Shohei Ohtani Can Win a Triple Crown
Shohei Ohtani has a tendency to make absurd things happen. When he came over to the United States, some were skeptical that his offense would hold up as well as his pitching. Then, he came over and did just fine. Whether it’s being a two-time MVP as a two-way player or making it seem plausible that he could have a 10-WAR season as only a designated hitter, Ohtani has a knack for turning fiction into fact. Now, leading the league in batting average and not trailing by much in home runs and RBI, he has a real chance at another rare feat: winning a Triple Crown.
Going into last season, Ohtani appeared to be an excellent hitter, but we always couched that excellence as partially being due to his ability to also pitch. It’s true that he chased 50 homers in 2021, but his triple-slash line from 2018-2022 of .267/.354/.532 (137 wRC+) had the look of a very good hitter, not one that could claim transcendence on that basis alone. But in 2023, he hit .300 for the first time en route to setting career highs for each of the three triple-slash stats (.304/.412/.654), wRC+ (180), and position player WAR (6.5). He was also on a 51-homer pace when an oblique injury in early September ended his season prematurely; he finished with 44 dingers in 135 games. Projection systems were naturally skeptical about last season establishing a new baseline of offensive performance, generally seeing that as a peak-type season, with a more “normal” 140-150 wRC+ likely in 2024. In fact, ZiPS’ zStats – its equivalent of Statcast xStats with a few more ingredients in the stew and more explicitly designed for predictive purposes – saw Ohtani’s expected 2023 line at .289/.377/.590 with 38 homers. A great season to be sure, but still a 99-point dropoff in OPS from his actual numbers.
And 2024? Well, that’s a horse of a different color. Ohtani’s taken another step forward, entering play Friday slashing .355/.425/.678. But this time around, zStats sees Ohtani’s performance as completely warranted by his Statcast, plate discipline, speed, and spray data. In fact, as of Thursday morning, ZiPS thinks that his 2024 line very slightly underrates him! ZiPS thinks that he ought to be hitting .354/.442/.708 considering how he’s played. I cannot possibly overstate how unusual it is for a player to be having this strong a season and still be underperforming. Usually, for even the most talented players, at least a small part of their career-best OPS can be attributed to luck. Ohtani’s 1.103 OPS, a career high, appears to be the result of some slight misfortune. His zOPS is 1.150. That’s ridiculous!
The first thing to look at it when it comes to Ohtani’s Triple Crown chances is his BABIP, to see if his current average is sustainable. Because of the volatility of BABIP, especially across smaller samples, you should bet on a hitter’s BABIP to regress toward his mean over time as luck balances out.
A career BABIP of at least .350 is incredibly rare; only 13 players in MLB history have done that over a minimum of 5,000 plate appearances, and most of those are from the early days of baseball, when BABIP was much higher than it is today. Looking just since the start of the divisional era, only 16 players have a lifetime BABIP of .340 or higher, topped by Rod Carew at .362 and Derek Jeter at .350. All of this is to say that there’s some justified skepticism when someone’s BABIP is pushing .400, and Ohtani currently has a .391 BABIP. There must be a lot of luck involved, right? Perhaps not! At .401, Ohtani’s zBABIP laps the field, and zBABIP is more predictive of future BABIP than actual BABIP. Here are the zBABIP leaders this season, along with their BABIP marks (minimum 100 PA).
| Name | zBABIP | BABIP |
|---|---|---|
| Shohei Ohtani | .401 | .391 |
| Amed Rosario | .373 | .347 |
| Willi Castro | .370 | .370 |
| Luis García Jr. | .369 | .378 |
| Masyn Winn | .368 | .338 |
| Ronald Acuña Jr. | .359 | .363 |
| Ryan McMahon | .358 | .400 |
| Anthony Volpe | .356 | .308 |
| Ty France | .355 | .310 |
| Starling Marte | .355 | .323 |
| Jackson Merrill | .354 | .317 |
| Isiah Kiner-Falefa | .353 | .305 |
| Julio Rodríguez | .351 | .376 |
| Jesse Winker | .349 | .307 |
| Bryson Stott | .346 | .282 |
We’re less than a quarter of the way through the season, and ZiPS already thinks that only 13 of the 210 players with 100 plate appearances have earned a .350 BABIP. Yet there’s Ohtani over .400, with only a single player within 30 points. As such, factoring in zBABIP, the full model of ZiPS projects Ohtani to be a .318 hitter the rest of the way, rather than the .276 hitter that the current rest-of-season model — which does not use zBABIP — expects him to be. That .042 range is easily one of the largest differences between the full and in-season models that I can remember.
In the end, ZiPS projects a 22% chance that Ohtani will win the batting title, which is almost half the battle for the Triple Crown because home runs and RBI are highly correlated with each other.
