Jack Harris covers the Dodgers for the Los Angeles Times. Before that, he covered the Angels, the Kings and almost everything else the L.A. sports scene had to offer. A Phoenix native, he originally interned at The Times before joining the staff in 2019. For more information visit https://www.latimes.com/people/jack-harris
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00:00 Spring training has started in the valley and everyone has been flooding to the Los Angeles Dodgers spring training to see the $750 million man, Shohei Otani, here to give us the insight of Shohei and of course the Los Angeles Dodgers is LA Times Dodgers beat writer Jack Harris, who also, Jack I get to embarrass you, mom said I get to do this.
00:25 This is Rachel Harris' son and Jack I wish I had the pictures but I remember this kid when he was just, actually when you were born and just a little kid running around and now look at you, mom's very proud of you being the beat writer there in LA Times and so let's talk about what is a LA Times beat writer for those that forget about newspapers and things like that.
00:47 Yeah, so basically I follow the team around every day, right now that means being out here in Arizona for six weeks during spring training, when the season starts it's following them everywhere on the road, they're starting in Korea this year so after I'm done here that's going to be the first place we go is across the Pacific so yeah it's a great job, you get to watch a lot of baseball, get to meet the players, it's a cool gig.
01:09 Is this something you wanted to do, I mean there's probably some people out there right now, college students, high school kids who are thinking about this because media has changed a lot but is this something you always wanted to do?
01:19 I always wanted to work in sports or be around sports and I went to ASU, the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and it was there that I kind of realized like oh well if I write about it I can cover a lot of games, I can go on the road and cover football games at different places in the Pac-12 or whatever so that's kind of how it started and yeah it's a great job.
01:36 Cool, alright let's talk here, when they got this announcement that this man was going to be the highest paid baseball player and was coming to your team, how'd that feel going wow I get to like have one on one with this guy?
01:50 Probably a lot of stress at first figuring out like what was the contract looking like and what was this going to be like, he is so different to even other big star players, there's so much attention on him globally from Japan, from the rest of Asia and obviously over here now he's won two MVPs since he's come over to Major League Baseball.
02:09 His level of celebrity is really unmatched maybe across sports but especially within the baseball world so it was kind of figuring out like okay how are we going to cover that, how do we get that point across to readers, how different is it going to make the experience playing on the Dodgers on a day to day basis, there's a lot more media around this year, there's a lot more fans even just watching them practice on the backfields at spring training so that part has been interesting to see it kind of evolve and see how he's settling into a new environment.
02:36 But yeah I mean so far you know he's coming back healthy from an elbow surgery he had last year, it looks like he's going to be ready for opening day and yeah he's playing really well too.
02:45 Yeah he has but he's been hitting the home run, he's you know struggled a couple times.
02:48 Let me ask you about other players with this, does this like kind of money affect the other players on the team where they're going to be like jealous and maybe not give their all and this is like for all baseball teams in a way.
02:59 Maybe in some ways, what was really unique about his deal is yeah it was a 700 million dollar deal, 680 million of that is not getting paid out to him for a decade.
03:07 What he did is he went to the Dodgers and he said hey obviously I'm going to be a pretty expensive player but I want to come and sign with you guys and I want to be able to go to a team that isn't going to have all their money tied up in me where they can still go out and get other star players.
03:20 So he said look defer most of my money for a decade from now, use some of that savings in the meantime to go out and get other players which the Dodgers did this offseason.
03:28 They also went and signed the best pitcher in Japan, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, they added some other star players around, they also have guys like Freddie Freeman and Mookie Betts.
03:35 So I think you know the potential of yeah you have a really high paid player in the clubhouse could cause some of that tension but with this situation the other players realize oh he tried to save us money so we could get better players and be a good team.
03:48 So it's been a good fit so far.
03:49 Ok and let's just say this and I'm going to get in trouble but I feel like he is the Taylor Swift of Major League Baseball because he's bringing global attention to the Dodgers and baseball because literally this morning he tweets out or X's out in Japan that he's married and everybody freaked out and now everybody's been creeped out.
04:11 Total surprise.
04:12 Total surprise.
04:13 I mean you being a reporter did you even have any idea or anything?
04:15 No and I mean one of the things that's really different is the intense privacy around his personal life.
04:20 You know part of that comes because the Japanese following and the Japanese media there's this intense interest on him that he's kind of tried to shy away from some of that so that's always been one of like the fun things to speculate about him is like oh what his dating life maybe looks like or who is he with.
04:35 So but this announcement yeah completely out of the blue nobody knew that he was even close to something like this.
04:40 So yeah in that aspect you know and the interest around him yes does make if any other player gets married like this not going to be very good news.
04:49 Today he shows his dog is what he does.
04:51 So that's the thing about it.
04:52 Okay so now let's let's get into the baseball season.
04:55 I know you have to of course give it to your Dodgers but what are you seeing for even our Diamondbacks the Cubs or anybody who do you think is going to be someone.
05:04 Yeah the D-backs are really impressive covering their first playoff series or their second playoff series last year where they played the Dodgers.
05:11 I don't think anybody was expecting them to win.
05:13 Definitely not me and and to not only beat the Dodgers but sweep them and then go on and make the World Series.
05:18 I mean there's a lot of momentum with that team.
05:20 You know they added some good pieces this year somebody like an Eduardo Rodriguez to kind of round out the pitching staff.
05:25 So I think that's another team that yet yet the Dodgers especially in this National League West division they're going to be the pre preeminent favorite.
05:32 That's the team that most people are going to be expecting to go to the World Series and win the World Series.
05:36 But a team like the D-backs is dangerous a team like the Cubs.
05:39 They just re-signed a former Dodger Cody Bellinger this week that makes them a little more dangerous.
05:44 So that's the thing with baseball is even when you go from the regular season to the playoffs you can have a really good regular season team.
05:51 The Dodgers have been really good in the regular season the last decade but they've only won one World Series.
05:56 You had other teams like the D-backs or the Rangers last year.
05:59 I mean you never know how things can shake out.
06:01 There you go.
06:02 All right ladies and gentlemen there goes information to get a hold of Jack Harris on X or of course you can pick up L.A.
06:09 Times or go to the website either one like that.
06:11 So you're very lucky I was going to ask you some things about mom.
06:14 She drinks that much wine but we'll get into that later.
06:15 later.
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