Explaining the unprecedented deferrals in Ohtani's Dodgers deal - eviltoast
Shohei Ohtani’s stunning 10-year, $700 million contract made some wonder whether the Dodgers would be able to continue signing more stars to surround the two-time American League MVP on the field. Thanks to Ohtani’s offer to defer a majority of his salary, the Dodgers may be able to do precisely

Apparently Shohei came up with the idea to defer 680 million until his contract runs out.

Because the value of a dollar decreases over time, the contract has a present-day value of roughly $460 million for the purposes of the CBT, given that so much of it is deferred for more than a decade. Therefore, the Dodgers will have a CBT payroll hit of roughly $46 million per year for the next 10 years from Ohtani’s contract. Essentially, Ohtani offered to defer this much money in order for the Dodgers to have payroll flexibility to continue building a winning team.