Shohei Ohtani nearly ended up with this Brewers division rival

If you’re a Milwaukee Brewers fan in need of a post-Halloween haunt, here’s a shiver: Shohei Ohtani was closer than you think to landing inside the NL Central. Picture the best player on Earth rolling into Wrigley 13 times a year to erase games with one swing and hijack random June nights with his electric arsenal of pitches on the mound. That wasn’t a fantasy; it almost happened, and the NL Central would still be feeling the aftershocks.

Ohtani isn’t just rewriting the record book in L.A. — he’s daring everyone else to keep up. The real Midwest mystery isn’t his GOAT trajectory; it’s how the Chicago Cubs fumbled a once-in-a-generation layup.

Cubs’ missed chance at Shohei Ohtani would’ve rocked the Brewers’ division

According to Jon Heyman (Oct. 28), Chicago’s pursuit fizzled on a single, radical detail: the deferral structure that defined Ohtani’s 10-year, $700 million deal. The Dodgers agreed to pay just $2 million per year up front for a decade and push the remaining $68 million annually into 2034–2043. 

That approach minimized near-term payroll hits, maximized roster flexibility, and, crucially, matched how Ohtani wanted to be compensated. Chicago, reportedly, wouldn’t go there. In Heyman’s words, the Cubs had “no known excuse” for refusing the deferrals, a stance that effectively ended their bid.

To be fair, the structure was unprecedented at the time and turned the sport’s financial logic on its head. The Cubs’ front office, faced with a contract that looked more like a cap-engineering puzzle from another league, balked. Meanwhile, the Dodgers embraced the model and have since replicated elements of it with other elite players, treating deferrals as a feature, not a bug. Whether you see that as opportunism or innovation, it’s how Los Angeles has kept a championship window propped open without detonating its year-to-year budget.

Would a deferral-savvy Cubs bid have toppled the Dodgers? Doubtful. L.A.’s market, machine-grade infrastructure, and star room were always the trump card. But Chicago waving off deferrals yanked the only lever that might’ve made it a fight. Brewers fans can exhale: Milwaukee didn’t dodge a bullet; they watched a rival trip over its own shoelaces.

And that’s the larger lesson. Ohtani’s deal wasn’t just about numbers; it was about adapting to a new era of superstar economics. The Cubs didn’t, and the Dodgers did. The fallout is visible every night on national broadcasts. And mercifully, for Milwaukee, not in the season series tally at Wrigley.