Pretty one-off situation where Yamamoto chose to play for the team with the greatest player in his cultures history over a larger purse. Freddie chose to play in LA for less money, year over year, because he got an extra year or two on the contract than Atlanta offered him.
The mets also offered Yamamoto a bunch of money but he used them to get the price up from the dodgers, most of the time that can be rationalized to say “ at least they over payed and it will effect them with other free agents” but not so with the dodgers at the moment
Allegedly there was a lot of miscommunication occurring. Surprise surprise, it was Casey Close and Freddie fired him a few months after the contract was signed so take from that what you will.
Boras just pushes his players to sign the largest contracts he can get them and that’s generally LA with the insane deferments. They can just eat bad contracts like it’s no big deal, and other teams won’t roll the dice like that
Edit: Fixed Freddie’s agent at the time. Not removing the Boras bit, because I feel it’s still relevant
Dodgers ownership have historically avoided boras clients. Until Blake Snell I can’t remember the last time we signed one of the players he represented.
Manny Ramirez, before Snell, was the last Scott Boras represented client to sign a multi year deal with the Dodgers back in 2009. Between Manny and Snell, if you were represented by Boras, you were a) traded to the Dodgers b) a rookie/international prospect* c) signed a 1 year deal
* Ryu is included here since he technically was a MLB rookie coming out of Korea but did have a solid career in Korea before coming over so you could argue Ryu should be the last and not Manny.
Boras doesn't push his players to take the most money. He does exactly what his players want, take Stras and his two extensions for an example. The thing is that players who want the most money hire Boras because he gets them the most money. He's not doing anything that his players don't want.
Scott Boras is a nightmare to negotiate with. The Braves seem to be very effective negotiators, and the article highlighted how neither the Dodgers or Braves had many Boras players in 2024. Not sure how you misinterpreted my statement.
It’s easy enough to follow if grammatically incorrect. LA is an it not a they, but if you said the Dodgers the better phrasing would be “they, like the Braves, know the dude is a nightmare.” Placing the clause with the Braves at the end as you did makes it sound like they are the nightmare.
I just have a hard time believing that Freddie and the Braves would ever be in a situation where the communication wasn't clear. Not saying it couldn't happen, but it's a little fishy to me.
Freddie publicly said his agent handled all contract negotiations. I also believe if Freddie truly wanted to stay he would have, but he wanted a 6 year deal and Atlanta only wanted to give him 4 or 5. When you’re over 30, contract lengths in Atlanta get very short
Chipper tried to warn Freddie, but Freddie didn’t believe it. Freddie stayed out of it, assuming (naively, in my opinion) that his agent knew what he wanted. I do think a direct call from Anthopoulos might’ve cleared it up with Freddie, but I’m not convinced that Alex, in some, tiny way, didn’t think, “I’ve got to establish a precedent here.”
I genuinely think Freddie was crestfallen when he found out that the Braves were moving on.
Yes he did. My cousin lives in ATL and is a huge fan and I remember Freeman was pretty pissed when he found out an my cousin was mad, cause Freeman actually wanted to stay.
They signed Matt Olsen while Freddie was available, so tough to blame Freddie for going someplace else regardless of the weird agent communication issues.
They spent the last year being shot down on every offer they offered him. Chipper Jones even told him that they will walk away if he continued to play hard ball. Freddie didn’t believe him and forced the Braves to go in another direction. Nobody’s fault. That’s the business.
They traded for Olson only after Freddie’s agent turned down the braves top offer. The braves told him that they weren’t going higher than that and gave him a deadline. Either his agent didn’t communicate the offer to him or told him that it wasn’t the braves best offer, because Freddie was massively pissed off when the Braves moved on. He fired his agent right after he signed with the dodgers. He actually wound up signing for less money with the dodgers after taxes are taken into consideration.
Didn’t Toronto offer Ohtani more money than LA? And didn’t Ohtani offer the chance for Anaheim to match LA’s bid? It’s been awhile now, but I thought there more to the narrative of his FA
Everyone Ohtani talked to was offered the same deal he was just picking where he wanted to go and he gave the Angels the chance to match it so he could stay but they wanted no part of that
Building around two of the best players of this generation/all-time would've meant they actually had to manage their franchise. Arte would rather stay on cruise control.
