Which team will sign Shohei Ohtani?

Let’s be clear on who will benefit the most from Shohei Ohtani’s impatience: A very, very rich person. A billionaire, most likely. While Ohtani wouldn’t come over if he didn’t think that he would benefit personally, the biggest winner will be an owner who gets to pocket the extra salary that he absolutely could have afforded. Not only will this owner get a generational talent, but the value of his franchise will probably go up. There isn’t an owner in baseball who deserves this kind of a windfall, so let’s hold off on getting too excited about this whole process.

On the other hand, goodness, this is a lot of fun.

For the first time since the advent of free agency, we have a superstar who is choosing his new team while being prohibited from being paid a lot of money. Ohtani gets to pick where he goes based on his feelings, gut, or hunches. It’s absolutely fascinating, and there are no indications that there’s a favorite out of the 30 teams. He won’t get paid what he’s worth, but he sure has a lot of freedom about where he spends the next few years.

We have hints now, though. Ohtani’s representatives sent out a homework assignment over the weekend, and teams have a sense of what’s most important to him. The assignment asks that teams provide ...

It also specifically asks that financial terms are not to be a part of the discussion yet. He wants this to be an existential assignment for these teams.

If you want a dumbed-down version of the list, it would go something like this:

Or, if you want it dumbed down to a single sentence ...

Please justify your existence. (100 points)

And I’m absolutely fascinated by the thought of 30 different presentations coming in. Did the A’s and Rays look at the part about “facilities” and mumble a stream of curse words under their breath? Are there people in Pittsburgh and New York scrambling to figure out if Ohtani is more of a small- or big-market guy? They already were interested in that, of course, but now they’re forced to put their suspicions into writing.

So, uh, which team is the favorite? None of us could possibly know, but that won’t stop me from rank, baseless speculation. That’s the whole point of this series. Come, let’s parse this homework assignment together.

This section is usually reserved for a team with an acute need for power or a closer or whatever the free agent in question has to offer. In this case, every team can use an international superstar who can hit 30 homers and win 20 games in exchange for a very modest salary. He fits perfectly on every team.

What I’m inferring from Ohtani’s request is that he’s looking for a) a recently successful team with b) a history of developing talented players and keeping them healthy that c) plays in a modern, state-of-the-art ballpark that d) is in a market that wouldn’t be a jarring transition to someone who’s spent his last several years in Sapporo and e) has a plan to help someone who sends his checks to his parents and currently lives in a dorm adjust to his new home.

That sounds like the Yankees ... until you get to this part:

Teammates say that when they invite Ohtani to social functions, he’ll ask if they plan on drinking. If the answer is yes, he’ll quietly head back to the dorm. No judgments either way.

Does that read like someone who is eager to conquer the messy, beautiful chaos of the Big Apple? It does not.

The Mariners might be a great fit ... until you get to the part where they haven’t been successful in years, which would call their “player performance philosophies and capabilities” into question.

The Padres have fortified a large Japanese presence in their front office, which includes Hideo Nomo and Takashi Saito, as well as Seiichiro Nakagaki — who was a trainer with Ohtani’s current team the Nippon-Ham Fighters and is now San Diego’s director of applied sports science — but they have less recent success than even the Mariners, which can’t help, right? Imagine being in charge of the “Here’s why the Padres are secretly one of baseball’s most competent teams” section.

The Cardinals have decades of success and development to point to ... but St. Louis is currently 3,935th on a list of American cities ranked by percentage of Japanese-Americans. If the cultural adjustment is as important to him as his list seems to indicate, that can’t help the Cardinals’ pitch, right?

What about the Dodgers, Cubs, and Red Sox, three teams with a brilliant recent track record that also play in older facilities? Does he even care about the age, or is he looking to be sold on the history if he’s not getting the modern amenities?

The Giants check off all of these boxes ... until you get to the minor detail about last season, when they looked like little leaguers who were playing only because their parents forced them to.

There are a lot of teams that can give beautiful presentations depending on what Ohtani is looking for. The only problem is that NOBODY IS SURE EXACTLY WHAT HE’S LOOKING FOR. Does he want the heightened pressure and scrutiny that comes with New York or Boston? Does he want a town that’s more laid back when it comes to their sports, like Los Angeles? Is he looking for the relative anonymity that is granted to anyone who plays for the Brewers or Padres? I count nine rhetorical questions so far, and I’m not stopping anytime soon.

This is a mess. We need his people to start leaking information.

LOOK, I’M TELLING YOU, I HAVE NO IDEA. None of these teams do.

With all that written, here’s what I’m leaning on:

Ohtani was 7 when Ichiro was an MLB sensation who won the Rookie of the Year and MVP with the Mariners. He grew up with the franchise in the collective consciousness of Japan’s baseball-loving population. He’s not as concerned that the Mariners have been successful only at breaking down the spirits and constitutions of the entire fan base, year after year, slowly grinding them into dust. He might think they’re pretty cool.

The Mariners have a newer ballpark. Their front office understands the modern language of baseball. Seattle is the closest MLB city to Japan, and the Mariners have a legacy of helping Japanese players adjust to the organization. They can allow him to DH, which would help him stay healthy enough to be the two-way player he apparently wants to be.

So I’m going with them. Other teams can offer their plans for how they’ll help Ohtani feel comfortable. The Mariners are one of the few that can append, “And here’s how it’s worked beautifully before with previous NPB superstars” at the end of their plan. They would seem to do well with the other categories, too, even when you factor in that they will finish 78-84 in every season for the rest of eternity.

The Dodgers make sense because they’re the richest and smartest team. The Yankees might have the brightest future and the most cachet. The Giants have nearly everything the Mariners have, just without the extended legacy of sadness. The Rangers can also explain how they’ve allowed a Japanese superstar to thrive, and that example happens to be with the success of Yu Darvish, who was Ohtani’s idol growing up.

But I’ll go with the organization that seems almost too obvious. Congratulations, Mariners fans. He’s yours. Just ignore the fact that I’m wrong with every single one of these, and you can start getting excited.