Shohei Ohtani meets with Blue Jays as free agency mystery continues

Mystery surrounding Shohei Ohtani’s future intensified on Monday after the superstar met with the Toronto Blue Jays, in what’s believed to be the final stretch before he decides on a team.

The Jays have routinely been a team mentioned in the Ohtani sweepstakes, but there wasn’t much to it other than speculation. However, a new report from Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic solidifies that not only are the Jays pursuing Ohtani, but spent significant time with the free agent on Monday.

“All day Monday, there were signs something was happening between the Jays and Ohtani.

General manager Ross Atkins did not meet with the club’s media in person at the Winter Meetings, instead conducting his session by Zoom because of what the team called “a scheduling conflict.” Manager John Schneider was originally scheduled to speak to media on Monday as well, but last Friday, the team’s public-relations staff rescheduled his availability for Tuesday afternoon. Meanwhile, Balelo also was not in Tennessee on Monday, according to an industry source with knowledge of the situation.”

The Dodgers, long-believed to be the favorites in this process are still considered to have the edge — but at this point every guess about where Ohtani will sign is totally up in the air. The key reasons why little is known about the process is Ohtani’s desire for secrecy, with agent Nez Balelo telling teams that any leaks from their organizations about the free agent would be held against them.

In this case the lack of information could foreshadow how open this all is. If teams believed Ohtani was locked in on the Dodgers and simply meeting with other teams perfunctorily it’s likely we would have heard something at this point — even if it eliminated some clubs from contention.

Our Mark Schofield ranked the Blue Jays as the team with the fourth best chance to sign Ohtani in free agency.

Instead we now have 12 teams with odds to sign Ohtani, and a fascinating 13th team that’s yet to have odds, but interest appears to be there.

That 13th team? The Atlanta Braves.

Previously the Braves weren’t thought to be a part of this process at all, but have emerged as late suitors for Ohtani. It’s a fascinating potential fit from a baseball perspective, which has no logical basis from a business one. Signing Ohtani would push the Braves deep into tier two or tier three luxury cap, something that doesn’t make a lot of sense for the club — but the fact they are being mentioned this late means there could be fire to this smoke.

The baseball world is still on Ohtani watch, and we’ll need to wait and see what happens next.