Here’s a newsflash for you: Shohei Ohtani is very good. Like, amazingly, unprecedentedly good. There have been other two-way players before, but never anyone like Ohtani.
MLB reporter Jeff Passan was on the Pat McAfee Show recently and had high praise for the 2021 AL MVP (and 2022 AL MVP runner-up).
“The guy is the unicorn of unicorns. I think he’s the most impressive professional athlete in the world, in the world right now. I’m talking every sport. Show me someone who can play on both sides of the ball at that level he does. He essentially is playing two sports in one.
“It’s not like in the NBA if you’re a good offensive player and a good defensive player. He does something that guys do every five days which is throw a baseball and he does something that guys do everyday which is play a position, and he does them both at the same time.
“It’s an incredible thing … it’s like having an elite quarterback and a great middle linebacker or a great rush end.”
Madison Bumgarner used to be an excellent pitcher, and he was a good hitter for a pitcher. But he was never really a good hitter — he had one season with a league-average 100 OPS+ and one season with a 114; every other year, he’s been at least 15% worse than league average offensively, and his career OPS+ is just 44.
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Micah Owings had a career OPS+ of 106, so he was actually a bit above average offensively. Oh, but his career ERA+ was 91 — he was a decent hitter but a pretty lousy pitcher.
Ohtani has a 139 career OPS+ — that’s right around Reggie Jackson, Duke Snider, and Alex Rodriguez territory. He also has a 142 career ERA+, right around Roger Clemens and Trevor Hoffman on the leaderboards.
Very few players have been as good at hitting as Ohtani, and very few have been as good at pitching. No one has ever come even close to being as good at both.
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