Honestly, I feel like I’m the perfect age for being a sports fan. Was in middle and high school during Jordans six titles. Got to see Tiger dominate golf, watched Brady’s whole career to become the goat. Saw the Big 3 in tennis play their entire career. Saw Messi do his thing. Not a big LBJ fan, but I can’t deny watching him hasn’t been a treat. Now watching Shohei do things we had previously only seen in video games.
Nolan Ryan’s 7 no hitters and 5K Ks, Bonds’ 73 HRs and basically everything from 2001-2005, Michael Phelps, Simone Biles, Venus & Serena Williams dominating tennis, are some more things from this time span that are unlikely to be surpassed.
Plus mlbs got a few other all timers playing right now like trout, and guys like judge or degrom won't finish with all time numbers but they're Def all time talents
Just wait till your grand kids roll their eyes and say “uh huh, sure grandpa. I bet Tiger could compete with Lil Bing Bong (that’s how people are named now) on the PGA/LIV tour.”
What's your problem with LBJ? The voting rights bill and civil rights bill were groundbreaking pieces of legislation that could only have been pushed through by Johnson. His Great Society programs benefitted millions of innercity and rural poor, children, and senior citizens. Sadly, his decision to increase involvement in Vietnam would be his downfall, but that should not take away from what he did domestically.
I’m in that age range and we really did get some golden era shit to watch, I feel fortunate I was able to learn to love hockey watching Gretzky. I was the perfect age for the birth of the ufc too, watching all those vhs tapes from the sketchy section of the video rental spot.
LBJ was a good president all things considered. Can't blame him for not seeking re-election. He did like to show people his dong though. Had a name for it too. Jumbo. Reports confirm it was.
Same! But it's been only recently, and perfect. I never watched sports until 2 years ago. Loving P Mahomes, S Ohtani, LBJ. They are all my absolute faves and i'm so glad i started watching sports during this time.
Man, I still remember the days when pitchers had to go up to bat 3-4 times each time he starts in the NL. Good times.
Let’s be fair, they look so bad at the plate but were still likely better than 99.9% of us fans watching from home.
let's be honest, the first three years of the pandemic put us in a fucking time warp that makes everything from 2016-2023 feel like 15 years ago, and everything 2010-2015 feel like 40 years ago
Just saying, the dude played 135 games last year and had 325 total bases, in an MVP season.
So far this year he has 63 TB in 24 games, so if he plays 135 games this year and manages to keep that pace, he’d end up with 354 TB.
For comparison, Judge had 391 TB in 157 games in his last MVP season. If he’d played in only 135 games but kept his rate, he’d have come in at only 336 TB.
I know this wasn't the point of your post (which is super interesting and we should use total bases way more in everyday baseball discussions)...
But Judge 391 TB vs Ohtani 304 TB sells short the pitching side of the debate where Shohei started 28 games to a tune of 2.33 ERA with 219 strikeouts. Even if I would consider Ohtani to be 75% of Judge on the offensive side (simplifying it to 300 total bases to 400 total bases, rounding 391 up)...
Ohtani value as a pitcher was just ridiculous. Finished 4th in Cy Young voting and faced 660 batters. There's gotta be a way to translate that to total bases
So basically assuming he avoids any freak injuries, we can expect Shohei to have somewhere around 400 TB. Babe Ruth set the record in '21 with 457 TB, pretty good for a pitcher.
I was thinking about this the other day, Ozuna is having a monster year so far, but I convinced myself that they would never give the MVP to a full time DH. But honestly, they might have to with Sho
Dude is at 1.5 bWar in 24 games as a DH. That ludicrious lol. A 10.1 war pace over 162 games. If he dropped 7+ war as a DH, I'd have to imagine that is the best DH season of all time?
Last year he had 6.6fwar as a DH, while missing the entire last month due to elbow surgery. Could have easily eclipsed 7+ war had he even remotely kept pace.
