Of the shockingly many questions facing the Los Angeles Dodgers with just over a week to go until the postseason begins, perhaps the most fascinating one is also the thorniest: What exactly is the best way to handle Shohei Ohtani?
It's so thorny, in fact, that not even the Dodgers seem to be quite sure of the answer yet. This is the flip side of employing probably the most singular baseball player in the sport's history: There's no road map to follow, no precedent. Heck, we don't even know who is actually in charge of making decisions around Ohtani and what's best for his future and health; this is a man so secretive about his routine that we never actually got confirmation as to just what surgery he actually got on his throwing elbow back in 2023.
Into that informational void has swarmed a whole bunch of speculation. Will the Dodgers use Ohtani as a member of the starting rotation now that he's pitching five innings with regularity now? Or will they use him to bolster what's become an increasingly shaky bullpen, while letting some combination Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Blake Snell, Tyler Glasnow and Clayton Kershaw start?
The possibilities are seemingly endless, and each of them brings with it a host of externalities to consider. This week, however, the speculation got ... maybe a little too carried away. After a loss to the Philadelphia Phillies on Tuesday night, Ohtani mentioned to Japanese media that he was open to heading back to the outfield if the team asked it of him.
“As a player, if I’m told to go somewhere, I want to be prepared to do so,” he said, according to MLB.com. “That’s on the mound and perhaps even in the outfield.”
Manager Dave Roberts, for his part, didn't exactly slam the door shut, even if he did his best to downplay its likelihood.
"I don't know if it's a pipe dream, but it's very commendable from Shohei," Roberts said. "I think that what happens is that there's a lot of moving parts, too. He would have to take on more load, as far as kind of being an outfielder to then pitch. … There's a lot of variables. But to know that he can potentially run out there, it's great. Maybe just in theory. But again, I love him for even throwing that out there."
On the surface, you can understand the temptation. Using Ohtani as a traditional starting pitcher come October is a tricky proposition, not only because the team has yet to let him go beyond the fifth inning but also because he's been limited to pitching once per week — there's no telling how he'll respond to the quicker turnarounds of the postseason. Then again, putting him in the bullpen brings some problems of its own: If Ohtani started at DH and then came into pitch, Los Angeles would lose the DH for the rest of the game as well as Ohtani's bat in the lineup once a new pitcher entered.
One solution to that conundrum? Use Ohtani in the outfield, where he could potentially come in as a reliever later in the game without torching the Dodgers' ability to use the DH. The fact that it would address arguably the one remaining hole in the team's lineup is just icing on the cake.
You can be sure that the team has at least had a conversation about the idea; you don't get to where Andrew Friedman and Co. are without exhausting every option. But that conversation should hopefully have been a quick one. Putting Ohtani back in the field now, under these circumstances and with so little time to reacclimate, risks tarnishing the team's most valuable asset — all so that Friedman can address his own offseason failures.
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Dodgers shouldn't go anywhere near sticking Shohei Ohtani in the outfield
Ohtani hasn’t played the outfield since the 2021 season, when he made seven appearances (six in right field, one in left) with the Angels. That winter, MLB instituted the rule change that allowed starting pitchers to remain in the game as the DH after being removed, thereby allowing Los Angeles to keep Ohtani's bat in the lineup without putting too much on his plate.
Asking Ohtani to be both the best hitter in the lineup and a part of the team's pitching staff while also playing right field feels like asking a whole heck of a lot. Even the Angels managed to get that much right, and they might be the single worst developmental organization in the sport right now. Even discounting the mental load, do we really think it's wise to ask him to make throws from the outfield on a surgically repaired elbow that's already being carefully managed on the mound?
Who knows how seriously the Dodgers have actually considered this, if at all; maybe Ohtani broached it in an effort to do whatever he could for his team and Friedman and/or Roberts shot him down. But there's simply no way it should be on the table, both because it's counterproductive for this playoff run and also because it jeopardizes the future that L.A. and Ohtani still have in front of them — a future that still spans the better part of a decade.
On paper, it is the easiest way to make Ohtani fit on the Dodgers' postseason roster. But there are other ways around it that don't come with nearly as much risk.
How should Dodgers use Shohei Ohtani in October?
While Los Angeles' bullpen is a bit of a mess right now, the starting rotation has been flexing of late. There's enviable depth here, from Yamamoto, Snell and Glasnow to Kershaw and righty Emmet Sheehan — not to mention Ohtani himself.
So why not put that depth to use? Yamamoto and Snell feel like locks to be used as traditional starters, but both Glasnow and Kershaw come with reason to want to limit their exposure a bit. It's not hard to envision a scenario in which Ohtani gets used as a starter but only for three or four innings at most, allowing Glasnow, Kershaw or Sheehan to step up as the second half of a piggyback arrangement. You don't need to burn the DH, and you also don't overly tax Ohtani's arm during a month in which he might have to pitch on four days' rest.
Of course, that doesn't solve the Michael Conforto problem in left field, but the returns of Hyeseong Kim and Tommy Edman should help there. And besides, not even the Dodgers can expect to enter October without any potential weaknesses.