San Francisco Giants: A hypothetical response to Ohtani’s questionnaire

The San Francisco Giants should be interested in Shohei Ohtani. It would be foolish if they weren’t. Ohtani and his team sent out a questionnaire to all MLB teams on why he should be a fit there. So we decided to fill it out ourselves.

The San Francsico Giants are hot on the tails in pursuit of Giancarlo Stanton. But he’s not the only big name they could be pursuing. Shohei Ohtani is coming to the MLB this season. Bobby Evans would be stupid to not get the Giants in the mix. After all, they’re handicapped to only a 300k bonus. But Ohtani has made it clear it’s not about the money, it’s about the situation. That vaults the Giants back into contention. Now the Ohtani negotiation team has sent out a questionnaire to all 30 big league teams.

The questionnaire serves to prove that Ohtani certainly isn’t looking to make a quick buck. He wants to be in the right situation, with the right team, in the right city. Here are the questions that teams must answer, courtesy of Bill Shaikin of the Los Angeles Times:

• Evaluate Shohei Ohtani’s talent as a hitter and pitcher
• Discuss Player Development, medical, training and player performances philosophies and capabilities
• Discuss Major League, Minor League, and Spring Training Facilities
• Resources for Cultural Assimilation
• A detailed plan for integrating Ohtani into the organization
• Why the city and franchise are a desirable place to play
• Relevant marketplace characteristics

So this is going to be a doozy, but we’re fully confident that the Giants could likely just copy and paste our article (and give credit!!!), send it to Ohtani, and walk away winners of the Shohei Ohtani sweepstakes.

Evaluate Ohtani’s talent as a hitter and pitcher

Shohei Ohtani is an incredibly unique talent, and frankly, the comparisons to Babe Ruth could be beneath him in a way. I’m not a fan of making player comparisons, especially to all-time greats. That’s never good, and usually ends up disappointing. It’s also a disservice to Ohtani. Instead of calling him “the next Babe Ruth” constantly, he should be simply Shohei Ohtani. So here is who he is.

Ohtani’s over the top, high arm slot, and consistent arm speed and pitching motion helps hide his pitches. Too many guys change arm slots drastically for breaking balls compared to fastballs. While that might be to help get a certain type of break or look, Ohtani’s consistency in delivery and pitching motion makes his pitches incredibly deceptive. His curve-ball doesn’t have a big “hump in it. It seems to just fall off the table. And his ability to blow his fastball past guys is what helps keeps hitters off-balance. He’s an incredible pitcher who has the ability to strike a ton of guys out thanks to his repeatable motion, and consistent arm slot.

As a hitter, Ohtani has a really well balanced swing. He keeps his lower body still as much as possible, times his leg kick well, and keeps his head down when making contact on the follow through. His swings helps generate a bit of backspin, giving him the extra distance that his wiry frame can’t. He can hit to all fields, and has a great inside-out approach, something the Giants really love in their hitters. Ohtani would be incredibly valuable to the Giants in either spot, as both a hitter and pitcher.

Describe the Player Development, Medical, and Performance Philosohpies the team employs.

The San Francisco Giants have a considerably good history of helping pitchers avoid Tommy John surgery. One of the number one killer of pitcher careers is the Torn UCL. A torn UCL drastically alters a pitcher’s career, and very few have been able to truly recover from Tommy John surgery and return to their normal form. The Giants have done well to avoid that with their starters that hit the big leagues.

Some clubs, like the New York Mets specifically have a bad history of misusing their pitcher’s power arms to the point of ruining the promise of their career. The San Francisco Giants only injury history with pitchers in recent years has come from their own doing (Bumgarner), or players who had spent considerable time outside of the organization prior to coming here. Will Smith and Mark Melancon are two of those who fit that bill. Their injuries likely occured thanks to something they had been doing for a long time, not what the Giants had helped them do.

The Giants main injury history from players they have developed, usually comes at the point of a player’s body breaking down simply because of age and years of work. Matt Cain‘s injury came after he had already started 265 games, and pitched in 1700+ innings. Hunter Pence and Angel Pagan‘s injuries that have hampered and slowed them down in recent years simply came as the players were climbing up in age and innings of wear and tear on their bodies.

