Dodgers desperately need Shohei Ohtani’s arm, but his bat will do — for now
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Alden Gonzalez
The attrition that has plagued the Los Angeles Dodgers was most stark Tuesday night, when Matt Sauer, a 26-year-old journeyman, was called on to pitch bulk innings and wound up throwing 111 pitches, a career high and at least 29 more than he had tallied at any point in the past two years. He was followed by Enrique Hernandez, the team’s effervescent utility player, who recorded the final seven outs of a lopsided loss to the San Diego Padres by throwing crossbody cutters that barely reached 50 mph, marking the first time in at least 67 years that a Dodgers position player had been called on for more than two innings.
Such is the state of the Dodgers’ pitching staff. Its injury rate is once again alarming, the team’s division lead has become miniscule because of it — and the anticipation around Shohei Ohtani‘s return to pitching continues to intensify.
Ohtani took part in his third simulated game hours before the Dodgers deployed the bottom of their depth chart against their biggest rivals, ramping all the way up to 44 pitches. His first start since Aug. 23, 2023, might only be a month away. But the Dodgers vow to remain cautious, no matter how short-handed they might be. Ohtani’s bat is too valuable. His two-way future is too precarious.
“Viewing it on a shorter-term horizon, it’s easy to want to be aggressive and push — I think both from him and from us,” Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman said. “But we set out to view this as putting him in the best position to pitch over the next nine years and prioritizing longevity, and this first year back, it’s really important for that long-term aspect to not be too aggressive right now.”
Ohtani, though, is forcing the issue. At around 2 p.m. Tuesday, he completed three innings and compiled six strikeouts against a couple of low-level minor leaguers, darting his fastball in the mid- to upper-90s and unleashing a handful of nasty sweepers. Later, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts pinned Ohtani’s chances of joining the rotation before the All-Star break at “north of zero” — a sign that the timeline might have accelerated, even if only slightly. Ohtani’s two-way designation affords the luxury of an extra pitcher, allowing the Dodgers to bring him back before he is fully stretched out. The command he is already displaying has only made that more appealing.
But as this process has shown, things can change.
After navigating through a pitching progression toward the tail end of the 2024 regular season, the Dodgers carved out a plan in which Ohtani would essentially stop throwing during the playoffs and pick back up relatively early in the winter. Then Ohtani tore a labrum in his left shoulder in Game 2 of the World Series, necessitating offseason surgery and prompting spring training to essentially qualify as his offseason throwing program.
He paused leading up to the season-opening series in Japan around the middle of March, then built up slowly after the Dodgers returned to the United States. Later, when unforeseen circumstances emerged — an extra-inning game in New York, unfavorable weather in St. Louis — his throwing sessions were pushed back. Ohtani still must extend into the neighborhood of 70 pitches before the Dodgers can even think about unlocking him as a pitcher, even if he won’t initially throw that many in a game. When he does return, he will either be 22 or 23 months removed from a surgery that typically comes with a 12- to 14-month timeline.
His recovery has forced the Dodgers to be nimble, but most of all, to be patient.
“We need him to be healthy,” Dodgers third baseman Max Muncy said. “They’re moving slow, and we’re all happy about that. We obviously want him to be pitching, but we want him to be healthy first and foremost. When you’re doing what he’s doing, it’s so unprecedented that I don’t know if there is a proper timeline. He might be moving faster than what he should be moving right now; we don’t really know that because it’s just never really been done before.”
For as dominant as Ohtani has proved to be as a pitcher — he posted a 2.84 ERA and compiled 542 strikeouts in 428⅓ innings from 2021 to 2023 before suffering a second tear of his ulnar collateral ligament — his impact on offense has become too important to risk.
Since the start of the 2023 season, his last with the Angels, Ohtani ranks first in the majors in homers (121), second in OPS (1.042), fifth in batting average (.304), sixth in stolen bases (90) and within the top 1% in average exit velocity, barrel rate and expected slugging percentage. Last year, he chartered the 50/50 club while becoming the first full-time designated hitter to win an MVP. This year, he’s slashing .292/.386/.625 while on pace for 54 home runs, matching a career high he set the season before.
His stolen-base rate, though, is down to 26 — 33 fewer than what he tallied in 2024. Ohtani stole his 11th base on May 20 and hasn’t recorded one since. His caution on the bases has coincided with the escalation of his pitching rehab. Roberts said he didn’t know if there was a direct correlation, and Ohtani, who rarely does interviews, hasn’t been made available to speak on it. But the drop-off emphasizes the endurance required to hit and pitch simultaneously.
