Rangers GM: We're 'years into' process of courting Ohtani

If the Texas Rangers are able to convince Japanese sensation Shohei Ohtani to come to Arlington, it'll be the culmination of years of work by a front office that has been enamored of the 23-year-old since he was in high school, general manager Jon Daniels said.

"It's a process that we are years into, not days or weeks or months," Daniels told T.R. Sullivan of MLB.com. "This is a player that has interested us at a high level for an extended period of time. This is not something that just came about."

With Ohtani set to be posted by the Nippon Ham Fighters later this week, his agent, Nez Balelo, recently sent a memo to all 30 MLB teams requesting that they provide, in both English and Japanese, an evaluation of the two-way star and an outline of how he fits into the organization, among other things. Daniels, who has made multiple trips to Japan to watch Ohtani over the years, expressed confidence that his team did a bang-up job responding to Balelo's multi-faceted inquiry.

"I think our guys did a really good job of presenting who we are as an organization and what we have to offer as a community," Daniels said.

The Rangers also have a slight edge financially, too, when it comes to signing Ohtani. Of course, in his decision to be posted this winter, Ohtani has made it clear that money is largely immaterial to him - were he to wait two more years, he wouldn't be subject to international bonus pool restrictions and would likely command a nine-figure deal - but the Rangers can nevertheless offer him the largest signing bonus ($3,535,000) of any MLB club. The only other teams that can give Ohtani a signing bonus in excess of $3 million are the New York Yankees ($3.5 million) and Minnesota Twins ($3.245 million).

"I feel very strongly about what we have to offer," Daniels said.

Once Ohtani is officially posted, teams will have 21 days to negotiate a contract with him, and the club that signs him will then pay a $20-million posting fee to Nippon Ham.