The Dodgers and Shohei Ohtani agreed to massive a ten-year, $700MM deal over the weekend, but it was reported that there were significant deferrals. The deal still isn’t official but Fabian Ardaya of The Athletic relays some of the particulars today, most notably that $68MM of Ohtani’s $70MM annual salary will be deferred, leaving him making just $2MM per year in the short term. The deferred money is to be paid out without interest from 2034 to 2043. This will reportedly reduce the CBT hit of the contract to around $46MM per year.
This is fully within the current rules in the CBA, but I can only imagine the majority of owners will want something changing next time. This is definitely defying the intentions of the CBT, Ohtani's idea or not.
Not sure how other players would feel. Most probably indifferent. Some purist players probably not fans also. But Ohtani still gets his $700m, so the union as a whole probably supports it.
The Nationals have done deferred money deals for awhile now, but obviously nothing at this scale. Scherzer had half of his 210m deferred back in 2015, he's in the middle of getting it now. Last 2 years and this coming season, he takes in $58m a season in combined salary. The Nats got a ring from it so again....competitive balance issues.