Shohei Ohtani's free agency is still months and months away, but given his stardom and unprecedented ability, anticipation for those sweepstakes is already in high gear.
New York is no exception, as Mets fans dream of their free-spending Steve Cohen landing the biggest star in the game, though Ohtani would have to be willing to settle down in the Big Apple for that to happen.
In a dose of optimism for those fans, and perhaps Yankee fans, Ohtani's former manager is convinced he would now be willing to go anywhere, including the East Coast.
"When he first came here he said, pretty much that, he wanted to stay on the West Coast because Japan, it was new to him, everything was new," Joe Maddon said on the latest episode of Starkville, a podcast by Jayson Stark of The Athletic. "I think the guy's been Americanized, he's kind of like captured the hearts of pretty much everybody in this country. I think right now you can go anywhere to play baseball and feel good about it, I do. He's adaptable anywhere right now. That opens up everything. Including Canada, I mean, he'll go anywhere I think now to play baseball. There's gonna be a lot of suitors."
Ohtani was getting ready to live on a different continent when he first came to the bigs in 2018, and prioritized comfort and being able to ease into life in America. But still, he gave serious consideration to the Cubs during that time, so he already had a willingness to venture further away from home. Now, after five years, he is ready to prioritize winning a championship, something he and Steve Cohen would certainly be aligned on.
"I think more than anything Shohei wants to go somewhere where he feels assured that he's gonna have a chance to win, to win a championship, be part of a championship team annually," Maddon said. "That's gonna be important to him."
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