Sports writers everywhere love hyperbole. A bold claim inherently puts many more eyes onto your work than some lukewarm statement, even when the boring take is correct (and it often is).
I mean, be honest -- between two articles entitled “The Dodgers May Have Just Built the Greatest Lineup in History” and “Gosh, The Dodgers Just Improved Their Roster by Quite a Fair Bit With Their Most Recent Trade, Wouldn’t You Think?”, which would you read first?
In truth, hyperbole is a useful tool for all journalists, though it’s a little easier to use in the realm of sports rather than, say, politics, since the stakes are much lower. For instance, if I call the White Sox the worst-coached team in the league, it’s not going to do much more than ruffle the feathers of some Tony La Russa supporters, if any should exist. But if I call any country the worst-run country in the world, the consequences are… a little more dire.
All that being said, I would argue that no compliment could possibly be too hyperbolic when describing baseball’s newest superstar, Shohei Ohtani. He’s as good as you can possibly describe him, and then some.
Image From: ESPN
Ohtani, for those of you unaware, is a two-way player in MLB, the highest level of professional baseball in the world. That means he both bats against the best pitchers in the world, and pitches against the best batters in the world. The last significant player to do this in the MLB was Babe Ruth.
That was in 1919.
Somehow, “Shotime” isn’t just “fine” at doing both of those things, and he’s not even just “good” at it -- both of which would be incredible feats, by the way -- he’s truly elite in both phases of the game. There’s no real analog in major American sports that compares to the skill that this takes and the unbelievable rarity of it all. Hell, he’s so good they literally just invented a rule to account for him (more on that later).
In baseball, we often talk about “five-tool players” as being the cream of the crop in terms of all-around talent in a batter; they can hit for contact, can hit for power, are great baserunners, have strong throwing arms, and have good fielding skills. If you just look at the offensive phase of his game, Ohtani embodies all five phases, which in itself is rather rare.
However, on top of his freakish talent as a hitter, the 27-year-old from Japan is legitimately a Cy-Young-level pitcher in his own right. There’s no accepted “five-tool” adage for pitching, but Ohtani’s still pretty much got it all as a starting pitcher. He boasts elite velocity (his fastball frequently topped 100 MPH in 2021), good control and command, and absolutely filthy movement, especially on his splitter, which some consider to be the most unhittable pitch in baseball right now.
On top of all that, Ohtani has a solid arsenal of five pitch types at his disposal. Beyond his white-hot 4-seam fastball and his filthy splitter, he has a cutter which he uses less frequently than his other two fastballs but still poses an added challenge to hitters, plus two off-speed breaking balls in his slider and curveball.
Really, the only thing Ohtani is “missing” as a pitcher is some sort of changeup, but I wouldn’t be shocked if he somehow adds a perfect circle change to his selection this year.
Image From: The Athletic
There’s not even a term to describe how many tools Ohtani has. Do we count pitching as a single sixth tool? Do we need to invent a list of pitching tools? Do we count each pitch type one can throw as a tool? The questions can go on endlessly.
As you might be able to guess, this is a common problem when it comes to writing about Ohtani. Try as we might, his skill is often miles beyond words and lightyears ahead of advanced statistics. He’s simply doing things that have never been done before, and lots of metrics, most notably WAR, fall short of describing him correctly.
I don’t envy sabermetricians trying to tweak their WAR formula to account for Ohtani. I mean, do you just sum the value he adds as a batter with the value he adds as a pitcher? Then how do you quantify the value he adds by taking up only one roster spot to do the job of two players?
In lieu of further complicating arcane mathematical formulas to try to reduce this superhuman from Japan to a single set of numbers, let’s take a minute to appreciate what he was able to do last year and what makes him so special.
Ohtani’s 2021 season was, in a word, unparalleled. After dealing with injuries and inconsistency in his first couple years in the MLB, Ohtani put in crazy work in the preceding offseason, training his technique, his body, and his mind almost obsessively. He bulked up to 225 pounds, “began embracing data and technology to optimize his training and recovery” (per Ben Lindbergh, via The Ringer), and, most importantly, embraced wanting to “have fun” rather than letting expectations and thoughts of past injuries overwhelm him.
Image From: USA Today via Reuters
He came out firing on all cylinders last Spring Training, throwing five strikeouts in his first start and launching home runs as long as 468 feet. Watch the coach with his hands over his head as Shohei rounds first base in that video. That was pretty much all baseball fans as his momentum from March carried over into April, then May, June, and July, and… you probably get the picture.
