When Shohei Ohtani became the inaugural member of the 50/50 club last week in Miami, it felt like a grand finale. Months of anticipation culminated in an epic display of Ohtani’s all-around offensive abilities, producing a stat line never before seen in a major-league game and putting a bow on a season never before produced by a major-league player.
By the time the raucous ovations at loanDepot Park quieted and the collective reaction settled, we almost had to be reminded: There was so much more still to come. Ohtani and the Dodgers departed Miami with a postseason berth clinched but the NL West still up for grabs. History had been made, but there was no reason to slow down
And so, the hits kept coming. Ohtani collected at least one hit and scored at least one run in all six games of L.A.’s final regular-season homestand, including go-ahead RBI singles against the Padres on Wednesday and Thursday to help the Dodgers secure their 11th division title in the past 12 years. The almost-annual Champagne celebration commenced, only this time with a new main character, as Ohtani popped bottles for the first time as a big-leaguer.
Soon, Ohtani will embark on his first trip to the MLB postseason. But before we turn the page to October, he hasn’t yet put the finishing touches on this season. Three regular-season games remain — at the hitter’s haven known as Coors Field against baseball’s worst pitching staff, no less — for Ohtani to add to his ludicrous regular-season totals and for the Dodgers to clinch home-field advantage perhaps through the entire postseason.
October results notwithstanding, 50/50 will be the lasting headline atop Ohtani’s historic individual campaign — there’s a reason his 50th home run ball could soon sell for seven figures — but it’s also just the tip of the iceberg. Look beyond this seismic statistical achievement, and you’ll find a treasure trove of more subtle accomplishments that demonstrate how Ohtani — already one of the best hitters on the planet before he ever swung a bat as a Dodger — somehow got even better in 2024.
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How has Ohtani increased his power?
Let’s rewind for a moment. While the novelty of his new threads and a host of off-field subplots surrounded Ohtani leading up to this season, there was also substantial curiosity about what to expect from him at the plate. For one, his development into one of the game’s best hitters over the past three years had raised the expectations for what he could do in his second stint as a full-time DH. There was intrigue about whether this more mature version of Ohtani, The Hitter, could achieve an even higher offensive ceiling in a season in which he wasn’t taxing his body physically on the mound.
At the same time, it was hard not to let his ongoing rehab as a pitcher cloud his projections as a hitter. After all, when Ohtani underwent his first elbow surgery, his performance for the Angels throughout his rehab in 2019 and 2020 (.793 OPS) was that of a good, but not great, DH before he returned as a fully actualized two-way supernova in 2021. As such, it seemed reasonable to maintain a level of skepticism that Ohtani would be performing at his absolute best offensively while again working his way back to pitching.
However, in the wake of his latest surgery, Ohtani and his agent, Nez Balelo, remained steadfast about his readiness for Opening Day 2024, and Balelo insisted that this was not another full-blown Tommy John procedure, ideally enabling Ohtani a quicker and smoother return to play than the last time around.
Still, even if you presumed that Ohtani’s elbow rehab wouldn’t hamper his performance, a simpler question persisted: How much better could this guy really get? Only Aaron Judge (178), Yordan Alvarez (164) and Mike Trout (163) had a higher wRC+ than Ohtani (156) over the previous three seasons, and Ohtani led all of baseball in the category a year ago. There didn’t seem to be that much higher for him to climb.
How silly that notion seems now.
In 2024, Ohtani hasn’t just blasted past his previous career highs in home runs and steals; he has set new personal bests in hits, doubles, runs, RBI and total bases, and his barrage of hits over the past week has raised his batting average to .305 — a point above where he finished a year ago as the unanimous AL MVP.
The only noticeable decline in his performance compared to a year ago is a modest dip in his walk rate, which can be attributed in part to the unsurprising fact that Ohtani is being intentionally walked less frequently now than when he had a fraction of the firepower surrounding him in the Angels’ lineup. His 10 intentional walks this season are second-most in the National League behind Bryce Harper, but that’s still 11 fewer than the 21 times he was waved to first base in 2023. It’s a subtle yet not insignificant part of why his OBP this year starts with a 3 instead of a 4 — not that an NL-best .387 is anything to sneeze at.
On the flip side, that lineup protection has also afforded Ohtani more opportunities than ever to do damage. He has started 156 games batting first or second for a Dodgers offense that is plenty capable of turning the lineup over with regularity. The result: a career-high 716 plate appearances (and counting). And Ohtani has made the most of them.
At the same time, his outrageous raw totals aren’t strictly the product of an increase in opportunities to swing the bat. Look underneath the hood, and it’s clear that Ohtani has upgraded his offensive game by multiple measures. In addition to his bevy of bests in the standard back-of-the-baseball-card categories, he currently boasts career highs in average exit velocity (95.7 mph), hard-hit rate (59.4%) and xWOBA (.445), as well as career lows in strikeout rate (22.6%) and ground-ball rate (35.5%). These are the kind of process-driven improvements that enable the compilation of such a staggering overall stat line.
