After the sale of the Los Angeles Lakers, a cloud hangs over the Los Angeles Dodgers’ future ownership.
Mark Walter, the controlling owner of the Dodgers, sold his majority stake in the Lakers a day ago, a truly stunning move after he only purchased the team a year ago.
The sale came out of nowhere, with all signs pointing to the Lakers becoming a true sister organization to the Dodgers, with president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman and former Dodgers general manager Farhan Zaidi as advisors.
However, all of that is over now — Walter sold the Lakers for $12.5 billion, a $2.5 billion profit on his original $10 billion investment.
Immediately after the sale, reports indicated that Walter would keep the Dodgers and had no plans to sell his crown-jewel franchise.
Additionally, Dodgers CEO Stan Kasten made his stance clear: this is a Lakers story, not a Dodgers one.
The messaging from the Dodgers is one thing, but the reality is that the possibility of the team being sold has gone from 0% to a nonzero number.
Naturally, the question becomes: how would a theoretical sale impact the Dodgers?
Shohei Ohtani’s future with the Dodgers
While ownership tends to have no effect on whether players leave or stay, at least in the immediate term, the picture is different for Shohei Ohtani.
Ohtani has a “key man” clause that allows him to opt out of his current deal if Walter or president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman leaves the organization.
Breathe easy, Dodgers fans, since according to The Athletic’s latest report from Sam Blum and Stephen Nesbitt, Ohtani is happy with the franchise and intends to stay, especially given the organization’s impressive investment in the team.
“Even if Walter were to sell the Dodgers in the near future, Ohtani is unlikely to exercise his key-man provision and opt out of his contract, according to a league source with knowledge of Ohtani’s and his agents’ thinking who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to speak about it publicly,” the Athletic’s report reads.
“While the key-man clause gave Ohtani flexibility when signing his 10-year, $700 million contract in December 2023, it is viewed by his camp as less of a concern in the present day, given that the Dodgers have proven to the superstar that baseball operations leadership and team leadership are a well-oiled machine.
“Most importantly, they have fulfilled the promise of re-investing the deferred money from Ohtani’s contract into enhancing the big-league roster. Ohtani’s management team harbors no concern about the Dodgers’ ability to function at the same level regardless of what happens with the Dodgers’ ownership moving forward, the source said.”
Ohtani is only the second baseball player to have a “key man” clause in their contract, and it speaks to how highly he thinks of Friedman, Walter, and the whole organization.
Even if the Dodgers got new owners, they would be foolish to remove Friedman and his people from the equation, and in terms of the actual baseball product, they are the most important pieces.
If he’s in place, Ohtani seems to be going nowhere.