Amid an abundance of newsworthy baseball events from the past week — Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Clayton Kershaw retiring, automatic balls and strikes being confirmed for the 2026 season, and the Cleveland Guardians pulling off one of the biggest divisional comebacks the game has ever seen — I’ve decided to write this week’s column about a topic few others have discussed: Dodgers two-way player Shohei Ohtani.

You may not have heard of him; he plays for a small-market team in a scarcely populated city and rarely receives any media coverage. But, believe it or not, he’s a designated hitter and a starting pitcher. Isn’t that crazy? Have you ever heard of such a thing?

In all seriousness, it’s no secret that Ohtani is one of the most prominent figures in modern sports, let alone baseball. His two-way ability and international appeal are a perfect storm for success, and by the time he hit free agency after the 2023 season, he had already staked his claim as the face of baseball for the foreseeable future.

Then, in December 2023, the Dodgers — in all of their money-is-a-construct-anyways glory — decided to offer him a 10-year, $700 million contract. Seven hundred million dollars. 

For reference, the previous largest free agent contract in MLB history was outfielder Aaron Judge’s $360 million deal with the New York Yankees a year prior — just over half of Ohtani’s haul. While Ohtani’s total has since been surpassed by New York Mets outfielder Juan Soto’s $765 million contract, Soto’s annual average of $51 million is dwarfed by Ohtani’s $70 million.

That’s insane, right? How could a baseball player possibly be worth that much money? It’s an understandable reaction to have, one that I myself experienced upon seeing the ESPN notification announcing the deal while waiting in line at Dulce; it’s an opinion that I admittedly continued to hold until very recently.

I don’t think I truly understood the Ohtani spectacle until I visited Dodger Stadium for the first time Sunday, with the visiting San Francisco Giants taking on the Dodgers in their final home game of the regular season. 

The game itself was unremarkable: Both teams combined for just one run through the first seven innings before the Giants rallied for three in the eighth, securing a 3-1 win in just less than two and a half hours. I ate my first Dodger Dog — it was pretty good — and watched an exorbitant number of Kershaw highlights in between each half inning, celebrating the future Hall of Famer’s career and legacy.

Speaking of future Hall of Famers, I watched at least three more play on Sunday. First baseman Freddie Freeman has had a decent chance at the Hall for a while, but he probably locked it up with his walk-off grand slam in last year’s World Series. Infielder Mookie Betts has been a top-10 player in the league for as long as I can remember and might make it in unanimously.

Then, of course, the man of the hour: Ohtani. Even on an all-time stacked roster full of former and future MVPs, Ohtani was far and away the biggest star of Sunday’s game; I’ve never seen anything like it. 

From the moment his walk-up song began to play until after he had trotted back to the dugout, every single person in the stadium was dialed in: breath held, waiting to see what he would do next. Thousands of phone cameras shot into the air, hoping to catch a glimpse of a towering home run or a lightning-quick dash to beat the tag at second.

My parents told me it reminded them of St. Louis Cardinals games in 1998, when time would stop and the world would go silent for every Mark McGwire at-bat as he chased down the single-season home run record alongside Chicago Cubs outfielder Sammy Sosa. Except in Ohtani’s case, he wasn’t hunting a legendary record or fighting for a playoff spot; he is just that inherently captivating.

To be clear, Ohtani is more than deserving of the “best player in baseball” title. Across the five years since his breakout MVP season in 2021, Ohtani has racked up 231 home runs, 519 RBIs and 135 stolen bases to go along with an average OPS of nearly 1.000. Oh, and he can pitch too: In 88 starts during that time frame, he’s 35-17 with a 2.84 ERA. 

If he wins National League MVP this year — which he almost certainly will — it will be his fourth award in five years, broken up only by a second-place finish to Judge in 2022. The only other player in MLB history with more than three MVPs is Barry Bonds; if you don’t count the seasons in which Bonds was accused of using steroids, Ohtani would stand alone.

And yet… $700 million? Is it even possible to justify paying someone that much money, regardless of how good they are at the game?

Let me put it this way: During the 2025 season, Ohtani has accumulated 7.5 Wins Above Replacement — which, for his standards, is actually a down year — and will end up making an average of $70 million per year when all is said and done. That means the Dodgers will pay Ohtani roughly $9.3 million for each win he contributes to the team this year.

That may still sound like a lot of money, but it pales in comparison to many other highly paid players. Houston Astros shortstop Carlos Correa is set to make $37 million this year after recording just 1.1 WAR, a rate of $33.6 million per win. Toronto Blue Jays pitcher Max Scherzer’s $15.5 million contract brought the Jays just 0.4 WAR, good for nearly $40 million per win.

And, of course, the mother of all contract busts: Los Angeles Angels third baseman Anthony Rendon, who is owed $38.5 million this year despite missing the entire season due to injury. Since 2021, the Angels have paid Rendon $178 million and received a total of 1.7 WAR in return. Still think $10 million per win is a bad deal? Try $100 million. Compared to his former teammate’s historically awful contract, Ohtani’s suddenly doesn’t seem like so much.

Lastly, it’s obvious that Los Angeles should have zero issue coughing up coins for Ohtani. In 2024, the Dodgers reportedly grossed over $1 billion in revenue, becoming just the fourth team in all of sports history to reach that mark. For the non-math majors out there, that means Ohtani’s salary of $70 million could be paid off with 7% of the team’s revenue.

Let’s be very clear: Shohei Ohtani is responsible for a hell of a lot more than 7% of the Dodgers’ revenue. According to Forbes, the team’s net revenue shot up by 37% in Ohtani’s first season after stagnating for several years prior. In the grand scheme of things, his seemingly mammoth contract has nothing on the actual value he brings in.

That being said, the Dodgers still need to get that money from somewhere. So the next time you want to go watch Ohtani play without spending three figures just to sit in the nosebleeds, maybe ask your parents if they can come to town for a weekend visit.

Bennett Christofferson is a junior writing about baseball’s biggest stories and controversies in his column “Dugout Diaries,” which runs every other Thursday. He is also a sports editor at the Daily Trojan.