Minasian declines to discuss Ohtani
GM won't say if team came close to deal
Watching a player walk out the door to take the largest contract in the history of sports didn't move Perry Minasian from his often-repeated stance of declining to discuss negotiations.
A day after Shohei Ohtani was introduced by the Dodgers, the Angels general manager would not shed any light on how close the Angels came to keeping the two-way star before he agreed to a heavily deferred $700 million deal with the Dodgers.
“I'm not going to get into specifics,” Minasian said on a video conference Friday. “I understand the question. When it comes to negotiations, it's not something that we make public. I've got a great relationship with (agent Nez Balelo), a great relationship with Sho. The organization has a great relationship with both. And we congratulate them and we wish him nothing but the best.”
A day earlier, Balelo said after Ohtani's Dodger Stadium news conference that he kept in touch with the Angels throughout the negotiating process, up until the very end.
“The Angels had every opportunity,” Balelo said. “And we had every opportunity. But at the end, it just wasn't going to work.”
A source confirmed Friday that Balelo gave the Angels a chance to match the Dodgers' offer, and the Angels declined. It's possible that even if they had matched the offer, Ohtani still might have gone to the Dodgers, because he said repeatedly in his press conference that winning was his top priority.
San Francisco Giants president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi said Wednesday that they were willing to match the offer, but Ohtani still picked the Dodgers.
The Angels' failure to reach an agreement with Ohtani — expected by almost everyone throughout the industry — brought back a discussion about