Ohtani dealt filth from the pitcher’s mound and blasted moonshots from the batter’s box consistently all year en route to a historic unanimous AL MVP victory. He ended the year with the best ERA for an Angels pitcher since 2011 and second-most home runs in a season in franchise history. He finished runner-up in the MLB’s home run leaderboard, made the All-MLB First Team as a DH and also made the All-MLB Second Team as a starting pitcher.
His participation in the Home Run Derby, as well as him being the AL’s starting pitcher and leadoff hitter for the All-Star Game was a historic moment in baseball. Apart from his dazzling talent, Ohtani’s effortless charm and childlike love for the game was infectious as he easily won over the hearts of baseball fans everywhere on the biggest stage and firmly launched himself into superstardom.
He eventually won the Edgar Martinez Award as well as a Silver Slugger for his batting efforts, to go along with his MVP trophy, and was lauded by sporting media outlets across the country as having the best single season in American sports (and maybe in sports history). Reportedly, he was even offered the People’s Honour Award by the Japanese Prime Minister, but he humbly declined, saying it was “too early” for that.
His 20-minute highlight reel on the MLB’s YouTube channel is a fascinating watch. Still, it doesn’t even come close to describing how outstanding Ohtani’s season was.
Ohtani can throw strikeouts and hit dingers with the best of them, but he really is much more of a complete and polished player than that. For instance, he led the league in triples last season with eight, and also swiped 26 stolen bases, showing his elite speed. He slashed .257/.372/.592 for the year, led the league in Baseball-Reference’s WAR metric (despite its shortcomings), and came fourth in slugging %, fifth in OPS, fifth in walks drawn (including a 20 intentional walks, which was second only to Juan Soto), and second in XBH.
I know that’s a lot of numbers and acronyms, but what all of that is basically saying is that he’s wicked fast and is a smart baserunner, can hit balls both for contact and for power consistently, and shows great discipline at the plate. As a pure batter, he’s got pretty much no weak areas as you can find him high up in the leaderboard in almost any metric you want.
Image From: Robert Beck/MLB Photos via Getty Images
The only possible nitpick in Ohtani’s offensive game is that he swings and misses a bit too much. Per BaseballSavant, the only major statistics he isn’t at least in the 90th percentile in are K%, Whiff%, and Chase Rate.
There are a couple counterpoints to this, though. For one, you could argue that this aggressive approach to batting is a risk worth taking as it pays off far more often than not (as apparent by his still-elite slug % and OPS). Also, an argument could be made that a batter striking out is actually one of the less harmful ways to go out. I know that sounds like sacrilege to a lot of baseball purists, but it makes some sense when you think about it; striking out really only affects the batter, but unless you’re hitting a sac bunt or sac fly, putting the ball into play inherently also poses risk to any baserunners that may be present, which thus will always yield in more expected outs than just a strikeout.
His raw batting numbers could easily go up this season with the addition of a new rule in the league, which has already been lovingly dubbed “The Ohtani Rule”. It states that pitchers who have finished their work on the mound can still stay in the game as the team’s designated hitter, and with the league also introducing a universal DH, Ohtani should be able to see way more at-bats this year than last.
When you think about it, isn’t this just nuts? The man is so good at his sport and is such an outlier that the league had to close a loophole that didn’t really make sense in the first place in order to account for him and let him play his game to its fullest. But the fact that the rule needed to be written only now, nearly 150 years after the inception of the sport, shows how no one in history has even come close to doing what Ohtani is doing. People didn’t even knew this was an issue that needed fixing until now!
And perhaps most importantly, for all you sports fans that abide by a strict “that boy nice” philosophy of film study-- his swing just looks pretty. He’s got such clean mechanics that it’s always a joy to watch him go to work, and when he does clobber a home run it almost makes you feel giddy. Here is an ultra-slow-motion video of his swing for your viewing pleasure:
As a pitcher, it would appear that there’s a little more room for improvement. Ohtani still dealt at a high level for all of last season, but the numbers show he’s not quite as elite a pitcher as he is a batter -- an unreasonably high bar, sure, but I’ve got to try to make some criticism of the guy, right?
For the season, Shohei went 9-2 as a starter averaging 5.2 IP/start with a 3.18 ERA and a 1.09 WHIP. Don’t get me wrong, all of this is really good! But to truly ascend to a slam-dunk Cy-Young-caliber pitcher -- think prime deGrom, Verlander, Scherzer, or Kershaw -- Ohtani could still benefit from some more consistency in his game.
