Shohei Ohtani was the National League home run champion last season. His 23 home runs led the NL this year. He has a career OPS of 1.008 and became the first player in MLB history with 50 home runs and 50 stolen bases in the season.
However, early in his MLB career, the three-time silver slugger was considered a pitcher alone.
“When he first came to the US at the beginning of his career, people didn’t think he was a batsman,” Los Angeles Angels insider Jeff Fletcher told Doug McCain of the Nation. “They said, ‘He’s just a pitcher. He’s not going to make it as a batter.”
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Signing with the Angels allowed Otani to hit the ball in the 2018 rookie season.
Ohtani cut .285/.361/.564 and hit 22 home runs in 114 games to win the American League Rookie of the Year Award.
Fletcher praised the Angels for allowing Otani to become a batsman, most likely because the other MLB teams had restricted him to pitching, or because the NL had not yet had a DH position, so he had restricted him to pitching.
“If he had signed with the , who originally graduated from high school, he would never be a batsman,” Fletcher told McCain.
Despite joining MLB as a pitcher, Ohtani has started 86 throughout his eight seasons of career.
Injuries are Otani’s biggest obstacle.
The right-hander underwent another surgery in 2018 to repair Tommy John’s surgery and a torn UCL in 2023. Recently, he had arthroscopic surgery this November to repair his shoulder.
Fletcher believes Otani prefers to hit more than pitch, and said that fighting injuries may be the reason.
“When he went on, I got the feeling that he really loved hitting more,” Fletcher said. “Maybe it’s because he kept getting injured as a pitcher, maybe because he can do it every day. But now I believe hits are his preference.”
But for Otani, it’s more than just hitting or pitching.
He wants to do both.
“If he has to choose between the two, he has to choose a hit. But I think his ultimate choice is still to do both because he wants to be unique,” Fletcher said. “He wants to do things no one else can. I think it’s for him to be a two-way player.”
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Photo credit: Kiyoshi Mio-Usa Today Sports
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