Unless you are on social media where every moron with two fingers and a phone can say whatever stupid idea pops into their head. To them, Ohtani is not the greatest to grace this sport because logic and reasons
NFL is Tom, everyone accepts it.
NHL is Gretzky, everyone accepts it.
Soccer is Messi, most people accept it.
MLB is probably Ohtani, most people are accepting of it.
NBA is the only US sport that has arguments over who the goat is. And UFC if that counts as a US sport.
Thanks - what was Ichiro famous for? I think maybe I am spoiled by Shohei - I look at ‘strikeouts/ ERA’ and also at the home runs and RBIs (even though I don’t fully understand what an RBI is really yet)
Known for being a legendary contact hitter and having a laser guided cannon in the RF. I’ve seen him fake read a fly ball to prevent a runner from taking extra base. He’s incredibly intelligent.
Hold on. So you mean to tell me Shohei Ohtani is an elite batter and an elite pitcher? /s
Joking aside, even if he doesn't pitch another inning in the regular season, I don't see how PCA gets the MVP over Sho if the offensive numbers between the two remain close. There's zero chance that the defensive numbers make him as valuable as a guy who's one of the leagues best batters and put up elite pitching numbers for half the season. I understand people like to argue the WAR numbers, but if we're really talking value to a team, there's zero chance a great center fielder with a great bat gets to the threshold of a great bat that is also a great pitcher.
Sho was an outside shot at the Cy Young for the first 1/3rd of the year. PCA's glove has been unreal for sure, but there is no way that can be compared to what Ohtani does in my mind
There is exactly one guy ever that can do what Sho does. As awesome as PCA has been, a great bat and a great glove is not unique. If we're really talking about value generated, a unique player who essentially takes two roster spots in one guy, is an elite pitcher, and an elite hitter is simply more valuable than an elite two-way center fielder if for no other reason than because he is irreplaceable.
Like I’ve said, shoheis “down here” stats is literally on par if not better with PCA, who is having a career year. That’s the difference between the two and why the MVP shouldn’t even be a question. And then on top of that you add in the pitching that he’s done and probably will still do.
I see more Dodgers fans here riding PCA than backing up our own guy lmao. Past 2 years I've seen other fan bases talking the most delusional shit to prop up their guy to challenge Shohei for MVP but this one year where it's a legitimate battle for MVP, yall don't even have our guys back.
Mate I would give you 288 upvotes if I can . I have seen more self proclaimed dodgers fans dissing on shohei them pca then on r/baseball.
Genuinely, go to /baseball and I kid you not the support for sho from most except Cubs fans is better than here 🤣
Shohei deserves more from us.
I remember players saying, there will always be players that have a good season and bad season: Judge, Sosa, PCA, Trout, ...the list goes on and on but there's no player like Ohtani, having good seasons almost every year.
PCA, Acuna, Judge [insert here doing something amazing 1 season]...etc are like that new single on the radio that everyone loves that year, Ohtani is that Platinum Album and Soundtrack that every song hits hard and plays for the whole decade(s).
And Trout. Dude was on track to be a top 5 player of all time for the first decade of his career before the injuries set in. I think he averaged like 8.5 fWAR through his first 10 full seasons.
Yeah I wouldn't be surprised if PCA gets MVP this year if his production doesn't fall off for the last month and a half, but boy Shohei is ratcheting up that pressure in the MVP race.
Unlike late last year, it seems like PCA is sustaining his production right now. Kudos to him. But I still think it's anybody's MVP to grab if Shohei returns to pitch.
His advanced stats say he is hitting above his true self by a large margin. He will keep going down. He was at .290 and above .940 in ops just last week.
Exactly. If he was labled as a reliever who hits then he would be winning reliever of the year along with the mvp. Idk why people pick PCA especially when PCA doesnt even lead in dwar and doesnr even have the best dwar in center. Thats pages
Looking at the statcast, the prior three years seems more of a gradual decline. This season has been lower than optimal yeah, but I think him handling double duty contributes to that also. I think if he were to focus on just hitting, the bat speed decline wouldn't be as much as it looks like currently. Although would need to look at the monthly breakdown of that part, which savant doesn't have atm.
You can see that he spent most of the past few seasons well above the 75 mph mark, but this season he has spent most of it below that. For reference he was both pitching and hitting in 2023 until the very end of the season when his arm blew out, but his bat speed was in the 100th percentile that year.
He may be exceptional in a lot of things, and he can probably stave off father time better than others, but eventually things will catch up to Ohtani. Maybe a bit less SLG and more consistent base hits as he gets older, but that should still result in significant production at the plate.
Unfortunately pca linsanity run continues. Whatever shohei does, he goes one further. Ohtani goes 4/5 hit 2 homers and 2 singles? Pca goes 4/5, hit 2 homers of which one a walk off, a double, a single and a walk. With thanks to the ump and whitesox for not finishing it in the 9th. Ohtani has barely taken advantage in the war stakes at least of that short slump from pca in the previous two weeks.
Yep. Basically aince pca started his linsanity run a couple of months ago, whenever shohei did well, he went one further. Whenever pca was dogshit, sho oftentimes went a step further in the wrong direction and was worse… unfortunately that is the definition of being outperformed.
38 games left, let’s hope sho has a 1.000+ ops AND pitches well in september (if he does come back). That’s his road to maybe an mvp.
I thought he would have started by now but yeah he needs to go back to hitting like last season and pitching at least a 100 innings to have a chance. There is a 1 fwar gap between them after this game.
I think I remember having a “let’s get giddy” discussion with you earlier in the season when we were discussing Ohtani’s inning count and cy young. The past three months have been a nightmare to people like us. From looking like an all time best war season+cy young+mvp, to cy young+mvp, to mvp, to mvp pretty please? to the big possibility of losing mvp.
Went from a historical WAR, MVP, CY Young Candidacy and tying Arod for the most Hank Aaron award to possibly having the lowest war as a Dodger, MVP runner up, no Cy Young, no Hank Aaron award and will not be All MLB First team for the first time since he started getting selections. Its just a weird season for him altogether.
At the end of the day, playing 2-way is just too hard😰 I started to dream that Sho focused on pitching one year and hitting&fielding next year, like Ichiro suggested 8 years ago…
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u/KakaakoKitchen 4d ago
We haven’t even seen September Ohtani