Upping his spin rate could go a long way in doing that. Ohtani’s spin rate on his 4-seam fastball, for instance, is actually below league average (which is bonkers, given his incredible velocity), and in general the RPM of his various pitches pale in comparison to that of, say, 2021 NL Cy Young winner Corbin Burnes. This isn’t strictly necessary and often depends on the quality of the pitching coaching staff, but it could still add another layer to his game and make things even trickier for opposing batters.
However, upon closer inspection his 2021 pitching season might look even better than the numbers suggest. Most notably, if you factor out a single disastrous start in Yankee Stadium, where Ohtani allowed 7 earned runs and couldn’t make it out of the first inning, his ERA drops from a respectable 3.18 to a paltry 2.71, which would have been fifth in the entire league and best in the AL.
Furthermore, spin rate notwithstanding, the movement that Shohei gets on his breaking balls is breathtaking. Compare his horizontal/vertical movement chart with that of Corbin Burnes, who is maybe the new standard-setter for pitching movement, and he actually fares pretty well:
Charts per BaseballSavant
From the chart it looks like Ohtani actually gets more horizontal movement on his slider (yellow dots) than Burnes does, and much more vertical drop on his curveball (cyan dots) than Burnes albeit with much less consistency. He also seems to get more drop on his cut fastball (maroon dots) but given that vertical movement isn’t a traditional characteristic of a cutter this may just be due to different stylistic choices between the two pitchers.
One area where Ohtani’s pitching stuff lacks when compared to someone like Burnes is forced swings-and-misses. While his swing-and-miss % was 28.9% last season, well above the league average of 24.9%, Burnes’ was 36.5% and last year’s AL Cy Young winner Robbie Ray had a mark of 32.3%. This could be due to Ohtani’s lower spin rate or any number of other factors, but upping this could go a long way to improving his consistency and advanced metrics.
While Ohtani is a different type of pitcher than Burnes, his percentile rankings on BaseballSavant aren’t quite as eye-popping, and aren’t all red-hot like his batting percentile rankings:
Charts per BaseballSavant
For what it’s worth, Ohtani noted during the offseason that he had “obvious” room for improvement -- one of the best humble flexes I’ve ever seen -- and came out dealing on Opening Day while also being the Angels’ leadoff hitter, of course being the first player in MLB history to do such a thing. Ohtani went 4.2 innings with nine strikeouts and only one ER, four hits, and one walk on 80 pitches in an impressive outing.
In classic Los Angeles Angels fashion, the team lost anyway, but that’s besides the point. Ohtani looks hungry as a pitcher, and this should be scary for the league -- perhaps he’s already addressed some of the (minor) issues in that facet of his game and can ascend even higher.
Seriously, if he wins the MVP, a Silver Slugger, and the Cy Young this year, how can you possibly say that there’s ever been a better player in the history of the sport?
To go along with his indomitable talent, Shohei Ohtani is also a fantastic global ambassador for the sport. He’s cheerful and fun-loving while still always remaining grounded and humble. His good looks don’t hurt his case for being the game’s literal poster boy, either.
He’s kind of like what Giannis Antetokounmpo is for the NBA -- he’s just got so much personality and is so different from typical American sports stars that it’s hard to not like him. He’s a breath of fresh air for baseball in general.
He’s started off this season with a miniature hitting slump, but he doesn’t seem to let it get to his head. Here’s him jokingly performing CPR on his bat the other day in the midst of this slump and the team’s 2-3 start to the season:
Ohtani also lives, breathes, eats, and sleeps baseball, and it shows. You’ll be hard-pressed to find many athletes who are more driven in their preparation and more calm and composed in interviews and press conferences. Even in a video with GQ where he participated in their “10 Essentials” series, literally all of Ohtani’s items he showcased were baseball-related in some way, whether it be gear he uses on the field or some sort of device for recovery.
As someone who was starting to fall out of love with baseball in recent years, Ohtani has brought me all the way back with his exciting skillset, historic achievements, and for just being easy to root for. And I know I’m not alone in that regard; he is simply the best thing to happen to the game of baseball in a very long time.
Shohei Ohtani is a joy to write about and discuss because, unlike in nearly every other realm, hyperbole simply doesn’t exist for him. So go crazy, do what you want; call him the best hitter in the league, call him the most talented player ever, call him the most important player in baseball history, I don’t care.
