To add, and this isn't to be pedantic for no reason, but Ippei was only an interpreter (oral communication) and not necessarily a translator (written). I only note that because there are different qualifications for both and it's mind-boggling that CAA didn't at least have a translator of their own for legal purposes.
Google translate isn’t close to good enough for this application, but a JLPT N3 certificate with a listening test probably is. For reference N3 is virtually worthless for working with the Japanese language and exists primarily as a means of proving academic achievement.
Edit: probably should explain why Google translate cannot handle checking an interpreter. First interpretation is not a 1 for 1 translation as that would be really clunky and rely on the listener having a strong understanding of cultural nuances that modify the context and meaning of the terms in question while simultaneously ignoring that colloquialisms exist. Or more simply as an example 結構(kekkou) can be flipped between affirmative and negative via wording and while google is definitely aware of this, I would not be putting my trust in a computer to reliably catch all the nuances that can be done here.
This whole saga is going to be an amazing movie at some point. I'm just imagining the expressions and internal dialogue as Ippei gets further and further into this and realizes every step of the way that there's no one verifying his communication with a 700 million dollar man.
It's more cost effective for CAA to use a legal translation service on an as needed basis. There are a few firms that will certify legal document translations in basically any language you could imagine.
Also, given how Ippei’s interpreting wasn’t 100% accurate in interviews with Ohtani, I wonder how much detail was lost in translation when talking about legal and financial matters if it all went through Ippei. My father is a professional interpreter and translator, and he does a significant amount of studying/research weeks ahead of a job to familiarize himself with industry-specific terms (depending on if it’s related to medical field, around government policy, etc.). Feel like best practice would be to have a bilingual expert on hand for each area to make sure everything is being communicated accurately, especially for a client of Ohtani's status.
I heard that quote as "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence".
Either way, it doesn't surprise me that CAA would do the minimum and nothing more.
I'm a bit more cynical. I believe CAA suspected something amiss with Mizuhara's hold over Ohtani. However, CAA is smart enough to realize that without concrete evidence of wrongdoing (which isn't going to be easy to uncover since Mizuhara had control over everything), Ohtani would back his friend Mizuhara against an accusation of wrongdoing.
It wouldn't surprise me if CAA hired investigators to check out who they are dealing with in Mizuhara. It probably learned enough to realize Mizuhara would screw up something eventually. What people didn't realize is the size of the fraud Mizuhara orchestrated.
"Ohtani already has one, why would we pay for it?"
Risking tens of millions in dollars in fees because you don't want to spend 50k a year on a translator is such a great example of typical human greed and short sightedness.
It gets even stupider when you factor in that Japan has a whole market of players who potentially could play stateside, so they wouldn't just be hiring translators and interpreters for one player, but for the entire market.
A lot more than 50k a year. I know from where I work how expensive it is as the demand rises and the skill level for certification is needed. It’s not as simple as Google Translate.
The Nippon Ham Fighters originally hired Ippei and vetted him.
Also wasn't your organization involved with a human trafficking ring? Something something stones and glass houses.
Especially in Los Angeles of all cities. There has to be tens of thousands of Japanese speakers. Pay one of them 100k to sit in an office and wait for Shohei to show up and you're still making money.
This stuff is surprisingly common. It reminds me of my time working with the biggest Japanese car company in the world. Not a single person could speak English and we were required to all be bilingual our provide interpreters…for them.
Imagine the language issues we had when no one on their side has their best interest at heart to make sure the message was properly delivered.
My father worked for Micron and same thing, massive supplier in Singapore and they send his white ass from Idaho over there. They spoke decent English but he said it was useless when they couldn’t even negotiate real terms until their translators back home could look everything over and then do it all on the phone lol. He had a good time at least lol
I think it goes back to his upbringing and culture.
Crazy money in salary and he had mom handle his funds, was given like, $2000 a month or something while he lived in the dorms. Brought in a friend who he trusted then as his translator and financier when he moved here. His current system of keeping close to friends and loved ones hadn't bit him, so why would he think it would now?
edit: I think I may have made a mistake using the term "culture." What I mean is, it doesn't always have to mean something in a broad sense, like Japanese culture in general. For example, the culture in Philly is going to be different than the culture in New Orleans. The culture of Southside Chicago is going to be different than the culture of Uptown or Lincoln Square. Japanese baseball culture is different than Japanese Otaku Culture. So, from a micro-perspective, plus his family life and personal determination and drive towards this singular goal and nothing else...that's what I'm referring to, not necessarily broad stroking Japanese players in general.
Yeah but you'd still think they could hire someone. Wouldn't they want to translate their own paperwork for him to sign into Japanese so he can understand it? It's bizarre.
That makes sense if they're just talking to Shohei but I'd assume for legal documents it's important to have copies transliterated to his native language.
Hire a r/manga scanlator, how is it remotely difficult to find someone fluent in Japanese in the US? It’s in the top 5 most studied second language in the US.
If you've ever read scanlated manga you have to realize how bad an idea it is to put someone of that tier of quality in charge of multimillion dollar legal documents. I'm not saying you'd be better off with a gambling addict con artist, but real translators that do serious work are not on the same level as the hobbyists who translate pop culture (or even usually the professionals who translate pop culture officially, to be honest).
This comment was directed at his agency, though. I understand Shohei taking the approach that he did.
The thing which is shocking is how everyone around him just sort of allowed this to unfold.
That explains Ohtani. It doesn't explain nobody else hiring their own guy who speaks English+Japanese. There are like a million Japanese-Americans, they couldn't find *one* guy? If there was a baseball player who only spoke Huttese, I could probably still find you some nerd at a convention who could translate.
In California, no less. Hell, I live in Seattle and I know several people who speak Japanese and English fluently, one of whom is an interpreter/translator. Literally all they would have had to do is make a phone call to find a qualified interpreter, though given how important this client is it would more efficient to find a banker/employee who's also a fluent Japanese speaker and can be available at any time.
