Shohei Ohtani is coming off a season for the ages. He became the first 50-50 player in the 150-year history of this great sport. He won his third MVP award and became the first primary designated hitter to do so. Oh, and he helped the Dodgers to a World Series title in his first season with the team.
What’s he going to do for an encore? Well, he’s going pitch in 2025. Of course, he likely won’t be a workhorse starter despite averaging 5.7 innings per start for his career (not counting the two he made in 2020 coming back from his first Tommy John surgery) and he’s not even expected to debut on the mound until sometime in May, but the Dodgers didn’t sign him to a $700 million contract based on the strength of just his bat (which, if 2024 is any indication, may have still been a steal). He’s going to pitch, and probably going to pitch well.
What comes to mind is, many Dodger fans have probably never seen or seen very little of Ohtani on the mound. I don’t suspect many in this fan base spent a lot of time watching the Angels from 2018 through 2023. He made just one start against the Dodgers on June 21, 2023, and was very good: 7 IP, 5 H, 1 R/ER, 1 BB, 12 K. Other than that start, the most memorable moment Ohtani has ever had on the mound in recent memory is in the 2023 World Baseball Classic — specifically, his showdown with then-teammate Mike Trout.
Shohei Ohtani vs. Mike Trout Final at bat of the USA vs. Japan WBC Championship – 2023 pic.twitter.com/69gZhxepil
— Highlight Vault (@HighlightVault) September 19, 2024
The sweeper on 3-2 to get the swinging strikeout might be the most well-executed pitch in baseball history. It may sound like hyperbole, but convince me otherwise.
Many (myself included) thought Ohtani was a better pitching prospect than a hitting prospect. The Dodgers had been on Ohtani as far back as 2012. And while he’s been markedly better at the plate in his MLB career — partly due to injury — he has ace-like potential on the mound.
Ohtani’s best season the bump came in 2022. He pitched to a 2.33 ERA, 2.40 FIP and a 26.5 K-BB% in 166 innings. His other two strong seasons came in 2021 and ’23. There was a dip in performance in ’23 ahead of his second TJ procedure, so that might explain some of the decline. However, I want to look at his pitch usage from 2021-23 and see what changed, what went right, what went wrong and what he might be able to do going forward to recapture some of that 2022 glory.
Let me preface this by saying this is all analysis through the 2023 season — i.e., before his second TJ procedure. This is all subject to change, should he fail to return to his previous level of pitching prowess.
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4-Seam Fastball
Some mixed results on his heater. It was most effective for him in ’23, when he backed off the velo a bit, increased the spin slightly, yet allowed a little harder contact from the previous season. He can run it up there in excess of 100 MPH (at least, before his latest surgery), so we’ll see if he can get back to that velocity. With the Dodgers not having their starting pitchers rely on 4-seam fastballs as much, it wouldn’t be surprising to see an big increase in usage. Tyler Glasnow led non-James Paxton Dodger starters with a 45% 4-seam usage. Jack Flaherty was at 44.2% after his acquisition, while Yoshinobu Yamamoto checked in at 40.4%. Something between his 2021 and 2023 usage is probably right for him.
Here it is in action:
100 MPH on pitch 99.
Shohei Ohtani is not human. pic.twitter.com/qNDCpUi3mj
— MLB (@MLB) July 27, 2021
With his vast array of offerings, he doesn’t need to rely heavily on his fastball.
Sweeper
Ohtani’s sweeper is a go-to pitch for him. He throws frequently and enjoys success with it. He has been able to hold hitters in check with it by limiting exit velocity and getting a good amount of swings and misses. Like a lot of breaking pitches, though, it is susceptible to getting hit out of the park. Of the 53 home runs he has allowed as a pitcher, 22 have been off the sweeper (41.5%).
209 seconds of Shohei Ohtani’s Sweeper Strikeouts in 2023. 😷 pic.twitter.com/jC2qxhp4CQ
— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) December 9, 2023
Amongst the Dodgers, sweepers have been most commonly associated with relievers like Evan Phillips and Blake Treinen, so it’ll be interesting to see it used more in the rotation. Of course, Clayton Kershaw built a Hall of Fame résumé on a slider, which is the parent pitch of the sweeper. We saw Walker Buehler throw it 8.2% of the time in 2024, so it isn’t completely foreign to Dodger starting pitchers.
Splitter
Here is Ohtani’s money pitch. That’s strange to say on a pitch he has thrown just 13.2% of the time in his 481 2/3 MLB innings, but it has been so incredibly effective in every aspect of pitching. While his usage dropped in three consecutive years, the fact that his 2023 numbers with the pitch were his “worst” in that span despite throwing it the least is a bit perplexing. Still, he limited the exit velo on it and kept the whiff rate above 40%.
It could have something to do with location. Here are the heatmaps of his splitter from ’21-’23.
He lived below the strike zone in 2022 after being up a bit in 2021. His location in 2023 was … curious, to say the least. There isn’t as much data since he didn’t use it as much, but when he did, it was everywhere. Maybe that unpredictability led to hitters not being able to square it up as much? Not sure, but it’s easier to see why he didn’t get as many whiffs on it (but the rate was still really good).
