After the Ohtani contract was announced, they said that the CBA requires the team to put the present value of the amount owed into an escrow account during the service year it is earned. The deferred money should have no impact at all on current cash flows.
May still be this way, but investment interest earned while in escrow, unless otherwise agreed upon, belonged to the recipient of the escrowed amount...which means in years 1-10, Ohtani would have gotten investment income on an average balance of say $340MM each year. I'd gladly take the maybe 5% or better on that each year and call it a day...
Hope my math assumptions are correct...and of course, this went into effect after Ohtani's deal went down, but still...