He broke a record with a $700 million contract: Who is Shohei Ohtani?

29-year-old Ohtani, who was let go after leaving the Los Angeles Angels, announced in a statement on his social networking site Instagram account that he reached an agreement with the Los Angeles Dodgers team.

US media stated that Ohtani, who was selected as the season's most valuable player (MVP) twice in the last 3 years and is at the top of many teams' transfer lists, will earn $700 million from the Dodgers for 10 seasons.

With this contract, Ohtani, one of the rare players with pitcher and hitter characteristics, will become by far the highest-paid player in the history of the league, surpassing Aaron Judge of the New York Yankees ($360 million for 9 seasons).

Shohei Ohtani's story

Shohei Ohtani was born on June 5, 1994, in Oshu, a city located approximately 500 km north of Tokyo. In the Ohtani family, who lived a quiet life in a region that stands out with its natural beauties, far away from big cities, father Toru's passion for baseball deeply influenced the lives of his children. Shohei, the youngest of three siblings, started playing baseball, benefiting from the athlete genes of his mother Kayoko, who played badminton at the national level. Shohei, who has been throwing a ball and swinging a bat in the little league on weekends since the age of eight, did not have a dream of becoming a baseball player at first. For him, baseball was just an enjoyable hobby. For a young child, this sport can of course be a weekend pastime. However, as Shohei would observe in the following years, this was not the case in the Japanese baseball tradition. There was a structure in which discipline was at the forefront, endless training took place, team play was adopted as the main Babe Ruth rule, and it had its own ethical rules.

Shohei Ohtani (born July 5, 1994), nicknamed "Shotime", is a Japanese professional baseball pitcher and designated hitter who is a free agent. He has played in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Los Angeles Angels and for the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters of Nippon Professional Baseball's (NPB) Pacific League. Widely acclaimed for his skill in both pitching and batting, he has been compared to two-way players such as Babe Ruth and Bullet Rogan, although such comparisons draw debate given the difference in era and overall ability of modern players.

This structure may seem unusual to the outside eyes. Although the 1992 movie Mr Baseball, starring Tom Selleck, is a comedy full of clichés, it touches on important points about baseball culture in Japan. A baseball player who falls into Japan while searching for his old glory days finds himself in a cultural conflict while trying to adapt to his new life. The words that Aya Takanashi, who plays the main girl in the movie, says about Kobe beef in a scene can very well be adapted to baseball: "We take the best things from all over the world and make them 'ours'."

Shohei continued to grow within this uniquely Japanese baseball culture. It has flourished over the years and become more robust with each passing day. It was written in his destiny to be a baseball player during his high school years. Because he managed to attract attention with his height of 1.93 cm, his athletic structure, his shots reaching speeds that were not expected from a shooter of his age, and his jaw-dropping shots. Moreover, during the same period, he also had the opportunity to appear in the Koshien Tournament, which had an almost sacred meaning.

Koshien, an inter-high school tournament that has been going on since 1915, is such a tradition that it brings hundreds of thousands of viewers to Koshien Stadium and millions to the screen. The players participating in the tournament even take soil from the stadium with them as a souvenir. The sacrifices they made to come to this tournament reveal Japan's baseball tradition.

The term Samurai baseball used for Japanese baseball is based on the concept of Bushido, which dates back to the 13th century, as included in the book The Chrysanthemum and the Bat by American author Robert Whiting. This Samurai tradition, which includes concepts such as loyalty, self-discipline, simplicity, and obedience, has permeated every aspect of life, from education to business, from politics to the world of crime and, of course, baseball. Of course, it is not surprising that such a deep-rooted baseball culture produces star athletes. We can also see the traces of the world in which Shohei grew up in his game, his simple lifestyle, and the decisions he makes regarding his career.

After graduating from high school, Shohei, who was on the radar of teams such as the Texas Rangers, Los Angeles Dodgers and Boston Red Sox, intended to move to the opposite side of the Pacific Ocean. He even gave a message to the teams that were considering selecting him in the NPB draft, the Japanese professional baseball league, that he would go to the USA. In this case, choosing Shohei carried a great risk for the teams. Because if the young talent went to the USA, their selection rights would be wasted.

Masao Yamada, GM of the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters team, took this risk and used his first-round pick for Shohei. Yamada then devised a rational persuasion strategy and appeared before Shohei in an extremely prepared manner. He convinced Shohei to stay in Japan by sharing many similar arguments in a detailed presentation, saying that he could play the game both ways if he joined the team, and that if he went to the USA, he would have to live in difficult conditions because he would play in the lower leagues until he was ready, and many similar arguments.

Despite the high expectations, do not think that Shohei burst into the NPB right out of high school. Of course, there is high-level competition in the professional league and young players have a lot to learn. Shohei also had difficulty adjusting to the level of play in the NPB in his first season. However, as time passed, his talents and determination to work enabled him to exceed expectations. Shohei, who spent five seasons in the league, tasted the success of both the championship and the most valuable player, as well as many awards. Now it was time for him to follow his dreams.

"Hello. I'm Shohei Ohtani." Shohei's official introduction to the MLB audience took place with these words in December 2017. When the Los Angeles Angels staff invited him to the USA, they promised that he could play both sides of the game. If Shohei had waited until he was 25 to come to the United States, he could have received a $200 million contract, but he was so confident in his abilities that he left NPB without waiting until he was 25 and signed with the Los Angeles Angels on a minimum contract.

The Japanese star, who excited the baseball audience with a great start to his rookie season in 2018, was injured in his pitching hand a month and a half later and could not play as a pitcher for a long time. Ohtani, who played in 104 of 162 games in his rookie season, was only able to play in ten games as a pitcher. Despite this, he received acclaim for his performance. Standing out with his hitting aspect, he finished the season with 22 home runs and was elected rookie of the year in the American League. Shohei, who struggled with injuries again in the next two years, almost did not play in the pitcher position during this period.

In 2021, Shohei achieved a performance never seen in the modern era. He started the first game of the season as a pitcher, came in second on the batting list, and hit a home run, becoming the first player since Babe Ruth to do so. Shohei, who completed the season healthy and played in 155 matches, ranked third among the players with the most home runs with 46 home runs. The player, who played as a pitcher in 23 matches, achieved an elite performance by allowing only 3.18 runs per game to his opponents. The athlete, who did wonders on both sides of the game, was first selected as an All-Star and later found himself on the Silver Slugger list, which includes the best offensive players. Undoubtedly, he achieved the greatest success of his career so far by being unanimously selected as the American League MVP.

"He's the best player I've ever seen in my life. He can hit it 900 feet and throw it 99 miles. Who else can do that?" This is how former MLB player CC Sabathia summarizes his thoughts about Shohei. Shohei is a sporting anomaly that occurs once in a hundred years. A baseball player who grew up in Japan is doing something similar to Babe Ruth's increase in interest in baseball by going to Japan years ago - as the new face of this sport whose viewing rates have been declining recently - in the USA.

The nickname 'Shotime', which baseball enthusiasts consider appropriate for him, is a very good choice, but if he spreads this performance over several years, it would not be out of place to be described as 'Mr. Baseball' in the full sense of the word.