Back to Back??

Back to Back??

Published: 7/8/2022 10:39 AM

2021 was the year of Ohtani, and the baseball world was all about Shohei. After hitting a career high 46 home runs in his 2021 AL MVP season, many people expected Shohei to improve upon not only that but also improve on his batting as a whole. But when the 2022 season started something seemed off, after finally showing everyone that it is possible for 2-way player to not only play but dominate in modern baseball, Ohtani had a slow start to the season.

Ohtani's 2022 started off poorly with a .293 On-Base Percentage (OBP), a .706 On-Base plus Slugging (OPS), and a 97 Weighted Runs Created Plus (wRC+) through May 1st. Despite 6 innings of 12 strikeouts and 1 hit against the Houston Astros, Ohtani’s pitching wasn’t spectacular in April, pitching to a 4.19 Earned Run Average (ERA) and a 2-2 record.

Even with the struggles with traditional statistics, Ohtani’s advanced stats showed a different story. Ohtani pitched a 2.13 Field Independent Pitching (FIP), and to a 2.28 Skill-interactive Earned Run Average (SIERA), which indicates that Ohtani’s high ERA might now have been entirely his fault. These stats show that Ohtani was able to throw quality pitches and force hitters into weak contact but his defense wasn’t as helpful causing his ERA to be much higher. People didn’t seem to care though as the Angels were 14-8 and 2.5 games in first place in the AL West, with many saying it was going to be a different year for the Angels.

But as the season progressed the Angels started to show why that early season hope may have been misplaced, going from 27-17 in late may to 38-45 by the beginning of July, including a 14 game losing streak. As the Angels season went from playoff likely to usual 4th-5th place in the AL West, there was a bright spot, Ohtani was starting to look like he was getting back to MVP form.

His traditional numbers aren’t exactly back to his 2021 MVP season but his expected numbers are right about where they were last year. His Expected Weighted On-Base Percentage (xwOBA) is only 1 point lower than last season, meaning that Shohei has been able to match his MVP swing and get the same quality contact.

His power in 2022 is significantly less, which is one of the reasons causing his traditional numbers to go down, his Isolated Power (ISO) is almost 100 points less than last season. Despite these shortcomings in ISO, Ohtani has been able to recover and improve over the season.

Since June 1st, Shohei Ohtani has batted a .277 BA, slugged a .536 SLG%, produced an OPS of .912, and most importantly his wRC+ was a 152, slightly lower than his 154 wRC+ in 2021. Even though he’s swinging more than he did in 2021, he’s been able to get more contact and strike out less, which is how he’s been able to return to the Ohtani we all love.

I’ve spent all this time taking about Shohei but I haven’t mentioned his pitching, Ohtani’s hitting ability alone could win him another MVP, but when you factor in his pitching, it’s that much more likely that Ohtani becomes the 8th player since 1931 to win back to back MVPs in the American League. Through 14 starts and 81 innings Ohtani threw a 2.44 ERA, a 2.43 FIP and a 2.6 fWAR, and since the beginning of June, Shohei has torched opposing teams bats with a 1.23 ERA, 11.78 strikeouts per 9 innings, and a 2.37 FIP, all while having a 5-1 record.

In 2021 Ohtani was not only touted as the best bat in baseball but also a top hurler on the mound. Ohtani’s pitching in 2021 was phenomenal, he threw 130 innings over 23 starts, and put up a 3.18 ERA and a 3.52 FIP. That same year the MLB average for both ERA, and FIP were 4.15 and 3.52, meaning Ohtani was significantly better than the average pitcher at run prevention.

Fast forward a year and now Ohtani has 2.44 ERA and a 2.43 FIP. One pitching statistic I haven’t talked about much is Skill-interactive Earned Run Average or (SIERA). SIERA is similar to FIP, FIP tries to eliminate all of the factors a pitcher can’t control by only factoring in HRs, Walks, and strikeouts, SIERA tries to do the same thing except it factors balls in play into its equation. So if a player is throwing unhittable pitches that cause weak ground balls and pop outs then their SIERA would be low but their FIP would be higher. SIERA can show how easy or hard it is for a batter to get quality contact against a pitcher.

Knowing all that, let’s take a look at Shohei Ohtani’s MVP SIERA, 3.61, which according to FanGraphs, is right between Great and Above Average, with 3.9 being league average. In 2022 Shohei Ohtani’s SIERA is 2.56, only Shane McClanahan (The AL Cy Young front runner) has a better SIERA than Ohtani (2.16 SIERA).

With Ohtani’s continued improvement with his pitching and his bat slowly but surely waking up, it’s just a matter of time when we’re all talking about Shohei Ohtani as a possible back to back MVP winner. Ohtani’s combined 2.6 pitching WAR and 1.6 oWAR, Shohei is a top 3 player in WAR, and with his hitting looking to what we’ve become somewhat accustomed to and his pitching looking unhittable, Ohtani’s WAR is only going to skyrocket. After that there will be little to no argument against Ohtani as the back to back AL MVP…