Shohei Ohtani, the AL Awards Races, and Unicorns
While Dylan Cease was chasing a no-hitter and Aaron Judge was homering in three straight games, Shohei Ohtani enhanced his own cases for the AL Cy Young and MVP awards. On Saturday, he threw eight innings of one-run ball against the Astros in a game that the Angels won in 12 innings, continuing his dominance of the AL West leaders. On Monday, he homered twice and drove in three runs in a 10–0 rout of Detroit, running his totals to five homers, 10 RBIs, and a .414/.469/1.000 line in a seven-game span against the Blue Jays, Yankees, Astros, and Tigers (oh my!). Much to Tungsten Arm O’Doyle’s chagrin, the Angels even went 5–2 in those games.
A year after winning the AL MVP award for his unprecedented wire-to-wire excellence both as a pitcher and a designated hitter, Ohtani has continued to thrive in both contexts. But where he didn’t get any attention when it came to the 2021 Cy Young race, this season, he’s pitched his way into the picture.
Saturday’s start was Ohtani’s 23rd of the season, matching last year’s total, and he’s now at 136 innings, topping the 130.1 he threw in ’21. His three true outcome peripherals have improved markedly, to the point that he’s shaved nearly a full run off his FIP relative to last season:
| Season | K% | BB% | K-BB% | HR/9 | BABIP | ERA | ERA- | FIP | FIP- |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | 29.3% | 8.3% | 21.0% | 1.04 | .269 | 3.18 | 72 | 3.52 | 80 |
| 2022 | 33.0% | 6.0% | 27.0% | 0.93 | .298 | 2.58 | 66 | 2.54 | 62 |
At this writing, with 136 innings in the Angels’ 136 games, Ohtani is officially qualified for the ERA title, though that won’t be the case after Wednesday night, at least until his number comes up again. In any event, it’s worth pointing out that he has the AL’s highest strikeout rate and is one-tenth of a percentage point behind Shane McClanahan for the K-BB% lead. Meanwhile, he also has the league’s second-lowest FIP, behind only Kevin Gausman’s 2.13.
Note that Ohtani’s FIP and ERA are both much better than last year despite his BABIP increasing by nearly 30 points. He’s absorbed that by doing a better job of limiting hard contact:
| Season | BBE | EV | Barrel% | HardHit% | xBA | xSLG | xwOBA | xERA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | 323 | 88.4 | 7.1% | 39.9% | .207 | .344 | .282 | 3.32 |
| 2022 | 333 | 87.3 | 7.2% | 34.5% | .209 | .326 | .260 | 2.75 |
Underlying those advances, Ohtani is throwing harder — some of his offerings have gained more than three miles per hour — and emphasizing his slider more, particularly against righties, who haven’t hit him as well this year:
| Season | Pitch | % | Velo | PA | AVG | SLG | wOBA | xwOBA | Whiff% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | 4-Seam | 44.1% | 95.6 | 194 | .289 | .509 | .391 | .377 | 20.8% |
| 2022 | 4-Seam | 31.3% | 97.3 | 175 | .278 | .392 | .327 | .341 | 20.3% |
| 2021 | Curve | 3.6% | 74.7 | 14 | .308 | .615 | .409 | .361 | 25.0% |
| 2022 | Curve | 9.9% | 78.1 | 43 | .244 | .415 | .301 | .214 | 40.3% |
| 2021 | Slider | 22.0% | 82.2 | 129 | .193 | .336 | .259 | .244 | 31.1% |
| 2022 | Slider | 36.7% | 85.3 | 200 | .173 | .297 | .231 | .248 | 39.8% |
| 2021 | Splitter | 18.3% | 88.2 | 136 | .087 | .102 | .113 | .141 | 48.5% |
| 2022 | Splitter | 13.3% | 89.4 | 98 | .124 | .247 | .163 | .125 | 49.0% |
| 2021 | Cutter | 12.1% | 86.9 | 58 | .255 | .436 | .312 | .363 | 19.8% |
| 2022 | Cutter | 7.1% | 90.3 | 26 | .375 | .625 | .449 | .409 | 24.4% |
| 2022 | Sinker | 1.6% | 97.3 | 6 | .333 | .500 | .358 | .205 | 22.2% |
Batters are having a tougher time with most of his pitches (aside from the cutter) relative to last year; note the 117-point SLG drop for his fastball, and the 28-point drop in wOBA for his slider, for example. His splitter is getting hit harder but is still nearly impossible to deal with. He even added a sinker in August, possibly as a reaction to seeing Clay Holmes‘ 100-mph sinker as a hitter. Good luck dealing with that, hitters:
Shohei Ohtani, 100mph Four Seam Fastball and 100mph Sinker, Overlay. pic.twitter.com/YhzusD8cP6
— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) September 4, 2022
As for the slider, by Statcast’s measure, at -22 runs it’s tied with Justin Verlander’s fastball as the second-most valuable pitch in the majors this year, behind Cease’s slider (-34 runs). Last year, Ohtani’s splitter (-13 runs) and slider (-11 runs) both reached double digits, but the former has only been worth -2 runs this year; he’s offset that with his improved fastball (from -1 to -5 runs, and yes, it’s awkward to talk about lower negative numbers as superlative).
As I noted when writing about Cease on Tuesday, the AL Cy Young race basically comes down to four pitchers: Verlander, Cease, Ohtani, and McClanahan. Verlander and McClanahan are both on the injured list right now, the former with a right calf injury (“fascial disruption, but no muscle fiber disruption”), the latter with a left shoulder impingement. Both are expected back later this month, though how much later could very well have some bearing on who brings home the hardware. Here’s how the four stack up:
| Pitcher | Team | IP | K% | BB% | K-BB% | ERA | xERA | FIP | WAR | bWAR |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Justin Verlander | HOU | 152.0 | 26.5% | 4.5% | 22.0% | 1.84 | 2.73 | 2.70 | 4.8 | 4.7 |
| Dylan Cease | CHW | 156.0 | 31.4% | 10.2% | 21.2% | 2.13 | 2.62 | 3.03 | 3.8 | 5.4 |
| Shane McClanahan | TBR | 147.1 | 32.5% | 5.4% | 27.1% | 2.20 | 2.54 | 2.64 | 3.8 | 3.9 |
| Shohei Ohtani | LAA | 136.0 | 33.0% | 6.0% | 27.0% | 2.58 | 2.75 | 2.54 | 4.4 | 4.8 |
Verlander leads the AL in ERA, McClanahan in xERA, Ohtani in strikeout rate, Cease in bWAR. Gausman leads in FIP (2.17) and WAR (5.2), but his 3.12 ERA and 3.44 xERA, to these eyes, make him less likely to get serious traction against this competition.