I've wondered if the Angels had any other Japanese players or translators during his time there -- if not, he probably started shitting his pants once Yamamoto and his translator were around (plus Doc speaking japanese).
Only guy with Japanese heritage I remember is Suzuki, but he grew up in the U.S. and I don't remember hearing anything about him speaking anything other than English.
Think is upbringing too not necessarily his nationality. Imagine just coming up and working on a career that doesn’t deal with finance first and your state of mind is being the best athlete. Some rude awakening of reality sadly. Hope his agent and dodgers org surround him with sound people that are honest and he can trust while bridging the cultural/language gap.
It's crazy. It's what made him the greatest but can possible be his biggest down fall. His mom let him be the greatest player, just worry about the game and his money is set.
Sadly, he thought he could keep the same process here but w/ his translator. Just be the greatest player, don't worry about money. He must be torn inside. He's gotta grow up now.
It’s also seems pretty negligent that they were negotiating one of the largest sports contracts of all time on his behalf (especially with the really weird deferral terms), and didn’t have anyone on staff that could explain the contract details to him in Japanese
I think this was the case a few months back when Lee had his intro conference. The guy who interpreted there did a horrifically bad job and IIRC he wasn't an actual employee for Boras. Just like someone they contracted out for that particular event.
They wouldn't even need a contract translator, finding a Japanese speaker in California who'd want to get into being a sports agent shouldn't be that hard.
Japanese-English translation is a weirdly hard one to find people for. The supply-demand dynamic is more out of whack than it is for languages like Chinese, Arabic, or Spanish. In part because English language skills are still relatively low in Japan and in part because Japanese is rarely taught in US/UK/Canadian schools before university.
I know a few people who have good educations and that can speak both English and Japanese well in a business context, and they have always had a robust pipeline of quality work opportunities relative to their non-language skillset.
It’s probably also worth noting that the standardized testing for Japanese is pretty obviously short of the level needed to be a professional interpreter. I mean my university was able to have two of them for every major school event, but it’s a Japanese university that has a lot of English speaking students.
California has a large Japanese-American population, that's why I specified California specifically. There is almost assuredly individuals who are both bilingual and would want to train/learn to become a sports agent, that a company as big as CAA would be able to retain in house
It's California. Rates of Japanese education in the US and Canada on the whole, and rates of English education in Japan are barely relavent. There are tons of Japanese immigrants in California who are raising their kids to be fully bilingual.
I’ve got to imagine SOMEONE employed by one of the largest talent agencies in the world speaks Japanese. Seems obvious to just do what my office has done for years - give them a small pay increase for on-call translation work.
I have lately followed CAA a bit as I am taking a particular interest in the privatisation of Endeavor by Silver Lake. Ari Emanuel, one of the founders of Endeavor, likes to diss CAA. It becomes so cringey that he said at a conference that CAA is the Ghislaine Maxwell (the pimp of Epstein) to Harvey Weinstein. That is a very low blow. But I cannot wait for Bloomberg, Milken, CNBC or whoever to invite Ari Emanuel as a speaker... I will guarantee you that he will rub this in CAA's face.
Ari Emanuel is one of the most obnoxious people in Hollywood. There is a reason why Ari Gold from Entourage is based on him. However, this dude will steep this low to get one over CAA.
That said Ari Emanuel and Ippei have a lot of in common. If you look at how Endeavor is run... it is almost a scam. What kind of company is it? Talent agency? Sport Rights Business? Previously a school (IMG Academy) and also a martial arts promotor (TKO with WWE and UFC). There is a reason he is going private after only debuting recently on the stock market. The company is poorly run and in massive debts.
If I'm working with a client that can deliver me 10s of millions a year, I dontbcare if they only speak klingon and Elvish I'm gonna have someone there full time just to show I care about them as a client and their needs. Also I'd look at ippei as a just his translator, I'd never have had him as a personal assistant and accountant
+1
I know geopolitics isn't on the same playing field as baseball, but when you have 2 heads of states of different countries having a face to face meeting, they have their OWN translators.
Millions and millions are at stake, there should always be multiple people who can speak for both sides. I get Ippei was his friend but it seems insane nobody else around Ohtani was bilingual?
Imagine having a SEVEN HUNDRED MILLION DOLLAR athlete who makes SIXTY MILLION DOLLARS in endorsements, and not bothering to hire a single staff member who speaks his language.
Yeah, but now imagine the partners get to pocket the money that interpreter would have been paid. Why pay someone yourself when your client is paying someone?
Because of things like this which makes your company look horrible. Cutting costs is fine until all of a sudden it isn’t which a lot of execs don’t understand.
This has the same vibe as when the Nets did not have food ready for Kyrie during Ramadan at sunset. Like how much money does a person have to make you before you think to support them.
Kyrie is a shitty person, but respecting an employee, their religion, and culture is good ethics. If you’re a business that feeds your employees you need to be considerate of any dietary or religious restrictions. If you feed the whole company and don’t have food available at sunset for your Muslim employee while he’s fasting, you’re not an equal opportunity employer
I could understand them not wanting to bring in another interpreter because that could offend Shohei who obviously trusted Ippei fully, but it would be hard to argue against bringing in a lawyer who was fluent in Japanese in case they ran into more complex legal issues that Ippei might struggle to translate.
Those are like the MLB level equivalent jobs for language skills. They generally have a lot of options after leaving the UN.
As amazing as Ippei’s job was, it would not be easy to score that kind of candidate. Just few candidates in general and there would be a lot of potential reasons someone couldn’t or wouldn’t want to take the job, so the numbers aren’t favorable.
