Shohei Ohtani is a baseball player who is doing things that nobody has ever done on a baseball field. The Japanese star is the first player since Babe Ruth who has both hit and pitched simultaneously. That is an outrageous feat in its own right, but it doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface of what the man aptly nicknamed “The Unicorn” has accomplished in his eight seasons as a major leaguer.
Ohtani was an object of sports media coverage from a young age while playing high school baseball at Hanamaki Higashi High School in Iwate, Japan. During the largest high school sports tournament in the world, the Summer Koshien, a 17-year-old Ohtani routinely threw pitches that exceeded 97 mph. His fastest pitch, which was the fastest pitch ever recorded by a high school player at the time, came in at 99 mph. In the same game he also hit a home run off of future fellow big leaguer Shintaro Fujinami, who was considered the best pitcher in Japanese high school baseball at the time.
After graduating high school, baseball players who are lucky enough to make it to the next level choose whether they want to pitch or play a position. It is simply unsustainable to both pitch and hit beyond high school, unless your name is Shohei Ohtani. He was the first overall pick in the 2012 draft in the Nippon Professional Baseball League, which is Japan’s top league, and the second most competitive professional baseball league on the planet. He would not choose between hitting and pitching, as the team whom he was drafted by, the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters, was intrigued by his potential as a two-way player. The team would not be disappointed by the results, as Ohtani would dominate the NPB as both a hitter and a pitcher up until 2017, which was his final season with the Fighters.
After the 2017 season, the 22-year-old Ohtani announced that he was a free agent available to be signed by teams in Major League Baseball. The Los Angeles Angels would win the Ohtani sweepstakes and ink him to a six year deal worth an approximate $10 million. There were many skeptics who said that Ohtani had no chance to both pitch and hit in the major leagues, and early on, they looked to be correct. In 2018 spring training, Ohtani struggled both hitting and pitching, but when the regular season began, everything changed. Ohtani would dominate as a 23-year-old rookie to a triple slash of .285/.361/.564 while clubbing 22 home runs and driving in 61 runs. On the mound, he would throw 52.1 innings to an earned run average of 3.31 before being shut down as both a pitcher and a hitter after 104 games due to a torn ulnar collateral ligament in his elbow that would require Tommy John surgery. In 2019, while still healing from elbow surgery and not being able to pitch that season, Ohtani would deliver another stellar campaign at the plate. In 106 games, he would slash .286/.343/.505 with 18 homers and 62 runs batted in.
Ohtani would have a rough 2020 season, as most star players would, due to the COVID-19 restrictions and the shortened 60-game season. In 2021, however, Ohtani would take his play to a level that the sport had never seen. He would return to the mound for the first time since his rookie season and would absolutely dominate both there and with the bat. His slash line as a hitter was .257/.372/.592 with 46 home runs, 100 runs batted in and 26 stolen bases to boot. As a pitcher, Ohtani threw 130.1 innings with a 3.18 earned run average and 156 strikeouts. He would claim his first MVP trophy that season, winning nearly unanimously over runner-up Vladimir Guerrero Jr.
In 2022, Ohtani posted another monster season, specifically on the mound, where he would post a 2.40 earned run average with 219 strikeouts in 166 innings. His numbers as a hitter were once again elite with a triple slash of .273/.356/.519 with 34 home runs and 95 runs batted in. He would, unfortunately, lose out on the MVP to Aaron Judge and his record-breaking 62 home run season.
The following year was the year that pushed Ohtani from potential Hall of Fame conversations to conversations about the greatest baseball player we have ever seen. His 2023 season was his best yet, and one of the best single seasons that the game has ever seen. His triple slash was a ridiculous .304/.412/.654 with an American League-leading 44 home runs and 95 runs batted in. On the mound, he was just as dominant, posting a 3.14 earned run average and 167 strikeouts in 132 innings. The craziest part of Ohtani’s 2023 season was that he managed to put up those otherworldly numbers in just 135 games due to a season-ending injury that would cause him to once again undergo Tommy John surgery. He would use that unreal season to capture his second American League MVP.
In the offseason after 2023, Ohtani was a free agent. The fear for many teams who would most definitely have to give him a record-breaking deal to acquire his services was that he had just undergone his second Tommy John surgery in five years. Was Ohtani a great hitter? Absolutely, and he would be worth a record-breaking deal regardless of whether he ever pitched again. But the question was, if he were to pitch again, what kind of contract would he be given?
On Dec.9, 2023, we had our answer. The team across town, the Los Angeles Dodgers, signed Ohtani to a 10-year contract worth an unfathomable $700 million. Would Ohtani live up to that contract if he couldn’t pitch anymore? And even if he could, how could any athlete live up to a contract worth almost three-quarters of a billion dollars?
Ohtani would once again quiet any doubt in his first season with the Dodgers. He somehow became an even more feared hitter and would do something no player had ever done before. As a designated hitter, coming off of his second Tommy John surgery, Ohtani would post a triple slash of .310/.390/.646 and would become the first player in the history of baseball to hit 50 home runs and steal 50 bases in a season. His 54 home runs, 130 runs batted in, and 59 stolen bases would earn him his 3rd MVP trophy, making him the first primary designated hitter to win the award and just the 12th player to win it three times. He was also a key piece in a Dodgers team that would win the World Series in dominant fashion over the New York Yankees.
This year, Ohtani did typical Ohtani things, slashing .282/.392/.622 with a career high 55 home runs to go along with 102 runs batted in and 20 stolen bases. He should win his fourth MVP, which would make him just the second player to win it four or more times alongside Barry Bonds.
This postseason, Ohtani has slashed .220/.333/.634 en route to the Dodgers returning to the World Series. In game four of the National League Championship Series, with a chance to sweep the Milwaukee Brewers and return to the World Series, Ohtani had what many would call the greatest game of all time. On the mound, which he returned to in limited capacity during the 2025 regular season, he would toss 6 scoreless innings with 10 strikeouts, and at the plate, he would club 3 homers to singlehandedly clinch the National League pennant for the Dodgers. Shohei Ohtani has done things that no player has ever done, and he will continue to rewrite the history of baseball in his image in the coming years. For my money, Shohei Ohtani is the greatest baseball player of all time.
This story is an editorial and does not necessarily reflect the views of The Campus.