Ohtani is at a disadvantage, innings-wise, but his value is right there with the rest of them; it’s McClanahan whose value by both flavors of WAR is well behind the group, and if he’s not pitching, he’s not going to gain ground. I wrote on Tuesday that I’m not ready to split hairs regarding these guys before they get a few more starts in the stretch run that could produce more separation. I still regard Verlander as the frontrunner due to the unprecedented nature of his comeback from Tommy John surgery age 37, his lead in two traditional triple crown categories (including his 16 wins), and the allure of anointing him a three-time Cy Young winner. But his injury throws the door open, and if none of these guys is getting anywhere near 200 innings, then I certainly don’t see anything that rules Ohtani out of the picture.
On the offensive side, Ohtani is hitting .267/.358/.533 and ranks second in the AL in homers (32), third in slugging percentage, and fourth in wRC+ (146). He’s not hitting quite as well as last season, when he batted .257/.372/.592 and finished second in slugging percentage and third in homers (46), but it’s at least worth noting the less hospitable conditions for hitters; his 150 wRC+ from last year, which placed second in the league, was only four points higher.
In both seasons he’s hit the ball incredibly hard but hasn’t quite gotten all of his money’s worth:
| Season | BBE | EV | Barrel% | HardHit% | AVG | xBA | SLG | xSLG | wOBA | xwOBA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | 350 | 93.6 | 22.3% | 53.4% | .257 | .269 | .592 | .616 | .393 | .411 |
| 2022 | 354 | 92.6 | 17.5% | 47.5% | .267 | .275 | .533 | .564 | .375 | .391 |
Last year, Ohtani’s hard-hit rate, average exit velocity, and xwOBA were all in the 97th percentile, and his barrel rate was tops in the majors. This year, he’s in the 95th to 98th percentile in all but hard-hit rate, where he’s just in the 87th percentile.
Unfortunately for Ohtani, his biggest obstacle for the MVP award is the guy who’s pulverizing the ball harder than anybody on the planet: Judge. The 30-year-old outfielder is hitting .302/.403/.682 with AL highs in OBP, SLG, homers (54) and wRC+ (202). A run at Barry Bonds’ single-season record of 73 homers is probably out of the question at this point, but Roger Maris’ team and AL record of 61 is in sight. I don’t think you have to jump through the hoops of PED-free “legitimacy” to see the value in getting to 62, particularly when the brawny slugger has done what he’s done in the context of betting tens of millions of dollars in future earnings on his own performance. He’s also continued to mash while the rest of the Yankees’ offense has gone on vacation. The team is 17–26 in the second half, hitting for a 95 wRC+, but Judge has hit .342/.484/.829 with 21 homers in 188 PA for a 261 wRC+. If that’s not the greatest contract drive in history, then I don’t know what is.
By virtue of his defense — he’s splitting his time between center field (64 starts) and right (44 starts) as well as DH (19 starts) — Judge has totaled 8.9 WAR, 3.2 more than any other position player, and more than double Ohtani’s WAR as a DH (3.4). But the MVP race isn’t about whether Ohtani has outhit Judge. It’s about whether his unique combination of performances as a DH and as a pitcher is more valuable, where the notion of value is intentionally murky. (“There is no clear-cut definition of what Most Valuable means,” reads the instructions to voters. “It is up to the individual voter to decide who was the Most Valuable Player in each league to his team.”) In terms of our straight up add-the-WARs totals, the answer is that Judge has about a one-win advantage, 8.9 to 7.8. By Baseball Reference’s measure, which uses different defensive and pitching inputs as well as different positional adjustments, Judge’s edge is only 8.4 to 7.9 (4.8 pitching WAR, 3.1 position player WAR).
All of this is without touching the value of the roster spot that Ohtani’s two-way prowess saves the Angels. If you believe Baseball Prospectus’ Russell Carleton, who has thought more deeply and more coherently about this matter than you or I have, the combination has probably gained the Angels some fraction of a win. At the same time, as Carleton points out, the Ohtani case has demonstrated the limitations of the models we use for WAR, which weren’t designed to capture the flexibility he affords them, a statement that to a lesser degree applies to the Zobristian multiposition stars.
While conceding that the numbers probably still favor Judge, and that with more than three weeks to go there’s still time for each player to make a closing statement that could swing the race, I think this one comes down to intangibles. How much (if at all) do you reward Judge for doing what he’s doing in the context of a playoff race where half of the lineup around him might be posted on the side of a milk carton, and in the glare of the Big Apple spotlight, while being asked questions about his next contract? How much do you reward Ohtani for proving that last year was no fluke, that it’s actually possible that a player can excel on the mound and at the plate and keep improving? Or for keeping a team in a prolonged tailspin in the “must-watch” category if only to see what he’s doing?
It all comes down to which unicorn you prefer, and I don’t think there are any wrong answers unless we take the two players’ presences and performances for granted. These guys are both miracles, and we’re lucky we get to watch them.
Brooklyn-based Jay Jaffe is a senior writer for FanGraphs, the author of The Cooperstown Casebook (Thomas Dunne Books, 2017) and the creator of the JAWS (Jaffe WAR Score) metric for Hall of Fame analysis. He founded the Futility Infielder website (2001), was a columnist for Baseball Prospectus (2005-2012) and a contributing writer for Sports Illustrated (2012-2018). He has been a recurring guest on MLB Network and a member of the BBWAA since 2011, and a Hall of Fame voter since 2021. Follow him on BlueSky @jayjaffe.bsky.social.
