Shohei Ohtani pitching for the Dodgers during a win over the Padres last Wednesday at San Diego. (Photo by Orlando Ramirez/Getty Images)
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I read a recent random list online of the top 20 all-time Major League Baseball players and my immediate reaction was why Shohei Ohtani wasn’t on the list.
Ohtani’s only in his ninth season since coming over from Japan in 2018 and his career is nowhere near complete. But he’s already No. 1.
Listen to comments made by Dodgers’ manager Dave Roberts last Wednesday night in San Diego after Ohtani’s latest start, five innings of shutout ball in a 4-0 win over the Padres:
“I’m super conscious watching him that it’s something we’ve never seen before and may never see again. Particularly because he’s Japanese and the fanfare that comes with everything. Bake in the expectations. Yeah, I don’t think we’ll ever again see anything like this. I’m very confident in that.”
As his manager, Roberts is certainly biased. But I’m not. I’ve always been very partial to Barry Bonds, Tony Gwynn, Mickey Mantle and Hank Aaron. Bonds, Gwynn and Mantle were the three best players I’ve ever seen – until Ohtani.
What he’s done as a pitcher and designated hitter has never even been approached with apologies to Babe Ruth, Willie Mays, Bonds and Aaron, all epic players taking up the top four spots on that list.
Ruth is the only other one to pitch and hit early in his career on a much more limited basis than Ohtani. Mays did everything with aplomb. Bonds is the all-time leader with 762 career homers and 73 during the 2001 regular season. He also stole 514 bases. Aaron is the only player in history with 700 homers, 3,000 base hits, 2,000 RBIs and 2,000 runs scored.
As of Memorial Day, Ohtani had an .875 OPS in 48 games as a hitter and a 4-2 record and 0.73 ERA as a pitcher. He’s struck out more batters as a pitcher (54) than he’s whiffed as a hitter (52). That’s never been done before. It’s unprecedented.
In 2024, he became the first player ever to go 50-50 with 54 homers and 59 stolen bases in the same season. He’s already won four league MVPs, including the last three in a row. Barring any injuries this season, he’s pretty much guaranteed to win the National League MVP again and add his first Cy Young Award. Back in 2014, the recently-retired Dodger ace Clayton Kershaw was the last to win both the MVP and Cy Young in the same season, but he did it as a pitcher. Bonds won seven MVPs for his hitting.
In fact, the Baseball Writers’ Association of America might as well retire the NL MVP award as long as Ohtani is hitting and pitching. He really has no challenger.
“I just see him winning the Cy Young Award this season,” Roberts said. “He’s going to have a one-something ERA. He’s going to have enough innings because we’re going to make sure he has enough innings. He strikes out guys. All the underlying stuff just lines up.”
Not to worry. There are no minimum-inning qualifications for the Cy Young Award or any other particular qualifications. It’s up to each Cy Young Award voter: the two BBWAA writers in each NL city.
Right now, Ohtani’s top Cy Young competitor in the NL probably is last year’s winner, Pittsburgh’s Paul Skenes, who is 6-4 with a 3.00 ERA and 65 strikeouts in 11 starts. Jacob Misorowski – 5-2, with a 1.83, and 100 strikeouts – is also having a spectacular season for the Brewers.
There are qualifications for the ERA title: at least 162 innings pitched, one inning for each of his team’s 162 games. Ohtani right now has thrown 49 innings, allowing four earned runs, and the Dodgers have played 55 games.
The current qualified leader in the NL is the Phillies’ Christopher Sanchez with a 1.62 ERA in his 11 starts and 72 1/3 innings. That’s almost a full run higher than Ohtani.
But no one else, of course, has done this: Last Wednesday night at Petco Park, Ohtani led off with a first-pitch home run against San Diego starter Randy Vasquez. It was the second time in his career in a game he started as a pitcher he opened with a first-pitch homer.
The other was Game 4 of the NL Championship Series last year against the Brewers. That was Ohtani’s epic performance when he hit three homers in his first three at bats and struck out 10 pitching into the seventh inning allowing two hits and no runs as the Dodgers clinched the pennant.
Again, Ohtani traveled where no player has ever gone in the postseason.
“It’s never been done,” Robert said. “Only he could do it again.”
As a pitcher, he had a 33 2/3-inning scoreless streak over the course of the past two seasons snapped on April 15. As a hitter, a 53-game streak of reaching base safely ended on April 22. He’s had his ups and downs as a hitter since then, forcing Roberts to bench him as a batter recently on days he pitches.
His batting average had sunk as low as .233 on May 11. But since then, he’s raised it to .272 through Sunday. He hit .372 with a 1.142 OPS in 12 games since then.
Roberts said he’ll decide from start-to-start whether to rest Ohtani as a hitter. It’s a great problem to have.
This would be the first full season for Ohtani to pitch since 2022 when he was with the Angels. Since then, he had his second elbow surgery and missed the entire 2024 season rehabbing that elbow, his first with the Dodgers after signing a 10-year, $700 million free-agent contract. Ohtani won the MVP solely as DH that season. He’s already surpassed the 47 regular season innings he tossed in 2025. Getting to 162 innings is a big ask, but not impossible.
“For Shohei you’re just constantly trying to manage his workload, his health, the surgeries, all that stuff,” Roberts said. “That’s part of being a two-way player.”
That’s the magic of managing Shohei Ohtani.
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