No, you put him where you best protect the most expensive asset in professional baseball - first base. They switched Bryce Harper from the outfield to first after having Tommy John for the exact same reason.
I don’t get that way of thinking.
If you’re the Dodgers and want to protect Ohtani, why risk him by sticking him at first when you already have Freeman at first, among other infielders, and you can better protect him by not putting him on the field at all?
Sticking Harper at first made some sense - the Phillies had a bit of a roster issue anyway, needed a change at first (let’s face it - Kyle Schwarber at DH made more sense), and Harper wants to be on the field and not a semi-permanent DH.
But Ohtani? Presumably both he and the Dodgers want him pitching again. So, as I said earlier, why put him on the field regularly at all? But if you’re only going to use him intermittently on the field, stick him where he’s already played before.
If both he and the team decide he’s never pitching again, that’s a different conversation to have and then you can discuss where you’d put him, especially given the makeup of the rest of their roster. But putting him there NOW is a bizarre decision to make.
This is all a fun ‘what if’ game. Ohtani is never going to play the outfield in MLB, unless his pitching days are over. And even if that’s the case, they still aren’t going to put a guy who’s had two elbow surgeries out there. As Munch said, he’s just too valuable.
It’s fun to imagine Ohtani at first because he’s such a fantastic athlete/ballplayer and it’s the only defensive position that he could conceivably play. Plus, Freeman is already 35, not great defensively and under contract for three more years. Letting Ohtani play first would free up the DH position for Freeman.
However the Dodgers are #1 and the Yankees are #4 on the luxury tax list. The Dodgers only save a little bit on Ohtani by back loading his contract. The tax is determined by the yearly average over the life of the contract. He’s being paid $2 million this year but it counts as $46 million towards the tax.
Not just that, but this is an unusually marquee heavyweight title fight. With Dodgers and Yankees, MLB wants it to marinate and for the buildup to be prolonged for anticipation’s sake. The league also wants every player as healed and rested as possible.
Looks like it’ll be Cole and Flaherty as the Game 1 starters.
This is quite accurate:
Not sure about that. I’m seeing predictions from a number of sources that it may be the most watched WS in recent history. There’s a lot of history between these two teams, not to mention the match up between two MVPs.
Other problems I see - I doubt a lot of Padres fans are going to be rooting for the Dodgers, and I doubt the majority of those on Long Island will be rooting for the Yankees. That’s Mets country.
Also a matchup between the two best teams in their respective leagues. In the expanded wild-card era, that certainly doesn’t happen as often as one might expect.
I mean, both can be true. You have two teams from the two largest media markets in the US playing each other so it stands to reason you’ll likely get high ratings. That said, I suspect many others will be watching for the reasons you stated. I’ll probably catch a game here and there, and root for the NL team.
Not to mention all of the people that will be watching from Japan. They have a bit of an Ohtani infatuation over there.
So many reasons for most of the country to hate watch
I can appreciate good baseball from teams I hate. 
I can’t find the article now but I read that ratings during the LA San Diego series were two times bigger in Japan than the U.S.
A guide to LA for Yankee fans in town for the series.
I mean, I’ll be watching because it’s baseball. But I sure hope the Dodgers win, because that would mean the Yankees lose.
If the Dodgers win, then the Yankees will tie them for the most times losing a World Series at 14:
MOST WORLD SERIES LOST BY FRANCHISE (with record)
Dodgers 7-14
Yankees 27-13
Giants 8-12
Cardinals 11-8
Cubs 3-8
Five teams have NEVER lost a World Series, and one of them of course is also on the list of teams that have never won it, either; the Mariners.
I’m going for Yankees in 7.
I have no real clue as to how this will turn out though. Dodgers in 4 is possible too. But these teams…
Yet for today, I’ll take Cole over Flaherty any day. So I think Yankees win game one.
All I know is that there will be very few real fans in the stadium with prices the way they are. I went to a couple ALCS games a few years ago. The atmosphere was insane. It’s not going to be the same with the $2,000 a seat crowd.
The majority of people in the stadium paid face value, since season ticket holders get first dibs. I’m not sure you can call someone who buys tickets to 81 games throughout the year not a “real fan”.
Although how many of those season tickets are held by the average person and how many by corporations?