Los Angeles Angels: Predicting Shohei Ohtani’s rookie production
By Jason Reed
Shohei Ohtani has become the MLB’s most intriguing storyline heading into 2018. What should the Los Angeles Angels expect from Ohtani in his rookie year?
The Los Angeles Angels hit it big with Shohei Ohtani. The Angels have consistently struggled to surround Mike Trout with a team that can make a postseason push. They have constantly missed out on the big names, instead, settling for potential comeback stories like Tim Lincecum.
That is why the Angels have not won a playoff game since 2009, making Trout 0-3 in his postseason career. Luckily for Trout and the fans that want to keep Trout around, Ohtani signaled a change of culture for the Los Angeles Angels. Los Angeles subsequently brought in Zack Cozart and Ian Kinsler as well as extending Justin Upton.
Many do not know what to expect from Ohtani in his rookie season. He has the stuff to be an elite MLB pitcher and all signs point to him being an above-average power hitter. Mike Scioscia has the daunting task of balancing both Ohtani’s pitching and hitting workload; with Albert Pujols throwing a wrench in the designated hitter situation.
It is hard to pinpoint exactly how Ohtani is going to perform in the MLB, he is an entirely new animal that we have never seen. That is not stopping us from making our predictions, though.
First, let’s start with the pitching side of things:
Pitching prediction: 15-7, 3.35 ERA, 180.0 IP, 210 Ks
Ohtani’s workload is going to be interesting to watch as his innings count may be lower than traditional MLB pitchers. To find a reasonable number, we took the average innings pitched of Masahiro Tanaka, Yu Darvish and Kenta Maeda; the three most recent Japanese pitchers in their rookie years.
Of course, Tanaka’s numbers swayed the data as he missed time due to injury, so injury-free, 180 innings seems to be a good number for Ohtani. 67 earned runs put him at a 3.25 ERA, and as you can see, his strikeout rate would stand at 10.5 K/9. That would have been the eighth best in baseball last year.
Quite frankly, Angel fans should not worry too much about Ohtani on the mound. He will have a blow up here and there were MLB hitting seemingly caught up with him. However, I would expect a fantastic start to the season that puts him at Cy Young level, then slowly regressing to more realistic numbers.
This should be more than enough to win him the AL Rookie of the Year. The hitting stats will only be icing on the cake.
Hitting prediction: 400 PA, .247 AVG, 22 HR, 67 RBI, 62 R
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Trying to pinpoint a number of plate appearances for Shohei Ohtani is like trying to hit a bullseye on a dartboard blindfolded. We really have no idea how the Los Angeles Angels are going to utilize Ohtani’s two-way talents. Thus, we just slapped a round ‘ol 400 number on it.
What I can tell you, though, is the rate at which Ohtani will produce. 22 home runs in 400 plate appearances is not bad, he would average one home run every 18.2 plate appearances. I do not see his batting average high, as his hitting should regress in the MLB and his RBI’s and runs will be good, not great.
Like with the pitching side of things, I expect Ohtani to start off torching the world. Bomb after bomb, Ohtani’s first month of the season will seem like that of a Holywood movie.
However, as we see with even the best MLB power hitters, pitchers will figure Ohtani out and his production will drop. Throw in the natural fatigue of a rare MLB workload, something he has no experience in, and that same power production in September will be far off from where it was in April.
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Shohei Ohtani certainly is an interesting prospect heading into 2018. While I do think he will have a great rookie year for the Los Angeles Angeles, I do not believe he will have the kind of season that many are expecting