Making the Case for Sending Shohei Ohtani to Double-A Mobile

With Opening Day nearly here, the Angels have a choice to make; keep one of the biggest names to ever play Japanese baseball, Shohei Ohtani, on the Major League roster, or send him down.

Big league baseball isn’t easy. It’s not easy to hit a home run, not even for Aaron Judge. It’s not easy to strike out a batter who rarely ever does, not even for Clayton Kershaw.

It’s not easy to be the next Babe Ruth, to do the impossible, even when your name is Shohei Ohtani.

The Angels have a choice to make. They could do what everyone hopes they should do, and keep Ohtani in the majors, and let him DH on Opening Day against the A’s. They could do that, and the fans may applaud them for it.

That applause, however, should wait for Ohtani’s first major league home run. It should wait until he’s ready and he’s more confident.

That time, it seems, has yet to come.

I, like many, do not believe in the importance of spring training statistics. I think that they serve more as a point of reference than anything else. It serves as evidence for sending players down, and as reasons to keep them in the majors.

Shohei Ohtani is an example of the former.

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Over the course of 32 plate appearances this spring, he enters the regular season with a .107 batting average, 3 hits, and no home runs. On the pitching side of his young major league career, he’s given up 8 earned runs and 9 hits over 2.2 innings.

These stats, in the long run, mean absolutely nothing. Very few people, including myself, remember how many homers Cody Bellinger hit in spring training last year (I think it may have been 3-4)? What we do remember is that he hit 39 homers last season and won the NL Rookie of the Year.

Right now, however, spring stats are all we have to go on for Shohei Ohtani. But Sarah, what about his stats from playing baseball in Japan for five years, you may ask? That’s where this gets tricky.

Baseball in Japan is different from the majors. For starters, they carry a 6 man starting rotation, and the strike zone is bigger.

Shohei Ohtani has the potential to be great. He really does. Do I think he is destined to be the next Babe Ruth? Absolutely not. I highly doubt we will ever see anyone who can be compared to the Great Bambino. I doubt that any player will ever be spoken about synonymously with a nearly century-long curse in the same manner in which Ruth was referred to.

Shohei Ohtani, however, could still be one of the best players in Angels history. It’s just going to take some time.

The Angels don’t need Ohtani just yet. This isn’t September, and the Angels aren’t in the middle of a pennant race. They have time to let Ohtani pitch in lower-stress situations and bring him up when he’s ready.

It’s like a player who’s coming back from injury. No matter how good they are, no matter how elite they can be, they aren’t always ready to pitch or hit in high-leverage innings.

The Angels can afford to let Ohtani reach his great and powerful potential. In fact, they should encourage the patience it this game can take. They can rely on Mike Trout, Zack Cozart, and the rest of the lineup to hit home runs when they need them the most.

Next: Is it time to start worrying about Shohei Ohtani?

Regardless of what the front office decides, Shohei Ohtani is on the verge of greatness.

Get ready Angel fans, it’s finally time for baseball in Anaheim.

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