May 16, 2024

By Mark Whicker

Canadian Baseball Network

Like most players who leave Anaheim, Shohei Ohtani has thrived.

Thriving is not something that’s automatic after you’ve already won two MVP awards, because the threshold of thriving is already at 30,000 feet. Yet Ohtani, as a Dodger, is hitting .364 with a .676 slugging percentage, a 1.108 OPS, a 211 OPS-plus (compared with the league average), 12 home runs, 16 doubles, and 63 hits, as of Wednesday night. The averages are all career highs, and the batting average is 60 points better than his previous high, set last season in his farewell to Orange County.

So now the new debate: Why should Ohtani bother with pitching again? Because (A) he isn’t pitching this year, thanks to a second Tommy John surgery (B) he’s hitting better than he ever has, so (C) is the sum of A and B.

We don’t know what Ohtani thinks. The last time people predicted his behavior, he was supposedly on a glide path to Pearson International. And Ohtani has already drained us of all previous superlatives.

Yes, the Dodgers gave him that $700 million, 10-year deal because he is the best two-way player in the history of baseball. But all but $2 million a year is being deferred until a 10-year payment schedule begins in 2034. In the meantime the Dodgers will be hungrily investing that money and maximizing it. So, from their standpoint, Ohtani is playing for free. As long as they don’t absolutely have to have him on the mound, he shouldn’t be pressured to play in both halves of the innings.

But there’s a complication. The Dodgers also have a knack for breaking pitchers. Neither Dustin May nor Tony Gonsolin has pitched yet in 2024. May has had two elbow surgeries in the past 26 months. He might pitch later this season, but Gonsolin won’t. Kyle Hurt, one of the most impressive (and aptly-named) pitchers in the system, is on the 60-day injured list with shoulder inflammation. Bobby Miller, who broke through in 2023, has a supposedly milder case of the same thing.

Walker Buehler has returned after two rehab seasons. One of his starts was acceptable, the other less so. Tyler Glasnow has been one of the best pitchers in the National League but did not record 21 starts or 120 innings in a season until 2023 in Tampa Bay, when he was 29.

Obviously the decision rests with Ohtani. But here’s a few thought bubbles:

-Ohtani’s offensive spike isn’t necessarily coming because he isn’t pitching. He is part of one of baseball’s most topheavy lineup cards in several years. He is hitting second behind Mookie Betts and in front of Freddie Freeman and Will Smith. Betts is hitting .348 with a 1.007 OPS. Freeman is hitting .297 with 24 RBIs. Smith is hitting .315 with 29 RBIs and an .860 OPS. All of that is buttressed by Teoscar Hernandez (11 home runs, 36 RBIs) and Max Muncy (nine home runs, 28 RBIs). Ohtani has not been intentionally walked yet. Overall he is walking 11.1 percent of the time. Last year he walked 15.2 percent of the time. He’s hitting in baseball nirvana and would likely be doing so even if he was pitching.

-Whether Ohtani is a better pitcher or a hitter is still a legitimate debate. In 2022 he went 15-9 with a 2.33 ERA and was fourth in American League Cy Young voting. Overall he is 38-19 as a pitcher. That’s fairly remarkable considering that the Angels were 50 games below .500 in the seasons in which Ohtani pitched. From 2021 to 2023, he was 36-16. Because Ohtani generally worked on a 6-day schedule, the Angels had continuity problems – i.e., they didn’t have two other legitimate starting pitchers, let alone five. But the Dodgers are now looking at a six-man rotation of their own. Considering the disposability of their pitchers, they will need Ohtani’s arm when it becomes available. As a starter he has struck out 608 in 481 ⅔ innings with a 3.01 ERA and a 1.082 WHIP. There aren’t many of those guys walking around.

-Ohtani is who he is because of his unique quest. He signed a $700M deal because he was great at both things. It’s like Patrick Mahomes leading his team in sacks as well as passing his way into Super Bowls. Ohtani isn’t just another high-end slugger. He recognized what the conventional limits were, and, at an early age, decided to ignore them. There’s a theory that he felt obligated to pitch and hit for the Angels because they were so bedraggled, and that he might not feel the same way as he approaches 30 with his new, muscular team, but that would presuppose that we know his real intentions. One can theorize that Ohtani has at least imagined pitching and hitting in a World Series and showing the coming generation the possibilities.

Pitchers these days are expected to be practitioners, not athletes. They are walled off from other sports at an early age, and the universal DH deprives them of their last natural athletic motion.

Ohtani’s lesson is that there’s another way.

Clearly this is a First World Problem. Most clubs only wish they had to deal with dilemmas involving Shohei Ohtani. But the Dodgers have severely narrowed their definition of success. Winning a full-season World Series is the only thing they haven’t done in the Guggenheim Partners era. If they can come up with five healthy pitchers who can perform like Ohtani, that’s one thing. That, of course, is as improbable as the existence of the man himself.