As spring training progressed and its typical optimism prevailed, a preposterous thought began to gain traction:
What if Shohei Ohtani can actually be better?
In other words: What if arguably the most impressive season in baseball history — one that included a .965 OPS, 46 home runs and 26 stolen bases as a hitter, and a 3.18 ERA, 156 strikeouts and 130 1/3 innings as a pitcher — was only the beginning?
It’s a consideration that might exist only amid the buoyancy that tends to permeate baseball facilities in March, when the season is new, nobody has lost and everybody reports to being in “the best shape of my life.” But peel back the layers, and this wild premise might actually begin to make some sense.
Plenty of Ohtani’s Los Angeles Angels teammates have thought about it.
“The ceiling is unbelievable,” Angels center fielder Mike Trout said. “You never know what he’s gonna do.”
There have been only eight double-digit WAR seasons this century, based on FanGraphs’ calculation: one each by Buster Posey and Randy Johnson, two by Trout and four by Barry Bonds, who got as high as 12.7 fWAR in 2002. Ohtani, 27, finished his unanimous 2021 MVP season with 8.1 fWAR. Many initially wondered about his ability to sustain such high levels of production, given the mental and physical demands of a two-way role in the major leagues. But what if there’s actually even more upside?
It’s an unfair expectation, of course, but not an unreasonable one, considering Ohtani’s unprecedented ability to add significant value on the mound, in the batter’s box and on the basepaths (Angels manager Joe Maddon said he has no plans to limit Ohtani’s stolen base attempts this season). It’s also easy to identify reasons he might be even more productive in 2022. Here are three of them:
1. A new rule, borrowed from last year’s All-Star Game, will allow Ohtani to remain in the lineup after he finishes pitching. Last year, in the 20 starts in which he also hit, Ohtani lost a combined 22 plate appearances to the old directive that forced the Angels to replace his spot in the lineup — and he would’ve lost a handful more had he not moved from the mound to the outfield on seven occasions. Another new rule has brought the designated hitter to the National League. The Angels play 10 games in NL parks this season. That’s roughly 50 more plate appearances for Ohtani, if he makes each start.
2. The 2021 season was Ohtani’s first time in six years as a full-time pitcher, and he very noticeably improved as it went along. The velocity arrived early, but the control came later. As his comfort grew, Maddon noticed significantly improved fastball command that played up his plus splitter and made his slider “devastating,” a development that spilled into his 2022 debut. Ohtani went from walking 12.4% of hitters and posting a 3.49 ERA in the first half to walking 3.6% of hitters and posting a 2.84 ERA in the second half. He averaged 15 outs per start in April, May and June, and 19 in July, August and September.
3. The Angels played without their two other best players — Trout and Anthony Rendon — for the entire second half last season. And down the stretch, the effects were felt by Ohtani, who got very little to hit and saw his numbers dip congruently. Ohtani drew 48 walks after the start of August, an AL-leading 14 of which were intentional (during a three-game stretch in late September, the Houston Astros and Seattle Mariners combined to walk him 11 times in 15 plate appearances). His OPS fell by 86 points after Aug. 1. That might not have been the case if Trout and Rendon were healthy.