Oh, no, we were struggling before, during, and after Ohtani.
I don't miss Ohtani, to be honest. It was great to see him play when he was here, but there was no way we could have afforded him. And no way we could have guaranteed him a ring.
With his current contract, the Dodgers are on the hook for ~$68M per year, over 10 years, AFTER he has left. AFTER he's no longer generating any revenue, AFTER he's not pulling in any fans to the seats. They can afford it, but its still a big nut to the payroll.
I fully expect Ohtani to go back to Japan after his contract. Dunno what income tax is like in Japan, but it's probably better than California.
We didn't trade Ohtani in his last year because he was worth keeping just for the income. One thing I've learned about baseball, players are a dime a dozen, and it's a crapshoot whether they will work out or not, so it never bothered me that we didn't trade him away. We could have never got a decent enough haul for him anyway.
Ohtani brought, net, roughly. 300-500K extra visitors to the park each year. We were at 3M per year for the longest time, now we're down to about 2.5M+. And, yes, a lot of them were Japanese.
We're doing OK this year. Starting pitching is really good so far. The games have been close, we've lost a couple due to stupid things. Trout seems to be back in form and energy, hopefully that will last.
I always hope for a 50/50 year. I don't expect the playoffs, not this year. We're still in a transition year with the new TV shenanigans, the CBA looming at the end of the year (which is why Suzuki only got a 1 year contract, and why we did not make any long term deals).
Hopefully, next year, our kids will be seasoned vets with 3-4 years beneath their belts, some sense of stability of revenue going forward and with the new CBA to set expectations. Then, maybe, we can spend a little money to push us up and over and into the playoffs.
Fingers crossed!
Losses, however. 
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He's also playing open mic next wednesday at Hopmonk Tavern here in Sonoma. Singing and playing his guitar, including one of his original songs. He'll get a big crowd as Kyle Petty will also play that night, he's bringing 60 peeps with him.