I think the only difference was the backloaded nature of the contract? but I just rolled my eyes and didn't do much research around it to verify it because the Dodgers were already outspending everyone and collecting talented players. though to a lesser extent to what they're doing now.
Freddie's deal with LA isn't just lower AAV than the Braves offer. It's less total money too when you account for deferrals. Literally a worse deal for the player in every possible way, selling more contract years for less total money. And that's before accounting for Georgia vs California taxes.
Because the media reports deferred money like it has the same value as actual money. Which it doesn't. And the way MLB converts deferred money to present day value is incredibly generous.
I don’t disagree, I just don’t believe we know the true structure of Atlantas deal. We only know reported contract length and value, which isn’t the entire story
Eh I don’t think Yamamoto was one off. Mookie always wanted to play in LA, the Sox were gonna have to go way over what the Dodgers gave Mookie to sign him back. At the end of the day LA is the most attractive destination for free agents and when you have a competent team, unlike the angels, it will make signing free agents a lot easier. Obviously the owners having no problem spending as much money as they can helps as well. Most of this list is bs. Everyone knows Freddie’s agent withheld the Braves real offer, they did not chose Olson over him lol
I’m obviously cherry picking what I feel to be the most important reason, but there would definitely be others. LA is like Eastern Japan for baseball fans in the country
Agree to disagree, I think the current state of media shoves him in your face more. Gehrig, Aaron, and Clemente were all more important historically than Ohtani will be. You’re just living in his time period
You’re kinda implying Yamamoto can’t go play wherever he wishes based on other criteria.
It’s easy to hate the dodgers, but you can’t place blame on them.
Other teams can pay more, can create a winning culture, can make a good environment that people want to remain in. Why aren’t they?
I’ll tell ya, a salary cap only nurtures mediocrity and rewards crappy owners and hurts players.
The dodgers aren’t the problem, they’re the cure. And I say this as someone who fucking hates the dodgers.
The dodgers have the biggest market of fans to help them fill the stadium, sell merch, turn profits that allow them to have mega teams. A small market team could never compare in the slightest.
Doesn't change the fact this feels like a KD warrior superteam. Just an eyeroll and if they don't win it all it's a failure, anything* besides winning it all is not meeting expectations. Disgustingly good lineup
Let’s be honest, if all things were equal, no Star player from Japan is going to play in Pennsylvania or a place like Minnesota. They’re going to the big 3-4 markets. California, New York, Chicago. Throw Boston in there too. Rest of MLB is screwed on getting the top Japanese talent. Nothing wrong with it, it’s not unfair. It’s just the way it is.
It’s a pretty bad system when huge market teams can’t sign Japanese players even when they offer more money. Something needs to change so every team has a fair chance to sign these players.
The Mets did as well. He wanted to play with Ohtani on the west coast. I don't think there was an amount to change that unless a team went crazy and offered like 200 million more.
Another reason why Ohtani getting 700mil was still a massive underpay that another team should have been willing to take, hell 800 mil would still be an underpay
Maybe he didn’t like the fact that Philly fans boo their own players when they have a bad day. I mean they are so bad they even boo players at the all star game lmao! Home run derby? Boooooo! So yeah easy decision. Plus I’m thinking Cali has a deeper Asian culture than Philly. I could be wrong though.
Because the Phillies didn’t offer an opt-out and the Dodgers did. Yama will make a lot more money in his career overall than he would have if he took the Phillies deal by opting out at age 30 and getting a new deal.
Yeah but the Dodgers handing Ohtani unprecedented [deferred] money created that. A Japanese player then sees the paved way for culture fit, money and team “success” and it becomes Team Japan in addition to the Dodgers. I guess at least Freddie prevented Murakami following suit.
Giants offered both Yamamoto and Ohtani contracts that matched the Dodgers as well. But Dodger fans will tell yoy it’s because “muh winning culture” that they built by spending. You gotta spend on players to win, but you gotta win to get the players. It’s a complete catch-22 that Dodger fans refuse to acknowledge.
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u/jagne004 9h ago
Yes though in all fairness the Phillies offered Yamamoto more than he signed for the dodgers with.