Moto "Club4AG" Miwa via Wikimedia Commons
Ever since he signed with the Los Angeles Angels, we’ve been clamoring for a fully healthy season from Shohei Ohtani on both the mound and at the plate. Well, we got it in 2021, and the returns were glorious, ultimately resulting in him running away with American League MVP honors. It continued into 2022, as well. What really gets me, though, is that as I watch Shohei Ohtani home runs, I keep having to remember the dude is also a pitcher.
When he pummels baseballs into the upper tank, my mind is blown with the talent he possesses. Considering all the things he can do at a high level, it’s no shock that he’s the most talented player in baseball today, and maybe even within the past few generations.
Mike Trout is still Mike Trout, but can he hop on the mound and do what Ohtani does, all while hitting 30-plus home runs? Maybe, but he’s not.
Want to see Shohei Ohtani slug dingers in person? Grab tickets from our friends at Vivid Seats. And before you get to the stadium, make sure you’re decked out in the right gear. Get official Angels merch from the MLB Shop or a ‘Big Dinger Energy’ shirt from our apparel store.
Outside of struggling overall at the plate in 2020, Ohtani has shown us he’s more than capable of handling big-league pitching while standing in the batter’s box. His 2021 breakout was just so wonderful to watch because of how much better it was.
Through his first three MLB seasons (967 plate appearances), Ohtani owned a 124 wRC+ with 47 homers, 47 doubles, 147 RBI, 133 runs scored, and a .234 ISO. In his MVP campaign of 2021, he posted a 152 wRC+ with 46 homers, 26 doubles, 100 RBI, 103 runs scored, and a .335 ISO. That elite of production has continued since then, too.
Phew. Let’s look at Shohei Ohtani home runs through the years, shall we?
While Ohtani’s rookie season was limited because of injury, he still flashed the kind of potential we were drooling about when he signed with the Angels. What specifically jumps out at you when looking at his stat page was how his offense took off in the final two months of the regular season.
Through the end of July, which was his first 199 plate appearances in the big leagues, Ohtani slashed .258/.333/.494 with nine home runs, 25 RBI, and 26 runs scored. That’s nothing to scoff at considering his situation, as well as his 124 wRC+. But from August 1st through the end of the year (168 plate appearances), he clearly hit another gear, slashing .318/.393/.649 with 13 homers, 36 RBI, and 33 runs scored, which sussed out to a 179 wRC+.
He also flashed elite Statcast numbers in various areas, including a 16.4% barrel rate, a 92.9 mph exit velocity, a 113.9 mph max exit velocity, and a 50.4% hard-hit rate. While 15 of his 22 homers came in front of the home crowd, the situation he took the most advantage of was facing right-handed pitching. In 110 plate appearances against lefties, he posted just a .654 OPS with two homers, but in 257 trips to the plate against righties, Ohtani posted a 1.043 OPS with 20 homers.
Ohtani’s 2019 campaign was once again impacted by injury, as he appeared in just 106 games as a hitter and none as a pitcher while rehabbing from Tommy John surgery. He obviously enjoyed another year of double-digit home runs, but his overall production took a slight step back despite getting more plate appearances than the year before.
His wRC+ dropped down to 120 and his ISO went from .279 to .219. It’s not as if he still wasn’t a positive contributor for Los Angeles – his .286/.343/.505 line and 1.7 fWAR certainly suggest he was.
When looking at his monthly splits for this season, though, it’s clear June is the part of the calendar that made his overall numbers what they ended up being. Through 103 plate appearances that month, he slashed .340/.379/.713 with nine home runs, 22 RBI, and 19 runs scored, which was all good for a 177 wRC+. In months he played at least 20 games, June was the only month where his wRC+ was higher than 113. It was under 100 in both May and August, as well.
Although the 2020 regular season was shortened to 60 games because of the COVID-19 pandemic, it was still plenty of time for Ohtani to learn a lot about himself as a big leaguer. He did get himself back on the mound after completing his Tommy John rehab, but it was only for a couple of unsuccessful innings. His time at the plate was more extensive, but just as disappointing, evidenced by an 81 wRC+, .657 OPS, and 28.6% strikeout rate.