This is probably a hot take, but my line in the sand is that Judge is having, quite literally, one of the best power-hitting seasons of all time. If that isn’t MVP-worthy, what is?
I understand that an above-average pitching & hitting line is excellent, and that in any given year it isn’t the wrong choice to write at the top of your ballot, but it feels weird that we are, in a way, “penalizing” Judge + every other position player because they didn’t come up as a two-way player (often times, plenty of players come out of college doing both but they are coerced into picking one over the other at the professional level).
What Ohtani is doing is absolutely unprecedented, and deserves all the praise he’s getting, but Judge is single-handedly carrying the Yankees to a playoff spot (hopefully)- if feels disingenuous to say that isn’t the most valuable in the lens of 162 games.
Of course it’s MVP worthy (also, the pitching staff would probably like to talk to you about who’s carrying the Yankees, as well). That’s not the question–how do you pick between them, and more fundamentally, can we even assess the full value of either guy (either due to the limitations of our metrics or simply because they’re both having seasons that maybe can’t be fully/empirically measured because of how bonkers amazing they are).
I really don’t think there’s a right or wrong decision, which is what makes it fun and frustrating. You want to reward the right guy, but we really can’t measure them in any comparable way to come to that outcome. I’d make em co-MVPs, but I understand that others feel strongly about certain qualities, etc.
It’s a fair argument. Even your point about pitching, the staff as a whole has certainly kept us afloat.
It’s like picking between Joe DiMaggio and Ted Williams for the 1941 AL MVP, although I really think the wrong guy won in that case.
I’m not disagreeing with the argument that Judge has been the most valuable player, but I don’t think talking about the Yankees’ second half settles anything. They have been dreadful despite Judge’s play, just as the Angels have been dreadful all season with Ohtani. We are still left with a more abstract notion of greatness that filters out real world results. Judge may end up being the most valuable player, but that will be true regardless of whether the Yankees fully collapse or squeak through.
I agree that Judge is having ‘one of the best power-hitting seasons of all time’. But I think ‘one of’ is what matters here. There have been other players who hit more home-runs than Judge will this year, even though they may have been helped by PED. What Ohtani is doing (30+ homers, 10+wins) has never been, and probably won’t be for a long time, done by anyone else whether they are on PED or not.
Babe Ruth came close in 1919 with 29 home runs and 9 wins.
McGwire hit 70 and finished 2nd in MVP. He hit 65 the next year and finished 5th.. And that was real time right, no sort of juicing backward looking penalty.
So to answer your question, historically speaking, having one of the best power hitting seasons of all time is just MVP adjacent.
When McGwire hit 70, the MVP winner hit 66, beat him in the other Triple Crown categories, played a solid RF, and went to the playoffs.
When he hit 65, Chipper out produced him by a full win…and was the best player on the best regular season team in baseball.
yeah, so we’re in agreement. Those best power hitter of all time seasons didn’t quite guarantee an MVP win.
McGwire lost to Sosa (sosa also with an all time power season) with McGwire leading the league in slugging, OBP, OPS, walks and had a full win above where sosa was. As well as one a WRC+ right where Judge is now. In a very unique case (2 dudes hitting 60+ HR in a season for the first time ever!) the most HRs didn’t win it. So yeah, similar to this kinda of unique Ohtani world we’re in. 2 all time great power seasons at the same time.
Then the 65 to chipper, chipper did not have an alltime power season. McGwire did, 65 was still a pretty solid total =). . the all-time power season had him finish 5th…. not 2nd to chipper. 5th. behind the likes of Greg Vaughn. To keep the point going, Sammy and his 63 HR that season (another all-time HR great season) finished 9th…
So yeah. I think we’re fully in agreement. All time power seasons don’t mean MVP is a lock, which was the question. Heck, Maris barely won the MVP in 61! A lot going on with that for sure, but some of it was Mantle had close to an all-time power season himself and lost.
Yeah…citing a truly horrendous defensive 1B on teams that missed the playoffs doesn’t actually make the point you think it does.
Yes, it does, because those caveats have nothing to do with power hitting, yet they were indeed partly responsible for that power hitter not winning MVP.
Besides, McGwire was a decent fielding 1B who even won a Gold Glove earlier in his career.
Key phrase is “earlier in his career,” haha.
He was worth -26 fielding runs in the two seasons you’re citing…at 1B.
The Angels have already squandered the prime of Mike Trout’s career. If they do the same with Ohtani, Arte Moreno should be forced to sell the team.
He has formally announced that he’s going to explore selling the team. Whether he wastes Ohtani’s prime does depend a bit on whether Ohtani’s prime is these last two years (meaning it’s already been wasted) or if he’s got more prime years in the tank (I think there’s an argument to be made for either side).
Gausman’s numbers may be better overall than all of them, certainly better almost across the board than Cease. He’s not a candidate?!
Gausman’s xERA suggests that his low HR/FB% is not representative of the hard contact he gives up.
if we are going to cherry pick stats, Gausman has put up the best numbers with an outlier BABIP of .368
I have no idea what you’re talking about. His FIP is great and thus so is his fWAR, but BABIP doesn’t impact FIP so those “best numbers” are irrelevant once you start talking about BABIP.
BABIP does affect his ERA, but he does not have the best numbers there (he is 9th in ERA-). If we want to look at other defense independent stats to verify whether that BABIP is undeserved, he’s 4th in SIERA (behind McClanahan, Ohtani, and Cole) and 9th in xERA (behind those three, Cease, Verlander, Framber Valdez, Shane Bieber, and Robbie Ray).
& that’s without getting into the old awards conundrum- Do you award what actually happened or what should have happened?
Does it suck that Gausman has .368 BABIP? Yes, & that is certainly info you need to have if you’re looking into how he may perform in the future.
However, I have a hard time basing awards voting on “If Gausman’s BABIP was a league average, he’d be the best pitcher” logic. Too many variables go into it. & at some point, you need to award the hits & runs allowed, not normalized #’s. The games are played on the field, not a computer sim.