On a team loaded with star hitters, Ohtani has registered the 23 hardest-hit balls by a Dodger this season and 44 of the top 50. He has hit 15 of the Dodgers’ 20 longest home runs of the season and the four of the seven longest home runs by any player at Dodger Stadium since Statcast was introduced in 2015. And if that 10-year sample of tape-measure homers at Chavez Ravine isn’t impressive enough, consider this: Ohtani’s 1.081 OPS at Dodger Stadium this season is the second-highest home OPS by a Dodger since the ballpark opened in 1962, behind only the 1.094 mark produced by his teammate Mookie Betts in 2023.
That Betts and Ohtani now share a lineup is still a remarkable reality to witness on a regular basis. Yet it was Betts’ two-month absence due to a broken hand that played a huge part in propelling Ohtani to this historic season, as he truly took off once he replaced Betts batting first atop the Dodgers’ lineup. Ohtani didn’t just take his new challenge in stride; he responded with literally unprecedented power production: His .675 SLG% while batting first is the highest single-season mark for a leadoff hitter in MLB history. Just another feather in his cap.
Now, Ohtani upgrading his capabilities in the batter’s box beyond what was already a world-class standard is plenty impressive. But while his smashing baseballs at absurdly high velocities more frequently than ever before is certainly newsworthy, it’s maybe not that surprising to see the guy who led his league in homers in 2023 doing so again in 2024.
The steals, though — we need to talk about the steals.
How has Ohtani increased his basestealing?
Ohtani has always been fast. Last season actually marked a career low for him in average sprint speed, at 27.8 feet per second, but that still ranked in the 63rd percentile league-wide. In each of his first five seasons, Ohtani ranked in at least the 76th percentile in average sprint speed and among the very fastest in terms of average home-to-first time. Over the years, opposing players and managers have routinely marveled at Ohtani’s quickness after seeing him explode out of the batter’s box or cruise from first to third base, especially considering his imposing, 6-foot-4 frame.
The steals, however, have not always been there.
In 403 career games in Japan before he came to MLB, Ohtani stole just 13 bases — the number he has stolen in September alone. After stealing 29 bases across his first three seasons in MLB, he started to run more in 2021 and 2022, albeit not especially efficiently: Among the 20 players who attempted at least 40 stolen bases across those two seasons, Ohtani’s 66.1% success rate ranked 20th. In 2023, with the new rules introduced by the league in an attempt to revitalize the running game, Ohtani found more success on the bases, swiping 20 bags at a more respectable 77% clip.
With his recent track record in mind, stolen bases were a side note when speculating about Ohtani’s offensive potential entering 2024. Sure, it seemed plausible that in a better lineup and with more energy afforded by not pitching, 30 stolen bases could be in play. 40? Maybe. 50, though? No way.
Yet here we are, with Ohtani approaching not 30, not 40, not 50, but 60 stolen bases entering the regular season’s final weekend. Sure, he has unquestionably benefited from the rule changes that make it more challenging for pitchers and catchers to suppress the running game. But he’s playing within the same rules as everyone else, and no one else in baseball has stolen anywhere close to as often, as efficiently, as Ohtani — and that includes the one player ahead of him on the steals leaderboard, Elly De La Cruz.
De La Cruz’s stupendous start to the season staked him a lead that Ohtani won’t usurp, but his pace has slowed considerably as Ohtani has surged. After stealing 18 bases in April, De La Cruz has swiped 47 bags since the beginning of May, compared to Ohtani’s 51, which lead baseball by a mile (Jose Ramirez is third in that span with 36).
And beyond the raw totals, Ohtani has simply been a better base-stealer than nearly every other ambitious baserunner in the league: Among 28 players with at least 30 stolen-base attempts this season, De La Cruz’s 80.2% success rate ranks 19th, while Ohtani’s 93.3% ranks third, a stunningly high clip that has steadily climbed as Ohtani has stolen 33 consecutive bags successfully since his last failed attempt on July 22.
Add it all up, and we’re talking about the greatest season we’ve ever seen from a primary designated hitter. By WAR, Ohtani is already atop the list; his 8.8 bWAR and 8.6 fWAR are already markedly higher than any individual campaign from the likes of David Ortiz or Edgar Martinez, the previous gold standards at the position. Even if you ignore the stolen bases that help inflate his historic WAR total and look strictly at his production with the bat, Ohtani measures up: Only Ortiz in 2006 hit more home runs (54) in a single season as a DH, and no DH has ever produced more total bases. In fact, with his ninth-inning double on Thursday, Ohtani became just the 30th player ever — and the first since 2001 — to reach 400 total bases in a season. Jim Rice occupied the previous high-water mark for a DH, with 382 bases in 1977.
Regardless of where exactly he stacks up statistically among the pantheon of his peers, one thing has become clear: Ohtani is in position to do something no DH has ever done, and that’s win the MVP award. Ortiz (2005), Frank Thomas (2000) and Victor Martinez (2014) are among the handful over the years who finished runner-up but never took home the hardware. A month ago, Francisco Lindor was making a compelling push as the driving force behind a resurgent Mets club. But Lindor’s missed time due to a back injury, combined with Ohtani’s otherworldly September performance, is setting the stage for the Dodgers star to comfortably collect his third unanimous MVP award, which no one else in MLB history has done more than once.
Ohtani has already delivered another season for the ages. But perhaps most importantly, this season will not conclude with Game 162, as Ohtani will soon have the chance to perform on the postseason stage for the first time. If his play in September has been any indication, October is primed to provide even more fireworks from Ohtani — perhaps beyond anything we previously thought possible.
