Japanese superstar Shohei Ohtani is coming to San Diego.
In August when the Angels play a 3-game series at Petco Park against the Padres.
Ohtani, the 23-year-old two-way star from the Nippon-Ham Fighters who has a 100-MPH fastball and 40-home run power and made himself available for Major League Baseball teams to bid on creating a Twitter buzz worthy of most President Trump tweets, had his finalists down to just a handful of teams. Among them was the San Diego Padres.
But on Friday the slugging flamethrower announced he was signing with the Los Angeles Angels. Ohtani, arguably the most intriguing two-way prospect in modern baseball history, joins superstars Mike Trout and Albert Pujols in what is could be a dangerously deep Angels lineup.
Ohtani wants to be the rare professional ballplayer that spends extensive time as both a pitcher and a position player. Conventional thinking suggests he’ll have more opportunities to do that with the Angels in the American League where there’s a designated hitter than he will with the Padres in the National League.
But the Padres are not sitting and pouting in the wake of losing out on what could be a generational talent. San Diego had its first face-to-face meeting with Royals All-Star 1st baseman Eric Hosmer, one of the top free agents in this year’s class. Hosmer is expected to fetch a 9-figure contract that would easily be the largest in Padres franchise history.
