Ohtani
 

Growing up in NY, it's amazing all the mediocre players on both the Mets and Yankees that I've seen hyped beyond belief over the years. Conforto and Dom Smith are two Mets examples. Everyone on the Yankees who hits 2 homeruns in 3 days or throws 6 scoreless is a future hall of famer. And then every morning I log on and see what Ohtani is doing and it seems like an awful lot of baseball fans just shrug their shoulders. He's having a truly mind blowing historic season and yet many fans have seemed to move on to the next big thing. Weird.

I know what you mean...I could count how many times I've seen Mike Trout play on one hand. Remember him ? He's fairly good too, he just can't pitch.

Ohtani is amazing...18 stolen bases too!!


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East Coast bias comes into play somewhat, couple more seasons like this and no one will be able to ignore his talents.

This is the thing -- I think very few people think it's sustainable.

He has the talent, the only question, much like Mantle, is health.

Regardless of sustainable, what he is accomplishing this season is nothing like anything we've ever seen.

Even more remarkable in that most Japanese players have come over here and been outmatched. This guy is on another level.

I'll take Vlad Guerrero Junior over him any day of the week and going forward as well.....without blinking an eye.

and Tatis.......and Eloy.......and.....

Eloy? Seriously? He needs 34 homeruns at this point to catch up to Ohtani. Appreciate he's hitting 315.

Ohtani's track record is what brings things into question. He is unquestionably having one of the most remarkable seasons anyone has ever had. But he also had a real turd of a season last year and wasn't particularly good either year before that, even if we won ROY.

..........Elmer Fudd

To be fair on the flip side he's hitting .272 and has pitched in 18 games. The dual role is remarkable and novel in the modern era of course.

He's incredible this year. No way around that. I think people are right to skeptical though only because he wasn't much better than average at the plate before this season.

Kris Bryant was set to assume next man up after his MVP too but it hasn't exactly worked out that way.

Among hitters he is 14th in WAR. And 13th among pitchers. Interesting consistency, perhaps doesn't mean much.

Yah what happened to Cody Bellinger?

All praise and honor to Ohtani, what a year. But if we're naming others in this thread, let's not forget the Canadian Mountie Joey Votto. What a 6 week run he has been on! His consistency in OBP, walks, and slugging was incredible at his peak. Almost picked up his second MVP in 2017. And now he has traded his OBP for power. Reminds me of the Ty Cobb quote that gets thrown around that he could hit home runs too if he wanted. Votto's power surge is keeping the Reds relevant.

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I think the NL MVP will go to Brandon Crawford. Don’t see Votto getting any votes.

No, I agree, I think Votto will have to get the Reds into the playoffs to have any consideration. Too little too late. I agree with Crawford, but I think Tatis was foreordained by media to be this year's MVP.

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He was but Tatis missed too much time and the Padres are barely holding on now (as usual). If the Giants come from nowhere and win the West it has to be Crawford.

Votto certainly has put himself back on the HOF radar I would think, especially if he can put together one or two more solid years.

You bring up a reasonable point, but I'm going to disagree. His rookie year was pretty impressive. Admittedly, it wasn't one for the record books, but that's a very high bar for rookie performance. He had a bad year last year, largely due to lingering injuries (in my lay opinion). Prior to those years, he was outstanding in Japan. I know a lot people dismiss that with comments about little league parks, etc, but I don't. Like Ichiro before him, he is a real talent that translates to MLB.

Although people are focused on the HR race because it is exciting, look at his pitching. With just a few years in MLB (and some of that injured) he is really coming along. Pitchers mature from just throwing the ball to pitching games and he is showing that brilliantly. The Angels suck (esp with with Trout out) but look at his pitching record. If we view him primarily as a pitcher who is also contributing truly outstanding offensive numbers, I think he is actually underappreciated relative to the others in his class (Guerrero, Tatis, Acuna, et al) as great as they may be.

You do know Eloy has played in only 20 games right?

He just came back.

Going to be a monster.

Isn't he already 24? Why such a late start, haven't really followed him.

24 isn't exactly old. A Judge was a 24 year old rookie. Eloy's rookie year he was 22 (31 HRs as a 22 year old in the Bigs ain't too shabby). Last year pandemic.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/p...imenel02.shtml

This year injured out of the gate making a bonehead play.

We were expecting a big year prior to that. So look for it next year.

Although could become a household name in the playoffs this year.

Needs to cut down on the K's, but who doesn't...............oh yah Vlad Jr.

Ah OK I didn't realize he had that many campaigns in already. Mental blip. Man there's a lot of young talent out there. Not that you aren't a pundit yourself lol, but generally how do the pundits rate this young man's potential vis a vis Soto, Acuna, Vlad, and Tatis?

Without equivocation he is the best Eloy to ever play in the “bigs”.

And perhaps the best Jiminez, not surprisingly a number of players by that name but none with much success I don't think.

Nothing too incredible to report here:

Ohani stole home last night...now has 22 total steals.

AMAZING!


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Imo the biggest reason that Ohtani and Trout aren't talked about more is that they have both been with the same bad team for their entire MLB career. Relevant:

https://www.theonion.com/shohei-ohta...ere-1828835846

As an Ohtani fan and a Yankees fan, I have mixed feelings about that. The Yanks were already down 5-2, so I guess it doesn't really matter.

As he states in the article, Ohtani could have signed with anyone. Even with the advent of free agency, the draft still dictated where Trout began his career.

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And Trout himself dictated where he apparently will play out the rest of it -- hoping against hope to add to his total of 3 postseason games.