IT’S A MADD MADD WORLD...

In his “no questions/statement only” press conference last week Shohei Ohtani managed to inadvertently invoke both Claude Rains’ Captain Renault in “Casablanca” (“I’m shocked there was $4.5 million in gambling debts paid off out of my bank account”) and John Banner’s Sergeant Schultz in “Hogan’s Heroes: (“I knew nothing about this until I arrived in Seoul”). But he did nothing to answer the two most pertinent questions that could clear up this entire scandal: (1) How did Ohtani’s interpreter

Ippei Mizuhara have access to Ohtani’s bank account and the ability to make wire transfers out of it? And (2) How did Ohtani not know — or get any alerts — that thousands of dollars were being wired out of his account to a bookmaker?

Until or unless those questions are answered satisfactorily to all the proper authorities — MLB, the IRS, the state of California — Ohtani is coming off less-than-credible in all of this. … On Tuesday, Jordan Montgomery became the final Scott Boras client to take a severe haircut, electing to sign with the Diamondbacks for a one-year deal worth $25 million with a vesting option of $22.5 million for the 2025 season. Two days before Montgomery finally got a job, MLB’s Jim Bowden breathlessly reported on their Front Office show that ”the Montgomery market is here” and that “he has two long-term offers” while also reporting the Yankees and Red Sox were also still on him. What do you think happened to those two long-term contract offers? Who could Bowden’s source possibly have been? So much for his credibility. Meanwhile, Montgomery had spent all winter reportedly seeking a seven-year deal of upwards of $170M, but as he did with Blake Snell, Cody Bellinger and Matt Chapman, Boras grossly over-reached and misread the market, costing his clients millions by having to settle for one-year deals with opt-outs after the market dried up.