Other teams have been mum about their pursuit of Ohtani. Still, Ohtani heads a free agent class on the market that also highly lists fellow Japanese native Yoshinobu Yamamoto and left-hander Blake Snell, a top candidate for the Cy Young Award in the National League. Unfortunately, both players ended the regular season on the injured list and the Angels again failed to make the playoffs. 20.īefore the season started, Ohtani struck out Angels teammate Mike Trout to win the World Baseball Classic for Japan over Team USA. 23 and stopped hitting for the season on Sept. As a pitcher, he was 10-5 with a 3.14 ERA and 167 strikeouts in 132 innings across 23 starts before the elbow injury.Īll these numbers are unprecedented, but they’re more unreal considering he didn’t pitch a game after Aug. In the 2023 season as a hitter alone, Ohtani led the Majors in home runs (44), on-base percentage (.412), slugging percentage (.654), OPS (1.066), OPS-plus (184) and total bases (325). If Preller’s prediction of heavy interest in Ohtani is correct, he’ll be the most expensive designated hitter in history this coming season. The fact is, Ohtani is not expected to pitch again until 2025 as he recovers from the surgery. We obviously feel like we have some history of at least pursuing him.

“Whether it was as an amateur player, or when he came to the states and even checking in at certain times from a trade standpoint just to see if that was a possibility. “I feel like we’ve always been aggressive trying to get Ohtani,” Preller said.

Speculation has Ohtani weighing deals that could be in the range of $500 million to $600 million for 10 years, but that could be way outside San Diego’s range, considering their own financial instability.ĭo the Padres expect to heavily pursue Ohtani again, given that the Angels are unlikely to re-sign him? The final day of the annual meetings on Thursday was canceled as a stomach virus spread through the hotel where the GMs, agents and media had gathered this week, and a meeting between the agents and the Major League Baseball Players Association was shifted from live to virtual.īack in 2018, the Padres were very aggressive in pursuing Ohtani when he came over from Japan, but he ultimately signed with the Los Angeles Angels.

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