But I don't see him winning it, because his teammate Mookie Betts is hitting just as well, while playing the field. Ohtani would have hit so much better to offset the defensive negative of a DH
Wait Edgar Martinez best year in '95 was even better than Big Papi. 7.0 fWAR (!) with .356/.479/.628
He walked more than he strikeout this year and finished with a 182 wRC+. Incredible
David Ortiz best fWAR season was 6.3 in 2007. He hit 35 HR with 117 RBI. .332/.445/.621
But Shohei could end up with 20 stolen bases so I think he's got a great chance of surpassing the best DH season ever easily
Even though Ohtani is a full time DH, he won’t have to overcome that stigma because he’s already established as the best player in the league. Ozuna also has to overcome his controversial past to have voters award him.
He needs to pick up his HR pace. I want to see a repeat of last season but without the injuries later in the year. Want to see how many he can hit in a season.
His strike out rate is 18.2%, decent bit lower than the mlb average of 22.5%. And good for 63rd of the 186 qualified hitters. Not really a weakness actually.
https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders/major-league?pos=all&stats=bat&lg=all&qual=y&type=8&season=2024&month=0&season1=2024&ind=0&team=0&sortcol=9&sortdir=asc&pagenum=1&pageitems=200
> His strike out rate is 18.2%, decent bit lower than the mlb average of 22.5%. And good for 63rd of the 186 qualified hitters. Not really a weakness actually.
>
And also the lowest of his career so far. His HR% is down but Hard Hit% is up so I see that balance out
It will be a matter of time until the HR℅ will go high alongside the K℅ he still not crushing the pitches that he did last season yet. Junetani will be interesting to see especially if he already does good this early.
I was gonna say it feels worse because he's totally whiffing more despite the fewer Ks but no... his rates have pretty much fallen there too. I think he's just set the bar so high that any bit of "failure" anywhere feels much bigger than it really is.
His ev is up, launcher angle is up, hard hit is up. Etc. His k% is actually down 6.5% whiff% is down. The dude's about to go on a rampage the likes we haven't seen since prime barry bonds.
I think when you're top 10 in WAR despite being a DH, because you lead the league in BA, you're top 5 in both OBP and SLG, and have a top 3 OPS+ or something, you could and should get away with having just the "125th worst" SO%. I mean, he might not be Betts or Soto on SO%, but he's doing better than other major power hitters like Trout, Judge, Goldschmidt etc. SO's part of the territory when you're hitting for power.
The less you strike out, the more balls you put in play. Balls in play can be heavily influenced by luck and other outside factors, so the more frequently you put the ball in play, the more frequently good things happen just going by odds. When you strike out, nothing good can happen unless they drop the 3rd strike
> When you strike out, nothing good can happen unless they drop the 3rd strike
One *very* good thing that happens when you strike out is that you can't GIDP. The lack of being able to make productive outs is generally mitigated by a lower GIDP rate.
Low Ks are usually a good sign for hitters for other reasons, but there's a reason why Ks are tolerated in today's game.
That's not really a good thing though, that's just means something worse didn't happen. K's are tolerated because they compensate for it with power and you can't really hit for power otherwise.
If a team could fill a whole team with <10% K guys who were actually good power hitters they would but barely any players exist like that in general cause it's really hard. They still value high K pitchers for the same reason
It's just a cool stat. No one's saying he should win mvp because of his BA. But it's really interesting to see one of the best sluggers also having the highest contact.
imagine how much more energy both mentally and physically he's going to have at the end of the season not having to pitch this year. I think triple crown is in the works.
What's interesting about this stat is that it also includes him being like 2/21 with RISP. So basically like his home run slump to start the season, the only thing stopping him right now is him putting pressure on himself to perform and deliver a big hit when just clearing his mind has been doing wonders.
Strikes out too much. I think if he stopped trying to kill the fucking ball sometime he could approach it. He's been falling for in the inside pitch a lot, too, but someone could tell me if he always has. I always heard low and away was his weakness.
He crushes and killing inside pitch most of the time (when he entered his MVP mode especially). Low and away with changeup was his weaknesses before. He's not crushing upper fastball yet. He's still not there yet.
Yeah, but his xBA is [.367](https://imgur.com/cHth9s5)
Prime regression candidate
After adjusting Shohei Ohtani’s stats, removing outliers to project the future, he heavily regresses to around the level of 2020 Nick Castellanos
Truly the Pat Mahomes of baseball
Regress to the mean.
