Shohei Ohtani looks on prior to his first at bat during the first inning of a game against the St. Louis Cardinals at Dodger Stadium on March 28, 2024.
MVP. Most Valuable Player. These words are the best way to describe Shohei in the simplest terms. Every praiseworthy adjective attached to him is well-earned, he impacts the game of baseball in ways that very few players before him have. Shohei is thirty years old. He has millions of followers on social media. His highlights are so impressive that they make that night’s Sportscenter Top 10. He is a unique figure in baseball unlike any that came before him, he is as precise with a glove as he is deadly with a bat.
What Shohei is doing is what the MLB has been clamoring for decades, attention to the game of baseball. This year’s Super Bowl drew 120 million viewers, the NBA finals drew in almost 12 million viewers, and last year’s World Series between the Texas Rangers and Arizona Diamondbacks drew 9.11 million viewers. Mahomes. Clark. LeBron. Ohtani. Like them, Shohei’s uniqueness is a must-see on TV. In the first season of his ten-year $700,000,000 contract as a Los Angeles Dodger, he recorded fifty-four homeruns and fifty-nine stolen bases. Impressive doesn’t even begin to describe his season. For reference, "prior to this season, the highest total anyone achieved in both homers and steals was 42, by Alex Rodríguez (42 home runs, 46 steals) in 1998” (Stephen).
In 2023 Shohei was a part of team Japan in the World Baseball Classic, the final, a battle between Japan and the USA seemed torn from the script of a sports movie. Bottom of the 9th inning, the last batter up to the plate, Shohei on the mound and his at the time Angels teammate Mike Trout stepping up to try and send the U.S. home as champions, a duel of nerve and timing. “In Trout’s 6,174 career at-bats, he has recorded three swinging strikes a mere 24 times. (If you’re better with percentages, that’s just 0.39% of his career at-bats.)” (Leckie) Two men entered the duel, and only one left as champion, Shohei had gotten the best of Trout, and Japan left as champions once again.
His arm can strike out the game’s greatest hitters and his swing ranks alongside those same hitters. Ohtani is as much a cultural force as he is one of the greatest two-way players the game has ever seen, and as he begins his first-ever career MLB postseason with the L.A. Dodgers one thing is clear, he is just getting started.
SOURCES
Leckie, Paige. “Shohei vs. Trout for the Classic Title? A Strikeout Heard ’round the World.” MLB.Com, MLB, 22 Mar. 2023, www.mlb.com/world-baseball-classic/news/shohei-ohtani-strikes-out-mike-trout-world-baseball-classic.
Stephen, Eric. “Every Shohei Ohtani Record & League-Leading Stat in 2024.” MSN, SB Nation, 1 Oct. 2024, www.msn.com/en-us/sports/mlb/every-shohei-ohtani-record-league-leading-stat-in-2024/ar-AA1rtVav?ocid=BingNewsSerp.
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