Andrew Friedman steps in to drop the hammer on Craig Counsell regarding Dodgers comments

On Tuesday night, Shohei Ohtani made his second appearance of the season exclusively as a Dodgers pitcher. After the first instance went swimmingly (the Dodgers beat the Mets 8-2, in large part thanks to Dalton Rushing's grand slam as interim DH), the Dodgers foreshadowed that they might relieve him of two-way duties during starts more frequently going forward.

It had all to do with managing Ohtani's workload in his first full two-way season since 2023, but the timing lined up with a recent stink that Cubs manager Craig Counsell kicked up about baseball's Ohtani rule.

He said, "I've never understood it. It's an offensive rule, essentially. It's a rule to help offense, more than anything, if you ask me. And then there's one team that's allowed to carry basically one of both, and he gets special consideration, which is probably the most bizarre rule. For one team."

Dave Roberts already weighed in with what everyone was thinking — if you want the rule to apply to the Cubs, find and develop a player who can do what Ohtani does — but Andrew Friedman had a longer and rather enlightening answer.

Andrew Friedman pushes back against Craig Counsell's complaints about MLB's Ohtani rule

This part is the most important: "When Shohei was on the Angels and MLB was considering this, they reached out to a bunch of teams, us included, and I said, 'Look, from a competitive standpoint as the Dodgers, I don't love it, but wearing my industry hat and what's best for Major League Baseball, it is to do everything we can for Shohei Ohtani to be in and stay in games.' [...] I was able to look at what is best for the industry, and Shohei playing and playing more often and staying in games is what is best for this game. [...] That was when he was with the Angels.

"Everyone knew the Shohei rules and had an equal opportunity to sign him two years ago," he added. "Not sure where the Cubs were in that process or what Counsell's thoughts were on it then, but that seemed like more of the relevant time to voice it than now."

That, on top of the argument that Roberts already laid out, pretty much says it all. Even if Counsell wasn't involved in the decision-making on the rule, surely David Stearns (who led the Brewers during Counsell's time there and Ohtani's arrival to MLB) and Jed Hoyer did. Maybe he should take his complaints to them.

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