The initial news reverberated through the sport like a shock wave. shohei ohtanithis unthinkable unicorn taking baseball beyond its preconceived limitshe was hurt.
And then the questions began to arrive. Ohtani, now with a UCL tear in his throwing elbow, is months away from becoming a free agent. What does it mean for your market, your destiny, your future?
There is still a lot to learn and no one can answer a lot of things right now. Some answers may not even be known to Ohtani himself. But at least some answers will arrive in time.
This is the most important thing immediately after:
How committed is Ohtani to remaining a two-way player?
Ohtani has yet to speak publicly since the UCL tear, but history tells us that he will likely do everything in his power to continue to bowl and hit. Ohtani once wanted to make it to the big leagues after high school. If that had happened, he may never have become the two-way player we know today. Ohtani eventually stayed in Japan and thrived as a pitcher and hitter with the Nippon-Ham Fighters.
Even after Ohtani came to the US and underwent Tommy John surgery in 2018, he rehabbed and went on to do things never before seen in Major League Baseball.
“Ideally, if it’s about them telling me to just focus on hitting or something like pitching, I’ll listen to them.” Ohtani said in 2020. “But the ideal would be to leave the window open to be able to do both.
“If there is a chance, I still want to try (launch). He angels He signed me thinking I’m going to be a two-way player. I just need to recover, get back on the mound and try to make it.”
Another injury and the possibility of another surgery could muddy the waters. But given everything we’ve seen from Ohtani, it’s hard to imagine a world where he doesn’t once again try to challenge all preconceived notions of what’s possible. —Cody Stavenhagen
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Can he hit in 2024 and still rehab his elbow?
If Ohtani really wants to keep pitching at his best, then he’d probably roll the dice if he decides to try to hit in 2024.
For starters, a presumed second Tommy John surgery is something of a roll of the dice. But hitting in 2024, even just as a designated hitter, and deviating from the routine prescribed for rehab, could lessen the chances he’ll return to full pitching form, as he desires. The keyword becomes “risk”.
“There will be some compromise in his rehab process if he becomes a position player, depending on what his workload is, if he comes back next year,” said Dr. Chris Ahmad, the yankees team physician and a surgeon who has performed Tommy John operations. “Especially in a second Tommy John revision, you want the rehab to go perfectly.”
Time is required and the rehabilitation process is necessarily slow. Ahmad used the analogy of rubbing your hand against sharp gravel: at first, it would cause bleeding. But increasing it gradually over time builds strength in the skin of the hand; The same goes for the ligament.
At the same time, Ahmad noted, “It’s not impossible to do, it just means you have to develop the strategy to have a progression of pitches, and that would certainly happen in the offseason and the following spring.” —Evan Drellich
How does this affect Ohtani’s free agent market?
This is the million dollar question… err, $800 million. First point here: Even if Ohtani were just a hitter, he’d still be the most desirable free agent in the class this offseason. This is a player who has 44 home runs and an overall offensive production that ranks 81 percent above the league average. He could get a big payday even if he’s only half the player we know. the athleticKen Rosenthal wrote Ohtani could still be worth half a billion dollars as a solo hitter.
At least some decision-makers in the game were already reckoning with the reality that Ohtani might not be able to pitch full-time for the duration of the mega-deal he received.
“His injury actually brings some degree of clarity to his free agency,” Rosenthal wrote. “The team that signs Ohtani will pay him as a batsman. Anything he provides as a pitcher will be an advantage.”
For comparison, aaron judge he received a nine-year, $360 million contract last offseason. Ohtani has a good chance of surpassing that total. A deal full of opt-outs and incentives could be a way to offset the current state of uncertainty. The injury could give the Angels a small dose of hope in retaining Ohtani, but he’s unlikely to keep big spenders like him. mets either dodgers far. If anything, a slightly more realistic price could mean more teams in the bid for Ohtani, not fewer. — cody stavenhagen
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Would it make sense to sign a one-year contract?
