BASEBALL IS ASKEW WHEN DODGERS TOP $1 BILLION FOR OHTANI, YAMAMOTO

When one franchise outrageously signs the world’s greatest player and his friend, the pitching ace, you wonder why other teams try to win and acquire talent if complete command is in Los Angeles

     Should the Dodgers just play the Dodgers now, for 162 games and the postseason? What’s the point of having 29 other teams when one group, Guggenheim Baseball, bags more than $1 billion and gives it to Shohei Ohtani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto? The zillionaire owner of the New York Mets, Steve Cohen, invited Yamamoto to his home and offered a similar contract to the 12-year, $325 million he signed in Los Angeles. The New York Yankees offered him his favorite uniform top, No. 18.

     “I gave him that jersey,” said the manager, Aaron Boone. “It’s his if he wants to keep it.”

     Why not give it to animals at the zoo? A sport that refuses to consider a hard salary cap has been blown outrageously into silly little pieces, reducing the New York teams, the Chicago teams and clubs in Boston and San Francisco and Toronto and almost everywhere else to mere playthings for the Dodgers. Not only did they sign the most gifted player of our lives, in Ohtani, but they’ve added a masterful pitcher who dominated the Japanese league with three consecutive MVP awards and might overwhelm hitters beyond his treasured countryman.

     And if you wonder why Ohtani deferred almost the entirety of his $700 million blockbuster? It’s so the Dodgers could sign Yamamoto and ship an additional $50.6 million as a posting fee to the Orix Buffaloes.

     Welcome to America, almost one-quarter of the way through the 21st century. A financial monstrosity in southern California, which has sunshine and show biz and breathtaking home attendance figures to accompany $8.35 billion in TV money, can zip open its coffers and outmaneuver everybody else. There are only a handful of teams that ultimately can dent the offensive, and as Yamamoto dazzles the major leagues next season, Ohtani will swing his bat in a lineup with Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman — 50 home runs, maybe more — while waiting for his surgically repaired elbow to pitch in 2025.

     Anyone else on Planet Earth to sign? The Dodgers will pinpoint him and send him to Chavez Ravine. All you need to know about the new ace is that he spins a fastball at almost 98 miles per hour, rarely relinquishing a homer, posting a 1.65 earned-run average in 820 1/3 innings and, last season, striking out six times as many hitters as he walked. Before Thursday night, Gerrit Cole was the highest-paid pitcher ever at $324 million guaranteed. Yamamoto one-upped him. What he lacks is a deferral, unlike Ohtani’s mesmerizing $680 million in waiting. As Ohtani was greeting media at his news conference, the Dodgers were signing pitcher Tyler Glasnow to a five-year, $136.5 million deal.

     Now this. At least 20 franchise owners are wondering, at this minute, why they continue to stay in the game. No matter what they spend, they will be viewed as cheap, with the Yankees and Mets flung aside by Guggenheim boss Mark Walter.

     “It was important to Shohei that this wasn’t the one move we were gonna make, and I think anyone who has watched us operate over the years, we’re trying to add really good players at every turn,” said president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman, who gets to witness unprecedented job freedom. “We gave our pledge, because that’s something that was incredibly important to Mark Walter, and it’s incredibly important to us, so those things were in perfect alignment.”

     Who is Walter? No longer nameless and faceless, you might say. He grew up in Iowa, co-founded investment businesses in Chicago and has more than $350 billion in management assets. What’s more than $1 billion to two ballplayers from Japan? No one in American sports history has tossed around his moolah. Obviously, he is tired of watching the Dodgers win the National League West, sometimes with historic numbers, and taking the World Series only once in the 2020 pandemic period. This is Walter’s way of firing back, while over in Chicago, fans of the Cubs and woeful White Sox must wonder how he found his way to Hollywood.

     At 5-10 and 176 pounds, Yamamoto is undersized. His six-pitch arsenal is fueled by yoga mats, handstands and javelin tosses, writes ESPN. During Japan’s victory over Mexico in the World Baseball Classic, he threw 20 fastballs, 19 splitters, six curveballs, six cutters and one slider in 3 1/3 relief innings. “A special dude,” Boone said before his jersey was discarded. “Really some presence to him. Comfortable in his skin. Confident. Humility to him. It’s been nice getting to know him in some less formal environments where you can let your hands drop and have real conversations. It’s been fun to do that.”

     The game is no longer fun for anyone else. The Atlanta Braves are in a similar ballpark, I suppose. The Texas Rangers, bolstered by huge signings, won the World Series. But the Yankees, who acquired Juan Soto, didn’t pick up another defining pitcher after offering $300 million for 10 years. The Mets look dead. Toronto went hard after Ohtani and Yamamoto and got neither. From this point on, any deals made by other teams — Arizona gave $80 million to pitcher Eduardo Rodriguez and $42 million to outfielder Lourdes Gurriel Jr. — seem like child’s play.

     For years, the beauty of Major League Baseball was a team sneaking through the pack and surprising us in October. I’m not sure we can imagine the Dodgers, the year after next, throwing Ohtani and Yamamoto and Glasnow and Bobby Miller and who knows who else, such as an undecided Clayton Kershaw. An intrasquad season might be next.

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     Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host. Living in Los Angeles, he gravitated by osmosis to film projects.