I don’t really buy that BABIP should be assigned to the pitcher, though. That’s why I like xERA. It’s such a huge advance in figuring out what can be credited directly to the pitcher. There’s not a ton of guesswork. The model might be wrong in places but it’s very clearly “what happened”.
FIP is also very clearly what happened, although for a much more limited set of outcomes. xFIP is very clearly not, since it accounts for a regression to the mean.
At the minimum, it’s worth looking at the batted ball data when ERA- and FIP- diverge significantly. At the maximum, we can skip the whole thing and just go straight to xERA.
I think a lot of us, myself included, get into a habit of looking at FIP as a backwards-looking stat, when it should be a forward-looking one. In my eyes the Cy Young award should reward who has the best combination of run prevention and bulk. How they get there isn’t important to me.
With Moreno talking about selling the team, and the smoke around an Ohtani trade (which was only nixed because Trout was also hurt and Moreno didn’t want to trade Ohtani when he was out), we’ve got a game on our hands. Name your Ohtani trade this offseason, and what sort of extension / circumstances would entice him to sign on the dotted line.
The bidding on both starts with Mookie Betts. The Red Sox got two guys who were approximately FV50 prospects or recently graduated types (Downs, Verdugo), an FV40 prospect (Connor Wong), and also ditched about $48M in salary obligations to David Price over three seasons. It’s unclear how the $48M would be valued since it was spread over 3 years, although we/you/they could try and save some money on the roughly $152M owed to Rendon and make it a more direct comparison.
The Dodgers then signed Betts to a $365M deal, although some of that deal went to Betts’s immediate year salary IIRC, so in terms of an Ohtani deal the extension “number” could also cover his 2023 year of team control. Although presumably, money won’t be the only factor since Ohtani seems pretty bent on winning (and might have geographical preferences too).
I’ve been thinking about this, and it seems that every possible deal requires at least one FV50 prospect going back (Orelvis Martinez for TOR, Luis Matos for SFG, Jasson Dominguez for NYY, Ronny Mauricio or Alex Ramirez for NYM, Michael Busch or Andy Pages for LAD), a prospect or two in the FV40/FV40+ range, and then one of two things:
1) A higher rated prospect such as Gabriel Moreno (TOR), Kyle Harrison (SFG), Anthony Volpe (NYY), Brett Baty (NYM), or Bobby Miller (LAD), or
2) A couple less highly rated prospects in the FV45/FV45+ range and swallowing about half of Rendon’s contract.
I think the only teams that would be interested and able to sign Ohtani are teams that have both a short- and long-term track record of success and have a ton of money to throw at an extension. That is basically TOR, SFG, NYM, LAD, and NYY. Might be harder for the east teams to sign Ohtani though because he didn’t have them on his list before, although maybe things have changed. Other teams that probably don’t make sense are the Cards (doubt they’ll give him a $400M contract, although they should be willing to), the Cubs and Rangers (would go hard after him in FA but too much uncertainty if he would sign given their current state), and the Mariners and Padres (another couple of teams that would go hard after him in FA but might not have the prospects to do it now; I suppose it depends what the Angels think of Campusano, Matt Brash, Harry Ford, Kelenic, etc).
I think Dominguez might be that “high-end prospect” after his showing in High-A.
That 0.69 BB/K as a 19 year old isn’t normal, even if he’s showing more Doubles power than HR power right now.
Yeah, this is a real good sign for him. Much like the corner Julio Rodriguez turned last year in AA as a 20 year old, it shows that he could have the elite hitting skills to keep up against much older competition.
For better or worse, Judge will win if he hits 62.
Mark McGwire didn’t win when he hit 70 HRs. Neither did Ted Williams when he hit .406.
Those are good points, and normally, I’d agree with you, but neither of those guys played for the Yankees in the thick of a pennant race, “and that has made all the difference”
& in 1998, McGwire competed with Sosa, who had 66 HR,(which was the 2nd highest HR total in history at that time), led the league in runs & RBI & played for a Cubs team that went from 68 wins in 1997 to a surprise NL Central title.
Well, surprise NL Wild Card.
Anyway, Ohtani’s more alternative argument for MVP is somewhat similar to Sosa in ’98 and DiMaggio in ’41.
“When McGwire hit 70 HRs,” Sosa hit 66 and beat him in the other two Triple Crown stats while playing a competent RF on a team that made the postseason.
The season Ted Williams hit .406, Joe DiMaggio had a 56 game hit streak…while playing a plus CF on a team that made the postseason.
When Judge hit 62 HRs, Ohtani was a top 20 hitter in the league and a top 5 pitcher in the league simultaneously. I think Judge is likely to win too, but I can easily imagine someone 20 years in the future saying this in the event Ohtani wins.
Judge is also outpacing Ohtani by a full win in fWAR and more than half a win in rWAR…
You can say the same thing about McGwire over Sosa in ’98 and Williams over DiMaggio in ’41
Yes. WAR was a key factor for those voters, haha!
In both cases, the deciding factor was the fact that Joe and Sosa did it in the context of a playoff race…which is another point towards Judge.
I think that the Judge/Ohtani race will go down to the wire, probably depending on who stays healthy the rest of the way.
Judge will have the edge with voters due to their team’s records.
It is already settled. Just look at the vegas odds if you want confirmation
What is the value of Ohtani’s flexibility in essentially granting teams a roster spot? The point at the end of Russell Carleton’s essay, that teams value specialists more today, I think, is pretty key. My guess is a team from 1970 could field a 24-man roster (and in fact, it wasn’t until 1977 that there was an imposed minimum of 24 players on a roster) without sacrificing much value. The 8-9 positions were set, the starting 4 went 220 innings each, and you could get by with 3 bullpen arms. So 15-16 players was the real minimum, everyone else was gravy (at least for a short period of time; you’d need injury replacements and such). You could dedicate a roster spot to a Herb Washington, with his 105 games played over two years with 0 PA and 0 games in the field. You had ‘bonus babies’ who were just hanging out on the roster because their signing bonus was too big. Ohtani’s flexibility doesn’t give you much value in this setting.
