Shohei Ohtani Does Not Owe The Baseball Media A Fun Winter Meetings

After the World Series, as the baseball world’s attention shifted to the hot stove, ESPN’s Jeff Passan reported that Shohei Ohtani and his agent planned to cloak Ohtani’s search for a new team and a new contract in secrecy. "If visits between Ohtani and a team are reported publicly,” Passan wrote, “it will be held against the team, so the circles will be tiny and tight."

It’s not entirely clear why Ohtani and his agent chose this path. Perhaps it’s a test to see which teams actually follow through on a verbal agreement requested by Ohtani. Or maybe the agent convinced Ohtani that a secretive process will only heighten the mystery surrounding Ohtani, thus making him more desirable as a player.

Whatever the reason, Ohtani set the terms of engagement and expected teams to abide by those terms.

A lot of baseball writers are unhappy.

ESPN’s Buster Olney went so far as to write a column about how Ohtani’s demand for secrecy was a “missed opportunity” for generating fun and excitement for the game of baseball.

Ohtani generates more fun and excitement on the field than every other player in Major League Baseball and yet he’s still somehow obligated to create fun and excitement in his free agent process? For who? Baseball fans?

The secretive process is fun for fans as they watch baseball writers fall all over themselves trying to report on something they have no information on. The secrecy has allowed fans everywhere to dream of what it might be like to have Ohtani on their team.

Olney and his media colleagues aren’t mad on behalf of fans. They are mad because Ohtani has made it “not fun” for them.

Contract negotiations kept under wraps are a death knell for the baseball writers that live off access to players, agents, and team executives.

Rumors about where a free agent might sign are largely driven by that free agent’s agent. The goal of these rumors is to create the impression that a player is highly valued and that a lot of teams are “in on him.” That drives up the price for that free agent, which is financially beneficial to the player and his agent.

Reporters who are good at creating that kind of media environment then get more rumors fed to him (or her, but mostly him). It’s the reporter’s reward for helping the player and agent make a lot of money.

More leaks leads to more reporting which raises a writer’s cache which, theoretically, leads to more clicks/reads/subscriptions which leads to more money for media companies.

Do you sense a pattern here?

The game works because everyone involved—the player, the agent and the media—end up with more money. The teams, well, they’re all owned by billionaires and can spare the extra millions on the superstars that negotiate through the media for a higher average annual value on their contracts.

Baseball writers call Ohtani a unicorn because he’s a once in a lifetime baseball talent who excels both on the mound and at the plate. The Oxford dictionary provides two definitions for unicorn:

They gave Ohtani the name. He’s just living up to it by making news about his next contract highly desirable and difficult to obtain.

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