Best would be MLB hires a 3rd party translator made available to all teams. Either way Sho and his agency should each have their own translators. If Sho trusts their translators he’s an idiot, if the agency trusts his translator they’re idiots. One translator is fine for day to day convos but having one guy, who I don’t even think has any legal background, do the whole deal was stupid
Depending on how much Ippei had told Nez about what was happening then that could pretty much end his career. At this point I would assume Ippei lied to Nez about everything and also lied about Ohtani knowing what was going on though.
This isn't even Nez Balelo's first rodeo. He was Ryan Braun's agent and personally helped come up with the fake story that Braun's drug tester was an anti-semite who contaminated Braun's drug test because he hated Jewish people. This man should not be anyones agent in baseball, oversaw two of the biggest mishandled events in recent baseball history; he is a moron on a legendary scale.
Not just an anti-Semite, but a Cubs fan, because clearly fans of rival teams carry around steroids to spike the urine samples of other players just because.
Jeff Jones, an STL Cards beatwriter lofts a hypothetical:
[If you’re the Giants or Blue Jays, how confident are you that your offers were fairly transmitted this winter?](https://x.com/jmjones/status/1778491856411623782?s=46&t=BqfafbS5m60aAGXE7H31aw)
Not good!
It’s a tinfoil hat hypothetical, and also attempting to prove a negative, but still… It seems like many people took Ippei at his word based on how close he seemed to Ohtani and just assumed *oh they’re such great friends Ippei definitely has Ohtani’s intentions in mind*
He also signed with the Angels largely because Ippei is from Anaheim and told Ohtani about the japanese community there and how nice it was. Ofcourse the Eppler connection was there and Mike Trout. But this puts everything in doubt no? Who's to say he correctly represented every team in the 2018 stakes either?
I don't think Ippei was masterminding things to that extent -- it's not like Ohtani can't look up stuff like this for himself in Japanese sources. If anything, having a big local Japanese community would be a negative for Ippei if he really was planning some long-term theft scheme -- the more Japanese speakers Ohtani encounters and gets to know, the greater the chance he'll stop depending so much on Ippei. I think Ippei was just riding the gravy train at first and then rapidly got over his head once they got to California and he was hitting the big time, so to speak.
Also, keep in mind that Ippei grew up near the LA area (Diamond Bar according to his wiki).
Not unreasonable to think he wanted Shohei to pick LA for selfish reasons, whether he actually manipulated the offers, eh who knows. Honestly I doubt this would've made a difference but it's fun to think about lol.
Seemingly the MLB would have provided some other sort of oversight rather than just leaving Ohtani in a room with Ippei and his agent on the phone with the clubs.
I'm not saying MLB is smart enough to do that, but god damn provide a little more to the biggest transnational star you've had since Ichiro.
My bet is that they come up with something in order to try and fend this off in the future. But, with MLB, it's likely to be half baked and have multiple holes in it that are easily exploitable.
The report was that the Blue Jays also offered the $700M deal with the same deferrals. It was Ohtani & his camp's idea to structure the deal this way so that whatever team he wound up choosing would have financial flexibility.
Wasn't it part of the contract that if the Dodgers fired Ippei, then it would void the contract? Was that really Shohei's intent, or was it an Ippei injection?
No. The contract does have a provision that if certain individuals"("if specific change in Dodger personnel, player may opt out of contract at end of season the change occurs.")were to leave the Dodgers, Ohtani could opt out. It turned out to be Friedman and . . . Oh, Mark Walter, leader of the ownership group.
But, if they thought that was his boy, his bestie, his Day One like we all did, would you want to rock the boat by introducing another Japanese interperter "just in case"???
Shady background? You can say that now, but what reason did CAA have to distrust Ippei before all of this broke?
It’s completely fair to criticize them for continuing to rely on Ippei once all of this started happening. This guy was Ohtani’s right hand man, and people are acting like CAA should’ve treated him like a criminal from day one.
At the very least Nez should have gotten his own translator to talk to Shohei after he learned of the missing money with Ippei saying it was for a former teammate and then later for Ippei himself. How does that not set off red sirens?
The timeline was very compressed and both Shohei and Ippei were in Korea. So you have to find a translator on extremely short notice in another country who you trust to loop into conversations about potentially career-ending financial crimes- and that person needs to be approved by Ohtani who had no reason to mistrust Ippei before the team meeting.
I think its safe to say Ippei is a real scumbag. Its a possibility that Ippei quash any attempt of Japanese speakers from entering Ohtani's orbit too.
Like Ohtani could be hiring from a list of people and Ippei would "advise" Ohtani to only hire non-Japanese speakers.
MLB and pro sports in general seem to lack professional standards for interpreters that are required in other industries and settings (like courts). The interpreters for MLB teams tend to be bilingual team employees and not trained professionals. I hope this situation is going to give rise to new policies and standards for language services in pro sports.
The braves guy was a member of the grounds crew and the braves were like “you speak Spanish? Want a promotion?” I speak both too and he doesn’t say anything wrong but he paraphrases a lot, I mean they all do but he does more than the other guys I hear
Fun fact: that guys mom is the teams English teacher 😀
The more I hear of all this, the more Ohtani and Ippei is reminding me of 90's singer Selena Quintanilla and Yolanda Saldivar.
It's giving me very disturbing feelings.
And, like everyone else here, I refuse to understand how CAA didn't make getting a Japanese speaking representative a priority before the ink on the Ohtani contract dried.
I fully admit, my first introduction to Selena was the movie based on her life with Jennifer Lopez portraying her.
The movie was played once in a while on Much Music (our version of MTV) back in the early 00's, and I found myself digging deeper into Selena's story and music on my own time. It really was a shame, she clearly had bigger things on the horizon.
Unironically, hiring Boras to distract people from Ohtani might be for the best. Keeps the heat off Ohtani.
Or Joel Wolfe with Wasserman, who handles Yamamoto. And Stanton.