The odds are in your favor that if you’re not already right, you will be soon. ■
I mean, be honest -- between two articles entitled “The Dodgers May Have Just Built the Greatest Lineup in History” and “Gosh, The Dodgers Just Improved Their Roster by Quite a Fair Bit With Their Most Recent Trade, Wouldn’t You Think?”, which would you read first?
In truth, hyperbole is a useful tool for all journalists, though it’s a little easier to use in the realm of sports rather than, say, politics, since the stakes are much lower. For instance, if I call the White Sox the worst-coached team in the league, it’s not going to do much more than ruffle the feathers of some Tony La Russa supporters, if any should exist. But if I call any country the worst-run country in the world, the consequences are… a little more dire.
All that being said, I would argue that no compliment could possibly be too hyperbolic when describing baseball’s newest superstar, Shohei Ohtani. He’s as good as you can possibly describe him, and then some.
Image From: ESPN
Ohtani, for those of you unaware, is a two-way player in MLB, the highest level of professional baseball in the world. That means he both bats against the best pitchers in the world, and pitches against the best batters in the world. The last significant player to do this in the MLB was Babe Ruth.
That was in 1919.
Somehow, “Shotime” isn’t just “fine” at doing both of those things, and he’s not even just “good” at it -- both of which would be incredible feats, by the way -- he’s truly elite in both phases of the game. There’s no real analog in major American sports that compares to the skill that this takes and the unbelievable rarity of it all. Hell, he’s so good they literally just invented a rule to account for him (more on that later).
In baseball, we often talk about “five-tool players” as being the cream of the crop in terms of all-around talent in a batter; they can hit for contact, can hit for power, are great baserunners, have strong throwing arms, and have good fielding skills. If you just look at the offensive phase of his game, Ohtani embodies all five phases, which in itself is rather rare.
However, on top of his freakish talent as a hitter, the 27-year-old from Japan is legitimately a Cy-Young-level pitcher in his own right. There’s no accepted “five-tool” adage for pitching, but Ohtani’s still pretty much got it all as a starting pitcher. He boasts elite velocity (his fastball frequently topped 100 MPH in 2021), good control and command, and absolutely filthy movement, especially on his splitter, which some consider to be the most unhittable pitch in baseball right now.
On top of all that, Ohtani has a solid arsenal of five pitch types at his disposal. Beyond his white-hot 4-seam fastball and his filthy splitter, he has a cutter which he uses less frequently than his other two fastballs but still poses an added challenge to hitters, plus two off-speed breaking balls in his slider and curveball.
Really, the only thing Ohtani is “missing” as a pitcher is some sort of changeup, but I wouldn’t be shocked if he somehow adds a perfect circle change to his selection this year.
Image From: The Athletic
There’s not even a term to describe how many tools Ohtani has. Do we count pitching as a single sixth tool? Do we need to invent a list of pitching tools? Do we count each pitch type one can throw as a tool? The questions can go on endlessly.
As you might be able to guess, this is a common problem when it comes to writing about Ohtani. Try as we might, his skill is often miles beyond words and lightyears ahead of advanced statistics. He’s simply doing things that have never been done before, and lots of metrics, most notably WAR, fall short of describing him correctly.
I don’t envy sabermetricians trying to tweak their WAR formula to account for Ohtani. I mean, do you just sum the value he adds as a batter with the value he adds as a pitcher? Then how do you quantify the value he adds by taking up only one roster spot to do the job of two players?
In lieu of further complicating arcane mathematical formulas to try to reduce this superhuman from Japan to a single set of numbers, let’s take a minute to appreciate what he was able to do last year and what makes him so special.
Ohtani’s 2021 season was, in a word, unparalleled. After dealing with injuries and inconsistency in his first couple years in the MLB, Ohtani put in crazy work in the preceding offseason, training his technique, his body, and his mind almost obsessively. He bulked up to 225 pounds, “began embracing data and technology to optimize his training and recovery” (per Ben Lindbergh, via The Ringer), and, most importantly, embraced wanting to “have fun” rather than letting expectations and thoughts of past injuries overwhelm him.
Image From: USA Today via Reuters
He came out firing on all cylinders last Spring Training, throwing five strikeouts in his first start and launching home runs as long as 468 feet. Watch the coach with his hands over his head as Shohei rounds first base in that video. That was pretty much all baseball fans as his momentum from March carried over into April, then May, June, and July, and… you probably get the picture.