It might make sense for Ohtani to sign some short-term contract in hopes of reestablishing a level of clarity heading into free agency again in a season or two. Of course, this would be a huge risk for Ohtani. And perhaps there are more reasons against than in favor.
There is some belief that Ohtani will look to strike a deal like this and bet on himself. The bad thing is that he will then be 30 years old. And the real incentive for teams to sign massive mega-contracts is that they’ll get a player’s early years in his prime, while accepting that they’ll overpay for a player’s declining years as a result.
There’s also the inherent reality that he won’t pitch again in 2024, so there won’t be any certainty going into another contract season. The other side of the coin would be that Ohtani would have a cooler arm around 31 or 32 years of age. The question is whether it’s enough to offset what he’d earn by signing a lucrative long-term deal this year.
Ohtani lost possibly hundreds of millions of dollars with this horrifyingly timed injury. He’ll still get a huge salary anyway, and neither option may get him back to what he would have earned. —Sam Blum
Why did the Angels let him pitch after his recent bout of arm fatigue?
The Angels believe Ohtani would not have been able to pitch the 1/3 inning he did Wednesday with a tear in his UCL. He also threw a bullpen the day before, which the team said was no problem. That means they think he almost certainly suffered the tear while pitching Wednesday. That said, it’s certainly fair to be curious about the Angels’ process here.
Ohtani had already skipped his previous start due to arm fatigue. And no pictures were taken of his arm after his last outing because Ohtani hadn’t complained of anything other than fatigue. There was no worry about injury, just that he was tired.
But clearly, something wasn’t right on his last outing. His fastball speed is down 3.7 mph and his sweeper speed is down 4 mph. Everything was down. Something was wrong.
To understand the Angels’ thinking, it’s important to understand the broader strategy with Ohtani. He has almost total autonomy in everything he does. He trains according to his schedule. He plays when he wants to play. He pitches when he wants to pitch. So the start of him on Wednesday is more a reflection of that. They trusted him to get out because he said he could, even if there were some potential red flags about it.
It’s hard to say what, if anything, would be different if it didn’t start on Wednesday. Or they had taken pictures of him before the start. But it seems highly unlikely that the arm fatigue she suffered in recent weeks is completely divorced from the much more serious injury she now faces. —Sam Blum
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How successful are pitchers coming back from a second Tommy John surgery?
Anecdotally, quite successful. daniel hudson he threw the final pitch of the World Series six years after his second Tommy John surgery. After their respective reviews of Tommy John, nathan eovaldi became an All-Star Game starter; Jameson Taillon signed a free agent contract for 68 million dollars; Joakim Soria, Kirby Yates and Justin Topa they became valuable relievers; and, if we want to extract meaning from tiny samples, hyun jin ryu He has a 1.89 ERA in four starts. There are also plenty of examples of pitchers not getting back into shape after a second Tommy John surgery, for various reasons, but the simple answer is that a revision is not a death sentence for a career.
An even simpler, if far more disappointing, answer is that we’ll know a lot more about the success rate of Tommy John revisions in a few years, as the list of two (and three) Tommy John revisions grows. You could build a star-studded, playoff-caliber starting rotation currently reeling from a second Tommy John: Jacob degrom, Shane McClanahan, Walker Buhler, Dustin May, chris paddock, joe ross and now, perhaps, Ohtani.
Although the success rate for first-time Tommy John surgeries is very good, there is not much literature examining the success rate of Tommy John revisions. A 2016 study found that about 40 percent of MLB pitchers who had had a Tommy John overhaul since 1999 had returned to pitch at least 10 more games in the majors, while a 2020 study found that half of the players (the study included 38 pitchers and two position players) returned to their previous levels of competition. The more Tommy John revisions are done, the better the data and our understanding of success rates, but, as with all things Tommy John surgeries, it will take time. — Stephen J Nesbitt
(With reporting by Evan Drellich and Stephen J. Nesbitt)
(Top photo: Ronald Martinez/Getty Images)
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