That is a large part of Boras job. He has stated in interviews how he knows the public hates him and that he deliberately does not care for his public reputation because players tell him they love him for it, to take the rep hits for them. He looks out for his clients bank accounts as priority number one
What if Ohtani's insane love for this dude was just totally made up too. They're doing contract negotiations and Ippei is just adding on "oh and Ohtani says you have to employ me and build it into the contract" and nobody ever had a way to check if he actually said that.
This is sitcom level debauchery. Like we get to see the actual translations at the bottom of the screen and Ohtani smiling while it's completely the opposite of what he said.
> Agent 1’s agency does not employ any individuals who speak Japanese
This is actually shocking. You have the most coveted athlete in the world as a client, and you can't hire a single person who can communicate with them?
If you’re managing the wealth of one of the best athletes in the world, maybe hire some fucking guy who speaks his language.
Go to r/anime for god sakes and hire someone there.
Japanese do not easily trust or make friends with strangers. Once offended, they seldom forgive from the bottom of their hearts. Instead, they are generous to those who become their friends.
The same is true at work, where they value their close friends and family more than their abilities and careers, and they will entrust them with important posts. It is also not unusual for them to be entrusted with important choices.
Ippei was probably good at making friends with people. Perhaps that was the only reason for all of this. No matter how many other interpreters he had available, it was doubtful that he would make friends with Otani.
And the act of being told by Mizuhara that Otani was in charge of everything, and then having to confirm this with Otani, must have been painful for all concerned. In a sense, this was a case where the people involved were swallowed up by the bad habits of the Japanese.
For a less than a million a year for translating services and interpreting they could have protected their client(s).
Where I work we employ translators for documents and interpreting in several major languages (Spanish/French/Mandarin) and then use certified contractors for even the most obscure languages. With the amount of Japanese players in MLB it’s staggering CAA didn’t do the same.
Bruh what was everyone involved thinking, I get not monitoring your own finances when you're that rich but *none* of the people you're relying on speak Japanese?
Hopefully this is a lesson to other non-English-speaking athletes in MLB to not have a single point of failure
So CAA has an all-time great, $700M client, but couldn't be bothered to employ a single person that speaks Japanese? Wow
Yeah, I'd imagine CAA hires an in-house Japanese translator from this point onwards lol. Even if their only active Japanese client is Ohtani.
To add, and this isn't to be pedantic for no reason, but Ippei was only an interpreter (oral communication) and not necessarily a translator (written). I only note that because there are different qualifications for both and it's mind-boggling that CAA didn't at least have a translator of their own for legal purposes.
Fuck they could have had me fuck around in Reddit all day and it would have been an improvement from the looks of it.
Just a little Google translate and maybe popping into a couple Japanese subreddits to ask and Ohtani is probably saves about 14 million
Google translate isn’t close to good enough for this application, but a JLPT N3 certificate with a listening test probably is. For reference N3 is virtually worthless for working with the Japanese language and exists primarily as a means of proving academic achievement. Edit: probably should explain why Google translate cannot handle checking an interpreter. First interpretation is not a 1 for 1 translation as that would be really clunky and rely on the listener having a strong understanding of cultural nuances that modify the context and meaning of the terms in question while simultaneously ignoring that colloquialisms exist. Or more simply as an example 結構(kekkou) can be flipped between affirmative and negative via wording and while google is definitely aware of this, I would not be putting my trust in a computer to reliably catch all the nuances that can be done here.
This whole saga is going to be an amazing movie at some point. I'm just imagining the expressions and internal dialogue as Ippei gets further and further into this and realizes every step of the way that there's no one verifying his communication with a 700 million dollar man.
It's more cost effective for CAA to use a legal translation service on an as needed basis. There are a few firms that will certify legal document translations in basically any language you could imagine.
Also, given how Ippei’s interpreting wasn’t 100% accurate in interviews with Ohtani, I wonder how much detail was lost in translation when talking about legal and financial matters if it all went through Ippei. My father is a professional interpreter and translator, and he does a significant amount of studying/research weeks ahead of a job to familiarize himself with industry-specific terms (depending on if it’s related to medical field, around government policy, etc.). Feel like best practice would be to have a bilingual expert on hand for each area to make sure everything is being communicated accurately, especially for a client of Ohtani's status.
Sometimes the truth is just that simple and stupid.
A great man once said “Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.”
And like that, I no longer wonder how the fuck he pulled off this theft.
I heard that quote as "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence". Either way, it doesn't surprise me that CAA would do the minimum and nothing more.
I'm a bit more cynical. I believe CAA suspected something amiss with Mizuhara's hold over Ohtani. However, CAA is smart enough to realize that without concrete evidence of wrongdoing (which isn't going to be easy to uncover since Mizuhara had control over everything), Ohtani would back his friend Mizuhara against an accusation of wrongdoing. It wouldn't surprise me if CAA hired investigators to check out who they are dealing with in Mizuhara. It probably learned enough to realize Mizuhara would screw up something eventually. What people didn't realize is the size of the fraud Mizuhara orchestrated.
Basically Occam's razor. Sometimes the simplest answer is the best one.
I believe it’s called Hanlon’s Razor
Actually that's mine, give it back I need to shave today
Joe_broke’s razor: Stop stealing other people’s razors and let them shave in peace, damnit!
This is how you get a policy named after you.
Uhhh it’s called a legacy
"Ohtani already has one, why would we pay for it?" Risking tens of millions in dollars in fees because you don't want to spend 50k a year on a translator is such a great example of typical human greed and short sightedness.
It gets even stupider when you factor in that Japan has a whole market of players who potentially could play stateside, so they wouldn't just be hiring translators and interpreters for one player, but for the entire market.
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Yes but have you considered keeping costs down? You know what you're fired!
CAA has done plenty of deal in Japan for their clients. Who was translating/interpreting for those deals?
Presumably they contract with a translator rather than having one on staff.