Ohtani dealt filth from the pitcher’s mound and blasted moonshots from the batter’s box consistently all year en route to a historic unanimous AL MVP victory. He ended the year with the best ERA for an Angels pitcher since 2011 and second-most home runs in a season in franchise history. He finished runner-up in the MLB’s home run leaderboard, made the All-MLB First Team as a DH and also made the All-MLB Second Team as a starting pitcher.
His participation in the Home Run Derby, as well as him being the AL’s starting pitcher and leadoff hitter for the All-Star Game was a historic moment in baseball. Apart from his dazzling talent, Ohtani’s effortless charm and childlike love for the game was infectious as he easily won over the hearts of baseball fans everywhere on the biggest stage and firmly launched himself into superstardom.
He eventually won the Edgar Martinez Award as well as a Silver Slugger for his batting efforts, to go along with his MVP trophy, and was lauded by sporting media outlets across the country as having the best single season in American sports (and maybe in sports history). Reportedly, he was even offered the People’s Honour Award by the Japanese Prime Minister, but he humbly declined, saying it was “too early” for that.
His 20-minute highlight reel on the MLB’s YouTube channel is a fascinating watch. Still, it doesn’t even come close to describing how outstanding Ohtani’s season was.
Ohtani can throw strikeouts and hit dingers with the best of them, but he really is much more of a complete and polished player than that. For instance, he led the league in triples last season with eight, and also swiped 26 stolen bases, showing his elite speed. He slashed .257/.372/.592 for the year, led the league in Baseball-Reference’s WAR metric (despite its shortcomings), and came fourth in slugging %, fifth in OPS, fifth in walks drawn (including a 20 intentional walks, which was second only to Juan Soto), and second in XBH.
I know that’s a lot of numbers and acronyms, but what all of that is basically saying is that he’s wicked fast and is a smart baserunner, can hit balls both for contact and for power consistently, and shows great discipline at the plate. As a pure batter, he’s got pretty much no weak areas as you can find him high up in the leaderboard in almost any metric you want.
Image From: Robert Beck/MLB Photos via Getty Images
The only possible nitpick in Ohtani’s offensive game is that he swings and misses a bit too much. Per BaseballSavant, the only major statistics he isn’t at least in the 90th percentile in are K%, Whiff%, and Chase Rate.
There are a couple counterpoints to this, though. For one, you could argue that this aggressive approach to batting is a risk worth taking as it pays off far more often than not (as apparent by his still-elite slug % and OPS). Also, an argument could be made that a batter striking out is actually one of the less harmful ways to go out. I know that sounds like sacrilege to a lot of baseball purists, but it makes some sense when you think about it; striking out really only affects the batter, but unless you’re hitting a sac bunt or sac fly, putting the ball into play inherently also poses risk to any baserunners that may be present, which thus will always yield in more expected outs than just a strikeout.
His raw batting numbers could easily go up this season with the addition of a new rule in the league, which has already been lovingly dubbed “The Ohtani Rule”. It states that pitchers who have finished their work on the mound can still stay in the game as the team’s designated hitter, and with the league also introducing a universal DH, Ohtani should be able to see way more at-bats this year than last.
When you think about it, isn’t this just nuts? The man is so good at his sport and is such an outlier that the league had to close a loophole that didn’t really make sense in the first place in order to account for him and let him play his game to its fullest. But the fact that the rule needed to be written only now, nearly 150 years after the inception of the sport, shows how no one in history has even come close to doing what Ohtani is doing. People didn’t even knew this was an issue that needed fixing until now!
And perhaps most importantly, for all you sports fans that abide by a strict “that boy nice” philosophy of film study-- his swing just looks pretty. He’s got such clean mechanics that it’s always a joy to watch him go to work, and when he does clobber a home run it almost makes you feel giddy. Here is an ultra-slow-motion video of his swing for your viewing pleasure:
As a pitcher, it would appear that there’s a little more room for improvement. Ohtani still dealt at a high level for all of last season, but the numbers show he’s not quite as elite a pitcher as he is a batter -- an unreasonably high bar, sure, but I’ve got to try to make some criticism of the guy, right?
For the season, Shohei went 9-2 as a starter averaging 5.2 IP/start with a 3.18 ERA and a 1.09 WHIP. Don’t get me wrong, all of this is really good! But to truly ascend to a slam-dunk Cy-Young-caliber pitcher -- think prime deGrom, Verlander, Scherzer, or Kershaw -- Ohtani could still benefit from some more consistency in his game.
