Miguel Andujar can still have a better career than Shohei Ohtani

Yankees fans on social media are up in arms about Shohei Ohanti’s AL Rookie of the Year Award, but Miguel Andujar can still have the better career.

No one should have been all that surprised to see Shohei Ohtani win the AL Rookie of the Year Award on Monday evening, but New York Yankees fans on social media didn’t take the news very well. Predictably, they believed the honor should have gone to their star third baseman, Miguel Andujar.

Don’t expect the debate over which player is better to stop anytime soon. Fans from both franchises will continue to compare the two until they retire. That isn’t necessarily fair since they’re totally different players, but it’s the world we live in. It also makes it prudent to examine the question of which player will enjoy the better career.

That’s where Andujar may hold a slight edge over the Japanese sensation. At least part of Ohtani’s appeal to ROY voters was the impressive novelty of a player who could both pitch and hit at a high level. Ohtani only made 10 starts on the season for Los Angeles, but he posted an impressive ERA of 3.31 in just over 52 innings of work.

It’s difficult to imagine Ohtani keeping up that piece throughout his career. For starters, there’s the obvious issue of his injury status. Plenty of pitchers come back from Tommy John surgery better than ever, but some don’t. You have to at least price in the possibility of the injury harming Ohtani’s long-term prospects on the mound when you try to project his career.

It’s also very likely that his effectiveness will decrease slightly when major league hitters get the chance to see him over and over again. It’s no secret that pitchers who come over from Japan generally enjoy a honeymoon period. Since Ohtani only managed 10 starts this year, it’s impossible to know how he’ll be able to adjust when hitters get a sense of what he’s trying to accomplish out on the mound.

Add it all up and Ohtani’s future on the mound is cloudy at best. The odds favor him being at least a league average starting pitcher for a solid number of years, but it’s unlikely he’s going to be anything approximating an ace. That still gives his team great value, but it’s a little less value than a lot of Angels fans would like to project.

The good news for Ohtani is that he should continue to hit at a high level. He arrived in America with a very good idea of how to attack major league pitching. His offensive numbers were good enough to give the Angels a WAR of 3.9 in just 326 at bats. Those numbers are ultimately why he defeated Andujar in the ROY race. There’s no reason to think he won’t continue to hit at a high level moving forward.

While Ohtani comfortably projects to be a borderline All-Star into the future, he doesn’t have a ton of growth left in his game. That’s why Andujar has a chance to become a better player over the course of his career. The young Yankees third basemen still has huge growth opportunities in his game.

Obviously, he needs to become a much better fielder if he wants to really blossom into a star. His defense at third was putrid at times last season. However, it’s pretty obvious that he has the athletic ability to grow into an average defender. That type of progression will require a lot of hard work, but there are zero questions about Andujar’s mental makeup inside the Yankees organization.

There’s also some low hanging fruit when it comes to his offensive game. The easiest improvement Andujar can make moving forward is to increase his selectivity at the plate. He hit for an impressive batting average of .297 last year, but his OBP was only .328. He’s never going to become Wade Boggs at the plate, but increasing his walk rate to somewhere around league average would do wonders for his offensive value.

It’s also possible that Andujar can improve his power numbers in the future. At first glance, hitting 27 home runs seems like an excellent return. However, when you consider the fact that he also hit 47 doubles it’s easy to envision him becoming an even more prodigious home run hitter. Hitting 40 home runs in a single season isn’t out of reach for Andujar.

We’re not necessarily projecting Andujar to become an above average third baseman who hits 40 home runs per season and draws plenty of walks, but it’s certainly not out of the realm of possibility. If he fulfills his full potential as a player, he’ll turn out to be a better player than Ohtani throughout the course of their respective careers.