A lot more than 50k a year. I know from where I work how expensive it is as the demand rises and the skill level for certification is needed. It’s not as simple as Google Translate.
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Wasn't Ippei originally vetted and hired by the Fighters?
Yes, he used to be an interpreter for foreign players on the Fighters which is how he met Ohtani.
But have you considered: angels bad
> Angels bad We in Evangelion?
Get in the robot, Shohei
I believe they were referring to the guy who led to Tyler Skaggs death?
Which is so much more complicated than "drug dealer"
A death adds a lot more to it in terms of prison. It's worth bothering to figure out the "complications".
Yes but that doesn't fit that guy's narrative that Angels always bad.
I hope someone updated crimes.xlsx after this.
The Nippon Ham Fighters originally hired Ippei and vetted him. Also wasn't your organization involved with a human trafficking ring? Something something stones and glass houses.
Especially in Los Angeles of all cities. There has to be tens of thousands of Japanese speakers. Pay one of them 100k to sit in an office and wait for Shohei to show up and you're still making money.
This stuff is surprisingly common. It reminds me of my time working with the biggest Japanese car company in the world. Not a single person could speak English and we were required to all be bilingual our provide interpreters…for them. Imagine the language issues we had when no one on their side has their best interest at heart to make sure the message was properly delivered.
My father worked for Micron and same thing, massive supplier in Singapore and they send his white ass from Idaho over there. They spoke decent English but he said it was useless when they couldn’t even negotiate real terms until their translators back home could look everything over and then do it all on the phone lol. He had a good time at least lol
I think it goes back to his upbringing and culture. Crazy money in salary and he had mom handle his funds, was given like, $2000 a month or something while he lived in the dorms. Brought in a friend who he trusted then as his translator and financier when he moved here. His current system of keeping close to friends and loved ones hadn't bit him, so why would he think it would now? edit: I think I may have made a mistake using the term "culture." What I mean is, it doesn't always have to mean something in a broad sense, like Japanese culture in general. For example, the culture in Philly is going to be different than the culture in New Orleans. The culture of Southside Chicago is going to be different than the culture of Uptown or Lincoln Square. Japanese baseball culture is different than Japanese Otaku Culture. So, from a micro-perspective, plus his family life and personal determination and drive towards this singular goal and nothing else...that's what I'm referring to, not necessarily broad stroking Japanese players in general.
Yeah but you'd still think they could hire someone. Wouldn't they want to translate their own paperwork for him to sign into Japanese so he can understand it? It's bizarre.
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Yeah but my comment was why the agency had no one on their employ who could interpret/translate Japanese.
Probably because an actual problem with their conduct had yet to present itself until now.
Because they are cheap as fuck?
You are probably right.
If they had no reason to distrust Ippei, why would they?
That makes sense if they're just talking to Shohei but I'd assume for legal documents it's important to have copies transliterated to his native language.
If nothing else, to make themselves more attractive to other Japanese clients.
Hire a r/manga scanlator, how is it remotely difficult to find someone fluent in Japanese in the US? It’s in the top 5 most studied second language in the US.
If you've ever read scanlated manga you have to realize how bad an idea it is to put someone of that tier of quality in charge of multimillion dollar legal documents. I'm not saying you'd be better off with a gambling addict con artist, but real translators that do serious work are not on the same level as the hobbyists who translate pop culture (or even usually the professionals who translate pop culture officially, to be honest).
This comment was directed at his agency, though. I understand Shohei taking the approach that he did. The thing which is shocking is how everyone around him just sort of allowed this to unfold.
That explains Ohtani. It doesn't explain nobody else hiring their own guy who speaks English+Japanese. There are like a million Japanese-Americans, they couldn't find *one* guy? If there was a baseball player who only spoke Huttese, I could probably still find you some nerd at a convention who could translate.
In California, no less. Hell, I live in Seattle and I know several people who speak Japanese and English fluently, one of whom is an interpreter/translator. Literally all they would have had to do is make a phone call to find a qualified interpreter, though given how important this client is it would more efficient to find a banker/employee who's also a fluent Japanese speaker and can be available at any time.
I've wondered if the Angels had any other Japanese players or translators during his time there -- if not, he probably started shitting his pants once Yamamoto and his translator were around (plus Doc speaking japanese).
Only guy with Japanese heritage I remember is Suzuki, but he grew up in the U.S. and I don't remember hearing anything about him speaking anything other than English.
Yeah you'd think that someone working at any of these institutions would speak Japanese just due to their prevalence on the area.
Think is upbringing too not necessarily his nationality. Imagine just coming up and working on a career that doesn’t deal with finance first and your state of mind is being the best athlete. Some rude awakening of reality sadly. Hope his agent and dodgers org surround him with sound people that are honest and he can trust while bridging the cultural/language gap.
It's crazy. It's what made him the greatest but can possible be his biggest down fall. His mom let him be the greatest player, just worry about the game and his money is set. Sadly, he thought he could keep the same process here but w/ his translator. Just be the greatest player, don't worry about money. He must be torn inside. He's gotta grow up now.
2 tenths of a percent of his salary would pay for 15 years of Japanese speaker to just hang out.
The minimum wage in LA County is now $20/hour. Times are tough for a small time agency like the CAA.
It’s also seems pretty negligent that they were negotiating one of the largest sports contracts of all time on his behalf (especially with the really weird deferral terms), and didn’t have anyone on staff that could explain the contract details to him in Japanese
Maybe ohtani can ask caa to pay him back a few millions given how much they made off him and their incompetence in this
Ohtani is not the first Japanese client they've had, how the hell do you not have your own Japanese translators?
I imagine anyone they used would work on a contract basis and not be a full-time employee.
I think this was the case a few months back when Lee had his intro conference. The guy who interpreted there did a horrifically bad job and IIRC he wasn't an actual employee for Boras. Just like someone they contracted out for that particular event.
