Who is Shohei Ohtani’s new interpreter?

The entire baseball world was floored yesterday when it was revealed that Ippei Mizuhara, the longtime interpreter for two-time American League MVP Shohei Ohtani had been fired by the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Mizuhara reportedly took money from Ohtani and used it to place illegal bets. He even admitted to ESPN that he asked the two-way star to pay of as much as $4.5 million in debts.

This has been a shocking development around the game of baseball, and it will be interesting to see what comes of this.

Mizuhara had also been Yoshinobu Yamamoto's interpreter for conversations with coaches and for mound visits.

The Seoul series has since concluded, but Ohtani and Yamamoto had a new interpreter present for the final game of the series. Will Ireton has taken over and he will serve as Ohtani's interpreter and Yamamoto's in-game interpreter.

Who is Shohei Ohtani's new interpreter? Some background on Will Ireton

Ireton is somebody who has a history with the Dodgers organization.

When Kenta Maeda signed with the Dodgers in 2016 after playing in Japan, Ireton had been his interpreter. He remained with the Dodgers after Maeda left to sign with the Minnesota Twins in 2019. He is fluent in both Japanese and English and is even well versed in the analytics department.

After serving as Maeda's interpreter, Ireton transitioned to the baseball operations department, where he held roles such as coordinator of performance and manager of performance operations. He has served in the latter role since November of 2021.

Hopefully, the Dodgers can avoid any further issues, but this has been a very shocking development.

We'll have to wait and see what else comes of this. At the very least, the Dodgers are replacing Mizuhara with a well-respected member of the organization who has great baseball experience, serving in various different roles since serving as Maeda's interpreter.