A is a left-handed hitter. In 599 plate appearances in the 2023 season, he batted .304 (497-for-151) with 44 home runs and 95 RBIs.
His OPS (on-base percentage plus slugging percentage) reached 1.066.
He also stole 20 bases. The home run title was his.
B is a right-handed pitcher.
He didn’t quite match his 2022 season (15-9 with a 2.33 ERA), but he did go 10-5 with a 3.14 ERA.
In 132 innings pitched, he struck out 167 batters. His fastball tops out at 165 miles per hour.
Did you notice that A, who “hits well” with his left hand, and B, who “throws well” with his right hand, are the same person?
He is the “game changer” of modern baseball.
Ohtani’s baseball career began with weekend little league.
His father (Toru Otani), a factory worker who played for the Mitsubishi Social Baseball Team before retiring due to injury, enjoyed playing catch with his sons (Shohei and his older brother Ryuta) when he wasn’t working.
Otani played little league baseball from the age of eight and looked forward to weekends playing baseball.
Due to the location (Oshu City, Iwate Prefecture), he could only watch Yomiuri Giants broadcasts, and he idolized Yomiuri outfielder Hideki Matsui.
As a child, Otani thought that “baseball was just a hobby” and felt that “there are many baseball players who are better than me.”
But his baseball life changed when he went to Hanamaki Higashi-Koshiro.
As he grew in stature (193 centimeters tall), he became more powerful at the plate. He was eating 12 bowls of rice a day.
At the age of 16, he threw a ball at 153 kilometers per hour, and the following year, 159 kilometers per hour was recorded with a speed gun.
Hamstring injuries disrupted his form, but his velocity was enough to catch the eye of American clubs.
The Dodgers, Texas Rangers, and Boston Red Sox, among others, were interested in signing him.
Ohtani said he wanted to play in the U.S. and asked Japanese teams not to select him in the draft.
In Nippon Professional Baseball, if a high school player is drafted and goes to the U.S. without signing with the Japanese team that drafted him, he is restricted from playing for three years (two years for college graduates) when he returns to Japanese baseball in the future.
That changed when the Nippon Hammers were the only team out of 12 to select Ohtani in the first round of the draft.
(In Japan, 12 teams write down their first-round picks simultaneously, and a lottery is held when multiple teams select the same player.) “
The draft is not about picking the players you can sign, it’s about picking the best players.
That’s our way of scouting,” he said, explaining why he selected Ohtani.
It wasn’t easy to change Ohtani’s mind about going to the United States.
There were many skeptics inside and outside of Japanese baseball. But Nippon Ham was proactive.
He analyzed the types of Japanese players who came to the U.S. and showed Ohtani a road map to the major leagues.
Among his materials was a video that showed the realities of minor league life: long bus rides, empty stadiums with no fans, and crappy housing. 온라인카지노
The most compelling offer was the “two-hitter.
With a very high chance of success, Ohtani was sold on the idea of going straight to the major leagues.
No other professional athlete in modern baseball, with its division of labor and professionalization, bat and pitch like Ohtani.
In an era where starting pitchers are considered “overworked” for even taking the mound in the bullpen without four or five days of rest, it’s hard to imagine a player who could do that.
The risk of injury is also high, making it a risky investment.
In the Nippon Professional Baseball Central League, which does not have a designated hitter system, pitchers bat, but they do not bat.
Even in the long history of Major League Baseball, few players have succeeded at batting second.
Babe Ruth (George Herman Ruth), the “Home Run King,” is the most talked about, but that was in the late 1910s.