Shohei Ohtani has finished 20 plate appearances with his splitter this season. The results? Hitters are 0-for-19 … with 18 strikeouts.
Baseball’s most unhittable pitch is back. STORY ➡️ https://t.co/Re8HHNmISo pic.twitter.com/7pDyILyGkt
— David Adler (@_dadler) April 29, 2021
If I’m the Dodgers, I almost risk an increase in usage while decreasing usage of the next pitch below.
Cutter
Here is where Ohtani might be getting himself into trouble. His cutter was something he picked up in 2021 and, well, the results weren’t great then. He recorded just one strikeout on a plate appearance ending in a cutter. For reference, he had three strikeouts on his curveball that same year — a pitch he threw 182 fewer times than his cutter. Things didn’t get much better in 2022 (despite being his best season as a pitcher). He allowed some gaudy opponents’ hitting numbers, despite reducing the usage by nearly a third. Then in 2023, in a real against-the-grain move, he opted to throw it roughly 55% more than the previous season. The results were, predictably, not great!
The league-average numbers for cut fastballs in 2024 were as follows:
.267 xBA
.440 xSLG
.337 xwOBA
88.5 MPH EV
23.5 Whiff%
In Ohtani’s best season with the cutter, he was worse in every single category. Let’s look at the release points and arm angle to see if we can find a problem.
After 2021, things changed somewhat dramatically. His arm angle dropped significantly, which seemed to be a thing for all his pitches; not just cutter-specific. With the change in arm angle came a lower vertical release point and a bit wider horizontal release point. That happened with all his offerings, so I’m not sure we can deduce much from that other than his cutter suffered immensely with the arm angle/release point changes.
Shohei Ohtani, Wicked 91mph Cutter. ✂️ pic.twitter.com/5ZrMGAOl0a
— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) May 21, 2023
Sometimes — even a pitch of Ohtani’s caliber — just can’t make a pitch work consistently well for him (see: Kershaw, Clayton and the changeup). I’m sure the Dodgers will attempt to salvage the cutter, as there’s some value in it (like making his sweeper even better), but he has such an extensive repertoire that he could reduce the cutter usage and still be an elite-level pitcher. This will be something to monitor once we start getting pitch data on him as a Dodger.
Curveball
The curveball is one of his most seldom-used pitches and has produced really good results — perhaps because of limited exposure. Still, if he reduces his cutter usage, perhaps his curveball usage gets a bump. It’s hard to get too excited about he threw just 5.4% of the time from ’21-’23, but the potential is there.
We’ve seen Kenta Maeda fall in love with his curveball a bit too much in the past — to his detriment — but Yamamoto’s curveball is one of his better pitches that he throws with some frequency (23.1%). With Buehler’s departure, some more right-handed curveballs may not be the worst thing for the Dodgers and Ohtani.
Much better command of the secondaries in the second inning for Shohei Ohtani. Not the most pitch-efficient by any means, but also some nasty pitches like this curve. pic.twitter.com/3zXOzhDpeh
— Fabian Ardaya (@FabianArdaya) April 21, 2021
It’s not going to supplant his sweeper or splitter, but if it can reduce the exposure of his cutter, it may very well be worth it.
Sinker
The sinker can be classified in the same category as his 4-seam fastball in terms of effectiveness, but it’s also a sparingly used pitch that could see a bit of a bump if the cutter usage decreases. In 2023 in limited usage, he did a great job of limiting hard contact. It’s not a big swing-and-miss pitch league-wide, so the 22.5 Whiff% he had in 2023 is really impressive. The league-average for 2024 was 13.9% and 14.3% in 2023. This could be a bit of a secret weapon for him going forward, especially since the Dodgers have implemented an increase in sinker/2-seamer usage from 2022 (5.8%) to 2023 (11.0%) to last season (12.1%).
Shohei Ohtani, Sick 96mph Sinker. 🤒 pic.twitter.com/aEzY8ssCL3
— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) September 30, 2022
If he can throw it like this, it might be curtains for the league.
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As much fun as we had watching Ohtani at the plate last season, seeing him on the mound could be, well, maybe not as much fun, but still pretty exciting. This is, obviously, all dependent on him coming back from surgery well. He’s reportedly sitting 92-94 MPH in bullpens thus far and is only throwing fastballs. He’s also going to incorporate the wind-up, as he pitched primarily from the stretch in his career so far. If he doesn’t ever get back to triple-digit velocity, it probably won’t be the end of the world for him. He’s smart and capable enough to not have to rely on elite velocity. Then again, he’s not of this world, so maybe he’ll come all the way back throwing even harder — Walker Buehler-style. Either way, the Dodgers and the fan base are going to get a nice glimpse into the next nine years of his deal with him being the true 2-way player he was signed to be.
His offense might take a bit of a hit, but he’s still going to be one of the game’s premiere hitters. If you add an above-average starting pitcher on top of that, there’s almost no way he doesn’t win MVP every single year. You know, unless the writers give him the Barry Bonds treatment. Maybe that means Mookie Betts or Freddie Freeman can snag one more MVP, Jeff Kent-style.
Regardless, I, for one, cannot wait to watch Ohtani pitch for the Dodgers.