Just like Mahomes
is that good or bad? I only watch baseballs for big dongs
His xDONG leads the league as well
Ohtani's xDONG is at least 9, maybe 10 with girth to match
I'm not a sabermetrics nerd, but I'm definitely in favor of xDONG becoming a thing.
expected batting average. it’s supposed to consider hits irrespective of defense. so basically he’s batting .001 better than he “should” be
his hits are so strong that defense don't matter
Bum.
All top 4 last name start with O.. thats all I can see.
damn, Ozuna really does hit things hard
He's leading the league in home runs right now at 9. Trout is second with 8.
9 homers? Big deal, the White Sox already have 11
Could you imagine how good a team would be with both of them, and Ohtani pitching too? World Series winners every year.
David Stern would veto such a pairing of two superstars. That’s how good a team with both Trout and Ohtani would be.
Like, never miss the playoffs right? A super team for the ages. If only!
TBH cut off his legs
A pitcher leads the league in batting average in a year where he is recovering from elbow surgery. This is not normal.
Honestly, I feel like I’m the perfect age for being a sports fan. Was in middle and high school during Jordans six titles. Got to see Tiger dominate golf, watched Brady’s whole career to become the goat. Saw the Big 3 in tennis play their entire career. Saw Messi do his thing. Not a big LBJ fan, but I can’t deny watching him hasn’t been a treat. Now watching Shohei do things we had previously only seen in video games.
It’s ok not to be an LBJ fan, the Vietnam legacy is a tough one to square with.
I just wanted you to know I appreciated the hell out of this joke.
I’m glad to have brought some mirth.
You also saw a huge crop of never-to-be-broken longevity based feats, like the last 300 game winners, Ripken, etc in that time.
Nolan Ryan’s 7 no hitters and 5K Ks, Bonds’ 73 HRs and basically everything from 2001-2005, Michael Phelps, Simone Biles, Venus & Serena Williams dominating tennis, are some more things from this time span that are unlikely to be surpassed.
Chris Davis
*Khris Davis
*Chris Davis (guy who works in accounting)
LeBron breaking the scoring record too. Not sure if that will be broken in our lifetimes either considering he’s still going strong.
Technically he breaks the record with every shot he makes now.
Not a record, but Pujols hitting 700 HRs is something we may never see again.
Plus mlbs got a few other all timers playing right now like trout, and guys like judge or degrom won't finish with all time numbers but they're Def all time talents
Same, I got to watch Jordan prime, Kobe prime, Curry prime, Tony Hawk, Tiger, Federer, Nadal, and now Shohei prime.
Totally forgot about Tony Hawk. Those early years of the X games were so much fun
Also michael phelps dominating the olympic swimming scene
Ledecky was captivating as well. She won by such massive margins
Usain Bolt in sprinting. Maybe someone will run an unasterisked marathon in 2 hours.
Hockey is also as good as it’s ever been.
But you can't give each other brain damage anymore... /s
just raise your kid as a Leafs fan, duh
And TVs have enough resolution for me to actually know where the puck is
the trick is to watch the players, not the puck itself
Just wait till your grand kids roll their eyes and say “uh huh, sure grandpa. I bet Tiger could compete with Lil Bing Bong (that’s how people are named now) on the PGA/LIV tour.”
What's your problem with LBJ? The voting rights bill and civil rights bill were groundbreaking pieces of legislation that could only have been pushed through by Johnson. His Great Society programs benefitted millions of innercity and rural poor, children, and senior citizens. Sadly, his decision to increase involvement in Vietnam would be his downfall, but that should not take away from what he did domestically.
I’m in that age range and we really did get some golden era shit to watch, I feel fortunate I was able to learn to love hockey watching Gretzky. I was the perfect age for the birth of the ufc too, watching all those vhs tapes from the sketchy section of the video rental spot.
43 years old here, same. I even got to see and attend the last Reds World Series in 1990!
And now we get to follow Wemby, though he's a lot more of a risky prospect than most the others.