Upping his spin rate could go a long way in doing that. Ohtani’s spin rate on his 4-seam fastball, for instance, is actually below league average (which is bonkers, given his incredible velocity), and in general the RPM of his various pitches pale in comparison to that of, say, 2021 NL Cy Young winner Corbin Burnes. This isn’t strictly necessary and often depends on the quality of the pitching coaching staff, but it could still add another layer to his game and make things even trickier for opposing batters.
However, upon closer inspection his 2021 pitching season might look even better than the numbers suggest. Most notably, if you factor out a single disastrous start in Yankee Stadium, where Ohtani allowed 7 earned runs and couldn’t make it out of the first inning, his ERA drops from a respectable 3.18 to a paltry 2.71, which would have been fifth in the entire league and best in the AL.
Furthermore, spin rate notwithstanding, the movement that Shohei gets on his breaking balls is breathtaking. Compare his horizontal/vertical movement chart with that of Corbin Burnes, who is maybe the new standard-setter for pitching movement, and he actually fares pretty well:
Charts per BaseballSavant
From the chart it looks like Ohtani actually gets more horizontal movement on his slider (yellow dots) than Burnes does, and much more vertical drop on his curveball (cyan dots) than Burnes albeit with much less consistency. He also seems to get more drop on his cut fastball (maroon dots) but given that vertical movement isn’t a traditional characteristic of a cutter this may just be due to different stylistic choices between the two pitchers.
One area where Ohtani’s pitching stuff lacks when compared to someone like Burnes is forced swings-and-misses. While his swing-and-miss % was 28.9% last season, well above the league average of 24.9%, Burnes’ was 36.5% and last year’s AL Cy Young winner Robbie Ray had a mark of 32.3%. This could be due to Ohtani’s lower spin rate or any number of other factors, but upping this could go a long way to improving his consistency and advanced metrics.
While Ohtani is a different type of pitcher than Burnes, his percentile rankings on BaseballSavant aren’t quite as eye-popping, and aren’t all red-hot like his batting percentile rankings:
Charts per BaseballSavant
For what it’s worth, Ohtani noted during the offseason that he had “obvious” room for improvement -- one of the best humble flexes I’ve ever seen -- and came out dealing on Opening Day while also being the Angels’ leadoff hitter, of course being the first player in MLB history to do such a thing. Ohtani went 4.2 innings with nine strikeouts and only one ER, four hits, and one walk on 80 pitches in an impressive outing.
In classic Los Angeles Angels fashion, the team lost anyway, but that’s besides the point. Ohtani looks hungry as a pitcher, and this should be scary for the league -- perhaps he’s already addressed some of the (minor) issues in that facet of his game and can ascend even higher.
Seriously, if he wins the MVP, a Silver Slugger, and the Cy Young this year, how can you possibly say that there’s ever been a better player in the history of the sport?
To go along with his indomitable talent, Shohei Ohtani is also a fantastic global ambassador for the sport. He’s cheerful and fun-loving while still always remaining grounded and humble. His good looks don’t hurt his case for being the game’s literal poster boy, either.
He’s kind of like what Giannis Antetokounmpo is for the NBA -- he’s just got so much personality and is so different from typical American sports stars that it’s hard to not like him. He’s a breath of fresh air for baseball in general.
He’s started off this season with a miniature hitting slump, but he doesn’t seem to let it get to his head. Here’s him jokingly performing CPR on his bat the other day in the midst of this slump and the team’s 2-3 start to the season:
bats, they are sick 🤣 pic.twitter.com/ECThmEVjAT
— Cut4 (@Cut4) April 12, 2022
Ohtani also lives, breathes, eats, and sleeps baseball, and it shows. You’ll be hard-pressed to find many athletes who are more driven in their preparation and more calm and composed in interviews and press conferences. Even in a video with GQ where he participated in their “10 Essentials” series, literally all of Ohtani’s items he showcased were baseball-related in some way, whether it be gear he uses on the field or some sort of device for recovery.
As someone who was starting to fall out of love with baseball in recent years, Ohtani has brought me all the way back with his exciting skillset, historic achievements, and for just being easy to root for. And I know I’m not alone in that regard; he is simply the best thing to happen to the game of baseball in a very long time.
Shohei Ohtani is a joy to write about and discuss because, unlike in nearly every other realm, hyperbole simply doesn’t exist for him. So go crazy, do what you want; call him the best hitter in the league, call him the most talented player ever, call him the most important player in baseball history, I don’t care.
The odds are in your favor that if you’re not already right, you will be soon. ■
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