The Dodgers have been guided by that thought.
“I can’t imagine how tiring it is to do both,” Friedman said. “It’s one thing when you’re in that rhythm of it and you are in shape for that. But it’s been a while since he did both, and this is pretty uncharted because we’ve never been around a guy that does both at this level. And so it’s just trying to do everything we can to build up the muscles in the right arm but also build up the endurance from a body standpoint of doing both and not fatiguing him in a way that makes his offense suffer.”
When Ohtani first joined the Dodgers and began his hitting progression in the spring of 2024, almost all of his swings were precisely 70 mph. Later that summer, when he began to play catch with more intensity, he made a habit of guessing the precise velocity of his throws and was almost always right. Brandon McDaniel, who was the Dodgers’ strength and conditioning coach and director of player performance before being elevated to the coaching staff this season, has spent two decades working with elite athletes and has never met one as in tune with his body as Ohtani.
“It’s almost like he has a monitor to his engine, in front, like a dashboard,” McDaniel said.
Most are good at following the scripts mapped out for their rehabs, McDaniel explained, but Ohtani doesn’t seem to need one. His feel for what his body requires in a given moment is unparalleled. And so for as careful as the Dodgers have been with Ohtani’s pitching progression, they’ve also become unafraid that he’ll go too hard and set himself back. Through that, a trust has developed.
“He obviously wants to push; he’s been pushing,” McDaniel said. “But it’s just been such a great balance of taking very calculated strikes of when we’re going to push and when we’re going to add velo and when we’re going to add spin, things like that. And ultimately, because he’s a two-way player, we don’t have a clock. And so when he feels like he’s ready, that’s the first part of the conversation.”
The Dodgers deployed a franchise-record 40 pitchers during the 2024 season, then rode a three-man rotation and continual bullpen games to a championship. This year was supposed to be different, and yet it has been eerily similar. Blake Snell, Tyler Glasnow and Roki Sasaki, three starters who were expected to front one of the best rotations in the sport, are all out with shoulder-related ailments, joining 11 other pitchers on the injured list. The Dodgers have already used 30 players to pitch, more than any other team in the sport. Their bullpen leads the majors in innings by a wide margin.
But Ohtani looms in the background, his pitching return quickly becoming close enough to envision. The buildup alone has been remarkable. His simulated games, which will continue to grow in volume on a weekly basis, usually end roughly four hours before the first pitch, after which Ohtani navigates a maintenance program on his left shoulder and right elbow while the rest of the Dodgers’ hitters prepare for that night’s starting pitcher. Then, like he used to so often, he grabs a bat and flips a switch.
Ohtani is 4-for-11 with a home run following his three simulated games this season, a snapshot of what’s to come.
“It’s fun to watch him because he enjoys the game so much,” Dodgers reliever Alex Vesia said. “He loves baseball. And when you’re doing both, you have to love it the way he does.”
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Greg Wyshynski
The Minnesota Wild handed out the largest contract in NHL history on Tuesday to star winger Kirill Kaprizov, as the 28-year-old will earn $136 million on an eight-year term through the 2033-34 season.
It’s a deal worth more in total money that the one Alex Ovechkin signed with the Washington Capitals ($124 million) in 2008, and carries a higher average annual value (AAV) than the one signed by Leon Draisaitl with the Edmonton Oilers ($14 million) last September.
It’s a contract that has sent shockwaves through the NHL. Some will benefit from its repercussions. Some will not. Here are the winners and losers of the Kaprizov contract, as we see them:
Winner: Bill Guerin
It was Guerin that finally got Kaprizov to leave the KHL for the NHL in 2021, succeeding where two previous Wild GMs had failed. Now he’s the guy that’s helped convinced Kaprizov to stay in Minnesota.
Guerin faced some enormous challenges in getting this done. One of them was the lure of unrestricted free agency under a rising salary cap, as Kaprizov wouldn’t have suffered from a lack of suitors. Some of those suitors might have been more appealing than the Wild: As one NHL agent told ESPN, the Wild’s status as a mid-tier Stanley Cup contender and Minnesota not being “a destination” for stars worked against them. Kaprizov had the hammer in negotiations, as was evidenced by the windfall he eventually received.
But Guerin also had some advantages here. His team could give Kaprizov the eighth contract year that the player reportedly wanted out of his next deal. He also had the financial backing of ownership to offer the richest contract in NHL history — $128 million earlier in September — and then increase that offer when Kaprizov didn’t sign.
