Shohei Ohtani (大谷 翔平, Ōtani Shōhei, born July 5, 1994) is a Japanese baseball player who currently plays for Major League Baseball's Los Angeles Dodgers. He's most notable as the first top-level professional to perform at an elite level as both a pitcher and hitter since Babe Ruth gave up pitching in the early 1920s.
A native of Iwate Prefecture in the Tōhoku region of the country's largest island of Honshu, he was what Japanese call a "baseball boy" who was devoted to the game from an early age. Coached by his father, an auto worker and high-level amateur baseball player, Ohtani showed great promise early, notably recording all but one of 18 outs in a six-inning regional championship game as a seventh-grader. Unlike most top Japanese baseball prospects from the country's outlying areas, he chose to stay local for high school ball. As an 18-year-old in 2012, he threw a 99-mph (160 km/h) fastball, then a record for a Japanese high-schooler, and was also a top-notch hitter, drawing attention from scouts for both the country's top pro league of Nippon Professional Baseball and MLB. He initially wanted to try his luck in the US out of high school, but decided to stay in his homeland for a few years before crossing the Pacific. The main reason was that the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters, which had selected him in the 2012 NPB draft, were willing to let him both pitch and hit. His preferred team at the time, the Dodgers, weren't ready to let him play both roles.
He debuted with the Fighters in 2013 as a right fielder, and became the first NPB player drafted out of high school to both pitch and play in the field since 1951, and the first ever to start in both roles. While Ohtani missed much of his rookie year to injuries, he still made NPB's All-Star Game that year. This was just the start for him, as he would make the All-Star Game in each of the next four seasons, lead the Pacific Leaguenote in earned-run average in 2015, make the Pacific League Best Nine in 2015 and 2016 as a pitcher and in 2016 as a designated hitter,note and lead the Fighters to victory in the Japan Series (NPB's equivalent to the World Series) in 2016. With his breakout season, Ohtani became well-known internationally, even among American baseball fans, which is extremely rare; even dedicated baseball fans in the US have seldom heard of any players that aren't currently or formerly playing for an MLB team or a minor league affiliate of an MLB team.
Ohtani decided to cross the Pacific after the 2017 season, even though changes to the international signing rules meant that by not waiting until he was 25, he was costing himself potentially tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars in his initial contract. With the signing rules heavily limiting how much he would cost and Ohtani not seeming to care too much about how much he was paid, pretty much every team in baseball could see him fitting into their budgets, and his rare combination of talents led to most of the 2017–18 offseason talk dominated by speculation about where Ohtani would sign, and just how good he could possibly be at both pitching and hitting when he got to MLB. After signing with the Los Angeles Angels, Ohtani struggled mightily in spring training, leading to speculation as to whether he was worth the hype... until proceeding to homer in each of his first three regular-season games as a hitter and pick up wins in his first two pitching starts. He slowed down slightly after that, but still continued to do some pretty amazing things as both a hitter and a pitcher... at least until he ominously went on the disabled list with a sprained ulnar collateral ligament in his throwing (right) elbow. Ohtani ultimately finished the season as solely a hitter, and had Tommy John surgery after the season; he did not pitch in 2019, spending that season as a hitter. He had a down 2020... and then came 2021.
In a late-April game, he became the first player since the Babe himself to start a game as a pitcher while also entering the day leading MLB in homers, and the following month became the first player in baseball's modern era (1900–present) to record 30 strikeouts and hit 10 homers in his team's first 30 games. He didn't stop there, becoming the first player in MLB history to hit at least 30 homers in a season in which he made at least 10 pitching appearances (46 homers, 23 pitching starts). His 46 homers were third in MLB, and he also was tied for the MLB lead in triples, second in the AL in OPS, and in the top 10 in stolen bases. As a pitcher, he finished 9–2 with a 3.18 ERA, striking out more than a batter per inning and recording a better than 3-to-1 strikeout/walk ratio. Ohtani also became the first player ever to be selected for the All-Star Game as both a pitcher and position player (DH in his case). With Ohtani being named the AL starting pitcher for the ASG, MLB went so far as to make a one-game-only change to the DH rule to allow him to start on the mound, bat leadoff, and stay in the game as a DH once pulled from the mound. MLB decided to make this rule change permanent in 2022.note Ohtani was the unanimous choice as AL MVP in 2021 and made the All-MLB Team as both the first-team DH and a second-team starting pitcher. The next year, he again made the ASG as both DH and pitcher, and made the All-MLB Team at both positions (first-team starting pitcher and second-team DH). Even with all that, perhaps his most remarkable accomplishments in 2022 were a pair of two-way feats even The Babe never did—(1) 30 homers and 10 pitching wins in the same season and (2) qualifying for MLB leaderboards as both a hitter and pitcher. "Shotime" added to his legend in the 2023 World Baseball Classic, being named to the all-tournament team as both a DH and pitcher, as well as collecting MVP honors. His performance for Team Japan was capped off by coming in as a reliever in the 9th inning of the final against Team USA, sealing Japan's win by striking out his Angels teammate Mike Trout.
If anything, he was even better in the 2023 season, with that June being arguably the best month an MLB player has ever had. That month, he posted a 286 OPS+ and a slash line of .394/.492/.952 with 15 homers as a hitter, and a 3.26 ERA with 11 strikeouts per 9 innings as a pitcher. This story
tries to place that month in historic perspective. However, he would suffer another ligament tear in his throwing elbow that September; while he soldiered on as a hitter, an oblique muscle strain ended his season. Ohtani would go on to be named the unanimous AL MVP anyway. He also did 2021 and 2022 one better by becoming first-team All-MLB as both a DH and starting pitcher. The Angels cleared out his locker, fully expecting him to leave in free agency. They were right; the Dodgers would end up signing him to a monstrous $700 million contract on December 9—although it later came out that $680 million of that was in deferred money that will be paid out from 2034–2043.note Shortly before the end of that season, Ohtani had a second elbow operation, and is only hitting in 2024.
Not only is Ohtani arguably the face of baseball, his all-around accomplishments have made him the subject of the "Tungsten Arm O'Doyle" meme, created in 2021 by a Twitter (X) commentator who contrasted the Angels' struggles in recent years with the individual greatness of Ohtani and Trout, with said commentator creating the fictional O'Doyle as an expy of Ruth. The meme has become so associated with Ohtani that if you enter "Tungsten Arm O'Doyle" in the search field of the prominent statistics website Baseball Reference, you're redirected to Ohtani's page.
