Los Angeles superstar Shohei Ohtani will go down as one of the greatest baseball players of all time.
The way he’s respected throughout the sports world as a three- (and soon to be four-time) MVP hitter and pitcher with a career 3.00 ERA is significant, but President of Baseball Operations Andrew Friedman believes Ohtani is still underrated.
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“I’ve said this many times: I think he’s underrated,” Friedman said. “I don’t think the human brain can comprehend what he does, how difficult it is and how elite he is at both of those things. And his passion for hitting and his passion for pitching. I don’t think there’s enough passion to go around. But he has it.”
Becoming an elite baseball player, or even a professional baseball player at any level, requires serious dedication to your craft and a passion for the little things you do every day. If both pitching and hitting are happening at an incredible rate, this number should double, or at least increase significantly.
Ohtani pitched 47 innings this season, posting a 2.87 ERA with 62 strikeouts and just nine walks. Perhaps just as impressive, he recovered from corrective Tommy John surgery in September 2023, played an MVP-caliber season in 2024, tore his labrum and required surgery on his opposite arm, and was back on the mound in a uniform by June 2025.
When Ohtani stepped up to the plate, he led MLB with 146 RBIs, led the National League in slugging percentage (.622) and OPS (1.014), and hit 55 home runs, a career-high in MLB and third in all of MLB.
While these stats are impressive and will likely end up being Ohtani’s fourth MVP, we also have to mention his .056 batting average in the NLDS. If there’s one player who can turn the team around in the postseason, especially after hitting two home runs in Game 1 of the wild-card round, it’s Ohtani.
Ohtani’s past two seasons in Los Angeles have been exceptional, but he still has one thing left to accomplish at the end of October. What’s more, it’s a chance to prove Friedman right that despite his regular-season success, his superstar status is underrated, and it kicks into gear.
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Photo credit: Jayne Kamin-Oncea-Imagn Images
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