The Giants virtually have a squeaky clean injury record in the terms of the things that they can control themselves. Most injuries have come as a result of outside factors. Crashing into a wall and breaking a collarbone (Jarrett Parker), and getting hit in the head with baseballs (Brandon Belt, Joe Panik, Buster Posey).

In terms of performance philosophies, they want players to stay within themselves and emphasize doing what they do best. Their offensive strategy hasn’t really been surrounded by smashing home-runs, but getting guys on base and keeping the line moving. Their job has always been to keep their hitters making good contact. By continually making good contact, the hitter sets himself up for success most of the time. Ohtani’s advanced feel for hitting certainly helps this setup. It doesn’t mean he can’t swing for the fences, but the goal is always to keep the line moving.

In terms of pitching, it’s always aim for the strikeout, but don’t feel like you have to strike him out. Don’t be afraid to put it in the hands of the defense. While the outfield defense was atrocious in 2017, they still have one of the best defensive infields in baseball. Keep the contact manageable, and stay down in the zone. The ballpark will do its job, and you can also let the defense do it’s job as well. It’s a great environment for hitters.

As far as training philosophies, and the actual philosophies, we’ll have to default to the real Giants front office to answer that.

The San Francisco Giants have some of the best facilities in the league. We can simply start with the Spring Training facility. Scottsdale Stadium is one of the nicest facilities in the Cactus League. While it’s hot and dry there, it helps give players a great chance to get themselves ready and work on a consistent basis. The stadium itself is one of the best in the Cactus League, seating 12k people and is the exclusive home of the San Francisco Giants.

In terms of Minor League facilities, we’ll start out with Richmond. If Ohtani were to start out in the minors, he would likely start in Richmond. The Richmond Flying Squirrels play in a very nice ballpark, and a large one by double-a standards. The Stadium holds nine thousand for the Flying Squirrels, and was renovated as recent as 2011, with indoor batting cages and more.

In Sacramento, you truly have one of the most scenic stadiums in triple-a baseball. Situated just on the other side of the American River in Sacramento, CA, the stadium overlooks the Tower Bridge, and the Sacramento downtown landscape. The stadium seats ten thousand people, but can hold up to 14k with the grass berm and patio seating available. The facilities are one of the nicest in the minor leagues.

Of course, you can’t discuss the club facilities without talking about the crown jewel that is AT&T Park. The San Francisco Giants currently have one of the best atmospheres in all of baseball. While the losing took its toll a bit last year, the addition of a few new players, and hopefully Shohei Ohtani, will have that ballpark packed out through the summer. AT&T Park is a very pitcher friendly ballpark, which might see Ohtani’s numbers dip a little bit, but it’s still one of the best parks to play in. It seats 42,000+ and has a classic ballpark feel to it, while being incredibly modern itself, situated on the waterfront of the San Francisco marina district. The are has been built up around the ballpark in recent years, and is truly one of the most scenic parks in America.

What are some resources for Shohei Ohtani’s cultural assimilation

Can we just link to Buzzfeed? No?  We need more than that? Ok. Well, we’d definitely give you a link to buzzfeed. I feel like that sums up American culture really well right now: Hot takes. Hot takes everywhere. I digress.

A few things that I think would definitely need to be done is a pass on a sheet of northern California lingo that just simply says “HELLA” in very large, bold print smack in the middle of the page. Sounds right? Ok! We’re done here. While it is helpful to assimilate into american culture, he’s ideally going to be living in San Francisco, which that culture, in my opinion is probably more important than general american culture. So what does he need to be sent?

Well first off I’d send him pamphlets on the history of the city, the golden gate bridge, the pier, the financial district, Castro District, and then the entire bay area at large. The San Francisco lifestyle actually might be relatively similar to the one he currently lives in Sapporo. The city is well known for its sea-food, which is right up the alley for Ohtani as Sapporo is renowned for its seafood.

Throw in the large Asian demographic within the Bay Area, there is the definite ability for Ohtani to feel at home within the city. The climate is a little warmer in the winter months than Sapporo, but is very similar in the summers (80 degrees average high in July/August). We’d send a lot of cultural pamphlets as well as some more general american cuisine habits. Oh, and most definitely an In-N-Out pamphlet.

What’s the plan for integrating him to the team?

