David Samson | Former Marlins Team President; Podcast Host

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Yeah, Graybar does that. We are pleased to welcome our friend David Sampson, longtime Marlins president, now nothing personal podcast with David Sampson, and he never holds back. So should I just say ready, set, go tee you up? Just let's go.

What do you think? I think that there are about 27 teams who are very, very unhappy. I think that Shohei did something here that really shows what he thought about the Los Angeles Angels, that's for sure. Because he asked for a contract and took a contract that the Angels never could have offered. And why is that?

Why is that? Because Artie Moreno is looking to sell the team. And if you've got that much money deferred out, that becomes a big negotiating point when you are selling your team. Because a new owner, let's say, a new owner comes in in six years. They only have to pay Otani $2 million a year for four years.

That's fantastic. But then for 10 years after that, when this new owner owns the team, he's paying $68 million per year to a player who's not going to be able to pay. I want to make sure that everybody understands that when Otani gets that $68 million each year for 10 years, he's not going to be playing for the team.

Right. And if someone is buying, owns that team, who's a new owner, they don't want that responsibility. So they're going to have the old owner pay for that. I'm going to explain this in more detail in this segment on this morning. It's nothing personal, but they're going to pay for that. I'm going to explain this in more detail in this segment on this morning.

It's nothing personal. But the main point to you is that the structure of this deal is legal. No question about it. It doesn't violate the CBA. It doesn't violate tax law. It doesn't violate anything other than financial fair play, as defined by 30 owners. So the biggest issue for baseball is that you will have owners angry with each other, and that's not good for bargaining.

Okay, well, let me ask you this, David. The Angels are selling, so it makes sense that they wouldn't be able to do a contract like this. But it actually feels to me like other teams could do a contract like this, if not the Dodgers, because Otani's going to make money for the club wherever he goes. So why are so many other teams angry about a contract structure like this one?

Because you have to be in a situation where you can guarantee two things when you defer money like this. Don't forget who the owners of the Dodgers are. They're an insurance company. Guggenheim Partners, they own insurance. They are venture capitalists.

They're owned by a conglomerate of people. I would like to point out that our owner, Jeffrey Lauria, if he deferred $68 million per year, there are rules that show you have to segregate those funds. That's a rule in the collective bargaining agreement.

So the Dodgers have to find a way to find a fund to find cash, where they take all the money that is owed to Shohei Otani, and they put it in a separate account. Most people can't do that. Most individual owners cannot have that money and then not touch it. That's the actual rule. It's not often said by commissioner.

I want to see, like the Washington Nationals who have a lot of players with deferred contracts. He doesn't go to the Lerner family who owns the Nationals and say, hey, show me an account that has all the money you deferred to Max Scherzer and Steven Strasburg and keep that account in place. Don't touch it. Don't invest it. Don't move it.

Show it to me. That's the real rule. They don't enforce it that way. But still, you have to show the commissioner once a year that you have every dollar that you are deferring somewhere. Not all owners have that. It's absolutely difficult to get that amount of money in cash and just show it as existing. You can't show a Picasso. You can't show a building that you own or a yacht that you own. It has to be cash in an account. Very few owners have $680 million in cash in an account.

Very few. You mentioned a couple of guys who have a lot of deferred money. We also know, for instance, Freddie Freeman and Mookie Betts, Dodger's roster, also have deferred contracts. How common is at least the deferred money portion, if not the total amount?

It's an incredibly irresponsible thing to do. What we would do is backload contracts. Backloading a contract is when you sign a guy to a $30 million deal over three years and instead of paying him $10, $10, $10, you pay him $2, $5, and then $23 in the last year. You say to yourself, three years from now, either our attendance will be so much better because we will have won that we'll be able to afford a $23 million player, or we'll just trade them.

We have that issue with many players, from Carlos Delgado to, I can name plenty who we had to trade, who were backloaded. However, if you're asking me what the advantage is for the Dodgers and what the disadvantage is for the other teams, the disadvantage is that the Dodgers get to pay him $2 million cash. And from a CBT standpoint, which is the number that everybody looks at inside baseball, they don't look at any of the other analytic numbers if you're an owner, but CBT, what is the actual competitive balance tax payroll of a team? The Dodgers are paying him $46 million next year. That's the way that every team inside baseball looks at it. 46 million is the amount that will count toward how much luxury tax the Dodgers pay.

Okay. Well, considering what Shohei brings to the table, is that reasonable? That is the highest number.

So the highest player before that was Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander at 43. And Shohei wanted to get above that number. This was not all about winning.

This was not all about location. This contract was all about money. And I love Shohei.

I have great respect for Shohei's ability. But let's be clear. He found a team to give him $46 million a year for 10 years when there's no guarantee that he will ever be a top of the line starter again. He had two Tommy John surgeries.

Only Nathan Evaldi and very few others have come back from two. So it's not a guarantee. He doesn't play a position. You are taking up your designated hitter slot for a decade at $46 million a year. This is a contract that not every team could do. And if the Dodgers get it wrong, you know what?

