2024 Mariners Offseason Plan: The Ohtani Hail Mary

The Offer and Potential 

Lastly, and maybe most importantly, is the money. To bring Ohtani to Seattle, the Mariners will need to bend the knee and be as accommodating as possible. A 12 year $564 million dollar deal for Ohtani is pretty dang close to the max that he could realistically expect. 

On top of this deal, we're prepared to give Ohtani an opt out after year 2, 3, 6 and 9. Along with the opt outs, we're prepared to front load the contract, allowing Ohtani to make anywhere from $50-55 million in AAV during the first 3 years of the deal. While this setup is pretty uncommon, and will likely leave Seattle in a constant state of worrying about Ohtani leaving, this is an uncommon man.

With this deal, Ohtani would sign the largest deal in MLB history. He would have full control over the path of his career, and could use that to his advantage. We're talking about a LeBron James-esque level of control. This is what you need to do, if you want the most talented player ever and the most important player since Jackie Robinson to represent your ball club.

Projected Rotation and Lineup 

Rotation

Luis Castillo

George Kirby

Logan Gilbert

Jack Flaherty

Bryan Woo

Returning

Robbie Ray (midsummer)

Marco Gonzalez (midsummer)

Shohei Ohtani (2025)

Lineup

1 JP Crawford SS

2 Shohei Ohtani DH

3 Julio Rodriguez CF

4 Cal Raleigh C

5 Geno Suarez 3B

6 Lars Nootbaar RF

7 Ty France 1B

8 Jarred Kelenic LF

9 Josh Rojas 2B

Bench

Tom Murphy

Adam Duvall

Dylan Moore/Ryan Bliss

Dom Canzone 

It's a sizable pill to swallow for John Stanton, but if you do, your team will become the center of the baseball universe, and for more than just a weekend in July. The Mariners would have the best player in the game paired with the biggest rising star and arguably most marketable player in Julio Rodriguez. Seattle would become the most fun team to watch, in a division with the previous two World Series champs. 

You can't ask for much more than that. Oh yeah, you're probably the betting favorite to win the American League for the next few years, that too.

Let's shock the world.

Go M's.