In their dreams
If New York wants a blockbuster, it may as well be Ohtani
NEW YORK — We know that Juan Soto is 23 years old, know what he’s done already, know how he has all the OPS+ disciples overwrought with excitement. We know how quickly Soto became a fever dream around here among all the Yankee general managers without portfolios, as if a young Willie Mays had suddenly gone on the market.
Soto, known as the Latin Mamba in Washington, is some talented kid and any team, contending or not, should want him, at least within reason.
But the one the New York teams should want, and especially the Yankees, is Shohei Ohtani, the kind of player who comes around every hundred years.
Am I convinced the Angels are going to move him? I’m not. Do I think he could somehow end up in New York? He made it clear he wasn’t coming to the big city when he was ready to leave Japan, and the Yankees turned around and traded for Giancarlo Stanton’s big bat and bigger contract instead.
But maybe that was then and this is now.
And if Ohtani did end up in New York, it would only be the biggest transaction in baseball since the Yankees got Babe Ruth from the Red Sox. And would also mean this: For the first time since The Babe, it would mean that the single biggest attraction and the single biggest star in baseball played his baseball here.
He’s the one to want, he’s the one you do everything within reason to get, if the Angels really are serious about moving Ohtani and moving him now. This is nothing against Soto, who provides a rare opportunity to get someone this talented at this young an age, which means younger than Bryce Harper was when he went on the market, younger than Mike Trout, Ohtani’s teammate was, when Trout signed a one-hundred-year contract extension with the Angels for a gazillion dollars.
Soto just isn’t the Sho Hey Kid, Ohtani. Because no one is. There is no one in sports like Ohtani at this time. You hear the expression “generational player” tossed around all the time now, to the point of annoyance. There are plenty of guys who fit that definition, in all the pro sports. But a two-way player in baseball like Ohtani really does come along once every hundred years. And now he has.
We have had great players and great stars here, without question. Just no one since Ruth who separated himself from the pack the way Ohtani has by throwing pitches 100 miles per hour and cracking home runs that travel even faster than that.
Now he is stuck on a nowhere team, the same as Trout, who starts to look like even more of a star-crossed superstar than The Mick was as his knees betrayed him. But Trout does have his tape-measure contract in place. Ohtani is going to have options, and soon, and it is hard to believe, the way things have gone for the Angels for a very long time, that he is going to be the same kind of good soldier that Trout has been.
Here is what he said this week through a translator when asked the question about possibly being traded out of Anaheim:
“Regardless of where I’m playing, I’m going to give it my all and try to win that ballgame in front of me. I’m with the Angels right now, and I’m very thankful for what they’ve done. I love my team and my teammates. Right now I’m an Angel, and that’s all I can focus on.”
For now he is still an Angel. And maybe next week he is an Angel, with the chance to become a free agent after next season, at which point he will still just be moving up on his 30th birthday. Why does this all matter? Because if he is blessed with good health, if he doesn’t blow out a knee or shoulder or elbow, this young Japanese-born man will remain the single most unique athlete in American team sports.