Quote:
Originally Posted by DJJasonp
Worked for Yu Darvish  |
When Ohtani came over from Japan, he was considered too young to be a full free agent. So instead of signing for unlimited money (and he would have got hundreds upon hundreds of millions as one of the most sought after free agents in history), he was limited to what teams could give him from their international bonus pool, which was generally like 3 million to 10 million dollars, TOTAL, for SIX years of control! And he'd be like any other rookie, able to be optioned down to the minors on the regular, etc etc. His actual salary (not counting the small bonus) was rookie scale pay, so like 250K per year.
So he left maybe 250 million dollars on the table to come to the US when he did, when any rational, wise money-motivated person would stay in Japan a mere one or two years, then come over for the 250 million or more. He voluntarily signed up for SIX years of control at relatively no compensation instead of waiting 2 years to be able to demand anything he wanted.
This leads me to believe that Ohtani is a lot different than Yu Darvish. When he signed with the Angels in the offseason he did, he made it clear that his primary motivation is NOT money. And by picking the Angels themselves, he made it clear his primary motivation is also not MuH RiNgZ either. He's a different guy. He's one of a kind. And he's an Angel.
Get used to it!