Shohei Ohtani of Angels ends historic season with incredible numbers

When Shohei Ohtani first arrived in the United States, his promise was simple and yet seemingly impossible, even arrogant. He could be the first true two-way player in MLB since Babe Ruth.

For three seasons, this goal seemed unattainable. Ohtani won AL Rookie of the Year in 2018, but tore up his UCL in the process. He hit a well above average clip in 2019, but didn’t throw an inning as he recovered from Tommy John surgery. He returned to the mound in 2020, but injured himself again hitting 0.190 at home plate.

No sport crushes you quite like baseball’s 162-game regular season, and Ohtani was basically trying to play two of those seasons at once. Playing a full season back and forth would have been an accomplishment.

That’s why what Ohtani did in year four still doesn’t feel real, even though he put the finishing touches on his campaign on Sunday. That’s why what Ohtani did shattered everything we know about a baseball player’s limits.

Shohei Ohtani’s latest figures for 2021

With one latest addition to his stats, a first home run in Sunday’s season finale against the Seattle Mariners (video above), here’s where we stand with Ohtani.

His latest hitting numbers: 639 home plate appearances, a 0.257 / 0.372 / 0.592 slash, 46 home runs, 103 points, 100 RBIs. He had 4.8 WARs by Baseball-Reference calculations entering Sunday, 5.0 WARs by FanGraphs.

His latest pitching numbers: 23 starts, a 9-2 record, 130 1/3 innings, 3.18 ERA, 151 strikeouts (10.8 strikeouts for nine), 1.090 WHIP, 4, 1 WAR via Baseball-Reference, 3.0 WAR via FanGraphs.

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For six months, Ohtani was in the Angels roster almost every day while regularly taking a turn in the rotation, although the Angels did their best to give him extra days off and postponed some starts due to health problems. Even though he didn’t pitch enough innings to qualify for the ERA title, what he did is unprecedented. Yes, even considering Ruth.

Ohtani even passed Babe Ruth

It should be noted: no player in baseball history has ever been so good at hitting and pitch like Shohei Ohtani was this season.

While Ruth has long been the only two-way star in much-vaunted MLB history, he has only really been a two-way street for a short time. The Boston Red Sox used him sporadically as a pitcher in 1918, the year they started letting him hit full-time, and pitched him only for half of the season in 1919. The following year , Ruth was traded to the New York Yankees and would make just four starts on the mound for the remainder of her career.

That’s not to say that Ruth’s time as a two-way street player wasn’t brilliant; it was. He hit .322 / .456 / .657 with an MLB record of 29 home runs while posting a 2.97 ERA in 133.1 innings (17 games, 15 starts) in 1919, still one of the seasons. most impressive of all time. These pitching numbers come with a pretty big caveat, as he was playing in the dead ball era. His 102 ERA + that year implies that Ruth was only 2% better than the average MLB pitcher that year, while Ohtani had a 141 ERA + in 2021.

Ruth still finished with more WAR this season than Ohtani thanks to his strikes, but it’s probably fair to say that Ohtani has done better with the idea of ​​a two-way player by being significantly over the top. average on both sides of the game. And that doesn’t mean anything about the quality of the competition Ohtani faces against Ruth.

All the other ways Ohtani has impressed

The funny thing about Shohei Ohtani is that even though he was two different players, we would still be talking about him (them?) This season.

Ohtani the batter wasn’t just an above average hitter, he was one of the most physically impressive hitters in the MLB. According to the Angels, he leads all MLB circuits at 110 mph or more with 24. He is also one of six players in American League history to hit 45 home runs and eight trebles in a season, joining Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio, Jimmie Foxx and Jim Rice. Each of these other players is in the Hall of Fame.

For most of the season, Ohtani led the entire MLB at the circuits, but ultimately fell in the AL race behind Salvador Perez and Vladimir Guerrero Jr.

Pitcher Ohtani had one of the best throws in the majors this year with his splitter. According to Baseball Savant, batters only hit 0.087 against the court with a wOBA of 0.119 and a puff rate of 48.5. His cursor was another weapon, with hitters hitting 0.193 and sniffing 31.1% of the time. Pair those deals with a fastball that’s averaged 95.6 mph this season and you’ve got a pitcher everyone wants to watch.

As if all of this weren’t unfair enough, keep in mind that Ohtani – all 6-foot-4, 210 pounds – is also one of the fastest players in the majors. He’s stolen 26 goals this season, and it goes without saying that he’s the first player with 20 homers, 20 steals and 20 innings pitched in a season. His 28.8 feet per second sprint speed puts him ahead of players like Lorenzo Cain, Javier Baez and Wander Franco.

Forget about a five tool player, Ohtani can be a legitimate 10 tool player. Seven at least.

What’s next for Shohei Ohtani?

Showing that he could last a full season as a two-way player was the first step in 27-year-old Ohtani’s quest to become one of baseball’s greats. Then he shows he can do it for more than a season.

Even though Ohtani made it to the season finale, he still had a few health issues along the way. Going through another season and pitching over 130 1/3 innings would be huge to show that the two-way Ohtani is viable in the long run. Otherwise, Ohtani’s bat can certainly play the designated hitter for the foreseeable future, and you have to wonder how much better he could be if he were to focus on his time at the plate.

All this counts because we only have two more seasons before the circus which will be the free agency of Ohtani. Teams may not want to invest in the long-term two-way idea, but they will certainly pay for its present and near future if it still produces in 2023.

Ohtani himself has launched a bunch of speculation that he might leave the Angels when he said that earlier this week:

Obviously, the Angels – even when they have an all-time greats or two – haven’t been a winning team. The dynamic is literally a meme at this point. Time seems to be running out to change that, lest they lose a player who is currently at the center of the baseball world.