But now you have teams like the Rays or Giants, who would like a different starting 9 for each handed pitcher, with some extras to platoon against particularly groundball or flyball heavy starters; not to mention the fact that we’re entering a world where ‘qualifying’ as a starter is an actual burden, rather than a descriptive cutoff. A roster spot has real value. I’m sure the Washington Nationals would be happy to find someone to just keep Luis Garcia (121 wRC+ vs righties) from playing against lefties (57 wRC+); and would, if they had more roster spots. (and even if the player was just replacement level, he still has value by replacing below-replacement-level performance).
So I’m willing to give Ohtani more of a bump than I thought I would have. And I don’t know what that should mean for a stat like WAR.
Herb Washington wasn’t a baseball player but if you want to talk about specialty players the discussion has to start and end with Smoky Burgess. In his last 2 years in the game, 1966-67, he appeared in 156 games and had 156 PA’s. He pinch hit in every game. Twice in 1966 he stayed in to catch, 3 innings in one game that went 15 and 1 inning in another. He never played a single play in 1967. In one game he was sent up to PH but the other team brought in a lefty and he was then PH for so in 1967 he made 77 PH appearances but only batted 76 times. I wonder if any other player ever appeared in more games than he actually played in. Even Moonlight Graham played a 1/2 inning in RF.
Larry Yount (Robin’s brother) was brought in to pitch in his major league debut, hurt himself warming up and thus did not pitch. Never made it back to the bigs.
Thanks. Amazing story.
I wonder this a lot with regard to WAR.
My understanding is that Ohtani’s hitting fWAR is currently penalized 13.8 defensive runs below average for simply not playing any defense. (Meaning the average position player with his number of PA would have prevented 13.8 more runs through field defense).
But obviously he is playing defense – as a pitcher, so I think he should not be penalized defensive runs.
If you reduce his defensive runs above average to 0 instead of -13.8, I think that puts his total hitting fWAR around 5. (much higher than the current 3.5)
That would put his total fWAR around 9.4. (Notably higher than Judge)
There is nothing more ridiculous than penalizing a player for not doing something he isn’t even allowed to do. As long as his team is allowed to field 9 players then he has no responsibility for what happens on the field. It is absurd to be penalized for something for which a person has no chance to exert any influence on whatsoever. There can be no logically reason for penalizing the DH. Is he supposed to play Short Field? Oops this isn’t slow-pitch beer league softball is it? This is even more obviously ridiculous in Ohtani’s case because he is actually on the field.
Maybe “penalizing” is the wrong word.
A DH is producing less on field defense than the average position player.
That is a just a factual reality.
Yet, the DH has no choice, because you can’t play a 10th player on the field even if you wanted to. Thus, a replacement player wouldn’t be any better or worse on defense, so claiming that a DH has negative defensive value compared to a replacement player is ridiculous. That is just a factual reality.
It’s a matter of where you set the baseline in calculating WAR. One could easily imagine a positional adjustment that gives a DH 0 runs, a first baseman +3 runs/150 games, left fielder +4, etc. Then any positional adjustment would be positive. You’d still get the same outcome, though rather than some adjustments being negative and some being positive, all would be positive.
Isn’t Ohtani only being charged that defensive penalty when he actually plays DH, though? When he pitches, isn’t his positional adjustment the same as for any other pitcher?
I don’t know. I’m very confused by this myself. And it seems like others are too.
Surely there will be some foolish writer who puts Yordan or J-Ram ahead of Ohtani in the voting just because of how dreadful the Angels are. That said, it’s impossible to fault voting for someone who hits 62 homeruns, assuming Judge gets there.
Ultimately, the narrative is on Judge’s side.
Ohtani already got his MVP just last year while Judge didn’t in 2017.
In an ideal world, these things shouldn’t matter, but they do.
As it stands, I would vote for Ohtani for two reasons.
Having said that, Judge would not be an undeserving winner.
Whoever misses out is going to have a claim for the best second-best season of all time.
Not even. Willie Mays had 10+ WAR in 1962 and finished 2nd to Wills. He followed up with 10 WAR seasons in 1962 & 1963, only to finish 5th & 6th in MVP voting, before getting the nod in ‘65 for yet another 10+ WAR season.
Dang, I was going to post about Mays’ 1962. He doubled Maury Wills’ WAR and still didn’t win.
I’m aware that there were many great seasons that didn’t win MVP which is why I said “second-best season” rather than “non-MVP winning season”.
Nobody (on Fangraphs) is claiming that Mays did not have the best season in those years.
Fair enough.
This is a pretty good question–who had the best second-best year? Although the issue of “deserving” will make everything tricky because in the steroid era question of deservingness are complicated at best.
Here are some fun cases. I just took 1951-2019, since that includes the integration era and excluded the weird 2020.
1) In 1957, Mickey Mantle was a deserving winner with his 217 wRC+ and 11.4 fWAR season, beating Ted Williams. That year, Ted Williams posted an OBP+ of 157, an absolutely bonkers number that since 1951 has only been surpassed by a roided-out Bonds. If you throw out 21st century Bonds, the #2 OBP was…Mickey Mantle’s 1957, with an OBP+ of 153.
2) In 1961, Roger Maris won the AL MVP, thanks to his pretty impressive run of homers. The best player, though, was either Mickey Mantle or Norm Cash who finished with 10.3 and 10.2 fWAR. I think we can forgive the voters for picking Maris for MVP, especially since Mantle was right behind him. You can forgive Norm Cash, however, for being annoyed that he wound up #4 behind Maris, Mantle, and Jim Gentile despite hitting .361 and swatting 41 homers in 670+ PAs. What does a guy gotta do to get some respect around here?
3) Speaking of high averages, Wade Boggs and George Brett had fantastic years in 1985, both clocking in with well over 8 fWAR (Boggs was pretty close to 9). But Rickey Henderson got on base 42% of the time and stole 80 bases and threw in 24 homers for good measure for a 9.7 fWAR and…got beaten out by his teammate Don Mattingly for the MVP.
