The future of Shohei Ohtani

[seanofjapan]

Originally Posted by frankbmd

I wonder what Sadaharu Oh (he is still alive) thinks of Shohei Ohtani.

No one knows what Oh would have accomplished if he had come to major league baseball, but he averaged nearly 40 home runs a year for 22 years in Japan.

Oh was interviewed in Japanese media during the WBC about Ohtani and made some generic compliments about his performance. Oh is a front office executive for the Hawks (whom he used to manage), who were rivals of Ohtani's team (Fighters) so they've never actually met.

Back in the early days of NPB just before Oh came up it wasn't uncommon for players in Japan to do what Ohtani is doing - be both a star pitcher and star batter.

The guy who had the single season hit record in NPB before Ichiro broke it (Fumio Fujimura) also had a 34-11 career record with a 2.43 ERA on the mound.

Michio Nishizawa, who led the league in batting average and RBIs in 1952 also had 60 career wins on the mound (though playing for the Dragons he had a losing record).

There are a few other HOFers with similar hitting/pitching resumes. By the time Oh came up in 1959 it was a lot rarer and eventually died out until Ohtani came along.