This year, when the Dodgers were saving for Shohei, an unexpected event occurred. With the National League West in tow, they fled. They might not have the starting pitching to win the World Series, but as early as this weekend, they could win their 10th division title in 11 years.

Shohei Ohtani wasn’t necessary for the Dodgers to make the playoffs and won’t be necessary again the following year.

So when Ohtani becomes a free agent this winter, they make the most sense as his destination.They won’t place an undue responsibility on him, like the Angels and many other teams have done. The Dodgers can give him the knowledge he needs to get back on the mound and the environment he needs to stay there once he does. They can also provide him a task that will define his career because they have a long history of postseason failure that they hope to change.

The Dodgers are still interested in signing Ohtani this offseason, according to people familiar with the team’s thinking who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to discuss the situation. Ohtani has a ruptured ulnar collateral ligament and is unlikely to pitch next year.

The 29-year-old has been coy about his free-agent goals, but his agent revealed last week that returning to the two-way game is a top objective. The Dodgers can accomplish that, and they are well-positioned to do it without jeopardizing their hopes of making it to October.

All of this does not ensure that Ohtani will select the Dodgers. Given Ohtani’s individualistic attitude, one baseball source half-joked that this editorial might be “the kiss of death” for the Dodgers. Would a player who has made a career out of defying expectations sign with the team that everyone expects him to choose?

Whatever the case, Ohtani will have to think about what the Dodgers can offer him.

The Dodgers have a history of assisting pitchers recover from significant elbow surgeries, despite the fact that they have recently suffered a number of pitching ailments. They even target pitchers who may be overlooked because they are healing from operations.

A short time before or just after Walker Buehler, Caleb Ferguson, and Michael Grove had their elbow reconstructions, the Dodgers selected them in the draft. Even though they were aware Tommy Kahnle would spend the first year of his contract in rehabilitation, they still agreed to a two-year contract before the 2021 season. In his second season with them, Kahnle was added to the postseason roster.

The notion that Ohtani wouldn’t want to play on the East Coast because of the increased monitoring is absurd — he may be the most well-known person in Japan, which keeps tabs on every move he makes — but sticking in Southern California may have other advantages. There are almost no rainouts here, which is important for a pitcher who is returning from an injury. Ohtani will decide when to throw, not the weather.

This season has demonstrated that even Ohtani has limitations. He started all but two of the Angels’ games this month before suffering an oblique muscle issue. Ohtani’s call was this. However, the Angels were helpless to persuade him to take a day off. Ohtani wanted to succeed because his team had been on the verge of the playoffs for the duration of the season. He desired a performance in October.

Ohtani threw every six days or so prior to suffering an elbow injury, in addition to hitting every day. His workload had an impact. He never resembled the pitcher he was the previous year. He was moving less quickly. His order was incorrect. Other teams’ players claimed they could see he wasn’t feeling well.

Ohtani abruptly left a start in early August due to a finger spasm. He neglected to take his turn in the rotation two weeks later. In his subsequent start, he managed just four outs, and it was then that a torn UCL was discovered.

Again, Ohtani was the one who had pushed his body to this limit. However, a club that was never in danger of missing the playoffs could have a better chance of convincing him to take rest periods on occasion. Such a squad would be able to inform him, as the Angels were unable to, that his main priority should be getting ready for October.

The Dodgers and the Atlanta Braves would have been the only two teams to benefit from such a luxury this season.

After the Braves won the World Series in 2021, Freddie Freeman became a free agent, but the team was too cheap to re-sign him. They are not anticipated to be one of the organizations to make Ohtani a nine-figure offer this winter.

The Dodgers, on the other hand, can afford Ohtani now that their spending has been monitored for a year.

The Dodgers still managed to assemble a squad capable of winning their division by a margin of 15 games while exhibiting an uncharacteristic amount of financial discipline. They will never relinquish control of the regular season. No other baseball team, not even the Braves or the New York Yankees, has such a predictable road to the postseason year after year.

What’s best for Ohtani will also be best for the Dodgers as long as that holds true.