4) Joe Morgan had several years where other players seemingly had no chance for the NL MVP. He put up 20.5 fWAR over two seasons from 1975-1976. He also had a pretty ridiculous year in 1973, a 9.5 fWAR season that involved getting on base 40% of the time, stealing 67 bases, playing typically excellent defense, and adding 26 homers to boot. That was only the second highest fWAR of 1973, behind Darrell Evans and his 41 homers. Both were beaten out by Morgan’s teammate Pete Rose, who legitimately had a superstar season but since Rose’s ISO was only .099 it kind of capped how successful he could be.
Joe Morgan also had a pretty darn good 1974 (8.6 fWAR), but he finished 8th. The best player that year (Mike Schmidt, 9.4 fWAR) finished 6th. He also had a dynamite year in 1972 (8.7 fWAR), but he got beaten out by his teammate Johnny Bench (9.2 fWAR). Those Big Red Machine teams were stacked.
Of course, Mike Trout in 2018 probably also deserves a mention. The guy somehow managed to put up 9.5 fWAR in 608 PAs, only to get beaten by Mookie Betts’s absolutely absurd year.
2013 Miguel Cabrera would also like to have a word. Well, he did win the MVP that year but wasn’t as good as Trout was.
And 2015 Josh Donaldson, who absolutely shredded the league and wasn’t as good as Mike Trout (but he also won it over Trout).
How many times has Trout had the MVP stolen from him by now?
About as often as Willie Mays.
The 2015 NL CYA race was insane. Arrieta, Greinke, and Kershaw all had all-time seasons. Max Scherzer was about as good in ’15 as his other CY seasons, and he didn’t even come close to that trio.
In any case, Ohtani is at 7.8 fWAR and is projected to add another 1.2 fWAR by ZiPs before the year is over. A 9 fWAR season is absolutely in the conversation for best second-best season of recent times, especially if your conception of “recent times” starts in the 1980s or later (and thus excluding Joe Morgan and Ted Williams and Norm Cash).
The ’97 NL MVP race featured 3 guys with 9+ fWAR, including winner Larry Walker and Mike Piazza at a stunning 9.1 fWAR in 152 games. You can argue for Bench in ’72, but imo, it’s the best offensive season for a catcher *ever* (wRC+ 182 lol). And then there was Craig Biggio, playing in 162 games and being great at every single aspect of the game.
(some dude named Bonds was a “distant” 4th with 8.9 fWAR, just missing a 40/40 season)
What about DiMaggio/Williams in 1941, McGwire/Sosa in 1998, or Albert Pujols (behind Barry Bonds) in 2003, or Ruth/Gehrig in multiple years?
Plus, that’s only when considering players in the same league.
I’d say it has to be DiMaggio/Williams in 1941.
.406 vs. The Streak!
Ohtani has 0 shot at the mvp. 0. 0. 0
Lol at the negatives. Look at the Vegas odds. Go bet on Ohtani and win a fortune
Assuming nothing crazy happens over the last month, if Ohtani wins the AL MVP they may as well rename it the best two way player award. Judge isn’t just hitting a lot of home runs. He leads the AL in runs, RBI, total bases, OBP, slugging, OPS, walks, is 7th in avg, and even tied for 12th in stolen bases! His wRC+ is 202 for the season. While playing more than half his games in center field with league average defense.
And yet the bum hasn’t pitched a single inning.
Assuming nothing crazy happens over the last month, if Judge wins the AL MVP they may as well rename it the most Home Runs award.
Entirely identical in how much of a disingenuous, if not just stupid, argument this is. You’ve taken one thing that doesn’t close to tell the whole story, and unintelligibly claimed that it does. Please stop. Judge can and should win the MVP, but Ohtani is more likely to lose support based on his unique way of adding value than to gain it.
Would Ohtani even be in the conversation for MVP if he were not a two way player? He is having an excellent season pitching and deserves to be in the conversation for Cy Young, but not the type of transcendent season that normally leads to a pitcher contending for MVP. Even if we were to add on a few more innings he might have pitched if he were only a pitcher it doesn’t rise to that level. He’s having a good season as a hitter, but nothing that would even garner much support if he were only a hitter (and we can’t really give him any bonus PAs for focusing on that since he already leads the Angels by 100 PA.)
The magical extra roster spot might be helpful for a team with depth like the Rays, but lets be honest, the extra player on the Angels is not providing a lot of value (looking at their stats page they have 11 batters on the season with positive WAR, and 3 of those have fewer than 50 PA.) Is having Juan Lagares available for a few extra PA to get the platoon adavantage or if they run out of other players during a game a bonus or a curse?
Judge on the other hand has more than 50% more WAR than any other batter in the American league. (8.9 to 5.7 for Bogaerts)
Ohtani is a special player and it is amazing that he is able to perform at such a high level as a pitcher and as a hitter. He’s having a really good year at two things.
But if you are going to give him the MVP over Judge who is having a fantastic season, then Ohtani starts out so far ahead of the field that it becomes nearly impossible for anyone else to win.
Would Judge even be a candidate for MVP if not for his home runs? Yes, he batting average is pretty good, but he’s an average defensive player at best.
Same vibe.
Barry Bonds was the best at hitting homers and the best at taking walks. Nobody ever said “well since he’s so good at both of these things, we can’t possibly say so because otherwise no one else can win.” If you’re the best, you’re the best.
Judge is having an amazing season that arguably makes him the MVP. I’d vote for him. The fact that it takes something as great as Judge’s season to perhaps squeak by Ohtani’s greatness does not prove that Ohtani is not great and would not otherwise deserve the MVP if it weren’t for Judge’s season. Ohtani is effing great. And it isn’t given to him as you suggest. He earns it.
I disagree that taking away home runs and taking away being a two way player are equivalent. Home runs are an actual physical result during a game. Ohtani doesn’t walk up to the plate, announce that he is a two way player, and the Angels are awarded a run.
