MLB's next big thing disappoints - 'He's basically like a high school hitter'

By Ross Kelly March 11, 2018 at 9:46am

Shohei Ohtani was billed as the “Japanese Babe Ruth” due to his success as both a pitcher and hitter in Japan.

He led Nippon Professional Baseball’s Pacific League in ERA in 2015 and followed that up by winning the league’s version of the Silver Slugger award the following year.

After meeting with several MLB teams, Ohtani decided to call Anaheim home as he signed with the Los Angeles Angels in December.

The 23-year-old is expected to be both a starting pitcher and a designated hitter at times.

While his spring training performance as a pitcher has been inconsistent at best — his ERA sits at 6.75 — what he’s shown at the plate has been downright worrisome, according to many MLB scouts.

Coming into Sunday’s game, Ohtani has had 14 plate appearances and has accumulated a lone single. He’s walked three times and struck out four times while looking confused and uncomfortable in the batter’s box.

“He’s basically like a high school hitter because he’s never seen a good curveball,” one scout told Yahoo Sports. “He’s seen fastballs and changeups. And you’re asking a high school hitter to jump to the major leagues?”

What makes that statement somewhat baffling is that Ohtani himself throws the curveball. But there lies one of the reasons he was so successful overseas.

Ohtani became Japan’s best pitcher, in part, through his curveball, which confused NPB hitters. Good curveballs aren’t prevalent in NPB, so opposing hitters didn’t know how to react to the pitch. But at the same time, when Ohtani was at the plate he didn’t see many good curveballs because other pitchers weren’t throwing them that often.

Do you think Shohei Ohtani will succeed as an MLB hitter and pitcher?

It’s a spin on Gisele Bundchen’s infamous quote about husband Tom Brady: “Ohtani can’t throw his curveball and hit his curveball at the same time.”

Perhaps the best curveball in the game is thrown by Clayton Kershaw, and Ohtani recently got an up-close view at what an elite breaking ball looks like.

Shohei Ohtani was introduced to @ClaytonKersh22's curveball. https://t.co/mLIKewqdme pic.twitter.com/qdBf8tjHid

— Cut4 (@Cut4) March 7, 2018

After becoming the latest victim of Kershaw, Ohtani weighed in on what it was like to face the world’s best pitcher.

“I have been watching Kershaw pitch on TV a lot and it felt a lot different standing in at the plate against him,” he said through his interpreter. “It’s just a spring training game, but it was somewhat of a special moment to be able to face Kershaw.

“I don’t know if I’m going to be able to hit [his curveball] the next time he throws it to me,” Ohtani said. “I was kind of expecting it with two strikes. It was a pretty borderline pitch. I thought it was low, so I decided to take it. I guess it was too close to take so next time I’ll try to at least foul it off.”

Not every MLB pitcher has the nasty stuff of Clayton Kershaw, but this is a taste of what Ohtani will see in the big leagues. While only one scout (that we know of) compared Ohtani to a high school hitter, the scouts who broke down him as a hitter to Yahoo had nearly identical reports.

They believe his swing has mechanical flaws and he’ll get punished inside with fastballs. In addition to the lack of quality curveballs that he’s seen, scouts say, he needs at least 500 plate appearances in the minors in order to have a chance at becoming an MLB-caliber hitter.

But Angels GM Billy Eppler is ignoring the critics and says he won’t even imagine a scenario in which Ohtani doesn’t prove to be as good as the Angels want him to be.

“I am not allowing my mind to go there,” Eppler said on the possibility of Ohtani failing as either a pitcher or hitter. “It is out of your control. You are spending energy on something that has not happened. It could. If it does, we’ll deal with it.”

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