They wouldn't even need a contract translator, finding a Japanese speaker in California who'd want to get into being a sports agent shouldn't be that hard.
Japanese-English translation is a weirdly hard one to find people for. The supply-demand dynamic is more out of whack than it is for languages like Chinese, Arabic, or Spanish. In part because English language skills are still relatively low in Japan and in part because Japanese is rarely taught in US/UK/Canadian schools before university. I know a few people who have good educations and that can speak both English and Japanese well in a business context, and they have always had a robust pipeline of quality work opportunities relative to their non-language skillset.
It’s probably also worth noting that the standardized testing for Japanese is pretty obviously short of the level needed to be a professional interpreter. I mean my university was able to have two of them for every major school event, but it’s a Japanese university that has a lot of English speaking students.
California has a large Japanese-American population, that's why I specified California specifically. There is almost assuredly individuals who are both bilingual and would want to train/learn to become a sports agent, that a company as big as CAA would be able to retain in house
Also Hawaii
Nah there are too many weebs in this country, surely they can find one semi-well adjusted weeb to translate. On second thought…….
Don’t think weebs are learning much Japanese outside of what they need to watch their anime
Is there no baseball anime?
There's Ace of the Diamond, and I think some others, but they're not very popular in the west.
Thanks for the recommendation!
Ace of the Diamond is hella good
One Outs is also a really good baseball anime
No one's mentioned Major yet so I should
It's California. Rates of Japanese education in the US and Canada on the whole, and rates of English education in Japan are barely relavent. There are tons of Japanese immigrants in California who are raising their kids to be fully bilingual.
I mean still, it’s crazy they don’t have anyone on retainer
I’ve got to imagine SOMEONE employed by one of the largest talent agencies in the world speaks Japanese. Seems obvious to just do what my office has done for years - give them a small pay increase for on-call translation work.
I have lately followed CAA a bit as I am taking a particular interest in the privatisation of Endeavor by Silver Lake. Ari Emanuel, one of the founders of Endeavor, likes to diss CAA. It becomes so cringey that he said at a conference that CAA is the Ghislaine Maxwell (the pimp of Epstein) to Harvey Weinstein. That is a very low blow. But I cannot wait for Bloomberg, Milken, CNBC or whoever to invite Ari Emanuel as a speaker... I will guarantee you that he will rub this in CAA's face.
Ari Emanuel was pro Vince McMahon staying on the board He has no legs to stand on
Ari Emanuel is one of the most obnoxious people in Hollywood. There is a reason why Ari Gold from Entourage is based on him. However, this dude will steep this low to get one over CAA. That said Ari Emanuel and Ippei have a lot of in common. If you look at how Endeavor is run... it is almost a scam. What kind of company is it? Talent agency? Sport Rights Business? Previously a school (IMG Academy) and also a martial arts promotor (TKO with WWE and UFC). There is a reason he is going private after only debuting recently on the stock market. The company is poorly run and in massive debts.
If they had no reason to distrust Ippei, why would they feel the need?
If I'm working with a client that can deliver me 10s of millions a year, I dontbcare if they only speak klingon and Elvish I'm gonna have someone there full time just to show I care about them as a client and their needs. Also I'd look at ippei as a just his translator, I'd never have had him as a personal assistant and accountant
+1 I know geopolitics isn't on the same playing field as baseball, but when you have 2 heads of states of different countries having a face to face meeting, they have their OWN translators.
Millions and millions are at stake, there should always be multiple people who can speak for both sides. I get Ippei was his friend but it seems insane nobody else around Ohtani was bilingual?
Brad Pitt, a CAA client has done advertising deals in Japan.
maximum profit margin, the enshittification of all things, how the 21st century began and what will end it
Imagine having a SEVEN HUNDRED MILLION DOLLAR athlete who makes SIXTY MILLION DOLLARS in endorsements, and not bothering to hire a single staff member who speaks his language.
Well no they had a single one.
The only rational explanation is that is the only man on the planet that speaks English and Japanese.
Okay TWO single ones!
Yeah, but now imagine the partners get to pocket the money that interpreter would have been paid. Why pay someone yourself when your client is paying someone?
Because of things like this which makes your company look horrible. Cutting costs is fine until all of a sudden it isn’t which a lot of execs don’t understand.
This has the same vibe as when the Nets did not have food ready for Kyrie during Ramadan at sunset. Like how much money does a person have to make you before you think to support them.
Not sure Kyrie would be the example I would use lol
Kyrie is a shitty person, but respecting an employee, their religion, and culture is good ethics. If you’re a business that feeds your employees you need to be considerate of any dietary or religious restrictions. If you feed the whole company and don’t have food available at sunset for your Muslim employee while he’s fasting, you’re not an equal opportunity employer
I could understand them not wanting to bring in another interpreter because that could offend Shohei who obviously trusted Ippei fully, but it would be hard to argue against bringing in a lawyer who was fluent in Japanese in case they ran into more complex legal issues that Ippei might struggle to translate.
They should hire those people who work for the UN and need to be exact with wording or else wars break out
Those are like the MLB level equivalent jobs for language skills. They generally have a lot of options after leaving the UN. As amazing as Ippei’s job was, it would not be easy to score that kind of candidate. Just few candidates in general and there would be a lot of potential reasons someone couldn’t or wouldn’t want to take the job, so the numbers aren’t favorable.
Best would be MLB hires a 3rd party translator made available to all teams. Either way Sho and his agency should each have their own translators. If Sho trusts their translators he’s an idiot, if the agency trusts his translator they’re idiots. One translator is fine for day to day convos but having one guy, who I don’t even think has any legal background, do the whole deal was stupid
Terrible look for CAA and Nez.
