliever for the rest of the season and in October.
Then remember what Ohtani looked like blowing away Mike Trout to clinch Japan's victory in last spring's World Baseball Classic. Imagine him naturally gravitating to the closer's role, as he boils his diverse arsenal down to his elite four-seamer paired with his often unhittable sweeper. After the 2027 season, the Dodgers and Ohtani agree that's the best mound role for him going forward.
Last season, Ohtani's four-seamer ranked second in the majors in terms of Statcast's total run value and was tied for 20th (with Gerrit Cole) in value per 100 pitches. His sweeper ranked fifth overall and 16th per 100 pitches. Let's focus on those two pitches, though Ohtani would almost certainly flash his other stuff, especially the curve he likes to throw to lefties.
If those two offerings played up in velocity and spin given the short, max effort outings that are the metier of the high-leverage reliever, they would be the basis of a hurler who would be among the top three or four relievers in baseball.
If that became the reality and Ohtani's pitching career took a Dennis Eckersley-like turn, we can look at the value of other top closers as our guide. Over the past three seasons, the top five closers by WAR have averaged 2.7 bWAR per season, with the top one or two usually creeping over three.
If Ohtani were to move into a full-time closer role by 2028, that would give him six years in that role. We'll be optimistic and give him an average of 2.7 bWAR for that gig over that time. That's 16.2 bWAR for closing duties. One other probable bump, which we're not going to get too deep into today, is that if Ohtani were transitioned to full-time closer, it might well increase the likelihood the Dodgers use him in the outfield in addition to his mound work. That would mitigate some of the value lost by converting him from a starter to a reliever.
Adding up the tally: 40.0 bWAR for DHing, 13.5 for rotation work and 16.2 for closing. That's a total of 69.7, which converts to $557.6 million in on-field value produced.
Tying it together
What will Ohtani's future usage look like? It's certainly possible that once he's recovered from his current injury, he goes back to being the DH/SP marvel we've come to know and that's it. If so, the $700 million contract looks almost like a steal, even before you start considering the effects of the deferred money and the extra revenue generated by his global celebrity status.
However, if Ohtani can't maintain that same two-way trajectory, his unmatched mix of skills means there would remain many avenues left for him to provide on-field value to the Dodgers. His actual role could well end up being an evolving mix of all the above. This is pure speculation, but let's sketch just one scenario.
Performance records are never as smooth as this, as we've used the baseline values suggested above, but it gives you an idea of how things could evolve. This scenario lands at 72.2 bWAR over the decade, or $577.6 million in on-field value.
At this point, we can return those other factors we've overlooked into our thinking. The $700 million, because of the deferrals, is a considerably lower figure in present day value. The $8 million standard used here will change, in the direction of free agent wins becoming more expensive to acquire. That number is doing a lot of work in this speculation, and changes to it would have a powerful effect. If it goes up to $9 million on average, for instance, then the value of 72.2 bWAR jumps to $650 million over the next 10 years. If it goes to $10 million, then the Dodgers are looking at surplus value. Ohtani's contract in itself may suggest the number should already be higher than $8 million. And, of course, Ohtani will generate untold millions in revenue beyond his on-field production, for himself, for the Dodgers and for the game itself.
This is why you are seeing the case made that a contract that dwarfs every other one ever given out in baseball is a bargain. It's not just because Ohtani is a celebrity, but because he's one of the best baseball players who ever lived, and he's got a long way to go -- with innumerable paths he alone can take.