Dodgers fire back at Cubs manager Craig Counsell over criticism of ‘bizarre’ Shohei Ohtani rule

One of essentially the most sudden storylines within the early portion of the 2026 Major League Baseball season has been the complaints from opposing managers in regards to the Los Angeles Dodgers famous person Shohei Ohtani.

Ohtani, you may bear in mind, began his profession with the Los Angeles Angels in 2018. While with the Angels, he was a two-way participant who each pitched and hit. The league, trying to make sure that the extra worth of a two-way participant, significantly essentially the most marketable and proficient two-way participant, can be correctly acknowledged, enacted a rule making certain that any two-way participant would have the ability to keep within the sport as a delegated hitter after exiting as a pitcher.

Essentially, treating that participant as two separate entities. To use Ohtani for example, Ohtani the hitter, and Ohtani the pitcher. That rule was put in place in 2019 to create a template for him or another two-way gamers that emerge.

Then, in 2022, when MLB moved to 26 playersand enacted roster restrictions, 13 pitchers and 13 hitters, with a view to preserve the significance of beginning pitching, they arrange one other rule that meant designated two-way gamers who met sure standards wouldn’t rely in opposition to the utmost quantity of pitchers allowed on a roster. This, once more, was enacted when Ohtani was with the Angels.

For some motive, Chicago Cubs manager Craig Counsell determined to criticize these years-old guidelines in April 2026. And in a brand new interview, one of the Dodgers’ prime executives addressed Counsell’s feedback and did not appear too happy with them.

Dodgers level out that each one groups had been contacted about ‘Ohtani Rule’

In a brand new interview with AM 570, the Dodgers’ residence radio station in LA, the staff’s president of Baseball Operations was requested about Counsell’s feedback by broadcaster David Vassegh. Specifically, why he thought Counsell introduced it up now, years into this course of. And in response, he introduced up that the rule was mentioned with enter from the groups themselves, making the criticism much more weird.

“I don’t know,” Friedman stated. “It felt very random and strange to me that he felt the need to bring it up. And 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’s to do everything we can for Shohei Ohtani to be in and stay in games.'”

“So that’s the part of him being able to stay in the game when he pitches. When he comes off the mound, the old rule would have been, then the hitter has to come out as well. But 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 and best for the fans and everything else.”

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Los Angeles Dodgers designated hitter Shohei Ohtani celebrates with teammates after hitting a house run within the eighth inning in opposition to the Los Angeles Angels at Angel Stadium. (Kirby Lee/Imagn Images)

If the groups had been contacted about this rule, and the league carried out it after contemplating their suggestions, why the complaining now? That’s unclear, however one of the massive issues appears to be a whole misunderstanding of what the rule really is and the advantage the Dodgers have. Jim Bowden, for instance, a former normal manager himself and present baseball commentator, apparently acquired it utterly mistaken.

“So that was when he was with the Angels, and as far as the 13 pitcher rule, again, it is more that we have 13 pitchers…I had to clarify this with Jim Bowden, who said that we have nine relievers…We don’t have nine relievers, we have eight relievers just like everyone else, we have five starters, like everyone else,” Friedman defined. “It’s simply when Shohei is in a position and the remaining is smart, Shohei pitches too. It will not be that we’re carrying an additional aid relative to others.

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“So it is definitely a bonus nevertheless it ought to be a bonus. What Shohei does and what he’s succesful of is so distinctive, it ought to be rewarded, it ought to be celebrated. And everybody knew the Shohei guidelines and had an equal alternative to signal him two years in the past. So I’m unsure the place the Cubs had been in that course of, or what Counsell’s ideas had been on it then, however that looks as if extra of the related time to voice it than now.”

Los Angeles Dodgers’ Shohei Ohtani celebrates his home run against the Toronto Blue Jays during the seventh inning in Game 3 of the World Series in Los Angeles on Oct. 27, 2025. (Brynn Anderson/AP)

This is what made Counsell’s comments, and the ensuing fan outrage, so odd. Ohtani’s unique value is that he can hit and pitch, at a high level. That advantage would exist regardless of roster limits or restrictions. They don’t get to carry an “additional” highlighter because of Ohtani. They get a benefit when he makes his once-a-week scheduled start. And again, this advantage would exist regardless, because no other team has a starter who can have a 50/50 season and put up a 0.38 ERA in the first month of the year. Which is why he got $700 million and fully deserved it. The Cubs have plenty of money; they could have signed him and taken advantage of that rule. Or find a two-way player of their own to develop. They didn’t, and now they’re mad about it, years after the rule was enacted and benefited the Angels. Weird.