shohei ohtani alert

450ft
Hardest hit ball by ohtani so far
Hardest hit ball in 2024
Hardest hit ball by a Dodger in the statcast era
Just a bonkers bomb

https://www.reddit.com/r/baseball/s/OPXxm8nszD

I know his HR is the big story, but (from Posnanski):

In case you haven’t been staying up for West Coast games, Shohei Ohtani is hitting .364/.430/.677 with 11 doubles in 25 games. As great as Ohtani has been, he’s never been much of a doubles hitter; his career high in doubles was 30 in 2022.

As longtime readers know, I spent a lot of time rooting for someone to hit 60 doubles in a season. It has not happened since 1936. Freddie Freeman ALMOST did it last year (he finished with 59), and Nick Castellanos ALMOST did it in 2019 (he finished with 58), so the dream goes on.

If Shohei Ohtani is the guy who challenges for 60 doubles this year, I might just explode in happiness.

Yeah, he's hitting 99% of his balls to right field (Source: eye test) and if they're a little further to the right than to the middle of right field, they end up doubles. Happens a lot.

make it 13 doubles in 26

On pace for 81. Easy.

Wtf 14 in 26. He gets a double in the 8th, and the 9th!

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GLci2DdaIAAZk8z?format=jpg&name=small

https://cdn8.openculture.com/2017/08/20195102/soviet-censorship-naval-commissar-vanishes.jpg

Stalin comparison is lol but also, that’s the worst Ohtani drawing! Strange when the visual is such a huge part of his appeal.

Ohtani’s on pace for 230 hits #sss

Shohei Ohtani was booed before and after his 1st AB at Rogers Centre. The fans acted like jilted lovers, seeing Ohtani in #Dodgers blue. After he responded w/ a HR, his teammates greeted him in the dugout with more boos. "He got a big kick out of that.”https://t.co/9WOdwssL3X

— Bill Plunkett (@billplunkettocr) April 27, 2024

They're still mad about the #ohtaniplane

I just love the idea of the dugout booing ohtani after all of his hits. "Booooooo stop making us look bad!"

dodgers are in pittsburgh the first week of june; hope the fans boo him for not signing with the pirates

Lol

changed my DN

brilliant, kudos

pretty good

Geez

Can confirm

Thought this guy was injured?

The 2025 rotation of healthy Ohtani, Glasgow, Yamamoto, Kershaw keeps me up at night, tossing and turning, cold sweats, mumbling prayers, visions of titanium UCLs, perfect games flash across the ceiling, post-season sweeps celebrations ringing in my ears

Then I wake up and we’re sweeping the braves

it's pretty hard to hit a ball 464 ft, even moreso to slightly opposite field.

Leading the NL in hitting and slugging, but Betts still #1 in bWAR (and OBP).

In his MVP and MVP runner-up seasons of 2021-2022, his bWAR for batting was 4.9 and 3.4 respectively, he's already at 2.4 and on pace for over 9.0, which is even more impressive considering how much of his previous WAR value was due to his pitching.

Wonder if a team's ever had two 10+ WAR guys.

Good place to start, the '27 Yankees: Ruth, 12.6; Gehrig, 11.9. Beyond that, probably not.

yeah, at least by fWAR, there have only been a handful of seasons where multiple players reached 10.0+ fWAR:

2001: Barry Bonds (12.5, SFG) and Randy Johnson (10.4, ARI)
1965: Willie Mays (10.7, SFG) and Sandy Koufax (10.0, LAD)
1961: Mickey Mantle (10.3, NYY) and Norm Cash (10.2, DET)
1948: Stan Musial (11.0, STL) and Lou Boudreau (10.9, CLE)
1927: Babe Ruth (12.9, NYY), Lou Gehrig (12.4, NYY), and Rogers Hornsby (10.4, NYG)
1924: Babe Ruth (12.3, NYY) and Rogers Hornsby (12.2, STL)
1921: Babe Ruth (13.7, NYY) and Rogers Hornsby (11.1, STL)
1908: Honus Wagner (11.8, PIT) and Christy Mathewson (10.8, NYG)

Almost three bWARs in 2018: Mookie (10.7), deGrom and Trout at 9.9.

Not enough energy to start looking up all the bWARs, but 2000 had Pedro and A-Rod both above 10.0.

Ohtani's batting average (.365) is currently higher than The Angel's win percentage (.361)

https://www.cbssports.com/mlb/news/shohei-ohtani-gambling-scandal-interpreter-ippei-mizuhara-to-plead-guilty-faces-up-to-33-years-in-prison/

Mizuhara, described by the Attorney's Office as Ohtani's "de facto manager," will plead guilty to one count of bank fraud and one count of subscribing to a false tax return at an arraignment scheduled for May 14. He faces a maximum sentence of 33 years in prison, five years of supervised release and a fine of $1,250,000.

The 39-year-old former interpreter will be required to pay full restitution to his victims, which includes $16,975,010 to Victim A, Ohtani, and $1,149,400 to the IRS.

As well as the millions siphoned out of Ohtani's account to pay off gambling debt, Mizuhara also bought $325,000 worth of baseball cards on eBay and other online resellers in order to flip them and profit himself. In September 2023, Ohtani agreed to pay for Mizuhara's $60,000 dental work and provided him with a check. Instead, according to prosecutors, Mizuhara paid the bill with Ohtani's debit card and deposited the check into his personal account.

Mizuhara also admitted to falsely reporting his taxable income on his IRS tax returns in 2022, resulting in the tax fraud charge. According to the plea deal, Mizuhara falsely claimed he was single when he was in fact married and failed to report additional income of $4,100,000 that year.

Not a good day to be an ippei-stan

In September 2023, Ohtani agreed to pay for Mizuhara's $60,000 dental work and provided him with a check.

POV scant minutes after you took the over AND the spread:

https://streamable.com/jnpw0y

#freeippei

First walk-off hit as a Dodger yesterday ... and his first walk-off in four years? I know the Angels were a bad team when he played there (if you're not winning, you're not getting walk-off hits) but that's still a surprising non-stat.

Not sure if this was noted in the New Yorker thread:

https://i.postimg.cc/2S7VvbLc/shohei.jpg

(Nothing inside that I can see.)

cmon whaaat

The worst part is, he doesn't even look anything like that

Pure disrespect for his running game

cmon whaaat

You disapprove? A Pinterest page suggests they've done around 25 baseball covers, most of a general nature. Seems like quite an honour--artists do mess around with details. All that's missing is a Roger Angell piece inside.

Well it suggests he bets on games, which seems borderline libellous

Oh, god, I totally missed that!

I guess you could be charitable and take that as "makes a lot of money"...but you're almost certainly right.

(If they ever got sued, I bet that'd be their defense, though. "Gambling? How so...")

took that as pocket ripe for picking/his focus is on the game

That's a nice interpretation. I say we go with that

hmm maybe

(I didn't see it as particularly libellous, more an illustration on how shohei's game and the fat stacks of cash surrounding that game are insepperable; ippei-gate just being one product of that)

But Bulb's phrasing for simple and pointed.