Guerin also benefitted from having Kaprizov’s contract come up before a major change in the CBA rules. His contract pays out $128 million of his money in annual signing bonuses. That’s 94% of its value. Starting in Sept. 2026, contracts will only be able to offer signing bonuses worth 60% of the “aggregate compensation payable under the contract.”
Guerin landed the plane at time when many felt Kaprizov’s initial rejection of a record contract was his rejection of the franchise. Whether you agree with the compensation or not, give credit where it’s due: He got it done.
Loser: Kevin Cheveldayoff
Since 2021-22, Kyle Connor has scored just five fewer goals (153) than Kaprizov (158), having played 44 more games than the Minnesota winger. That’s on a 14.2% shooting percentage. Simply put, the 28-year-old Jet winger is as elite a goal-scorer as you’ll find on the wing — and as an unrestricted free agent next summer, should be compensated as such.
The question is whether that’ll happen in Winnipeg, where he’s entering his 10th season, or elsewhere.
If Connor was waiting for a salary domino to fall, this one landed with a sonic boom. Jets GM Kevin Cheveldayoff just watched Kaprizov reset the market for a player that scored 41 goals and had 56 assists for a career best 97 points in 82 games.
Cheveldayoff has done a masterful job retaining other stars like goalie Connor Hellebuyck and Mark Scheifele, both at $8.5 million AAV over seven seasons. Market conditions were more favorable to the Jets when they re-upped in 2023. They aren’t now, thanks in part to Kaprizov.
The conundrum for Cheveldayoff and the Jets: Is Connor worth that money?
“He scores goals, but gives a lot back,” one NHL executive said.
Winner: Paul Theofanous
Wild owner Craig Leipold told The Athletic on Tuesday that the team was still convinced Kaprizov wanted to re-sign even after he didn’t agree to an eight-year, $128 million contract extension offer on Sept. 9.
“He never raised the money issue. That was always the agent,” Leipold said. “So, I mean, I think we always thought that we’re going to get this thing done, and we thought, at least in the last week or so, 17 was the number.”
Theofanous, Kaprizov’s agent, is a legendarily tough negotiator. He not only managed to get another $8 million added to an offer that would have already set a new NHL contract value record, but he negotiated a contract structure that pays Kaprizov $128 million in “buyout-proof” bonus money. Theofanous dug his heels in and won huge, despite the Wild’s belief that Kaprizov wouldn’t take this to free agency.
Loser: Player movement
The era of player retention continues.
The upper limit of the NHL salary cap this season is $95.5 million. It’s been estimated that the ceiling will be at least $104 million in 2026-27, the first time the NHL’s salary cap will have crested over the century mark. Some predicted this inflation would lead to a spike in player movement, as teams had more to spend on acquiring talent.
On the contrary, the rising cap has seen teams retain their players throughout the offseason, no longer sweating out the pressure points that the cap created. Kaprizov is the latest name to stay where his stuff is, and he’s likely not the last.
Winner: Getting locked in early
Hart Levine of the salary cap site Puck Pedia believes that hockey fans just have to accept that this is the new normal under the salary cap.
“It’s a big number, but we just have to get used to living in a world where the cap is going up each year. It’s going up 9% from this year to next year,” he told me.
It’s all about context. Heck, even Kaprizov’s deal might look like a bargain in the next few seasons.
Take Draisaitl’s contract that he signed last September. Levine says that under next year’s salary cap, Draisaitl’s contract would have been worth $15.25 million against the cap. Conversely, if you took Kaprizov’s contract and put into current cap dollars, the AAV would be around $15.6 million.
One NHL executive likened the rise in the salary cap to a “tidal wave” that’ll just keep adding more and more large contracts as it grows. Which means the key for teams is locking players in before that wave crests.
When discussing good cap management with some NHL sources, one team that came up multiple times was the Carolina Hurricanes.
Their front office, now led by GM Eric Tulsky, has locked up several players to long-term deals ahead of the dramatic salary cap increase: Forwards Sebastian Aho ($9.75 million through 2031-32), Seth Jarvis ($7,420,087 through 2031-32) and Logan Stankoven ($6 million through 2033-34), as well as newly acquired defenseman K’Andre Miller ($7.5 million through 2032-33) and forward Nikolaj Ehlers ($8.5 million through 2030-31).
The Canes have their core locked up long-term at a reasonable rate, and the flexibility to still go after big players via trades as they’ve done the last two seasons with Jake Guentzel and Mikko Rantanen.