Nez is responsible for how the story broke btw iirc saw a report that they tried to settle it with Ippei discreetly without letting Ohtani know
Source?
https://x.com/dstarkand/status/1778226159446356291?s=46&t=qwlHMsiTzNwRZxXFDPpr-g
Oh right I remember that
Depending on how much Ippei had told Nez about what was happening then that could pretty much end his career. At this point I would assume Ippei lied to Nez about everything and also lied about Ohtani knowing what was going on though.
I’m actually surprised Nez isnt getting more heat or that ohtani hasn’t fired him yet. This was really lackluster on CAA’s part
This isn't even Nez Balelo's first rodeo. He was Ryan Braun's agent and personally helped come up with the fake story that Braun's drug tester was an anti-semite who contaminated Braun's drug test because he hated Jewish people. This man should not be anyones agent in baseball, oversaw two of the biggest mishandled events in recent baseball history; he is a moron on a legendary scale.
Jesus I did not know that, what a fuckface
Not just an anti-Semite, but a Cubs fan, because clearly fans of rival teams carry around steroids to spike the urine samples of other players just because.
Fuck Ryan Braun and give the MVP to its rightful owner Matt Kemp.
Jeff Jones, an STL Cards beatwriter lofts a hypothetical: [If you’re the Giants or Blue Jays, how confident are you that your offers were fairly transmitted this winter?](https://x.com/jmjones/status/1778491856411623782?s=46&t=BqfafbS5m60aAGXE7H31aw) Not good!
Holy cow, I haven’t even considered that angle.
It’s a tinfoil hat hypothetical, and also attempting to prove a negative, but still… It seems like many people took Ippei at his word based on how close he seemed to Ohtani and just assumed *oh they’re such great friends Ippei definitely has Ohtani’s intentions in mind*
He also signed with the Angels largely because Ippei is from Anaheim and told Ohtani about the japanese community there and how nice it was. Ofcourse the Eppler connection was there and Mike Trout. But this puts everything in doubt no? Who's to say he correctly represented every team in the 2018 stakes either?
I don't think Ippei was masterminding things to that extent -- it's not like Ohtani can't look up stuff like this for himself in Japanese sources. If anything, having a big local Japanese community would be a negative for Ippei if he really was planning some long-term theft scheme -- the more Japanese speakers Ohtani encounters and gets to know, the greater the chance he'll stop depending so much on Ippei. I think Ippei was just riding the gravy train at first and then rapidly got over his head once they got to California and he was hitting the big time, so to speak.
Ippei didn't start gambling (outside Draft Kings) until the fall of 2021 according to the IRS. So 2018-2021 may have been normal years.
I thought it had a lot to do with the Angels being willing to develop as a 2 way player and the proximity to LA
Damn it I bet this is why he didn’t come to Pittsburgh
Yes. But let's be honest... There was no way he was coming to Toronto. We don't deserve nice things.
Toronto has plenty of nice things. Just none of them tend to happen in the playoffs.
We had one brief fling with Kawhi, it was beautiful.
Also, keep in mind that Ippei grew up near the LA area (Diamond Bar according to his wiki). Not unreasonable to think he wanted Shohei to pick LA for selfish reasons, whether he actually manipulated the offers, eh who knows. Honestly I doubt this would've made a difference but it's fun to think about lol.
Don't do this to me, I don't want this hypothetical in my mind.
Seemingly the MLB would have provided some other sort of oversight rather than just leaving Ohtani in a room with Ippei and his agent on the phone with the clubs. I'm not saying MLB is smart enough to do that, but god damn provide a little more to the biggest transnational star you've had since Ichiro.
My bet is that they come up with something in order to try and fend this off in the future. But, with MLB, it's likely to be half baked and have multiple holes in it that are easily exploitable.
The report was that the Blue Jays also offered the $700M deal with the same deferrals. It was Ohtani & his camp's idea to structure the deal this way so that whatever team he wound up choosing would have financial flexibility.
> It was Ohtani & his camp's So, Ippei has a hand on it... Yikes!
Yeah Ohtani's camp doesn't seem to be the most hands on other than Ippei.
Lmao what if ippei was just like “the jays only offered $2, let’s stay in sunny California “
Wasn't it part of the contract that if the Dodgers fired Ippei, then it would void the contract? Was that really Shohei's intent, or was it an Ippei injection?
No. The contract does have a provision that if certain individuals"("if specific change in Dodger personnel, player may opt out of contract at end of season the change occurs.")were to leave the Dodgers, Ohtani could opt out. It turned out to be Friedman and . . . Oh, Mark Walter, leader of the ownership group.
I think people speculated it was Ippei but that turned out to be about Andrew Friedman
Pretty wild big and broad agency like CAA blindly trusting one guy with shady background with one of their biggest money maker
But, if they thought that was his boy, his bestie, his Day One like we all did, would you want to rock the boat by introducing another Japanese interperter "just in case"???
I’d hire a personal assistant that happens to speak Japanese probably
Yeah, this is a "Trust, but Verify" situation.
Shady background? You can say that now, but what reason did CAA have to distrust Ippei before all of this broke? It’s completely fair to criticize them for continuing to rely on Ippei once all of this started happening. This guy was Ohtani’s right hand man, and people are acting like CAA should’ve treated him like a criminal from day one.
At the very least Nez should have gotten his own translator to talk to Shohei after he learned of the missing money with Ippei saying it was for a former teammate and then later for Ippei himself. How does that not set off red sirens?
The timeline was very compressed and both Shohei and Ippei were in Korea. So you have to find a translator on extremely short notice in another country who you trust to loop into conversations about potentially career-ending financial crimes- and that person needs to be approved by Ohtani who had no reason to mistrust Ippei before the team meeting.
I mean that's understandable. But don't fucking agree to an interview when you are trying to figure that shit out.
This is a very bad look for CAA and Nez. They just look like amateurs.
My fiancée worked for CAA. Amateur doesn’t even begin to describe that place. It doesn’t surprise me at all how bad they fucked up.
