Has Ohtani become too valuable at the plate to continue pitching? Here is what the numbers say.
What would it take for Shohei Ohtani to be more valuable just as a hitter? And are we seeing it? Here is what the numbers say.
As often as Ruth and Ohtani have been linked, there always has been more that distinguishes them from each other than binds them together. Ruth really had only one season in which he pulled full-time double duty and he was largely a league-average pitcher during that campaign. He never approached the simultaneous two-way success Ohtani has enjoyed during several seasons of his career.
In Ohtani's first season as a Dodger, he's DHing while also rehabbing from the second major elbow surgery of his career. He appears intent on breaking the game -- as a hitter. Add it up, and Ohtani is on track to create more value from his on-field production than ever before. He's doing that without throwing a single in-game pitch from the mound. For the Dodgers, and for Ohtani, the question has become:Roll it all together, and Ohtani is on pace for a career-high 10.1 bWAR. That would best the 9.9 bWAR he put up in his final season for the, 3.9 of which came from pitching.
By the end of the season, that takes Ohtani's WAR from an MVP-esque 10.1 to 11.6. Only Ruth, Carl Yastrzemski, Rogers Hornsby, Lou Gehrig and Barry Bonds have reached that level among position players since 1900. The calculations change depending on where Ohtani plays, but it's reasonable to say, once we fold in fielding performance and improved positional value, that he would produce at least a full win in WAR above his hitting by playing in the outfield.
Keeping Ohtani as a pitcher means committing full time to a six-man rotation. Does that require finding additional rotation depth? It's easy to see how things exploded for Ruth's value when we apply modern metrics to his career, and how the sources of that value shifted with his evolution. It's easy to see that because it's already happened, while the estimates on future Ohtani remain in the realm of speculation.
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