Is Shohei Ohtani just Japanese for “Aaron Judge”, sports fans?
In other words, we’re not going to do this again, are we?
Shohei Ohtani is a free agent and DraftKings sports book has the Giants as the second-listed favorite to land the once-in-a-century two-way icon — shout out Babe Ruth — and this is all bad for our mental health.
Particularly because the odds-on favorite is the Los Angeles Dodgers.
But there is something in the universe that is pushing Vegas money to believe the Giants have a chance, as I was just saying to the guy who gave Carlos Correa his physical.
I refuse to believe it, and that’s mostly for my mental health.
It’s been 30-plus years since the belle of the ball in Major League Baseball free agency chose the San Francisco Giants as his dream destination, and since there aren’t too many godsons of Willie Mays bouncing around the free agent market in November 2023, I refuse to get emotionally invested. After all, Barry Bonds was born a Giant. His Dad, Bobby, debuted in orange-and-black when Barry was 4 years old and played there until Barry was 10. Formative years. Bobby left the Giants in 1974, and Barry was only able to reclaim the family heritage 18 years later, in the winter of 1992. So, this would be the equivalent of the child of a Giants outfielder from the late 1990s and early 2000s coming home in an emotional reunion — and unfortunately, we haven’t seen if Marvin Benard or Armando Rios’s children have quite the impact of Ohtani.
You get the point — the Giants haven’t won one of these sweepstakes in a while, as I was just saying to Jon Lester and Bryce Harper down at the local tavern.
Barry Zito is the only name that comes close when it comes to the Giants grabbing the Hot Stove brass ring. That was cool, and resulted in two World Series titles during his stay, but let’s be honest and say that it wasn’t exactly the smooth ride we were all looking for.
(That said, Zito’s Game 5 in the 2012 NLCS in St. Louis just might be my favorite game of all time, with apologies to Joe Morgan-Terry Forster 1982; Will Clark-Mitch Williams 1989; most of the summer of 1993; the moment JT Snow homered off Armando Benitez in 2000; Benito Santiago-Rick White in 2002; that little game in Texas on 11/1/10; and Madison Bumgarner emerging from a bullpen somewhere in Missouri in late October 2014. Worthy runners-up, all.)
The Giants don’t win these kinds of races. Sure, it was cool to have Brett Butler choose Candlestick Park in the late 1980s, and Ray Durham was a decent prize in the early 2000s and Johnny Cueto sure was fun.
But this is Shohei Ohtani.
This is the Aaron Judge Thing all over again, but bigger.
And for some reason, oddsmakers rate the Giants a chance. That’s what’s making this all the more tantalizingly painful, potentially.
I say “potentially” because theoretically, the Giants have a case. They have money, one presumes. (Cover your ears, Greg Johnson.) They have financial flexibility well into the future. (Side note: Wasn’t the Mission Rock project supposed to provide windfalls of revenue to keep up with the Dodgers? Isn’t that what they told us? Hello? Is thing on? Perhaps a topic for another day.)
The Giants can sell Ohtani a West Coast base, a city with a thriving Asian-American community, enough dough to choose his mansion in SeaCliff, a fan base waiting to love him and pack the park, and enough cha cha bowls to last a lifetime. (We just won’t mention the part about how, according to Baseball Savant and StatCast, how it’s one of the worst hitter’s parks in MLB. Shhhh.)
That the Dodgers are the favorite, of course, adds layers and layers of potential pain to all this.
After the Giants, DraftKings Sportsbook lists the next favorites, in order, as: Mets, Cubs, Yankees, Rangers, Mariners, Red Sox. We could probably live with any of those — particularly the AL teams — as long as the Dodgers don’t win this prize.
But the Giants? Naw, right? Sure, Farhan has to give it his all, and sure, we have to do the kabuki theatre of wining and dining, but I’m already over it. My mind is on Yamamoto or Lee or the big trade Farhan will pull off, because the Giants won’t land Shohei Ohtani.
Too much history tells me so.
Right?