Despite the fact that he has given his team a quality start every single time this year, the Dodgers are 3-4 when Ohtani takes the mound. They have been held to one run or less in four of his seven starts, and Ohtani didn’t DH in two of them.
While I am not crazy of enough to suggest that Ohtani stop pitching, it is fair to note that doing so will prevent him from reaching his true peak as a hitter.
There are only two players in MLB history who have been able to do both at the same time. But Babe Ruth’s arc as a two-way player was far different from Ohtani’s, born out of playing in a different era.
Ruth entered the league as a pitcher (with no designated hitter), and in his second full season at just 21 years old, he led the league with a 1.75 ERA. He made 40 starts and went 23-12, and led the league with nine shutouts. His 158 ERA+ was the best in baseball.
While Ruth made the most of his at-bats when he was in there, he still was limited to his starts on the mound and pinch-hitting, as he did not play his first inning in left field until the 1918 season, two years later.
It was that season, where Ruth began to revolutionize the game, leading the league with 11 home runs as he began the transition into becoming the greatest slugger the game has ever seen.
By 1920, Ruth was no longer a member of the Boston Red Sox, and he also was no longer pitching. In his first season with the Yankees, it was decided that Ruth’s bat was more valuable than his arm, and he gave up pitching to focus on being the best hitter in baseball instead.
It was not until Ruth gave up pitching that he reached his full potential as a hitter, posting 50-HR seasons in back-to-back years in 1920 and 1921. Ruth led the league in OPS 13 times in a 14-year span, making his mark as the greatest slugger the game had ever seen.
Ohtani does not have many contemporaries in the game today. Judge may be the lone exception, as the Yankee slugger is the one man who has managed to knock Ohtani off the top pedestal in an MVP race back in 2022.
Judge has led the league in wRC+ in each of the last two seasons, and three of the last four, with the lone exception coming in 2023, when Judge missed time due to a hip injury, and Ohtani paced the league with a 180 wRC+.
Ohtani pitched to a 3.14 ERA across 23 starts that year, striking out 31.5% of the batters he faced.
On July 27, 2023, Ohtani pitched a shutout against the Detroit Tigers, in the first game of a doubleheader. Ohtani gave up just one hit, and he struck out eight in what still stands as the lone complete game of his career.
In the second game of the doubleheader, Ohtani went 2-for-3 with a pair of home runs, driving in three of 11 Angels’ runs, en route to a 11-4 slaughtering of the Tigers. The Angels had swept the series, and had won eight of their last nine games.
This doubleheader sweep came a day after the Angels pulled off a blockbuster trade to land Lucas Giolito and Reynaldo López from the Chicago White Sox. The Angels were pushing their chips in around Ohtani, and they were immediately rewarded with Ohtani looking like the best pitcher and hitter on the planet in the same day.
Unfortunately for the Angels, and the baseball world, Ohtani’s two-way dominance was short-lived, as he would make three more starts before exiting an August 23 start after throwing just 26 pitches. Ohtani needed Tommy John surgery, but still managed to finish out the 2023 campaign to hit 44 home runs in 135 games.
To this date, 2023 is probably the most complete two-way season of Ohtani’s career.
Through 23 starts, had a 2.3 fWAR, so he was trending towards at least a three-win season had he remained healthy. His power dipped a little bit post-injury too, and by the time the Angels were out of it Ohtani was shut down in early September.
Despite missing nearly two months of the season on the mound, and the final month in the box, Ohtanit still managed to hit 44 home runs and post a near 9-win season. His 8.9 combined fWAR in 2023 was pacing to be higher than the 9.2 mark he posted in 2022.
Ohtani has found his way to be about a 9-win player every season since 2022. When he took a year off pitching in 2024, Ohtani devoted himself to being the best in baseball at stealing bases, and wound up with the first 50-50 season in MLB history.
While it has been amazing to see Ohtani back on the mound, there is the trade-off of not seeing him run the bases with the same aggression. It is a trade-off you are happy to make when he is pitching to a 0.82 ERA, but a trade-off nonetheless.
The thought exercise with Ohtani that is really interesting is evaluating what the trade-offs are with playing two ways, and how do you get the most valuable player.
