Shohei Ohtani Free Agency: Dodgers, Giants, Mariners favored to land star

The Shohei Ohtani Sweepstakes have officially begun. Again.

Six years after the Los Angles Angles nabbed the two-way star by paying a $20 million posting fee to the in Japan, Ohtani is an unrestricted MLB free agent and just about every single team in the sport will be jousting for his services.

What seems clear already, however, is that if he stays in Los Angeles, it won’t be with the Angels.

DraftKings released it’s next team odds for Ohtani on Wednesday and unsurprisingly the Dodgers (-110) are the favorite to land the perennial MVP candidate, followed by the San Francisco Giants, Seattle Mariners and New York Mets.

Here’s how the lines looked Wednesday morning:

Oddsmakers seemingly believe Ohtani is done with the Angels while giving the Chicago Cubs, Philadelphia Phillies and Toronto Blue Jays an outside chance at landing the 29-year-old.

The Cubs are in an interesting spot here. After hiring away Craig Counsell from the Milwaukee Brewers and making him the highest-paid manager in baseball, it seems like the North Siders are gearing up to contend once more. But it’s unclear if that means they are going to spend now or wait to see how this year goes before opening up their wallets.

Early bettors seem to believe they’ll make a run at Ohtani now. His odds shifted to +900 not long after DraftKings posted their initial lines. Of course, this is mostly speculative at this point.

The Winter Meetings won’t be held until December 3 and most teams are still finalizing their offseason strategies. Before you go locking in the usual big spenders, just remember that the Yankees (+250) and Dodgers (+350) had the best odds to land Ohtani when he was first posted in 2017.

The Angels weren’t even on the radar at +2500. Once the hot stove gets going, anything can happen.