Superstar Shohei Ohtani’s free agency is easily the biggest story of the MLB offseason. But that story has birthed a subplot that has taken on a life of its own in recent days.
Legendary NFL player and current NFL on CBS analyst JJ Watt spoke out on the Ohtani situation Wednesday with a barb pointing out the media’s hypocrisy in hatching that subplot.
MLB insiders are upset that Ohtani and his agent have kept negotiations intensely private, even reportedly threatening to cut off baseball executives who leak information to the media.
That had led to rumblings at the MLB Winter Meetings in Nashville, with stories bearing headlines such as, “Secrecy surrounding Shohei Ohtani talks getting out of hand” and similarly-themed tweets (“Shohei Ohtani’s top-secret free agency is silly, and a missed opportunity for him and the sport.”)
All the complaints from MLB insiders led to Watt’s post on X/Twitter Wednesday. The future Hall of Famer retweeted an ESPN article by Buster Olney, entitled “Why Shohei Ohtani is doing himself — and his sport — a disservice.”
Watt prefaced the article with his commentary.
“Athlete does public free agency tour …”
“Media: ‘Look at the ego. All about themselves. Attention seeker.'”
“Athlete tries to keep everything private:”
“Media:”
Athlete does public free agency tour…
Media: “Look at the ego. All about themselves. Attention seeker.”
Athlete tries to keep everything private:
Media: pic.twitter.com/D92wk8EJVD
— JJ Watt (@JJWatt) December 6, 2023
The complaints about Ohtani’s “secret” negotiations have sparked pushback from others besides Watt, even from some in the MLB media. MLB Network’s Ryan Dempster joked Wednesday that a “secret team” had entered the Ohtani chase. He said he knew this because, “A hawk (unspecified species) was spotted flying outside Nashville with a rolled up scroll in its talons!”