I probably don’t need to tell you about Ohtani’s power credentials at this point, but I’m going to do it anyway. Remember that word “transcendent” from above? Well, that’s Ohtani as a power hitter in 2024. His Statcast hard-hit rate is over 60% and he’s crushed more barrels than Carrie Nation, with 30 already this season. Since the debut of Statcast in 2015, only a single player, Aaron Judge in 2022, has hit 90 barrels in a season (106). Ohtani is currently on pace for about 120, hitting one at nearly a 25% clip, which is an absurd rate. ZiPS projects Ohtani to finish this season with 45 homers and a 52% chance of leading the National League.
The trickiest part of the trio is RBI, as Ohtani currently sits 11 behind NL leader Marcell Ozuna. But the full model of ZiPS gives Ohtani a solid 22% chance of leading the NL in RBI; the model is skeptical that Ozuna is this good. He’s probably not going to slug .864 with runners in scoring position for the rest of the year, as he has so far, nor will Ohtani continue to slug .275 in such situations.
In the 52% of simulations in which Ohtani leads the NL in homers, he also leads in RBI 70% of the time – remember, they’re highly correlated – giving him a 36% chance to lead the league in both homers and RBI. Add in batting average and ZiPS puts Ohtani’s odds at winning the NL Triple Crown at 14.6%. (And, for what it’s worth, ZiPS projects Ohtani to have a 5.2% probability to lead the majors in all three three categories.)
Throughout his career, Ohtani has expanded our understanding of what is possible, so much so that accomplishing something with 15% odds seems easy for him. And that’s a pretty good description of greatness: making the nearly impossible seem ordinary.
Dan Szymborski is a senior writer for FanGraphs and the developer of the ZiPS projection system. He was a writer for ESPN.com from 2010-2018, a regular guest on a number of radio shows and podcasts, and a voting BBWAA member. He also maintains a terrible Twitter account at @DSzymborski.
If the reason for this is because he doesn’t have to focus on pitching as well as hitting, I might* consider just not having him pitch anymore. Which sounds totally ridiculous because he was a Cy Young candidate a couple of years ago and because much of his aura comes from being such an elite two-way player. But he’s on pace for something like a 9+ win season, on par with his best seasons so far, and you wouldn’t have to worry about him missing time because he needed yet another Tommy John surgery. As long as he’s hitting like Babe Ruth, you can stick him in right field and things will turn out great.
*Might! I’m not 100% convinced that this burst of excellence has to do with him not pitching this year.
He is throwing everyday, as part of his rehab – so he isn’t the typical DH – even in a year where he’ll just be a DH (and maybe playing some outfield later in the season).
DHs still throw every day.
Not all, no. Even some position players don’t. Griffey said he didn’t even warm up, like zero throws pre game.
I was kicking this around on the Juan Soto article. Hitting production typically falls off a bit for players that DH, so Ohtani is doing this with a small penalty (if any of the rules apply to him, that is). At what point is he most valuable as an outfielder/closer, if he can hit like this? Or some other predefined role, like opener/outfielder–something where he gets clean innings, pitches a lot less, and hopefully mashes a lot more.
You could also then put him in the OF where he is likely at least above avg.
He needs to save his good stuff for next year when he can win both the Cy Young and the Triple Crown
Thru 41 games, Oakland (?!?) is on pace to get just under 9 wins (?!?!?) from their DH spot. What a world.
It’s impossible to know this at all, but surely there will begin to be speculation that Ohtani’s pitching takes away from his offensive abilities and if he could be a 180 wRC+ plus defensive right fielder with good baserunning numbers, maybe he doesn’t need to pitch to get to 10 WAR?
I’ve also always wondered about just utilizing him as a closer. You get the highest leverage out of his pitching that way and maybe that is easier on him physically than being a starter.
There is just so much speculating you can do with Ohtani.
Ha. We think alike. I used to be a big fan of the Ohtani-as-closer idea, but I think the main problem with utilizing a two-way player as a closer is that the time needed to warm up might not work if he has to hit. I think it’s more likely that we see a two-way player as an opener instead.
I worked this out recently because Jac Caglianone is still a two way player and it seems more and more likely that his bat will get him to the majors much, much sooner than his pitching will. I thought maybe he could close but it seems more likely that he’d be used in the first couple of innings instead, to just hose a team the first time through the order before turning it over to another pitcher. If he learns to throw strikes, that is (which might not happen, ever, especially if a team wants his bat in the big leagues fast). You could do that once a series and it would seriously mess with the other team.
I haven’t gotten an answer whenever I’ve asked this, so maybe someone here knows: If a dh or position player warms up to pitch, are they required to use the outfield bullpen, or can they do so in a tunnel behind the dugout? There are competitive advantage issues around having bullpens be “public” (see: video feeds of the Wrigley bullpens going to the dugouts). When a team gives up and puts in a position player, they’re generally not warming up to be competitive, so they don’t go to the pen, afaict.
