3 reasons why the SF Giants should try to sign Shohei Ohtani despite his injury

Ohtani just got significantly cheaper (probably) for the SF Giants to sign

The biggest change that has happened in the wake of Shohei's injury has been how much money he is expected to get in free agency. Before the injury, crazy contract numbers like $500 million over 10 years were being floated as realistic possibilities for Ohtani. It is even crazier that there were several teams that seemed to actually be in the running to pay him that much, including the Giants.

It is clear that the Giants seem to have the green light to spend a lot of money to bring a superstar to San Francisco if their pursuits of Aaron Judge and Carlos Correa are any indication. Given that his pitching career is understandably in doubt, it is highly likely that Ohtani will have to "settle" for not a record deal with Aaron Judge's contract with the Yankees being a reasonable starting point assuming Shohei's medicals aren't too damning.

Given that the Giants clearly have some money burning a hole in their pocket and that they were already at least somewhat interested when Shohei was set to make Scrooge McDuck money, they should definitely be interested now that his price has presumably come down. Again, there is a lot of uncertainty here given that we don't know exactly the extent of Shohei's injury and recovery timetable, but expect the Giants to feature prominently in the Shohei rumor mill this offseason.

One way things could work for both sides would be a very creatively worded contract with incentives for playing time on both sides of the ball. Such an arrangement could be beneficial for both sides as the Giants would be protected in the event that Ohtani can't start anymore, but Shohei could also play his way into making close to the money he thought he was going to make before he got hurt.

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