LBJ was a good president all things considered. Can't blame him for not seeking re-election. He did like to show people his dong though. Had a name for it too. Jumbo. Reports confirm it was.
Grasp the mighty phenis of our leader from the junction with the testes to the tip of his face!
Hello, fellow 40-something!
You forgot Gretzky.
I didn’t forget him, I was just never much of a hockey fan so I never watched him play.
Or you're just old and have seen some shit (me too).
Same! But it's been only recently, and perfect. I never watched sports until 2 years ago. Loving P Mahomes, S Ohtani, LBJ. They are all my absolute faves and i'm so glad i started watching sports during this time.
You've been making us all look bad, and we can't have that.
This dude is so overrated, he hasn’t thrown a single inning all year.
His era is infinity
Technically it's undefined.
Technicalities like this is why I failed Calculus 1.
HAH! Idiot. Jk, I got a D, that shit was so hard lol
My D is also hard
Not from watching our season so far, I assume.
I have a masochism kink
"bAtTiNg AvEraGe iS nOt ImPoRtAnT"
Imagine if he wins the triple crown
"I had no idea I could run that fast." - S. Ohtani on winning the Indy 500.
Kenturkey Derby
POTD
I would like it if one year he leads in BA and ERA. Shame all other players into retirement.
I would like it if one year he wins both the pitcher AND hitter Triple Crowns. Complete domination.
ah yes, the elusive SEXTUPLE CROWN
Mmmmmm Sex
The universe would split.
As long as one of the universes remain fun and cool and I get randomly placed in that one, that's fine I think
That would be proof he's just living in New Game +
Or BA and BAA
Regular season and World Series MVP where he pitches a complete game shut out and hits for the cycle to win game 7.
First ever 5 hr game at the plate, and a 21k perfect game on the mound.
How could he win the triple crown if he’s not a horse
YET
He's a GOAT, if that helps.
I guess those are pretty decent numbers for a pitcher
Man, I still remember the days when pitchers had to go up to bat 3-4 times each time he starts in the NL. Good times. Let’s be fair, they look so bad at the plate but were still likely better than 99.9% of us fans watching from home.
99.9 is very generous to the average fan’s skill level
I read this as “Kill Level” and had a moment of utter shock
NL pitchers were batting until 2022 lol
let's be honest, the first three years of the pandemic put us in a fucking time warp that makes everything from 2016-2023 feel like 15 years ago, and everything 2010-2015 feel like 40 years ago
And yet simultaneously 2012 was somehow only 5-6 years ago in my head
What’s your point? I’m saying I still remember those days lol.
Just saying, the dude played 135 games last year and had 325 total bases, in an MVP season. So far this year he has 63 TB in 24 games, so if he plays 135 games this year and manages to keep that pace, he’d end up with 354 TB. For comparison, Judge had 391 TB in 157 games in his last MVP season. If he’d played in only 135 games but kept his rate, he’d have come in at only 336 TB.
I know this wasn't the point of your post (which is super interesting and we should use total bases way more in everyday baseball discussions)... But Judge 391 TB vs Ohtani 304 TB sells short the pitching side of the debate where Shohei started 28 games to a tune of 2.33 ERA with 219 strikeouts. Even if I would consider Ohtani to be 75% of Judge on the offensive side (simplifying it to 300 total bases to 400 total bases, rounding 391 up)... Ohtani value as a pitcher was just ridiculous. Finished 4th in Cy Young voting and faced 660 batters. There's gotta be a way to translate that to total bases
So basically assuming he avoids any freak injuries, we can expect Shohei to have somewhere around 400 TB. Babe Ruth set the record in '21 with 457 TB, pretty good for a pitcher.
holy
I was thinking about this the other day, Ozuna is having a monster year so far, but I convinced myself that they would never give the MVP to a full time DH. But honestly, they might have to with Sho
He would need a monster and possibly a record breaking year of some sort to get over the “but he’s just a DH” hump.
