Shohei Ohtani’s Wild New Contract Is a Great Reminder That Moving Sucks

If you signed a contract guaranteeing you $700 million, is there anywhere you wouldn’t live? There are some remote corners of the Arctic that would really bum me out—nevermind the weather, I’m not much of a chef, so having delivery spots nearby is important to me. But again, 700 million dollars. I could afford those fees.

The reason I’m asking is because the big sports news of the weekend was that Shohei Ohtani, the best baseball player you or I will ever see, announced his plan to sign a ten-year agreement with the Los Angeles Dodgers, who will pay him—yes—that $700 million figure.

Let us also make no mistake about this: Ohtani is absolutely, positively worth the money. A 162-game baseball season is incredibly taxing, and Ohtani, who when healthy is possibly both the best pitcher and hitter in the sport, quite literally does more than every other player! Eventually all of his ligaments will heal, he’ll be dotting 100-mile-per hour fastballs and launching rocket-boosted home runs in the same game again, and we’ll all remember why he deservedly received the Scrooge McDuck bag.

But the real genius of this move from Ohtani’s standpoint is the fact that he doesn’t have to call a realtor. The man who could comfortably find a lavish new house anywhere doesn’t even have to. Ohtani spent the first six years of his career playing for the Los Angeles Angels, a team that operates out of Anaheim. While the Dodgers are in Los Angeles proper—30 miles northwest of Angel Stadium, which is technically in Orange County—it’s close enough to avoid the hassles of moving. Not that a guy who will make more money than some other teams’ entire rosters would be sweating the cost of movers, but the ease of (presumably) remaining in the same house cannot be overstated! It also spawned one of the better memes of his head-spinning free agency saga.

The financial details of this were always going to hit like a freight train, but the news that he’d be a Dodger packed a little extra punch after last week’s erroneous reports that Ohtani was on a plane heading north of the border. The quick and easy version of the story is that a private jet was in fact making the LA-Toronto flight, which is pretty specific and understandably led to people believing a baseball unicorn was onboard. Turns out it was just Robert from Shark Tank. But a few MLB insiders ran with it, making the Ohtani-Blue Jay whispers seem like they had real volume to them. Not so fast, my friends. After the flight ended up being nothing more than a hilarious footnote in baseball’s internet history—and the most-tracked flight of all time—Ohtani took it upon himself to set the story straight. One Instagram post later, the two-time MVP confirmed he’d be a Dodger, and the Canadian dream was dead. Queue up your favorite Joni Mitchell cry-along song.

I’d encourage spurned Blue Jay fans to try not to think of this as a rejection of you, the city of Toronto, or Canada at large. Instead, put yourself in Ohtani’s New Balances and think about how much simpler it is to remain in place. Yes, obviously, $700 million is the biggest pro in the history of pro/con lists. Thank you for lending your economic expertise to this discussion. But moving to Toronto—as several baseball journalists reported Ohtani was all set to do—would mean a whole bunch of complicated tax mumbo jumbo, visa stuff, and learning why they sell milk in a bag. Look, Canada is a lovely place, but once you’ve spent extended time in the States, things up there just feel undeniably off.

Instead of putting himself through all that, it seems like Ohtani took stock of his life and chose comfort over newness. Sure, his commute to the ballpark will be moderately more treacherous, assuming he actually does keep his current residence. But like, what if he has a Peloton? Or big expensive rich-guy paintings? I wouldn’t want to move those. He’s probably got a great bed too, and an entire house arranged just the way he likes. Plus his dog is already familiar with it! Why give that up and leave the oasis-like conditions of Southern California?

If he has a good sense of humor (humour?) about this, maybe Ohtani will commission an artist to immortalize the rumors (rumours?) that dominated sports conversations in two whole countries. Perhaps something that uses Toronto’s shade of blue to evoke chaos and uncertainty, pitted against Dodger blue, depicting a blissful reality on the other side of the canvas. Whatever direction he goes, we imagine it can be sent to the same address he’s used since 2018. Hats off to Shohei Ohtani—who despite having more money than all of us cheap apartment-dwelling, Zillow-scouring folks combined—is just like us for real. He knows that moving sucks, and even though he’s cashed-up enough to make it as painless as possible, he still doesn’t want to do it. Respect.