The most concerning parts were the drastic rise in soft-hit rate and drop in hard-hit rate. Between 2018 and 2020, his soft-hit rate went from 10.2% to 8.6% to 19.4%. Meanwhile, his hard-hit rate went from 43.1% to 49.6% to 35.0%. Simply just seeing those numbers helps explain why he struggled as much as he did.
None of his 2020 statistics particularly jump off the page in a good way, but it was clear that he was more comfortable at home in Anaheim over being on the road. His home OPS (.751) was nearly 200 points higher than it was on the road (.555), and his home wRC+ (107) was also drastically better than it was away from the Big A (57).
Ohtani’s AL MVP campaign would’ve been eye-popping enough on its own, even though he just missed out on being the AL home run king despite leading the league at the All-Star break. But when you also include how much he struggled in 2020, it should make your jaw drop to the floor. He was finally fully healthy and had a regular offseason under his belt heading into this year, and boy oh boy, did it show.
His quality-of-contact numbers returned to his previous career norms, and the Japanese slugger added more fly balls and cut down on the ground balls to join the fly-ball revolution in his own way. Not only did he post a 152 wRC+ and 5.1 fWAR as a hitter, but Ohtani also slashed .257/.372/.592 with 46 home runs, 26 doubles, 100 RBI, 103 runs scored, and 26 stolen bases.
He slowed down in August and September following the All-Star break, but he went into the break quite hot with 33 homers. Once again, June was the banner month of Ohtani’s MVP performance. In 97 plate appearances, he hit .309/.423/.889 with 13 home runs, 23 RBI, 20 runs scored, and a 236 wRC+.
He also hit some moonshots within those 46 dingers. Six different homers traveled more than 450 feet (with three going at least 460), and a whopping 25 owned an exit velocity greater than 110 mph.
If you’re in Ohtani’s shoes, how do you follow up a year in which you won an MVP Award doing something nobody has ever done? You find a way to somehow get better.
Based on fWAR, Ohtani’s offensive production has taken a slight step back. To take its place, his pitching production went up to another level. As of this writing (9/28/22), Ohtani has produced 3.8 fWAR as a hitter (5.0 in ’21) and 5.0 as a pitcher (3.0 in ’21). He’s won 14 games on the mound. With 34 dingers at the plate, he’s become the first player to ever hit 30-plus homers while also winning 10 games as a pitcher in the same season.
Ohtani’s home run production has been quite steady throughout 2022. He hasn’t slugged fewer than four homers in any month. His overall offensive value has also gotten better as the years progressed. After slashing .258/.348/.486 with a 132 wRC+ in the first half, he’s improved those numbers to .295/.373/.600 and 167, respectively. The Japanese star has dropped his strikeout rate to 23.8% as of this writing, too. That’s on track to be a new single-season career-high mark, and much better than his MVP campaign in 2021 (29.6%).
While Ohtani didn’t mind continuing to hit after he tore his UCL on the mound again, it was an oblique injury that brought a premature end to another fabulous season. He played his last game of 2023 on September 3rd. Despite that, he still finished with the fourth-highest number in baseball and with the American League home run crown.
In addition to those 44 dingers, Ohtani also produced 95 RBI, 102 runs scored, and a .304/.412/.654 slugging percentage in just 497 plate appearances. It didn’t really matter if he was playing at home or on the road — his performance was virtually identical. At Angel Stadium, Ohtani slugged 22 homers with a 1.031 OPS. As a visiting player, he slugged 22 homers with a 1.097 OPS.
As we mentioned on the Angels’ single-season home run leaderboard, his best month of the season came in June when he slugged 15 homers in 126 plate appearances. The team he tortured the most, though? That’d be the Chicago White Sox. Ohtani hit .440/.548/1.360 against them in 31 trips to the plate. Of the 11 hits he recorded, seven of them left the yard (and one was a triple).
To get a comprehensive look at his 2023 rampage, check out our Shohei Ohtani Home Run Tracker.
We’ll update this article once Ohtani’s regular season is in the books. While you wait, though, follow along with his 2024 damage with our Home Run Tracker.
Want to see some homers in person this season? Of course you do. Grab MLB tickets from our friends at Vivid Seats. And before you get to the stadium, make sure you’re decked out in the right gear. Get your favorite team’s official merch from the MLB Shop or a ‘Big Dinger Energy’ shirt from our apparel store.
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