What happens when the best baseball player in the world enters the most crucial year of his career? We're already finding out.

Shohei Ohtani has indeed dropped quite the early hint that his 2023 experience will lean toward the extraordinary. He did it by spearheading Japan's undefeated run to its third World Baseball Classic championship in that particular fashion that's at once familiar, yet utterly unique to him.

Ohtani dominated at the plate with a 1.345 OPS and on the mound with a 1.86 ERA and 11 strikeouts. The last of those will be replayed until the end of time, and then into whatever comes after.

"I thought it was like a Manga," Japan teammate Kazuma Okamoto said of Ohtani's climactic punchout of United States captain and Los Angeles Angels teammate Mike Trout, "like a comic book."

If the question is whether Ohtani's star power has ever been greater, the answer is no. It's so big that the baseball world revolves around it.

Google interest in Ohtani, the 2021 American League MVP and two-time All-Star, over the last 30 days dwarfs that of Trout and fellow mega-star Aaron Judge. And even though he can't cash in on the free-agent market until the coming winter, Ohtani is already the highest-paid player in baseball. Justin Birnbaum of Forbes reported that he'll earn $65 million this year between his endorsements and his $30 million salary with the Angels.

But if the next question is whether Ohtani's year can still get more dramatic, that one's a yes.