MLB fans ripped Stephen A. Smith on his ridiculous take that Shohei Ohtani isn't worth $500M

Stephen A. Smith is very off on this MLB take about Shohei Ohtani's pending free agency windfall.

ESPN’s sports debate captain Stephen A. Smith is never one to shy away from a hot take, but his rant against MLB superstar Shohei Ohtani getting paid feels like it’s pushing it by even his own standards.

On a new edition of First Take, Smith argued that no MLB team should pay Ohtani a $500 million contract for a litany of reasons.

While Smith brings up a fair point about Ohtani’s injury that could sideline him from pitching until 2025, he also brings in a bunch of silly reasons for not giving the MLB’s best player a payday.

Those include the Angels being bad with Ohtani there, other teams are good that haven’t paid a superstar like Ohtani such a large salary, changing baseball rules and that people didn’t show up to Angels games because they were bad.

Wh— what?

Stephen A. Smith says Shohei Ohtani doesn't deserve a $500 million contract because the Angels didn't win or fill seats when he was on the team pic.twitter.com/3Jbq3OmYEY

— Jomboy Media (@JomboyMedia) September 20, 2023

While Smith as an MLB general manager might not give Ohtani a half a billion dollars, there will be no shortage of teams who will do what is necessary to get one of the best baseball players of all time on their roster.

While it’s fine to not have clarity on Ohtani’s future health, trying to argue that he’s not worth the biggest salary in baseball doesn’t really work past this injury. If he could actually get on a good team, Ohtani’s electric play even as a hitter could boost them to immediate World Series contenders.

Once he gets back to pitching? He’d be worth every single penny you’d pay him and more.