2018 MLB Year in Review Part 1: Two-Way Phenom Shohei Ohtani Lived Up to the Hype

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Photo Courtesy Of:

Wikimedia

and

Ship1231

under

CC BY-SA 3.0 License.

Over the last few years the sport of Major League Baseball (MLB) has done something that it has either not done at all or has been been very slow to do in past years. That is to introduce some new strategies and innovations to the game that have previously been viewed as disrupting the overall tradition of the game itself. The biggest examples of change from past seasons were when replay review was introduced to help overturn calls that the umpires got wrong, the home plate collision rule and the take out slide rule at second base.

As the 2018 season got underway, another new rule that was implemented was the limit on the number of times that a player or coach could go out to the mound for a visit with the pitcher to either talk about strategy and what to do in a certain situation or to give a pitcher some time to catch their breath and take a break if they are in a tough situation. Starting in the 2018 season the number of mound visits for each team was limited to a total number of six per game for each team. If a game was still tied after nine innings of play and subsequently went into extra innings, each team would receive an additional mound visit in this situation. While the new mound visit rule of 2018 most certainly had a positive effect on the game in terms of the overall pace of the game, it wasn't the only new sighting or strategic innovation that made its presence felt to baseball fans around the world in the 2018 season.

The next big story that burst on the scene to start the 2018 season was a certain new baseball player from Japan who was going to attempt to do something that a major league player had never done before since a guy by the name of Babe Ruth. That was to be the first major league player since Mr. Ruth to both pitch and hit on a fairly regular basis. The player who would be attempting this very unique athletic feat would be the one and only Shohei Ohtani from Japan!

During the 2017-2018 offseason period of time, the question of which team would be the lucky recipient of the latest player from Japan to come over and play in the major leagues was one of, if not the biggest, story line of the offseason. That question was answered before the Christmas holiday in 2017 when Ohtani agreed to a deal to play with the Los Angeles Angels on December 8th. For full disclosure purposes I should mention that the Los Angeles Angels are my favorite sports team ever so I was pretty excited to find out that he chose to sign with and play for them!

After it was announced that he would sign with the Angels, the next part of the Shohei Ohtani story during the rest of the offseason focused on how good he could possibly as a player in Major League Baseball (MLB). During this time there were numerous discussions and debates in the sports media world about how successful he could be as a pitcher and a hitter and whether or not he should focus all of his energy and effort on being only pitcher or hitter or both.

At the time it seemed like most of the so-called "experts" weren't sure how long Mr. Ohtani would be able to do both jobs and do them well. The majority of these "experts" at the time predicted that both he and the team would end up utilizing his unique set of talents solely as a pitcher after a while. If Shohei Ohtani had not gotten injured during the 2018 season those predictions would have most likely turned out to be wrong. As the season unfolded however, the inevitable happened and Ohtani ended up injuring his elbow and needed to undergo Tommy John surgery as a result. Even though he could no longer be used as a pitcher for the rest of the year, the good news for the Angels and their fans was that he could still be used as a hitter. What was even better was in the game that was played against the Texas Rangers after it was announced that he would most likely need to have surgery on his elbow, Ohtani proceeded to hit a home run and have one of the best games of his Major League career up to that point.

For the rest of the season Ohtani appeared as a designated hitter and ended the season with 22 home runs and 4 wins en route to being named the winner of the 2018 American League Rookie of the Year award. Considering how he got off to a slow start in Spring Training before the start of the season both as a pitcher and a hitter, it was pretty exciting to find out that Shohei Ohtani ended up winning the award.

Even though he will most likely miss all of the 2019 season as a pitcher, it will be interesting to see if Ohtani can maintain his overall performance or be even better as a hitter next season. After that, hopefully he will be able to continue his excellence as a two-way player in 2020.

Tim Musick-Copyright 2019
All Rights Reserved.