The sudden sale of the Los Angeles Lakers has raised questions about whether Mark Walter, the CEO of Guggenheim Partners currently under federal investigation, will shop the Los Angeles Dodgers next. It has also spurred interest in the “key man” clause in star two-way player Shohei Ohtani’s contract, which would allow him to opt out of his deal if Walter or president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman left the organization.But it appears Ohtani plans to stay put, sale or not.Even if Walter were to sell the Dodgers in the near future, Ohtani is unlikely to exercise his key-man provision and opt out of his contract, according to a league source with knowledge of Ohtani’s and his agents’ thinking granted anonymity because they are not authorized to speak about it publicly.While the key-man clause gave Ohtani flexibility when signing his 10-year, $700 million contract in December 2023, it is viewed by his camp as less of a concern in the present day, given that the Dodgers have proven to the superstar that baseball operations leadership and team leadership are a well-oiled machine. Most importantly, they have fulfilled the promise of re-investing the deferred money from Ohtani’s contract into enhancing the big-league roster. Ohtani’s management team harbors no concern about the Dodgers’ ability to function at the same level regardless of what happens with the Dodgers’ ownership moving forward, the source said.Notably, Dodgers president and CEO Stan Kasten told reporters on Wednesday that Walter’s sale of the Lakers is unrelated to the Dodgers, stating definitively that “there are no changes here.”It’s virtually unprecedented across American sports for a player’s contract to contain a key-man clause. That one is written into Ohtani’s contract speaks to his remarkable pull and the leverage his camp held in free agency.