Shohei Ohtani stunned the baseball world by choosing to take his talents to the Los Angeles Dodgers, but the San Francisco Giants were also willing to shell out the same amount as the deal the superstar ultimately signed with LA, according to Andrew Baggarly of The Athletic.
“Ohtani camp presented Giants the exact deal that Ohtani ended up finalizing with LA. ‘We were agreeable to it,' Zaidi said. Then Giants were told it was in Ohtani's hands. Obviously, Shohei picked Dodgers,” Baggarly shared.
Shohei Ohtani chose Dodgers over Giants
If there's a player the Giants — or any other team — should empty the wallet, so to speak, to acquire, it's Shohei Ohtani, whose addition to the Dodgers makes Los Angeles a bigger headache for the rest of the big leagues, especially for San Francisco, which is in the same division as LA.
Assuming that the Giants were indeed okay with committing nearly a billion dollars just to lure Ohtani to the Bay and yet got spurned by the two-time American League Most Valuable Player, it is perhaps safe to assume that he simply drew the line on which team can provide him with the best chance to win a World Series. That would be the Dodgers, who have made the postseason in each of the last 11 seasons and already features MVP-caliber players in the forms of Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman.
The Giants, on the other hand, have only reached the playoffs once since 2016. Last season, San Francisco finished fourth in the National League West division and missed the postseason with a 79-83 record.
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