Seton Hall
The real Angel in the outfield
Date: June 15, 2019By: Justin Morris
Angel, unicorn, and rare, have been a few words used to describe Anaheim’s second year pitcher/designated hitter Shohei Ohtani, the former Japanese star who may very well be the most heralded two-way baseball player since Babe Ruth.
Granted, most players who are drafted into the big leagues nowadays are not selected for their abilities on both sides of the field, and even those with the ability to do both effectively are generally pushed towards either pitching or being an everyday player. The belief that a consistent daily effort to improve in one’s specific field has reigned supreme in recent years in baseball, and teams that have won have exemplified this precedent.
Rarely do we see a talent that has been as polarizing as Ohtani, and he is one who has the power to change an old baseball precedent. From an early age he was at the epicenter of the Japanese baseball world, which possesses a storied history like no other. The professional leagues in Japan have produced All-Star talents like Hideki Matsui, Yu Darvish, as well as future Hall of Famer Ichiro Suzuki.
He dominated competition both from the mound and the plate, eventually growing into a slender 6 foot 4 inch frame that gave him not only an insurmountable leverage from a pitching standpoint, but the uncanny ability to cover the plate from both sides as a switch hitter, and swing path that could produce loads of deep-ball power. On the mound, his fastball was untouchable, but he had a wide array of pitches in his arsenal to supplant it, including a curveball, slider and rare forkball; a pitch hardly ever seen in his age group.
Ohtani first broke out onto the global stage as an 18-year old high-schooler after a pitch he threw clocked in at 99 mph, while Major League Baseball’s average fastball last year was 92.8 mph. His widely garnered reputation as both a hitter and pitcher landed him a professional contract with the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters of the Nippon Professional League, Japan’s highest level of baseball competition. He became a multiple time All-Star in the league, becoming the first player since 1951 to start consecutive games on the mound and at the plate, and won both a league MVP and series title in 2016.
In 2017, negotiations began between the NPL and MLB for what most knew was inevitable: Ohtani’s move to the big leauges. A transfer agreement was reached in November of that year, and Ohtani’s would-be $200 million plus contract if he had waited upon turning 25 was reduced to a $3.557 million capped rookie scale, making the 24 year old affordable to all 30 teams.
He chose the Angels and proceeded to become just that for the LA squad after making the 25-man roster and getting an opening day start as the designated hitter. A single in his first MLB at-bat, and a six-strikeout performance in six innings in his pitching debut days later set the stage for what each team had hoped to get upon recruiting the Japanese star to join their team: longtime production from both sides of the field.
Ohtani would go on to bat .285 with 22 home runs in limited play, his .564 slugging percentage would’ve placed him fourth in the AL if he had qualified. He eventually had to retire his arm to the shelf for the season after requiring Tommy John surgery.
This year, Ohtani has not seen pitching action, but manager Brad Ausmus has told reporters he intends to play him as a designated hitter, citing his incomparable importance to the lineup. His cycle all but proves that, and Ohtani is only on the rise as a hitter against both righties and lefties.
With him, Mike Trout, and Albert Pujols manning the middle of the lineup, the Angels’ offense looks very scary as June baseball rolls on. His importance as a hitter is not up for debate, but Ohtani could be a diamond in the rough if he can hit, and step on the mound to give the Angels a winning outing every five days.
Justin Morris can be reached at justin.morris@student.shu.edu.
