MLB Tonight discusses Shohei Ohtani making the cover of Sports Illustrated!

sh Otani going to the Dodgers record-breaking contract and here's the Sports Illustrated baseball preview traditionally the big thing money can wait winning can't deferred money uh but not deferred performance Tom verducci spoke at length with SH Otani we welcome him in now Tom good to see you thank you for joining us thanks for having me it's still one of the great pieces of real estate in the Sports World Brian the cover of SI and who better than shohi and this was really the first and only si

tdown interview that he has done since he signed that contract with the Dodgers you know it's fun I just wondering like in the past who was on that cover of the preview you know like you can they collectibles in Cooper toown Harmon kbu Hank Aaron maybe a yogi bar I'm sure there's they're all out there so tell us about this then what what new things did you hear from sh again he's pretty reclusive he can get married and nobody even knows it until he announces it so what what did you hear him say

what what what struck you well the overriding factor for me was listen I've been around Cal Ripken a lot and he was always the most intentional player I've ever been around everything that he does is purposeful sh even goes beyond Cal Ripken level um so I was getting into a lot of things of how the process works for sh we talked about when he donated gloves to every Elementary School in Japan that's just crazy I said where did that idea come from he said listen I signed a big deal with New Balan

ce an endorsement deal with the shoe company and I wanted to give back to the fans and those kids remind me of what I was at that age I wanted them all to have a glove to start just the game of baseball as basic as it gets is playing catch he also told me a great story which I think sort of informs who he is today when he was about nine years old his dad was coaching him in the Japanese equivalent of little league through 9ine 10 11 12 and his dad bought a notebook and his dad would write in a n

otebook some observations about a game or a training uh regimen that day with show what he saw what he liked what he didn't like and then he'd give the notebook to shohi and then shohi would put his own thoughts in that notebook and would go back and forth this went on for three or four years the Father and Son essentially having a game of literary catch with this notebook and again that's where I think you see shohi now is so specific about everything that he does I asked them what he loves bes

t about baseball and he said it's a great question but it's not really specific about baseball I love the process of setting a goal and then going to achieve it even if it's you know a weight I need to lift or when he was Little League he wanted to go to the National Championship he wrote that inside his hat he's extremely goal oriented and the last thing Brian is the thing that really struck me is his humility it should not be a surprise to anybody we're so used to this day and age of athletes

in America here you know I want the most money I want the most respect with show it's all a little bit different here the idea of deferring 68 of $70 million per year was his idea and it truly was I want the Dodgers to be able to have a team around me to spend the money on other players we're all think it must be a trojan horse and some work around the CBT it's something the agent came up with no it was sh literally saying I don't need all this I'd rather have the team able to spend on other pla

yers one of the most really unselfish act it's a unique contract for of course very unique player oh there's so much there I know Tom when he got married like when he announced that he had gotten married I was like how how is this under the radar in this day and age right where everything is supposed to be out there and social media knows everything and yet this is kind of dagio esque isn't it that it's like no no no actually I do this on my own time I don't have to announce it until I'm ready H

how is that possible tell me about like his does he think about his Global image or does he just very private he lets it happen a little bit of both he's certainly aware of His Image I mean when they had the press conference to introduce him as a Dodger more people stream that press conference than watched any World Series game in the history of the world series I mean it was crazy the amount of people that follow him either online or any on any platform he is aware of that but it's interesting

we were talking about his dog right it's probably the most famous dog on the planet these days decoy and he said you know what and he said this to me he said I cannot live freely outside so I spend a lot of time inside and he specifically said the second Tommy John procedure actually wasn't a Tommy John it was more of a brace procedure but the second elbow surgery he said the rehab went a lot faster because he had his dog decoy with him just that companionship and then later on we find out he's

married as well but he said he literally said I cannot live freely outside anywhere he goes It's The Beatles it's Michael Jordan it's LeBron you name it so wait a glove for every elementary school kid in Japan the it's 125 million people in the country like I know they're not they're not all ENT Elementary School age but how did he really do that it's not every kid literally but every school got three two right gloves one lefted glov so 20,000 elementary schools 60,000 gloves and I was watching

a video with him it's the first time you saw this video these kids with this glove when they broke it out of the box it's like they got their hands on the Holy Grail it meant so much to these kids knowing that it was shoh and specifically he wanted the kids to enjoy this part of his success that's a tremendous gesture I want Tom before we let you go I want you get your your input on on Blake Snell like why late March for sa Young Award winner with the whole dynamic give me to give it to us I'm

shocked his Market really didn't develop the way that it should have Brian this guy's 31 years old he's been very durable he gets on the market off a platform season in which he won a second sa Young Award everything is in his favor and yet he couldn't get that seven eight-year deal he couldn't get Carlos redone money a year later I don't understand that this guy is a dominating pitcher as one manager told me when Blake Snell is in the rotation one two three series ahead of you you you begin pla

nning your lineup because that guy is a dude he's not just another guy and I know people say he walks too many guys you know he doesn't go deep into games he was fifth in the major leagues in quality starts last year he threw the most team let me just jump in because running out of time like last year no he's gold but it's the previous years and the the erratic nature of his performance yearby year right no seven last seven years top five erra of starting pitchers you've got Kershaw B Lander she

rzer Cole Snell top five more than 150 starts with really no serious arm injury one of the most difficult pitchers to hit the Giants got themselves The Bargain of the off season I'm convinced of that okay by the way he's their highest paid player you know salary like he he didn't get killed he's highest paid salary good job Sports Illustrated baseball preview it's always a camp Miss and it continues that way because of Tom verduchi Tom great work thank you so much