Shohei Ohtani free agency clandestine start Trib HSSN

The race for Shohei Ohtani is heating up. MLB general managers are gathering to discuss the potentially historic bidding for the superstar.

The competition to sign two-way baseball talent Shohei Ohtani has begun in secret. All 30 MLB general managers have gathered at baseball's GM meetings in Scottsdale this week to discuss the developing Ohtani sweepstakes, which could cost the winning team upward of $500 million. However, publicly, they're giving careful statements about their interest in Ohtani. Even the team that employed Ohtani the past six seasons, the Los Angeles Angels, doesn't seem to have a good read on his future.

Ohtani is one of the most fascinating cases for baseball's free agency system since it began in 1976. He's 29 years old and just produced one of the best two-way seasons in MLB history, batting .304 with 44 homers and going 10-5 on the mound with a 3.14 ERA. However, it's unclear how much value he'll provide as a pitcher in the coming seasons. He had Tommy John surgery in September for the second time in six years, and the list of pitchers who have returned successfully after having the procedure twice is fairly short.

Even if Ohtani can't contribute much on the mound, he's one of the game's elite hitters. He's also a good enough athlete that he could be an option for first base or the outfield as he gets older. There's also an off-the-field component that can't be quantified totally. Ohtani has reached a celebrity status few other current baseball players can even imagine, and his arrival in any city would undoubtedly mean a huge boost for fan interest.

Ohtani is the crown jewel of this year's free agent class, which appears a little short on franchise-altering players. The pitching scene is a little more robust, with veterans Aaron Nola, Sonny Gray, Jordan Montgomery, and Japanese star Yoshinobu Yamamoto on the market. However, none of them come close to bringing the juice -- on or off the field -- that Ohtani provides.

The Seattle Mariners are among a handful of teams that would seem a logical fit for Ohtani, given the upward trajectory of the franchise, the city's history with former Japanese star Ichiro Suzuki, and its relatively large Asian population. However, the price tag for Ohtani is a lot of money. Former Angels teammate Mike Trout has the richest contract in the sport's history at $426.5 million over 12 years, signed in 2019.

"You don't base an offseason on one single player," said Angels GM Perry Minasian. "You have to have Plan A, Plan B, Plan C, Plan D, so on and so forth. We're going to work like we always we do. We're going to be aggressive, we're going to have a lot of conversations and see how everything goes."

The race to sign Ohtani is just beginning, and the outcome is uncertain. It's a waiting game to see which team will ultimately land the superstar.