Report: Shohei Ohtani’s decision is imminent, Blue Jays have gained momentum since Dunedin visit
By Cam Lewis
7 months agoThe Shohei Ohtani sweepstakes seem to be nearing a conclusion.
According to Jon Morosi of MLB Network, Ohtani’s decision is “imminent” and could come as early as today. Morosi also added that ”Since [Ohtani’s] visit to Dunedin on Monday, momentum has built for the Blue Jays.”
More than likely, this is speculation on Morosi’s part, given all of the signs that are pointing toward Ohtani signing a contract on Friday. December 8, 2017 was the day that he signed his first Major League contract with the Los Angeles Angels and it would be fitting for Ohtani to sign the biggest contract in baseball history on the anniversary of that occasion.
The note about Toronto gaining momentum since Ohtani visited the team’s state-of-the-art training complex ultimately mirrors what other pundits and insiders have said in the past days. Jon Heyman reported on Tuesday that Ohtani told some people ahead of his trip to Dunedin that he had “a positive feeling about Toronto,” while Tom Verducci wrote how the facility is central to the team’s pitch.
The Jays recently spent $100 million on a state-of-the-art training center in Florida and are in the process of a $300 million renovation to Rogers Centre to turn it from a multi-purpose sports facility into a true ballpark with state-of-the-art amenities for players.Ohtani is fastidious about his high-performance training and loves high-tech methodologies and devices to track it. The spring training headquarters for the Angels is an antiquated minor league facility.“It’s very important to him,” says one source close to Ohtani about facilities. “Training and baseball are largely all that he does. He is devoted to the game.”
Ultimately, this is a wildly unpredictable free agency, and mostly everything we’ve heard up to this point is some kind of educated guess. That said, seeing that there’s a private jet scheduled to fly from John Wayne Airport near Anaheim to Toronto on the anniversary of Ohtani signing his first big-league contract, there’s plenty of reason to be optimistic.
This could be the biggest Transaction Friday in team history.
ARTICLE PRESENTED BY BETANO
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