Steve Webb
LOS ANGELES, CA — Is the unicorn not long for this world? There are some around baseball who are advocating for it.
On today’s MLB Now show on the MLB Network, noted stathead Brian Kenny went through the case AGAINST bringing back Shohei Ohtani as a pitcher next year. His reasons are essentially two-fold. First, when he is concentrating only on being a DH as he is this year, Ohtani is off to a historic start of his season. In fact, if the numbers hold, Ohtani would have the best season as a DH in MLB history. His OPS+ of 220 far outpaces the current record holder, Edgar Martinez of the Mariners, who put up a incredible 185 OPS+ season in 1995.
Kenny’s second argument against Shohei taking to the mound again is the track record of injury that he’s already accumulated in that role. Kenny rightly notes that Ohtani has only averaged about 70 innings per season in his time in the big leagues, with two seasons being completely wiped out due to injury. His highwater mark in terms of innings pitched came in 2022, when he posted a 2.32 ERA over 166 innings of work. That same year, Ohtani’s offensive production was solid, but not overwhelming. He hit a .273/.356/.519 slash line for an OPS+ of 144. Of course, when combined with his work on the mound, the two-way wonder stacked up a WAR of 9.2 according to FanGraphs calculations, second only to Aaron Judge and his home run record year.
Now, there is a counter argument to be made. In 2021, Ohtani pitched only slightly less (130 IP), and won the MVP. He won the MVP in 2023 as well, and was on the mound for much of the year. But Ohtani’s hot start raising the tantalizing question. Would this kind of production have been possible if Ohtani had to step on the mound once a week? Is what he’s doing a byproduct of being only a DH this season? It’s a legitimate question.
Of course in the end it’s up to Ohtani. In the same segment, former GM argued in favor of letting Ohtani return to the mound, but advocated for shutting him down permanently the next time he is injured. That seems like a reasonable middle ground. There has to be some protection for the Dodgers’ most valuable asset built into the pitching plan for Ohtani whenever he comes back.
What would that look like? The Angels started out by babying him, giving him off days around his start days at first. Then when he was in the lineup regularly toward the end, he ended up breaking down and requiring the second surgery of his career. That doesn’t seem to be optimal. For what it’s worth, Shohei’s manager with the Angels, Joe Maddon, thinks that any talk of not allowing Ohtani to pitch is premature. “For me, you let it play out,” he said to Kenny on the same broadcast. “And if it becomes obvious that he can’t do both, then at least you know you have the hitting… Furthermore, I don’t think he’s going to want to do that, he’s going to want to do both.”
Beyond just being a starter, it was also suggested that maybe he could be used as a high-leverage reliever, throwing absolute gas for one inning at the end of games when the opportunity for a save presents itself. But that creates its own issue. How would you warm up a guy who might hit in an inning? Would you do it from a mound inside the building close to the clubhouse? Would you have him run out to the bullpen and just hope he doesn’t have to hit? More answers than questions to that idea.
A third option somewhere in between starting and closing might be to employ Ohtani as a glorified “opener” — to have him take on a lineup at the beginning of the game only. And then maybe shut him down after three innings of work and continue with a modified bullpen game after that. That would limit his exposure to maybe 100 innings or so a year and would keep his arm as protected as possible. But none of that is a guarantee.
It’s a good problem to have. In the meantime, we just get to enjoy Shohei the hitter. We can table any further debate on the topic until Spring Training next year. But you can be sure that Andrew Friedman, et al are going to be working on a way to make it happen. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity for both the player and the team. Nobody wants to just give it up.
They call them unicorns for a reason, after all.