It would be similar if you somehow took away all of Judge’s home runs and left him with the league lead in the other categories listed above, along with a wRC+ of 202 (that would be a lot of doubles and triples…) and 8.9 WAR. And he would clearly deserve the MVP if that were the case.
And by Ohtani being “given” the award I did not mean that you would run up and snatch the award from Judge’s hands and present it to Ohtani. I meant “given” in the same way that Judge would be “given” the award if the writers vote for him.
I agree Ohtani is great. I called him a special player above. But in this season I don’t think there’s an argument to be made for him as MVP over Judge this season that does not include “but he pitches and hits”.
And yes, I can make an argument for Judge as MVP without mentioning home runs. I did it above. “He leads the AL in runs, RBI, total bases, OBP, slugging, OPS, walks, is 7th in avg, and even tied for 12th in stolen bases! His wRC+ is 202 for the season. While playing more than half his games in center field with league average defense.” And that didn’t even mention his lead in WAR.
If you took away Judge’s homers he would not be leading in any of those other categories. He only leads in them because of the homers.
Pretending Judge has hit zero home runs is the same as pretending Ohtani is not adding valuable play as both a hitter and pitcher. They are both incredibly stupid arguments.
Judge is a league average CF.
That is, by definition, an “above average fielder.”
And if you turned 30 of his HRs into doubles, he’d have a higher OPS than Ohtani did last year.
Absolutely love Ohtani, to be clear!
According to Fangraphs, he has been worth .4 runs below average in 2022, and was worth -4.6 runs in 2021. That is by definition “below average.”
If you need to nitpick in order to miss the greater point, you obviously either don’t understand the point or don’t want to. The framing of “Ohtani the pitcher as not being an MVP and Ohtani the hitter not being an MVP so therefore him winning would just mean the best two-way player wins” is patently absurd bullshit. It’s what you should expect on Yahoo Sports or Facebook.
It is such a ridiculous argument. I don’t know how you are missing that my point in just arbitrarily taking something very valuable away from Judge and then saying without that he isn’t very good. It’s a stupid argument. Responding by (incorrectly) nitpicking how good Judge is at defense is such a classic example of missing the point.
That’s just because of the DH days – he’s at .7 UZR/150 in CF.
Anyway, I didn’t so much “miss the point” as I “truly do not care about this inane back and forth, but noticed something obviously wrong.”
If Judge hits 62 and the Yankees make the playoffs, he’s going to win. It’s not actually more complicated than that, especially given that he’s comfortably ahead of Ohtani in both forms of WAR.
Only you didn’t notice something wrong. You thought you did, but you were wrong. The worst type of nitpicking.
Fangraphs literally has a stat for “defensive value compared to average” that Judge is slightly below zero in this year and below zero last year. “An average defensive player at best” is a dead on balls accurate way of describing this.
Judge literally has a positive DEF on his career, sparky.
But hey! Go off, stud.
You can’t possibly be this stupid. I don’t believe it.
It’s almost like players, especially 280 pound players, might get worse at defense as they age. Have you heard of this? I feel like I’ve seen you around these parts before, so I can only imagine this is disingenuous trolling because you know that you are in fact wrong.
Ohtani is a cy young candidate. That is by definition an “above average fielder”
It seems weird that you want to give Judge credit for his defense, but not given Ohtani credit for his.
I do not care enough about this inane argument to “not give Ohtani credit for his defense.”
…especially given that Ohtani’s defensive contribution is literally the only reason there’s any conversation about the MVP, haha.
I saw something incorrect. I said “that’s incorrect.”
I’m pretty sure league average means, well, average, not above average.
EDIT: Ah, you meant above average compared to all fielders at every position, right? I suppose in a way that’s true, although it’s tricky trying to compare the different skills needed at different positions.
Judge has a positive career “DEF,” because he’s an elite defensive RF and a solid-average defensive CF.
But it’s negative now because he isn’t as good and his large, aging body requires DH rest days, thus making him an average defensive player, at best.
I am a big Ohtani fan and watch all his highlights. But barring a Judge collapse, or something like Ohtani pitching a perfect game and homering in one of his last starts, I think Judge wins MVP this year.
While it is hard to imagine Ohtani being underrated in some aspect, I think people do not fully appreciate his ability to stay healthy on both sides. This is simply remarkable, and he has done it two years in a row. Watch your favorite team and pay attention to how many superstars stay healthy and perform at a high level for two years in a row.
Consistency in general, even when healthy, does not come easily. Think back last year. Vladito, Harper, and Juan Soto are not in the conversation for MVP this year.
So Ohtani’s consistency itself is amazing. Or he is still getting better. Not sure if any of this should be a factor for MVP in the current year, but if it is, he has a really good case.
Even if another two-way player comes along he will have quite a task before him to match what Shohei Ohtani is presently doing. It is unfair to Ohtani to even bring up Babe Ruth’s name in the same conversation. The Babe was never asked to do what Ohtani has done the past 2 seasons. Who among the knowledgeable fans here at Fangraphs will offer an opinion of what they expected Ohtani to do? Am I correct when I say that nobody could really know, but I am quite certain that few, if any, could have foreseen that he would become this incredible performer on both the mound and at the plate. I know myself that he would have been must-see TV if he hit 20 HR’s and was an average starter. With all that said the MVP of the American League is Aaron Judge. He is having a season that transcends even Ohtani’s brilliance and if the definition of Most Valuable Player is what he means to his team then his 2022 season belongs in the dictionary.
Actually, from 1918-19, Babe Ruth was a legitimate two-way star player for the Red Sox.
In 1918, the Babe had 380 PA with a 4.7/5.2 b/fWAR as hitter and 166 1/3 IP with 2.3/1.8 b/fWAR as a pitcher for a total of 7.0 WAR (either one).
In 1919, he had 542 PAs with a 9.1/9.4 b/fWAR as a hitter and 133 1/3 IP with 0.8/0.5 b/fWAR as a pitcher for a total of 9.9 WAR (either one).