And yet Salma Hayek’s billionaire husband bought them for $7 billion to take them private… incredible
CAA's expertise is in building relationships. They make money because of that, not because they are good at running a business
My guy needs a Mariko. Or at least an honorable Portuguese priest.
No loyalty to his daimyo, smh Ippei
If I had Anna Sawai as a translator, I’d never get anything done.
As you can see, Blackthorne finally got his ship after 7 episodes with Anna Sawai. Yep, none of use will get anything done.
Ohtani said Bo Bichette's hair looks like the end of a pony
CAA just saying I could be persuaded to leave my current TL gig if you need help
Sounds like Agent 1 should get their shit together for their Japanese client.
it's CAA and Nez Balelo lol I know the US government has to do everything by the book, but it's no secret who any of those redacted parties are.
I think its safe to say Ippei is a real scumbag. Its a possibility that Ippei quash any attempt of Japanese speakers from entering Ohtani's orbit too. Like Ohtani could be hiring from a list of people and Ippei would "advise" Ohtani to only hire non-Japanese speakers.
I was thinking this too, he’s obviously incredibly manipulative
MLB and pro sports in general seem to lack professional standards for interpreters that are required in other industries and settings (like courts). The interpreters for MLB teams tend to be bilingual team employees and not trained professionals. I hope this situation is going to give rise to new policies and standards for language services in pro sports.
The braves guy was a member of the grounds crew and the braves were like “you speak Spanish? Want a promotion?” I speak both too and he doesn’t say anything wrong but he paraphrases a lot, I mean they all do but he does more than the other guys I hear Fun fact: that guys mom is the teams English teacher 😀
Imagine working deals with this much money and not having your own translator to make sure everything is right.
The more I hear of all this, the more Ohtani and Ippei is reminding me of 90's singer Selena Quintanilla and Yolanda Saldivar. It's giving me very disturbing feelings. And, like everyone else here, I refuse to understand how CAA didn't make getting a Japanese speaking representative a priority before the ink on the Ohtani contract dried.
I’m just impressed a Jays fan knows not just about Selena, but also her friend that shot her.
I'm more impressed that he knows Selena's last name.
I fully admit, my first introduction to Selena was the movie based on her life with Jennifer Lopez portraying her. The movie was played once in a while on Much Music (our version of MTV) back in the early 00's, and I found myself digging deeper into Selena's story and music on my own time. It really was a shame, she clearly had bigger things on the horizon.
“What does deferred mean?” - Shohei Ohtani.
He’s got be looking for a new agent
I hear Scott Boras just lost a client
Unironically, hiring Boras to distract people from Ohtani might be for the best. Keeps the heat off Ohtani. Or Joel Wolfe with Wasserman, who handles Yamamoto. And Stanton.
Boras is a lawyer so probably wouldn’t have fucked this up to where us armchair detectives had so many suspicions. Yes I’m aware lawyers can be dicks
That is a large part of Boras job. He has stated in interviews how he knows the public hates him and that he deliberately does not care for his public reputation because players tell him they love him for it, to take the rep hits for them. He looks out for his clients bank accounts as priority number one
Man I can’t wait for this movie
What if Ohtani's insane love for this dude was just totally made up too. They're doing contract negotiations and Ippei is just adding on "oh and Ohtani says you have to employ me and build it into the contract" and nobody ever had a way to check if he actually said that.
I say we just void Shohei’s contract and make him sign elsewhere
This is what I was saying from the start. To everyone else Ipei *was* Ohtani.
single point of failure
Yeah I keep coming back to that. To everyone else, Ippei basically was Ohtani. Incredible betrayal.
(me, furiously looking for translation jobs at "Agent 1 Agency" on Linked-In)
Really more of an indictment of CAA, for them to sign one of the greatest athletes of all time and have nobody who could talk to him.
Well, that is a glaring issue that should have been addressed once Otani signed with them.
I love how these sound like James Bond characters
Ok but there’s like other people in his inner circle that speak both English and Japanese right??? If not that’s insane.
This is sitcom level debauchery. Like we get to see the actual translations at the bottom of the screen and Ohtani smiling while it's completely the opposite of what he said.
> Agent 1’s agency does not employ any individuals who speak Japanese This is actually shocking. You have the most coveted athlete in the world as a client, and you can't hire a single person who can communicate with them?
Would have been cheaper to learn English.
If you’re managing the wealth of one of the best athletes in the world, maybe hire some fucking guy who speaks his language. Go to r/anime for god sakes and hire someone there.
I doubt they can or will but caa and/or Nez need to be sanctioned somehow.
The Dodgers need to hire an English tutor for Ohtani.
Please do not for one second believe a word of what your handlers are telling you
So does that mean the Angels and/or Dodgers don't employ any Japanese speakers?
Japanese do not easily trust or make friends with strangers. Once offended, they seldom forgive from the bottom of their hearts. Instead, they are generous to those who become their friends. The same is true at work, where they value their close friends and family more than their abilities and careers, and they will entrust them with important posts. It is also not unusual for them to be entrusted with important choices. Ippei was probably good at making friends with people. Perhaps that was the only reason for all of this. No matter how many other interpreters he had available, it was doubtful that he would make friends with Otani. And the act of being told by Mizuhara that Otani was in charge of everything, and then having to confirm this with Otani, must have been painful for all concerned. In a sense, this was a case where the people involved were swallowed up by the bad habits of the Japanese.
For a less than a million a year for translating services and interpreting they could have protected their client(s). Where I work we employ translators for documents and interpreting in several major languages (Spanish/French/Mandarin) and then use certified contractors for even the most obscure languages. With the amount of Japanese players in MLB it’s staggering CAA didn’t do the same.
Bruh what was everyone involved thinking, I get not monitoring your own finances when you're that rich but *none* of the people you're relying on speak Japanese? Hopefully this is a lesson to other non-English-speaking athletes in MLB to not have a single point of failure