They can cover their mistake because of their revenue, their ability to spend, and they can sign someone else. You think that the Royals, the Guardians, the Marlins, 27 teams couldn't do that deal. But isn't that the case, though, with the majority of these 10 to 13-year deals that are now $300, $400 million? I know it's different with Shohei and it's historic, but aren't we generally talking about the same five or six teams in Major League Baseball who can afford these high-priced players? And that's the problem why I worry about owner-the-owner fighting come next collective bargaining agreement.

You're exactly correct. This Shohei deal is just everyone is reacting to it because it looks so extreme. Personally, I don't think baseball should have approved this contract.

Because it is so extreme, it looks bad. There's something that tastes wrong about this contract. It feels more unfair than it is. And by the way, financially, the Dodgers are in a position that my owner never was in. The Dodgers can take all $680 million that they owe him, and they can take that money today as part of the assets of the underlying company of the owners of that team, and they can invest it and lock in treasury bill rates right now, lock in interest rates for the next 20 years. And they make a huge profit, huge profit, on the money they owe Shohei. So that's a great business deal that Shohei Ohtani allowed them to pay him later because they can be disciplined and actually make money on it. Amy, I'm sorry this is becoming finance.

It's early in the morning. But the difference with Bobby Bonilla is how much interest they paid to Bobby Bonilla. If Shohei Ohtani took interest on the money he was deferring, that's Shohei Ohtani giving the owners of the Dodgers his money to invest, and then they would pay him back over time. There's no interest on this money. So if you invest it and get interest, you make money. But they're using Shohei's money to make money. Well, he is going to make the money too, to be sure. David Sampson is with us here after our CBS Sports Radio.

Let me ask you this. If you're still running a team, what would you have offered or what do you think would have been a competitive offer? If not this one, what was he worth then? I've said from the beginning that as a middle of the order hitter, he is one of the best hitters in the game. And what the hitters are getting are between $35 and $40 million. So there is a world where he gets a 10-year, $400 million contract as a pitcher before the injury, the top of the rotation pitcher. There is a world where I see him as a $30 to $40 million pitcher, but only for five years, not 10 years. So I could understand someone going to $50 million per year.

I could see it. But then when he got hurt, I really discounted the fact that he was going to pitch again. And I would have offered him a deal, $30 to $35 million as a hitter, and then I would have offered him $2 or $3 million per start as a starter. And that sounds like a crazy amount, but that's how sure I am that he wasn't going to start 30 games a year for me for nine years. And I say nine because we already know he's not going to pitch next year. So that leaves nine years left. And the only team that can do that is a team that has huge payrolls. So you're only talking about the top five teams because you can't have one player making that much money.

Now you say he's only making $2 million, but that's a very dangerous way to look at it. Right. Agreed. All right, David, so about 90 seconds to go. What do you think generally will be the impact?

Is this an aberration? For instance, I'll use the Deshaun Watson contract in the NFL. It's not going to change the NFL. There was talk of that at the time, but now looking at the fact that he's made only a handful of starts, the Browns just look like idiots, right? And this is why NFL teams don't do it.

How will this impact baseball, if at all? See, that's funny. I thought the Browns looked like idiots before he even took the field. Well, of course, but now we know for sure. So now we know exactly. Now we know that they're idiots on and off the field, which is even more insulting to them, I'm sure.

Yeah, I said the same thing on nothing personal, Andy, which you are sleeping when it goes on. But I can tell you that I said the exact same, which is everyone who thought this would impact all the free agents who were waiting to sign until Otani so they could snuggle in right under Otani to all the teams that they're negotiating with. The other teams looked at this and said, get out of here.

I'm not doing it. And what do you think, Blake Snell? You're going to get six hundred and twenty six million or Scott Boris said, hey, you want Bellinger, Toronto? You can have them for six hundred ninety nine million.

Congratulations. Toronto would tell them to pound sand. And I hope they do tell them that. So I think it's exactly like the Watson contract.

This is sort of the high of the high and everything else doesn't come close. There is never a moment where we are bored when we talk to our friend David Sampson, longtime Marlins president. He's going to have a lot more to say.

And actually, since I have an accounting degree, I followed all of those finances. That was fascinating to me. You can find the Nothing Personal podcast and David on Twitter at David P. Sampson. I don't think I'll talk to you again before the holidays. So happy holidays to you. And thank you, as always, for choosing our show where you can unload. I love it.

And I was talking discount rate. All right, we'll save that scintillating topic for next time, my friend. I'm sorry. That was pretty technical.

I loved it. Talk to you soon. Thank you. Bye bye. I'm Snoop Dogg and I'm giving up smoke.

I know what you're thinking. Snoop, smoke is kind of your whole thing, but I'm done with it. I'm done with the coffin and my clothes smelling all funky. I'm going smokeless. Solo Stove Fix 5. They took out the smoke. Now you can have a nice blaze without any clouds ruining your day. Go smokeless.

Go to SoloStove.com. Tell them big Snoop Dogg sent you. On time and on budget with no surprises, thanks to our nationwide logistics network.

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