Well he would be signed on a minor league deal, and most definitely have a spring training invite. From there, it’s important to evaluate where he’s at with the team. We’d let him choose a translator, someone he knows and is comfortable with to help him get through the initial adjustment period that could be tough no matter where he goes. He’d be able to work with that translator for as long as he deems necessary. We’d have him come to spring training and report along with pitchers and catchers. It gives us a chance to have him build a rapport with Buster Posey, as well as start getting around guys on the team. When the rest of the team reports, we’d start throwing him in outfield workouts as well as his bullpen sessions.

Throughout the spring, we’d evaluate where he is at, both as an outfielder/hitter, and a pitcher. Depending on where we think he’s at, we’d most likely start him out in AAA if he wasn’t quite big-league ready. We entirely anticipate him being ready to join up in the bigs, but in the case that he just isn’t there yet, we feel comfortable putting him in AAA. He’s already experienced at hitting against guys with well put together pitching repertoires, and doesn’t need to get used to guys who throw good breaking balls.

He’s done that enough in Japan. AAA would likely be the lowest point in the minors we would put him. Once it has become clear he’s far beyond the competition level of AAA, then up to the big leagues he goes. Again, that’s if he doesn’t show he’s ready during spring training. If he’s ready in the spring, then we’ll gladly bring him up.

If he winds up a pitcher, the number one thing we’d want for him to do is build that rapport with Buster Posey. Buster needs to get used to the pitches he throws, his tendencies, and much more. Once he has that under his belt, Posey’s ability to call games will truly help Ohtani integrate into the staff and the team as a contributing member. Posey is the best catcher in the league to work with on this front, and it should be incredibly difficult to pass up an opportunity to work with him.

Playing outfield is relatively easy. Playing outfield at AT&T park is difficult. As he’s played mostly indoors throughout his career, we’d want to work with him a lot at the beginning of the season to help get used to playing the outfield at AT&T. Whether it’s left or right, they’re both incredibly difficult with the wind and other environmental factors that he hasn’t had to endure in the Sapporo Dome. After a few weeks we would feel more comfortable having him play a regular part in the outfield.

Ultimately, we want Ohtani to be comfortable and ready to go when we start giving him first choice innings. We want him to be in the right situation. We’ll let him struggle, but confidence has to remain high for us to continue throwing him out there during struggles. We understand the culture shock and assimilation will still be difficult no matter how much help we try and provide. Being comfortable enough to play freely is what we want for him. The last thing we need is a heavy investment feeling the pressure from adjusting to the big leagues while adjusting to a completely different culture and country all at the same time.

Why this organization and city?

The city of San Francisco itself is one of the crown jewels of America. It’s natural beauty, waterfront location, temperate climate, and passionate citizens love the city. They do their best to represent it as best as possible. The Bay Area is a top five media market in the United States, and holds the fourth largest Asian-American contingent in the United States behind Baltimore/DC, Los Angeles and New York City. The asian culture in the city however, has the largest imprint on the city over all the others, specifically San Francisco. Not only do they have a large contingent, they have an incredibly supportive contingent.

Back in 2006, the US Men’s National Team held a soccer friendly at AT&T park against Japan, and at the time made it the largest Soccer game attended in the history of the Bay Area. 35,000+ packed the stadium, and most of the time, the large Japanese contingent drowned out the American supporters. The Japanese, and Asian-American community within the city is incredibly supportive of each other, and would help provide a great support network for Ohtani if he were to choose San Francisco.

The city is also incredibly supportive of its baseball team. Despite a terrible 2017 season, the San Francisco Giants surpassed the three million mark in fans through the gates for the eighth consecutive season, and had 35,000 full season ticket holders. It helps that the organization has had considerable success over those eight years though.

The San Francisco Giants have the most titles in the last decade of any MLB Franchise. Their three world series titles are only close to the Boston Red Sox two. Nobody else has won more than one. The Giants have done so on the backs of pitching and defense, and of course timely hitting. They pride themselves on being as competitive as possible, and likely will do whatever it takes financially to be competitive.

The fanbase, despite the recent season, is hungry for wins and success. They love their team, and have a massive amount of support. That has always led to one of the best atmospheres in baseball, in one of the crown jewel stadiums of the league. It’s a classic, American baseball atmosphere night in and night out at AT&T Park. The franchise wants success just as much as the fans do, and that’s what makes the Giants special.