Connect with us

Hi, what are you looking for?

Stories

Shohei Ohtani: A Two-Way Star Facing Lofty Expectations

Credit-Jiji Press/AFP/Getty Images

Every year at the Winter Meetings, MLB general managers are scrambling for supremacy. Whether it’s pulling off a blockbuster trade or landing a big free agent, they are constantly looking for a way to gain the upper hand.

Christmas comes early for some. Others board their flight from Orlando wondering what could have been. This year, the stakes are even higher.

Shohei Ohtani is far from your typical free agent. This year’s most coveted prize has yet to play a single Major League Baseball game.

But he is an incredibly rare find — a two-way player who projects as both a pitcher and hitter at the Major League level.

Ohtani, 23, has made his mark in the NPB, Japan’s highest level of professional baseball. In 2016, he posted a 1.86 ERA with 174 strikeouts in 140 innings. He dominated with an arsenal that includes 89 mph sliders and a 94 mph forkball. At the plate, he hit .322 with 18 doubles, 22 home runs, and a .416 on-base percentage.

These numbers are reminiscent of someone who is way above their league’s level of competition. You know, the oversized Little Leaguer who’s father held him back a year so he barely makes the age cut-off.

Sure, professional baseball has seen players make an attempt to play both ways, but this kind of two-way success is unprecedented.

It is downright scary to think of Othani’s potential, given that the NPB is projected between Triple-A and the MLB in terms of competition. The hype surrounding Ohtani has reached mythical proportions.

He’s been called a superhero. He’s been compared to Babe Ruth. His combined Wins Above Replacement, between pitching and hitting, was roughly equivalent to Mike Trout’s best season.

But will the legend of Shohei Ohtani live up to the hype? At least one general manger thinks so. On a new podcast, Seattle Mariners’ GM Jerry Dipoto said the team is going all out to land Ohtani.

“I’ve seen players hit a ball 500 feet and players throw a ball 100 mph,” Dipoto said, “I’ve just never seen one player do both of those.”

History has shown that hype doesn’t always equal success. Expectations rarely become a reality. Numbers don’t always translate. In the past, pitchers who have come over from Japan have found varying degrees of success.

Masahiro Tanaka posted a 24-0 record with a 1.27 ERA in his final NPB season before signing a seven-year deal with the Yankees. He was an All-Star in his first big league season but struggled in 2017.

Hisashi Iwakuma signed with the Mariners after receiving Japan’s Cy Young equivalent as well as a Pacific League MVP. He has been satisfactory for Seattle through six seasons, finishing third in Cy Young voting in his best year.

Yu Darvish is one pitcher who has actually lived up to lofty expectations. In the NPB, Darvish went 5 straight seasons with a sub-2 ERA and at least 160 strikeouts. He took the strikeout title three times and was named Pacific League MVP twice.

In the MLB, he has been to 4 All-Star games, finished in the top-10 of Cy Young voting twice, and helped lead the Dodgers to the World Series this past season.

For Ohtani to follow suit would be a remarkable feat. Still, scouts would be disappointed if he didn’t show elite hitting ability on top of that. No matter how you spin it, Ohtani is facing massive expectations.

His move to the Majors is unprecedented. We have not seen a two-way player of his ability in a long time. Will he succeed or will he disappoint? Time will tell.

Either way, Ohtani’s arrival will make for a fun 2018 season.

Written By

Division III baseball alum (McDaniel College) and founder of Joker Mag. Being cut from my baseball team in 7th grade could have ended my athletic journey. Instead, I found hope in stories of undersized athletes who defied expectations. I ultimately played baseball through college, earning Honorable Mention on the All-Centennial Conference team in my senior season. This experience inspired me to create the world's first digital media platform dedicated to inspiring underdog stories. Since launching in November 2017, my work has been featured on platforms such as FOX Sports, SB Nation, and The Sporting News, reaching over 1.5 million readers world wide.

Related

Basketball

Before he became the "Greek Freak", he was an unknown prospect from the streets of Athens who faced "YMCA level" competition.

Stories

"I thought it was the end of the world…I thought it was the end of everything."

Stories

They laughed at him in high school. Now he's gearing up for football's biggest stage.

Football

While his superstar QB traveled a conventional path, David Girardi’s journey started in an unlikely place.