I’m sure you need no reminding of December 8th, 2023 — the Twitter-refreshing, plane-tracking, sushi-restaurant-monitoring of it all. The day Shohei Ohtani was(n’t) on a plane to Toronto.

December 8th ended up entirely fruitless. Ohtani, as you know, eventually signed with the Dodgers — not the Blue Jays — for all the money deferred over all the years. But, with Ohtani reaching the historic 50/50 mark and his first season with Los Angeles almost certainly ending with an NL MVP, a thought popped into my head:

Would the Blue Jays’ 2024 season have been meaningfully different if Ohtani had actually signed with the Blue Jays?

It’s not the obvious yes that you may think it is. Let me break it down:

I’ll make one thing clear, even if it doesn’t feel necessary. The Blue Jays signing Ohtani obviously would’ve changed the future outlook of the franchise. But, in terms of specifically 2024, I’m not entirely sure Ohtani would’ve made this year’s Jays squad a playoff team.

Let’s start with the basics. The Blue Jays are on pace for a 77-win season, finishing eight games out of the American League’s final wild-card spot.

If you take the ~8 WAR (both from FanGraphs and Baseball Reference) Ohtani is on pace for this year, adding the MVP-caliber DH would’ve pushed Toronto into a tie for that final postseason spot with the Twins and Tigers, on WAR alone.

But, it’s important to remember that Ohtani sliding in at Toronto’s DH isn’t solely an addition. He’s replacing the DH reps that went to Justin Turner, Spencer Horwitz, George Springer, and others. Taking into account those DH rep losses, Ohtani represents something like a 6.3 WAR improvement on what Toronto put out at DH this year — still a few wins short of the playoffs.

Now, there’s obviously more to Ohtani’s impact than a simple WAR addition. Having Ohtani on the team would’ve kept the Jays in more serious contention early on and prevented them from selling Yusei Kikuchi, Yimi García, Turner, and others at the trade deadline. But, I’m willing to make the argument that selling off those pieces at the deadline has actually made the Blue Jays better.

The Jays have been an above-.500 team since the trade deadline and guys like Will Wagner, Ryan Yarbrough, and Joey Loperfido have been some of the squad’s better players since August. If the team doesn’t trade Yusei Kikuchi, Bowden Francis never gets his crack at the rotation that’s led to his current miracle run. If they don’t trade Turner, Wagner or Horwitz don’t get this many reps.

Having Ohtani around may have kept the Jays from selling at the deadline, but it probably would’ve also held them back from this August and September youth movement — arguably the best part of Toronto’s entire season. Maybe with Ohtani the Jays would’ve bought — trying to patch up the rotation and add any kind of life to the bullpen. But, with one of the league’s thinnest farm systems is there any chance those additions would’ve made a bigger impact than Francis or Wagner have?

There are many more unquantifiable benefits that Ohtani would’ve brought to the Jays, I know. The trickle-down impact on hitters like Vlad and Springer around him would’ve been immense, the work ethic he drips with surely would’ve changed Toronto’s culture for the better, and maybe the revenue his fame generates could’ve helped the Jays make even more additions last offseason.

But, even if you generously say Ohtani’s presence would’ve made the Blue Jays 15 wins better than they actually were this year that only puts them at a 92-70 record — the same wild-card above-averageness they were in 2023 and 2022. A playoff team, yes, but not much more.

If Ohtani had actually been on that flight — if he had stepped off that plane and driven to Rogers Centre, signed a contract, and celebrated at a downtown sushi restaurant — this year’s Blue Jays still would’ve disappointed.

They would’ve won more games, been far more fun, not sold at the deadline, and may have snuck into the playoffs. But, everything that went wrong with this year’s Jays (from the rotation injuries to the bullpen implosion) still would’ve gone wrong. Even with Ohtani, the 2024 Blue Jays aren’t World Series hopefuls.