Some Big J Journos Are Mad At Shohei Ohtani For Wanting Privacy When It Comes To His Free Agency Negotiations

I kind of thought we'd get some stuff like this out of the Winter Meetings, just didn't know who would be the one behind the keyboard typing it. Shohei Ohtani has been THE story at the Winter Meetings in Nashville, everyone besides for Dave Roberts are watching their words very carefully and walking on eggshells to try and not ruffle feathers in the Ohtani camp. 

But a few baseball writers have become tired of Ohtani wanting privacy when it comes to his free agency. How dare he not want every single detail leaked out and spread amongst the reporters looking for a scoop! How dare he ask teams to keep their conversations and talks quiet! What an asshole! Why won't he give Buster or Chelsea a story? How are they supposed to feed their families if we don't know who has met with Ohtani?

It's the stuff like this that makes people think all baseball writers are wet blankets. Chelsea Janes, who covers the Nationals, seemed actually upset at the way Ohtani and his camp are handling it. Let the guy do what he wants. If he wanted Scott Boras to leak every single detail to Jon Heyman he would have signed with Boras. It's a simple request from his camp, he wasn't asking GM's to skydive out of a plane onto a remote island to meet with him using codenames and shit. He just is politely letting teams know he wants some privacy. That isn't a crime. He seems like a very private person off the field. You rarely see him do interviews, we don't know much about him, in his article Buster Olney wrote that people reached out to Ohtani's camp to ask what his dogs name was after he made an appearance in his MVP announcement and they never heard back. So what? The guy just wants some privacy and I don't think that is the worst thing in the world.

And if Shohei did it the opposite way, screaming from the mountain top about how much a team offered him and looked the next bidder dead in the eyes while asking if they'd match that, he'd get dragged for making this whole thing about him. They'd write how selfish he is and what a pompous asshole he comes off as. So there was no winning here. If he does a press conference like Lebron to announce he's going to Toronto, the writers would insult him. 

But this was always going to happen. In today's climate where these reporters are obsessed with everything and finding out every single detail of everything, they don't feel in control of this story so they have to make their own stories. Ohtani won't let them know who he's meeting with so they have to find a way to inject themselves into the story. The fact that Buster thinks it is "silly" that Ohtani won't spill all the details is wild. It's not Shohei's job to have every single detail of his life to be on display for Buster, no matter how much Olney doesn't like it. I think it's silly that reporters are mad they don't know whats going on behind closed doors. But this was predicable, baseball writers are the most sensitive and weird people in the world, they HAVE to be involved in every story and if they aren't than it's a huge injustice to the game of baseball in their mind. Keep on keeping quiet, Shohei. You don't have to let every detail spill out. Being mad at someone who has set boundaries is a wild, wild move.