The Los Angeles Dodgers have been lucky enough to experience the vast talents of superstar Shohei Ohtani for the past three seasons, but none of them have featured a full year of both Ohtani the pitcher and Ohtani the designated hitter.
His first season in LA was solely as an MVP-caliber DH. Last season included a slow-played return to the mound in June and not going for more than four innings until August (as well as another MVP). This past season, Ohtani was shut down from pitching ahead of the All-Star break.
Though a knee injury originally barred Ohtani from the mound, it was revealed that he also had a biceps injury, something that heavily hampered his second-half offensive numbers and led to his first injured list stint as a Dodger.
President of baseball operations Andrew Friedman spoke Wednesday on the four-time MVP and if he expects him to continue his two-way duties next season.
“I fully expect him to pitch next year,” Friedman said.
Ohtani had a .181 drop in his OPS from the first half to the second half of the year and just eight second half home runs compared to 22 before the All-Star break. Prior to being shut down from pitching, Ohtani had a dazzling 1.79 ERA through 85.2 innings (14 starts) and a pitching bWAR of 3.2.
Friedman spoke on the absolute marvel Ohtani is at the peak of his powers, and how the kind of once-in-a-generation talent he is may have led to managing a slightly injured Ohtani in a suboptimal way.
“This is unprecedented, what he’s doing,” Friedman said. “So obviously for us it’s unprecedented. We don’t have any experience to draw from. We can’t go look at how other situations have played out to try to learn from the good and the bad. We have to all just figure it out together. And I’m not only expecting him to pitch — we’re excited about him pitching.
"So now it’s about how do we do that? How do we manage through a long season and have him at his best going into October — that’s a challenge.”
Shohei Ohtani Will Not Have Offseason Surgery
According to Friedman, despite the multiple nagging injuries Ohtani has dealt with this season, surgery is "not on the table."
Friedman spoke on the nature of handling all the different Ohtani injuries this season as well as their different severities, but with surgery off the table, provided a somewhat lighter response.
“It was just a little bit of an unfortunate game of Whac-A-Mole,” Friedman said. “The knee got to a better spot, and then just the bicep area was bothering him. Just a number of different things. Some of it that would calm down for some period, some that would get re-irritated. It was just a lot of different things he was trying to contend with at once.”
The Dodgers expect Ohtani to be fully healthy by the start of spring training, whenever that may be.
Sign up for our free newsletter and follow us on X/Twitter and Facebook for the latest news.
Add us as a preferred source on Google