The Positives & Negatives of Whiffing on Ohtani

The morning of Dec. 8 was nothing short of a kick to the dick for Mariner fans.

When news broke that Shohei Ohtani was signing with the California Angels of Los Angeles of Anaheim, care of Orange County, the entire fanbase reaction was essentially, “SHIT!”

The M’s organization had cast aside 2 intriguing prospects and invested tons of effort into wooing the Japanese two-way star, and in one quick Joel Sherman tweet, all of that was for naught.

A little more than a month later, it’s still difficult to tell just how big of a swing and a miss this was for the Mariners and general manager Jerry Dipoto. But undeniably, it represents yet another setback for an organization that’s experienced far too many over the course of the last 16 years.

Just how heavy of a setback losing Ohtani will be won’t be truly known for years – but that doesn’t mean there aren’t any clear conclusions to draw from the process and its immediate aftermath. Here’s a handful:

Positive: Ohtani was a weird fit and had a sprained UCL

On the plus side, Ohtani was always going to be an odd fit for the Mariners if he truly wanted to be a starting pitcher and designated hitter. Beyond the weird logistics of someone pitching every five or six days and playing in the games in between, the Mariners already have the best designated hitter in Major League Baseball in Nelson Cruz.

In the lead up to Ohtani’s announcement, people were speculating that Ohtani’s arrival would force Cruz into the outfield fairly regularly, where he played just five times in 2017. Asking the 37-year-old Cruz, who is coming off a season where he miraculously preserved his health and led the AL in RBI, to play the outfield more makes zero sense. It would be ideal if he didn’t play in the field at all this season, considering how much of a defensive advantage is gained by deploying Mitch Haniger, Guillermo Heredia, or Ben Gamel in right instead.

That’s the biggest reason why Ohtani didn’t make sense, but on top of that, it was learned days after his announcement that he has an ulnar collateral ligament damage in his pitching elbow. The damage was just a first-degree sprain, but investing heavily in an asset that will likely that will likely require Tommy John surgery at some point isn’t the most comforting feeling.

However, consider- ing the Ners would have only had to invest $2-3 million initially in Ohtani, the UCL shouldn’t have scared them off (and it reportedly didn’t). Plus, the Cruz situation likely could have been handled by playing Ohtani in the outfield sometimes, and it’s unclear whether he would have batted everyday in between starts.

With these caveats out of the way, the negatives to losing Ohtani clearly outweigh the positives.

Negative: He Signed with the Freaking Los Angeles Angels

This will probably be the worst long-term ripple effect of the Ners whiffing on Ohtani. Every success that he has will be magnified intensely by him doing it with arguably the Mariners’ most hated division rival (if you need convincing of this, read Travis’ article).

The Mariners already have next to zero chance to win the division for the next few years because of the juggernaut built by the Astros, but Ohtani projects to greatly improve the Angels’ roster, and the additional adds of Zack Cozart and Ian Kinsler make the AL West even tougher.

Considering that most consider 2018 the last year the Mariners can contend with the Cruz/Cano/Felix core, Ohtani picking the Angels is potentially disastrous in the short term. If it really came down to playing in LA in the end, he could have at least picked the defending NL champion Dodgers and saved the Ners some trouble.

Negative: Thyago Vieira & David Banuelos were dumped for nada

The Mariners’ farm system is pretty crappy overall, and Jerry Dipoto has showed his lack of faith in it by parting with pretty much every decent prospect left over from the previous regime. He dumped Vieira and Banuelos to acquire international slot money to acquire Ohtani, didn’t get him, and then gave the money back for two middling pitchers.

Vieira (left) was one of the flashiest prospects left in the system, mostly because he throws an insane amount of triple digit fastballs. Banuelos was a fifth round pick in June and was a catcher, which Mariner fans know more than any other fanbase is a difficult position to fill (but I still believe in you, Mike Z).

Losing these guys probably won’t have a big impact on the franchise’s future, but it further thinned out a weak system and essentially amounted to giving up assets for nothing.

Negative: Ohtani would’ve been a cultural game changer in Seattle

The Ichiro phenomenon is a stereotypical thing to refer to, but anyone who went to a Ners game from 2001 through 2011 knows that Ichiro was an undeniable draw because he was a Japanese star in Seattle. The sheer hype behind Ohtani, which exceeds that of any international player in baseball history, would have made for some amazing early season scenes and would have endured if he succeeded.

The support Seattle shows for Asian players is why players like Dae-Ho Lee and Munenori Kawasaki have been so popular despite not really producing much of discernable baseball value on the field (but I love you, DHL). It’s why Hisashi Iwakuma has been a bona-fide star at points of his up-and-down tenure. Ohtani, needless to say, would have reinvigorated a frustrated but passionate fan base.

Negative: Not landing Ohtani is a failure by Dipoto’s front office

In my opinion, this is the biggest negative associated with losing out on Ohtani. Sure, maybe Shohei wanted to play in LA and the Mariners truly didn’t have a shot…but if Seattle did have a chance at any point in the process, not being able to lure in a generational Asian superstar is an abject failure by the Dipoto regime, which is already under heavy scrutiny.

The optics of the miss were terrible. Dipoto openly talked about being all-in for Ohtani on his new podcast and several baseball insiders (who were admittedly operating on hunches as much as anything) anointed the Mariners the favorites to land him. And then, nothing.

To miss out on a huge financial and on-field opportunity cannot be good news for Dipoto’s standing in the short or long term in ownership’s mind. I’ll say it now: whiffing on Ohtani could be one of the first nails in the coffin that ultimately finishes Dipoto’s tenure in Seattle.

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