Shohei Ohtani's first season with the Los Angeles Dodgers has been an incredible success. He will likely win his third career MVP award without pitching all season. Ohtani has hit home runs and racked up stolen bases at an incredible rate, creating the 50/50 club. According to Sarah Langs of MLB.com, he is close to setting another mark with those two stats.
“Shohei Ohtani leads the NL in HR and has 56 SB
Players to lead own league in HR *and* have MORE than 40 SB in a season, since 1900:
1912 Tris Speaker (52 SB, 10 HR)
1909 Ty Cobb (78, 9)
1909 Red Murray (49, 7)
1903 Jimmy Sheckard (67, 9)
h/t EliasSports.”
These pre-Babe Ruth numbers show the change in Major League Baseball over the last 100 years and just how amazing this season is. Ohtani is putting up stolen base numbers that the great sluggers in the history of the game never did. He is hitting home runs at a rate rarely seen in MLB history. The Dodgers paid up big time to land him and it has worked less than 162 games in.
When the Dodgers take the field in 2025, their best hitter will also be a key part of the pitching rotation. Putting his name into hitting categories with Ty Cobb and being a quality starting pitcher is what puts him in the greatest-ever conversation. While it is still early in Ohtani's career, a great postseason will heighten his career even more.
Dodgers give Ohtani first playoff experience
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This great season will roll into the playoffs for the first time in Ohtani's career. He spent his first six years with the Angels and never made it to October. The Dodgers have been a playoff mainstay for the past decade and Ohtani has only lifted that reputation. Now, he has a chance to make himself a postseason star.
Ohtani's regular season performances are enough to start the greatest-ever conversation. He has already eclipsed 200 career home runs and is the greatest Japanese home run hitter in MLB history. His OPS+ is 157 over his career and has finished top-two in MVP voting each of the last three years. He will undoubtedly make it four in a few weeks.
If he continues his regular season performance in the playoffs, he will join the likes of Babe Ruth among the greatest players to ever play. When he pitches next year, he will become the most valuable player to his team in the entire league, regardless of what the award voting says at the end of the year. The Dodgers and Shohei Ohtani can have their legacies cemented with a great October.
