Key Points
Bullet point summary by AI
- Current baseball metrics struggle to capture the full impact of Shohei Ohtani who dominates both pitching and hitting.
- The MVP award, designed for everyday players, increasingly feels mismatched against a talent who redefines what excellence looks like on both sides of the ball.
- Future generations may look back on this era and wonder how we ever measured greatness before such a player came along.
Society is desperate for a system to quantify the value of Shohei Ohtani, because what we have right now is completely inadequate. I am here to provide relief.
Ohtani has won four MVPs and seems like a mortal lock to win his fifth this year. Yet Ohtani has only led Major League Baseball in Wins Above Replacement one time — 2021, a season in which he hit 46 home runs and pitched over 130 innings of 3.30 ERA ball. And he barely beat Corbin Burnes by less than half a win. In 2022 Ohtani apparently fell off, notching a measly 9.2 WAR (that’s sarcastic … that’s like insane), hitting only 34 home runs and pitching a pedestrian 15-9 record at 2.33 ERA (sarcasm again I mean hello?). He lost the AL MVP to Aaron Judge’s monstrous 11.1 WAR campaign.
Now it’s 2026. Through 10 starts as a pitcher, Ohtani has posted a 0.72 ERA — the third-best number through 10 starts for any pitcher ever (dude) — and despite an uncharacteristically chill start at the plate he has clubbed his way back into elite status. He is indeed leading MLB in combined WAR, but only by 0.7 over Bobby Witt Jr., a great hitter and defensive shortstop but still someone I would like to remind everyone does not pitch. What’s going on here?
WAR does not properly value Shohei Ohtani
First, let’s explain why our existing stats don’t work. WAR is a wonderful innovation in baseball analytics, but was not designed for Shohei Ohtani. The word “replacement” is important here, because Ohtani has a combined number calculating how much better he is than your average starting pitcher and your average designated hitter. But it does not capture the nuance that Ohtani is not secretly two identical twins like (spoiler alert) Christian Bale in The Prestige, one DH and one pitcher. WAR does not adequately multiply how absurd it is to pitch and hit at an elite level at volume in an MLB season.
Additionally, because Ohtani cannot accumulate defensive WAR as a DH, he is dealing with the simple fact that a good-to-great defensive player will have stats that he does not and that the average DH is a much better hitter than your average uh, pitcher. Some argue that isn’t reality, since he is taking up a DH slot in the lineup, pitchers no longer hit and so there is no replacement-level player you could compare him to. That’s probably fair, but it’s also the best evidence for why WAR doesn’t come close to estimating his value.
Is it even fair to have a healthy Shohei win the MVP?
Next, we need to talk awards. I asked FanGraph’s Ben Clemens if he had any thoughts on making the MVP award hitter-exclusive, since Ohtani being a great hitter and a great pitcher means he should basically always win the MVP even if he is the best at neither. Clemens responded: “um, no … is my thoughts. Who’s the best baseball player? The MVP.”
I can’t really argue with that, nor did I necessarily mean to. We obviously have the Hank Aaron Award and Silver Sluggers and the Cy Young for pitchers, so a two-way player is arguably the perfect person to win the MVP. But let’s be honest here: the MVP and Cy Young are thought of as a pairing, not the Silver Slugger. A pitcher that wins the Cy Young is considered the MVP of pitchers, and it’s a bit silly to try to decide between a starter who shows up every five days and someone who plays every day. Save for the occasional Clayton Kershaw, Justin Verlander and … Dennis Eckersley (in 1992? As a closer? An MVP closer? Huh. Different time I guess), the awards are a tandem of the best pitcher and the best hitter.
It just feels lame for the rest of the hitters in the National League who have no chance at the award unless Ohtani gets hurt, while Cristopher Sanchez and Jacob Misiorowski can chase the NL Cy Young with impunity. I do think it’s a little wack that Ohtani can be neither the best hitter not the best pitcher and still win the MVP because he’s (of course) the best overall player. He has, of course, been the best hitter and won the MVP, and might be the best pitcher this year and win the MVP. If anything, he might be too good for the award — we gave it to a closer (love you Eck) in 1992. Even if that closer was the Incredible Hulk, real-life Ohtani might still be more valuable.
The MVP doesn't define Ohtani — he defines it
Maybe … the MVP is actually perfect? It’s not like Ohtani is going to be dominating the NL forever even if the Los Angeles Dodgers manage to, and the 2020s will be a fascinating moment in time to look back on if Ohtani wins eight of 10 MVPs. The history of the award may not be able to capture his greatness historically, but he will capture the award and set an impossible bar for all future MVPs. Imagine Roman Anthony (just let me have this) winning an AL MVP in 2037 after Ohtani retires batting .321 with 47 home runs. Sick, to be sure, but it’s not like he’s Shohei Ohtani. No one can be Shohei Ohtani.
To sum up our efforts, here's how to quantify Shohei Ohtani: don't. Just consider Shohei Ohtani, contemplate Shohei Ohtani. Figure out how good he is in your mind and hold onto that so you can tell everyone for the rest of your life. Because society forgets things; we shall not let it forget this.
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