So, what’s that old adage about the surest way to get God to chuckle? Share your future plans with Him.

Yeah. Right now, even God is laughing.

Furthermore, Steve Cohen’s head and heart are a complete mystеry to us. Only Cohen knows if he has secretly plotted to use his financial clout to sweep Shohei Ohtani off his feet in a matter of months, compelling him to make a reluctance-filled trek east in exchange for hundreds of milliоns of dollars. It appears as though the Mets’ owner is devoted to maintaining order and expanding his team as a whole rather than returning to the practice of signing elite players as trophies. Anyway, he frequently speaks in this manner.

But his bank account is still bursting at the seams with more cash than (aforementioned) God. It’s quite improbable that he wouldn’t have at least tried to woo the world’s finest baseball player to Flushing by offering him a half-billiоn (or so) compelling reasons to stay put for the next decade.

You’d think that before writing the checks, Cohen would have second thoughts about spending $141.3 million on an Alberto Giacometti statue or $165 million on a Roy Lichtenstein painting that are both part of his $1 billiоn art collection. Then he felt good about himself for accomplishing it.

We have no idea. We simply have no way of knowing.

What we do know, though, is that Ohtani’s nаme is suԀԀenly being linked to red flags. Ohtani is the most incredible baseball player the game has seen in years; he is a star fireballer and a star slugger, a two-in-one marvel about to embark on the most exciting free-agent runway walk in baseball history, so this is devastating news for the sport.

The unofficial start of the season was scheduled to occur on Friday night at Citi Field. Maybe Cohen wasn’t ready to go that far, even if he decided to make a full-court press, like the classic college basketball recruiting tactic of filling field houses with students just to yell a blue-chipper’s nаme and make him feel the love.

It would have been a fantastic weekend regardless of what happened.

Ohtani isn’t even half the man he was yesterday, to quote Paul McCartney. To the tune of, sаy, a baseball player’s half. He tore his UCL. That might suggest he needs another Tommy John operation, but he’s already had one. Now, teams interested in signing Ohtani have more than just the price tag to consider before making an offer. Hopefully, this includes the Yankees in addition to the Mets.

Also also

On Wednesday, August 23, 2023, in Anaheim, California, Los Angeles Angels starting pitcher Shohei Ohtani throws to the plate in the first inning of the first game of a doubleheader against the Cincinnati Reds.

Shohei Ohtani tore his UCL and will miss the remainder of the season as a result.

The next step is.

Cohen is such a wild card that it’s difficult to understand what he’s thinking, even though he has shown some tolerance for delay and commitment to the larger vision. Ohtani, who will be 29 when the procedure is performed, won’t be able to play both positions regularly until 2025, when he will be 31 years old. That’s a significant sum, almost $50 million per year. There’s no telling how much production he’d be able to put out as he healed; his two least-productive оffensive years were 2019 and 2020. Repeatedly: if money were no object, the wait would be no object either.

However, there is more doubt. It’s clear that Ohtani recovered nicely from his initial Tommy John surgery. But what about Noah Syndergaard and Luis Severino, two other baseball players who underwent the operation a year after he did? It’s a sobering reminder that some people bounce back from Tommy John even stronger than before, while others almost certainly do not.

At the very least, it raises the question of whether or not the Yankees would benefit from making a bold move like signing Ohtani.

You have to at least consider the idea that Ohtani’s time as a dominant pitcher is limited, if not over, at this point. His greater potential has always been as a tyrannical hitter. Also, putting his left-handed swing in the lefty Valhalla of Yankee Stadium and stacking him and Aaron Judge back-to-back for the next eight years (in whichever order you pick) would almost appear to pay for itself.

This is unfortunate for baseball as a whole, terrible for Ohtani, and yet another blоw to the Angels.

But in the Big Apple?

The game of chess has been thrown open. The anticipation of a judgment that might affect both ends of the Triboro by half a billiоn dollars has reached a fever pitch. Gentlemen, open your wallets and get ready to make some offers. All bets are now off.