Shohei Ohtani announced he's signing with the Los Angeles Dodgers. In true Shohei fashion, he casually dropped a Dodger logo on Instagram while thanking the Angels organization and fans in the caption after explaining his decision. The 10-year, $700 million dollar deal almost seems cartoonish when compared to the other high profile deals signed in recent years. It's far and away the biggest contract in MLB and American sports history

Let's take a quick look at some of the numbers for comparison purposes: The overall value is $273.5 million more dollars than the $426.5 million dollar deal Mike Trout signed in 2019. His annual average value is $26.67 million per year higher than the ones Justin Verlander and Max Scherzer signed last year. The 10 years in length is two to four years shorter than guys like Julio Rodriguez, Bryce Harper, and Fernando Tatis Jr have signed in recent years.

Here are a couple tweets explaining things:

This isn't the Dodgers' first foray into deferred money. Combined with Mookie Betts' and Freddie Freeman's deals, they will owe the three players a whopping $857 million from 2033-2044! Their loophole discovery should be exploited to high heavens until it's changed!

"Now Jermaine...how and why is this beneficial to the Astros?" Glad you asked. As a decent-sized market for an MLB team, the Astros are in a unique position. They've been on a heater and need to keep that window open. Jim Crane wants to spend to compete, but not go crazy in the luxury tax. This is where Ohtani's idea to defer $680 million of his $700 million dollar deal to the 10 years AFTER his deal expires comes into play. The Astros have a couple of guys coming up for extensions next offseason in Jose Altuve and Alex Bregman. You may have heard of them. Or what about Kyle Tucker? He's proven himself almost as valuable to their future as Yordan Alvarez.

This mostly applies to Tucker. He's 26 now and will be 28 when/if he hits the open market. A left-handed hitting outfielder who has a pretty good tool set will command a ton of interest. Crane is known for staying away from long term deals to not hamstring the organization. However, if he could offset the initial costs by deferring money, why wouldn't he offer Tucker eight years for $240 or so million dollars and defer the money into future years?

I love Bregman and Altuve. I'd love for them to retire as Astros. But business needs to make sense for the franchise. Both guys are coming off good extensions and are ready for one last payday. Why not extend them and defer money, then possibly convert some of that into salary as a team consultant? Who wouldn't want Altuve as a batting coach, or Bregman as your fielding instructor?

If any of these pitchers (Framber Valdez comes to mind first) looks around and sees what others are getting, they're going to want big money as well. The biggest thing this hinges upon is the willingness of the player. Someone like Bregman and Altuve have made their money and get endorsements. They may be more open to this scenario. Tucker and Framber haven't had their second deals yet. They may not want to postpone the life-changing financial windfall. Especially since they already have rings.

“If you can't beat 'em, join 'em!” That phrase has always stood out to me. Sometimes, it makes me feel as if it condones whatever actions someone is doing, typically something illegal or against the rules. Other times, it could be a situation like this where someone discovers something amazing to aid their cause. Regardless of how/why this came about, it's time for the Astros to get creative in how they're going to keep this window open. If they don't, they may fall victim to being another team that flashed and now can no longer compete. Hopefully they keep flashing as long as they have something worth showing off.