The Babe, while still impressive, wasn’t quite doing what Ohtani has done the past two seasons. He began to transition to the outfield in 1918 but 380 PA’s comes up well short of Ohtani and in 1919 he only made 3 starts after July and was the left fielder from then on until game 137 when he was shut down for the rest of the season. Then he was sold………………..and the curse began.
So hard to choose! Ohtani is an extraordinary unicorn who stands out, even when among a herd of unicorns galloping through the history of baseball.
Judge is literally doing laps around the competition. He is hitting homers at a historic pace in the extraordinary context of a season that has seen the majority of players hitting less homers than normal. He is an anomaly that is so extreme it is hard to keep him on the same graph as his fellow ballplayers.
I’d vote for Judge. His WAR adds up to a touch more than Ohtani’s combined hitting & pitching WAR, right? I dunno, just trying to keep it simple. Both are having such great seasons either one is justifiably MVP.
For Cy Young Ohtani is 23rd in AL in innings pitched. Manoah, Valdez, and Perez deserve some consideration based on volume and consistency and quality. It’s not a”pound for pound” or “per 9 inning” award to me. Ohtani hasn’t even pitched a complete game. Gone 8 innings 2 times. So why doesn’t he pitch every 5 games if he isn’t going to go deep? With MVP, there hasn’t been any pressure games with the team playing spoiler most of the year. And he doesn’t play a position. Being a DH doesn’t give “flexibility” it limits. Notice how Phillies are losing now that Bryce Harper is back to full time DH? Play some 1st base or LF then we’ll talk MVP again
“Why doesn’t he pitch every 5 games?”
Sandy Alcantara has faced 743 batters as a pitcher this year, which leads all pitchers by a wide margin. Ohtani has faced 548 batters, which leads all Angels pitchers, but has also batted 564 times. Marcus Semien, with 609 has the most plate appears in the majors.
So Ohtani been in a plate appearance with as a pitcher or a hitter, 1,112 times, which is 50% more than literally everyone else in the game.
Not saying Ohtani should necessarily win the Cy Young, as he does have a smaller pitching volume than some, but I don’t see how you could expect him to pitch any longer or more often.
OK, the Phils are 5-6 since Harper has come back. In three of those, the Phils gave up a dozen or more runs. This is a pretty weird take.
“…weird take.”
That’s a very nice way of putting it.
So, as I check today, Ohtani has 3.5 fWAR as DH and 4.4 fWAR as a pitcher totaling 7.9 fWAR.
BUT…
That 3.5 fWAR includes -13.8 defensive runs above average as a penalty for simply not playing defense while taking up a roster spot. It appears that if he was not penalized for not contributing on defense (which seems to make since to me, since he obviously is), that would put his hitting fWAR around 5.
So, if that logic checks out, his fWAR would be more like 5 + 4.4 = 9.4.
Which is greater than Judge’s by a healthy margin.
That wouldn’t be ahead of Judge by a healthy margin; but past that, you can’t give Ohtani credit for “average defense” when he is the DH. Just as you can’t give Judge credit for “average defense” when he is the DH. The penalty judges the value above replacement. Because literally any hitter could DH, it is easier to find a better hitting replacement DH than any other position (first base is close). So that makes sense.
Yes, Ohtani is filling two positions with one roster spot, but one of those is more easily replaced. Otherwise, you would be saying that a different version of Ohtani that instead of playing DH was an average defensive outfielder would be the same value. No. That version, playing average defensive outfield, would be much more valuable, everything else being equal.
But that outfielder that Ohtani replaces would then lose that same value by being moved to DH, thus making the net value of the DH neutral. As long as a team is forced to play someone at DH instead of a potential 10th fielder, the DH has in practice neutral defensive value compared to any DH replacement players.
You do have something of an argument about it being easier to replace a DH, but increasing the odds of finding a somewhat more useful hitter than usual among your bench players and AAA roster still isn’t worth anywhere near 13 runs.
You will find no argument from me on the degree of the penalty. I think it is too steep. But playing the field (competently) has value, and sitting in the dugout does not.
There’s no wrong choice, but I’d still go w/ Ohtani. Not sure WAR is correctly capturing his value as a pitcher this year. Those IP and his numbers represent about 4 to 4.5 WAR to me.
I agree, I’d take Ohtani as well. My guess is that Judge gets it because he plays in the large media market of NY, which is closed minded and pathetic.
That is not to take anything away from Judge. Great season.
Dear God. Ohtani plays in LA!
62, the Yankees being competitive, and the fact that Judge is comfortably ahead of Ohtani in all measures of WAR all figure to play a bigger factor than where Judge plays.
Ohtani will not lose the MVP award due to lack of attention. I would have thought that could go without saying.
Super hot take: This is why Vladdy Jr. should have won the MVP last year – because Sho was quite likely to have a better combined hitting/pitching season in the future, and hear we are. I wonder if Sho would have won if he was 9-7 last year versus 9-2.
Russell Carleton? I could get the same quality of analysis from a Pizza Cutter. 😉
Sorry for the pedantry, Jay, but I stumbled over this: “At this writing, with 136 innings in the Angels’ 136 games, Ohtani is officially qualified for the ERA title.” No, he isn’t (or wasn’t). He’ll officially qualify when he reaches 162 innings. I’ve researched this a bunch, and there is no thing as being officially qualified mid-season with a lower number; actual games played do not matter — only the length of the schedule of the championship season. Players can be on pace to qualify officially, as Ohtani briefly was, but that is a convenience provided for us by stat/media companies, not something officially defined.
And even that is more complex than it appears. Teams can play more than 162 games or fewer than 162 games; the qualification standards are still 502 and 162. A player can change teams and end up with fewer or more team games than any individual team. The standards are still 502 and 162. Different sites implement different definitions of “on pace to qualify” (e.g., based on the average number of team games played today, vs. computing different thresholds for different teams); every year, there’s some occasion where a player will show up as qualified on one site, and not on another — and nobody is really wrong. Because none of it is official, except for 162 and 502.
I agree with you about everything else Ohtani-related.
It’s Judge. Don’t over think it