Baseball Was Delivered a Shockwave Last Night As We Learned Shohei Ohtani Has a Tear In His UCL And Could Require The Second Tommy John Surgery Of His Career

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The baseball world absorbed a shockwave late last night as we learned Shohei Ohtani once again has torn his UCL. The news brings on trauma to three levels of the sport: Shohei's incredible season, his future contract, and the Angels organization. 

Ohtani's pitching season, at the very least, is over. Entering yesterday he hadn't allowed an earned run in over a month. While that did involve a few skipped starts, those performances had thrown him right back into the heart of the AL Cy Young conversation as his ERA was lowered to 3.14. While he was and is a shoe-in for the AL MVP, he very well could have come away with both pieces of hardware had he kept it up for another 5 weeks. That dream died last night. It'll still go down as one of, if not the best, season ever by an individual player, but him winning both awards as a two way player would have been beyond legendary. 

The biggest question out of all this revolves around his future. As you probably know, Ohtani is a free agent at the end of the season and was set to command a contract in the $600-700 million range, hell maybe more! When you factor in his ability to contribute as an elite pitcher and hitter along with the international market following his every step there's a case to be made he's invaluable to a franchise. Any number you pay for him you make back in performance, marketing, TV ratings, merch, and tickets. If he's to undergo another Tommy John surgery that throws a wrench in everything. It's definitely possible to return after a second TJ surgery and pitch, but the list is pretty short and not the most promising when you consider performance: Jameson Taillon, Drew Rasmussen, and Mike Clevinger to name a few. Nathan Eovaldi might be the name to look at as hope he can return to an elite level. An optimistic perspective for him is he's still only 29 years old, so if he has the surgery he'll be back on a mount before he turns 31. The two-way dream isn't dead, it's just cloudy. 

The good news for Ohtani's wallet is that his bat is beyond elite and will still command a monster contract by itself. Even just being a DH (maybe he pivots to 1st) he should be able to soar past Judge's 9/$360M, but the dream of $600M for both of his skills seems cooked, at least in guaranteed money. The only way he comes close to that would appear to be incentive based, surrounded around the amount of innings he pitches each season. How else could you risk the gamble of paying for both when you know he likely won't even be pitching for over a year? Someone like Preller in San Diego could still say fuck it just to make sure he's there's, but man is it tough to swallow the reality of his situation and still unload the clip. There's still going to be a massive bidding war for his services, but it's going to be very convoluted now. 

The last part of the fallout comes with the Angels organization. To no surprise at all, they come out the biggest losers. The Angels decided to go all-in with Ohtani and opted to not trade him at the deadline despite a brutal schedule ahead and many teams to hop to get into the postseason. They called up top prospects, even ones they just drafted, and traded for vets in an effort to show him they would do anything to keep his residency in LA. 

While it was a valiant try, it really was as dumb as it appeared. The Angels have fallen so far out of the AL Wild Card race (10.5GB) that they're even behind the putrid Yankees. The haul they could have received in-exchange for Shohei's services at the deadline could have rejuvenated their lack-luster system. Instead they gave away four top-30 prospects for Lucas Giolito, Reynaldo Lopez, CJ Cron and Randal Grichuk. All four of those players are free agents at the end of 2023 and could just as easily walk away the same as Ohtani. This is a full-on masterclass on how to destroy an organization and set it back for a decade. 

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Shohei has genuinely been a joy to watch do his thing over the last three years. Probably something we never see again to be honest, unless he comes back from this injury and is himself again. The talk about his upcoming contract will only grow more confusing by the day. All in all, what a shit show for Shohei, the Angels, and the sport of baseball as a whole. 

P.S. I will say Ben Verlander and Passan are being a bit dramatic here with their reactions, no? The guy isn't dead, he's just gonna have to get elbow surgery. It's not like he's never going to play again guys.