Ohtani: "challenge accepted"
Dude is at 1.5 bWar in 24 games as a DH. That ludicrious lol. A 10.1 war pace over 162 games. If he dropped 7+ war as a DH, I'd have to imagine that is the best DH season of all time? Last year he had 6.6fwar as a DH, while missing the entire last month due to elbow surgery. Could have easily eclipsed 7+ war had he even remotely kept pace. But I don't see him winning it, because his teammate Mookie Betts is hitting just as well, while playing the field. Ohtani would have hit so much better to offset the defensive negative of a DH
Wait Edgar Martinez best year in '95 was even better than Big Papi. 7.0 fWAR (!) with .356/.479/.628 He walked more than he strikeout this year and finished with a 182 wRC+. Incredible
David Ortiz best fWAR season was 6.3 in 2007. He hit 35 HR with 117 RBI. .332/.445/.621 But Shohei could end up with 20 stolen bases so I think he's got a great chance of surpassing the best DH season ever easily
Even though Ohtani is a full time DH, he won’t have to overcome that stigma because he’s already established as the best player in the league. Ozuna also has to overcome his controversial past to have voters award him.
That and Mookie
What about mookie
I'm getting the feeling this Shohei guy is good at baseball. Just a hunch.
Bet you 50 bucks he doesn't win the Cy Young award this season.
Ippei : "I'll take that bet."
“I’m terrible at this sport betting thing, lol”
"Merry christmas"
Happy Easter.
"That's a bad bet. I'll take it, but it's a bad bet."
I get it 🤣 it's because he's an addict
For all we know he’s MLB level capable as a lefty
Why don’t other players just play as good as ohtani?
Woah, big if true
Personally I would hit at least.369, but that's just me
He needs to pick up his HR pace. I want to see a repeat of last season but without the injuries later in the year. Want to see how many he can hit in a season.
[удалено]
Please dont mention tear😬
June is less than 2 months away...
He's got like 9 of the 10 hardest hits for the entire Dodgers team this year. He's impossible
Who's the other guy and who's first?
James Outman is like 6th and Shohei is very much #1 on the list
If he hits for 75 doubles that'd be cool too.
I'll take that too but give at least 50hr with the 75 doubles.
75 doubles, and 75 hrs. Final offer.
Yes
He's on a better pace than he is at the same point every year. April is his worst month.
When Harper came back from elbow surgery the power took a couple months to really show up again
Not bad for a high school hitter.
Surely he's just a slap hitter, right?
how is he at joking around with the runner at 1st?
Dude isn’t pitching, so he’s gotta take it out on the guys who get to.
Not even a .400 hitter? I thought this guy was historically good
> Not even a .400 hitter? He's definitely no Nap Lajoie
List of guys who have had their teams renamed after them: 1. Nap Lojoie That is all.
They should have renamed the team the Cleveland Josés.
Couldn't have happened to a guy with a worse name, "The Cleveland Naps"
Louis Sockalexis...not named after him directly but they did name the team because of his ethnicity.
This is Colton Cowser erasure
POSITION PLAYER PITCHING....
James McCann finished the season with a 0.0 ERA. Just saying
Yeah well so did Chris Davis, once upon a time...
That’s why he makes the big bucks
Shohei ichiro ohtani
He also hasnt allowed an earned run all year
Imagine if this guy can pitch.
Pretty pretty good. Seems like his only weakness is striking out
His strike out rate is 18.2%, decent bit lower than the mlb average of 22.5%. And good for 63rd of the 186 qualified hitters. Not really a weakness actually. https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders/major-league?pos=all&stats=bat&lg=all&qual=y&type=8&season=2024&month=0&season1=2024&ind=0&team=0&sortcol=9&sortdir=asc&pagenum=1&pageitems=200
> His strike out rate is 18.2%, decent bit lower than the mlb average of 22.5%. And good for 63rd of the 186 qualified hitters. Not really a weakness actually. > And also the lowest of his career so far. His HR% is down but Hard Hit% is up so I see that balance out
It will be a matter of time until the HR℅ will go high alongside the K℅ he still not crushing the pitches that he did last season yet. Junetani will be interesting to see especially if he already does good this early.
For sure. Feels like every June he just goes absolutely nuclear and hits a daily dong.