Speaking of which …
Losers: Mitch Marner and Mikko Rantanen
Kaprizov’s contract will no doubt continue the dialogue about NHL cities with high income taxes and NHL cities that don’t have income taxes, a.k.a. the teams that happen to be winning Stanley Cups with some frequency lately.
According to an analysis by the Tax Foundation, Minnesota has the fifth-highest top income tax rate in the U.S., at 9.85%. There’s no question that’s a factor in Kaprizov getting $136 million over eight seasons, because he wouldn’t have gotten that same number in a no-tax state. Jeff Marek of Daily Faceoff spoke with one player agent who said Kaprizov’s average annual value in a place like Florida would have been around $14 million.
If that’s the case, then Kaprizov still would have made more annually than Mitch Marner of the Vegas Golden Knights and Mikko Rantanen of the Dallas Stars, who both signed mega-contracts in the last year worth $12 million against the cap through 2032-33.
Marner’s points-per-game average of the last three seasons was equal to Kaprizov’s (1.24) while Rantanen’s was right behind them (1.22). If either of them had the power of clairvoyance and could see what Kaprizov just earned, what would those contracts have looked like?
Winner: Kirill Kaprizov
We must obviously shout out the man himself, who set a new standard for NHL contracts in both overall value and average annual value. From a production standpoint, he’s among the best offensive hockey players in the world: He plays to a 50-goal pace, is a dynamic playmaker and shown to be a more committed defensive player than one might assume given his gaudy stats.
But there’s one number that’s never added up for Kaprizov, and that’s games played. The winger has played over 80 games once in his NHL career, back in 2021-22 when finished seventh in the MVP voting. Last season saw him limited to 41 games. He’s 28 years old, turning 29 next April.
Again, it’s a credit to Kaprizov that he has still managed to post astounding numbers despite those injuries. But for this level of investment, the Wild need him on the ice and not in the press box. Minnesota was 63-41-12 with Kaprizov in the lineup over the last two seasons and 21-23-4 without him. He’s a difference-maker.
The most complicated contract decision in the NHL just got a little more complicated.
McDavid is entering the final year of his contract with the Oilers. As we’ve written previously, everything is on the table for his future — from taking a shorter-term deal to remain in Edmonton to leaving for what would unquestionably become the richest free-agent contract the NHL has ever seen.
The latest speculation around the league: If McDavid does decide to remain with the Oilers beyond this season, it wouldn’t be for a max contract, with the idea being that McDavid would want fair compensation while giving Edmonton GM Stan Bowman flexibility to improve the team in pursuit of McDavid’s elusive Stanley Cup ring.
Yet there are also those who believe that McDavid should secure the bag even if he stays in Edmonton — after all, why should he pay for the team’s cap-management missteps?
McDavid is the best hockey player in the world. Whatever he wants on a new contract in Edmonton, they’re going to give him. It’s the “whatever he wants” that’s now a thornier issue, as the bar has been raised from Draisaitl’s $14 million to Kaprizov’s $17 million. Will McDavid choose to reset that bar whenever — or wherever — he signs his new deal?
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — A group led by Florida-based real estate developer Patrick Zalupski closed on its purchase of the Tampa Bay Rays on Tuesday, finalizing the sale of the team from former owner Stuart Sternberg.
Major League Baseball owners unanimously approved the transaction last week. The price was not disclosed.
“It’s an incredible honor to become the stewards of the Tampa Bay Rays, a franchise with a proud history and a bright future,” Zalupski said in a statement. “We’re all energized by the responsibility to serve Rays fans everywhere and this great game. … We will work hard to earn the respect and confidence of our fans and new MLB partners, and we are excited about the upcoming challenge to deliver a world-class experience on and off the field.”
Zalupski’s group, which also includes Bill Cosgrove and Ken Babby, is expected to restart the search for a new ballpark. The Rays in March withdrew from a $1.3 billion project to construct a new ballpark adjacent to Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, citing a hurricane and delays that likely drove up the proposal’s cost.
“Major League Baseball is pleased to welcome Patrick and his partners to the ownership ranks,” MLB commissioner Rob Manfred said. “Their collective experience and passion for the game will serve the Rays well as they enter this exciting new chapter.”
Sternberg took control of the team from founding owner Vince Naimoli in November 2005 and rebranded it the Rays from the Devil Rays after the 2007 season. The Rays won AL East titles in 2008, 2010, 2020 and 2021 and twice reached the World Series, losing to Philadelphia in 2008 and to the Los Angeles Dodgers in 2020.
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