Shohei Ohtani's Contract Deferrals Prove Baseball Is Broken

Shohei Ohtani opted to sign with the Los Angeles Dodgers on Saturday, as news broke of his record-shattering 10-year, $700 million contract. Numerous baseball pundits breathlessly opined on how great that development was for the game that Ohtani was going to a big market powerhouse that could afford him. On Monday, details of that contract began to trickle out. I'm here to tell you, it's bad for the sport.

According to The Athletic's Fabian Ardaya, Ohtani will defer $68 million per year of his $70 million salary over the course of the 10-year, $700 million deal. The deferred money will be paid from 2034 through 2043. Essentially it's an accounting trick to allow the Dodgers to keep spending. Instead of Ohtani's deal counting $70 million against the luxury tax, it will be more like $46 million.

For those wondering, yes this is allowed under MLB's rules. It's a loophole the Dodgers are egregiously taking advantage of. The entire purpose of a move like this is to subvert the sports' competitive balance rules so LA can keep adding expensive players. Essentially, thwarting MLB's efforts to keep this exact thing from happening. It's roster manipulation of the highest order.

I know what the first reaction will be: Well, why don't other teams just do this? I'm sure the big market, big money teams will, but medium to small market franchises can't afford to pay out $68 million a year for 10 years when a player isn't on their roster anymore.

This would be like Patrick Mahomes restructuring his contract so it only counted $5 million against the salary cap, then the Kansas City Chiefs paying him $300 million 10 years from now. Other teams would be up in arms. There's a reason the NFL doesn't allow that to happen.

There's a simple solution: teams should be allowed to structure their payouts to players however they want, but the full value of the contracts should count against the team's salary ledger only for the years those players are under contract. Ohtani is going to make $700 million and he's under contract for 10 years, so he should count $70 million against LA's balance sheet in each of those years. Or, alternately, the Dodgers can keep him on the 40-man roster while they're paying him the rest of the money and lower the yearly salary hit. Those should be the options.

If big market teams can push money off years into the future and thus lower their luxury tax numbers, it will create wild imbalances in the sport. Big market teams could sign every big name free agent to create super teams while the mid- to small-market teams fight for scraps. It would create the exact scenario MLB"s rules are meant to limit. The league will immediately create a gulf between the haves and have nots.

Baseball will, in essence, be broken.