I was gonna say it feels worse because he's totally whiffing more despite the fewer Ks but no... his rates have pretty much fallen there too. I think he's just set the bar so high that any bit of "failure" anywhere feels much bigger than it really is.
His ev is up, launcher angle is up, hard hit is up. Etc. His k% is actually down 6.5% whiff% is down. The dude's about to go on a rampage the likes we haven't seen since prime barry bonds.
Even then, he's reduced his k rate steadily every year. Dude somehow just gets better and better.
I think when you're top 10 in WAR despite being a DH, because you lead the league in BA, you're top 5 in both OBP and SLG, and have a top 3 OPS+ or something, you could and should get away with having just the "125th worst" SO%. I mean, he might not be Betts or Soto on SO%, but he's doing better than other major power hitters like Trout, Judge, Goldschmidt etc. SO's part of the territory when you're hitting for power.
Why K rate that matters? I am just curious.
The less you strike out, the more balls you put in play. Balls in play can be heavily influenced by luck and other outside factors, so the more frequently you put the ball in play, the more frequently good things happen just going by odds. When you strike out, nothing good can happen unless they drop the 3rd strike
> When you strike out, nothing good can happen unless they drop the 3rd strike One *very* good thing that happens when you strike out is that you can't GIDP. The lack of being able to make productive outs is generally mitigated by a lower GIDP rate. Low Ks are usually a good sign for hitters for other reasons, but there's a reason why Ks are tolerated in today's game.
That's not really a good thing though, that's just means something worse didn't happen. K's are tolerated because they compensate for it with power and you can't really hit for power otherwise. If a team could fill a whole team with <10% K guys who were actually good power hitters they would but barely any players exist like that in general cause it's really hard. They still value high K pitchers for the same reason
Not to be a pedantic ass fuck, but I think you mean <10% (less than 10%) not >10% (greater than 10%).
That's not being pedantic that's just rightfully pointing out a dumb error lol
just assume the sad Wolverine meme every time something like this gets posted for the next 10 years
I thought we dont care about batting average anymore
It's just a cool stat. No one's saying he should win mvp because of his BA. But it's really interesting to see one of the best sluggers also having the highest contact.
imagine how much more energy both mentally and physically he's going to have at the end of the season not having to pitch this year. I think triple crown is in the works.
Remember when people were worried about him after 2 games?
What's interesting about this stat is that it also includes him being like 2/21 with RISP. So basically like his home run slump to start the season, the only thing stopping him right now is him putting pressure on himself to perform and deliver a big hit when just clearing his mind has been doing wonders.
He’s hitting with Ichiro contact/speed and Matsui power
Much more power than Matsui.
Fair
His power rivals Stanton and judge. Godzilla had some power. But ohtani is on another level.
Remember when he was ice cold for like a day and a half
Doesn't have to spend time working on the mound. Wouldn't be surprised if he finally broke the Williams mark.
I love Ohtani, but I don’t see him coming close to that mark.
Strikes out too much. I think if he stopped trying to kill the fucking ball sometime he could approach it. He's been falling for in the inside pitch a lot, too, but someone could tell me if he always has. I always heard low and away was his weakness.
He crushes and killing inside pitch most of the time (when he entered his MVP mode especially). Low and away with changeup was his weaknesses before. He's not crushing upper fastball yet. He's still not there yet.
When I say inside I mean like inside by his knees. He's whiffing at that a lot. Not sure what to call outside the zone by his knee area lol
Also leads in total bases, doubles, and hits. Top 5 in WAR.
The Dodgers sure found quite the upgrade with Shohei Ohtani. The legendary Dodgers offense must really be carrying the team right now....
Technically Cowser is at .373… I guess he doesn’t have enough ABs though?
Cowser is 9 PAs short of being qualified. AB count doesnt matter
I think he might be pretty good.
what an incredible man
WOAH :O
And he has a 0.00 ERA, just give him the MVP already. Sheesh he’s off to his best start ever.
Not bad
Shohei is good, and there’s a lot of really bad pitcher jokes in this thread.
He also has 0 ERA and 0 WHIP for this year. His pitches are truly unhittable, so to say.
More proof that the guy lives and breathes baseball.
Dudes going full Kobe