(Which also leads to the idea I’ve long had, which is that if MLB wants to save time and add more seating capacity, they should allow pitching tunnels behind dugouts under the stands and not go through the rigamarole of calling in a guy from the outfield.)
I’d think it would be fine but any team using this would have to also have it for visiting team. I think most teams now have clubhouse-adjacent batting cages. You could throw there. Also, I would think you could warm up, then when you are going on deck, they’d allow a few extra seconds for you to run in. Ohtani is pretty fast. He’d be ok.
Positive speculation says that he’s capable of getting a 15 WAR year with 10 WAR batting and 5 WAR pitching. This could actually be 18 WAR if we give him the pitcher position adjustment on days he pitches and DH for the innings he pitches. To me it’s a pity Ruth didn’t pitch longer.
OK, but what are the chances that next year he gets the hitting AND the pitching triple crowns?
I’m guessing not less than 10%
Way way way way way less than 10%
Trying to picture Carrie Nation crushing barrels instead of putting a hole in them to allow the alcohol to leak out. Nevertheless… nice historical reference.
Sorry but it’s Lamonte Wade Jr’s to lose
“…entering play Friday slashing .355/.425/.678.” And “ZiPS thinks that he ought to be hitting .354/.442/.708 considering how he’s played…”
Does ZIPS think he’s been cheated out of a couple walks or something? I assumed that data was based on x/expected stats, which I assumed were based on batted balls / launch angles / velocities etc. How does expected batting average stay the same but expected OBP go up? Is strike zone umpiring mistakes considered?
ZiPS uses plate discipline data to make an estimate; the resulting zBB has a 0.82 r^2 with actual BB and is more predictive of future BB than actual BB.
More predictive in the sense that if you had to predict *next* year’s BB rate using only zBB and BB from the year before, the best mix has been 75% zBB, 25% BB. This remains true using randomly selected subsamples (since we want to avoid overfitting).
Thanks Dan. So zBB% is a function of O-swing, Z-swing type stats – makes sense.
My guess was either “he should have walked a couple more times but per pitchfx the umpire missed the calls” or “based on batted ball profiles he should have had some more extra base hits, and since there is a correlation with SLG and walk rate we adjust OBP accordingly”.
I like the way you are handling it much better 🙂
Why was there such a big difference between Ohtani’s zstats and xstats last year?
Also, what does Zips think about Ohtani’s huge increase in line drive rate and sweet spot percentage? I have no doubt that looking at Ohtani’s quality of contact he deserves a monstrously high BAbip, but I’m not sure he deserves that quality of contact.
The answer to the wuerfion everyone wondered: what happens if (pre-roids) Barry Bonds and Stephen Strasburg had a baby?
Yep, he’s been worth every bit of the $2 million he’s being paid.
So before the season, FanGraphs depth charts projected him for 3.8 WAR over 151 G. Now on May 10 his projected RoS WAR in only 114 G is 4.1. So despite playing a month and a half of baseball, he is projected for more WAR the rest of the season than he was at the beginning of the year.
And this isn’t some rookie with large errors bars or a poor hitter with lots of room for improvement. This is a player with 2 MVPs and a 2nd place finish the past 3 years. How often has an established hitter gone from a 140 wRC+ projection in April to a 160 wRC+ projection in May?
Go or the quadruple crown. Run every time your own base.
Not this year. De La Cruz is so far ahead you’d have to gift Ohtani all of 2nd place Brice Turang’s steals to catch him up.
I think a relatively decent question should be whether Ohtani and Freeman should swap places in the lineup. He’s clearly slugging better than Freeman and I get wanting Ohtani to hit behind Betts, but it’s got to be better for their lineup to have Ohtani third or fourth rather than second for the potential of another man being on base when he’s batting.
Best hitter should always hit second.
That’s when most teams’ best hitter isn’t their best slugger too. He’s destroying the ball and batting him behind Freeman who’s one of the best at getting on base would surely be more beneficial to the team.
This is a good point. If you have two amazing on base players 1-2, the disadvantage of the 3-hole is diminished.
They’d never do it, but Freeman, Betts, Smith, Ohtani might be the best way to go.
As an A’s fan, the concept of debating whether Ohtani or Freeman should hit behind Betts is completely unrelatable.
The speculation here about him not pitching or closing or playing the outfield leaves out one important thing..:what does he want to do? I’m certain even if the team feels that is best, it is not entirely up to them. Also everyone saying he is doing because he is not pitching is insane, he is rehabbing from TJ. I would imagine that takes more toll than actually being a pitcher.