The American Ohtani

I do not think Shohei Ohtani is the greatest player that ever lived. I believed that Shohei Ohtani was given a very unique opportunity to put him in a postion to be the greatest player that ever lived. Does that make sense? Because it should.  

Here in America, MLB players no longer have that shot to be 2-way guys. Meaning, when they come up through our baseball system, wherever they are, they are eventually made P.O.s (pitchers only) or give up pitching to become position players and hit.  And it’s really that simple.  

Ohtani is a Japanese player that is a phenom and when he was able to post and negotiate contracts with Major League Teams, being a two way was part of his chip and he got it, and I’m positive many American ballplayers that were 2 ways up too and even in college were annoyed by the fact that maybe they could do it the same way. But quite simply, they were and are shunned from it, or had one of their strengths stripped of them to help build that college team into the powerhouse that college needed at the time.  And so, my point isn’t radical or racist or anything like that. It comes down to common sense. Ohtani had the opportunity to do that. American players do not. 

When Sean Hard was drafted by the New York Yankees a few years ago, I thought “Now there’s a kid that can easily do what Ohtani can do.” I watched Hard play for years, all the way up through high school. My kid played with him around the same time and they’d cross paths. Every time we saw him, he was on top of his game, on the mound and in the batter’s box.

He throws hard, dominates. When it comes to hitting, Hard didn’t slow down.

But Hard chose college over the Yankees and you got to respect that. Here’s the thing however, when he got the Boston College, they appear to have weened him from the batter’s box and are keeping him only on the mound. And trust me, BC loves him:

“AS A FRESHMAN (2022) Pitched in 15 games, including nine starts, with a 0-5 record and 11.57 ERA… struck out 43 batters in 32.2 innings pitched… fanned seven in 4.1 innings in his debut at Austin Peay (2/19)… tossed three-scoreless innings with four strikeouts at USC Upstate (2/26)… struck out five in four innings of one-run ball against Louisville (3/26)… pitched three innings with four strikeouts at Notre Dame (5/1).”