Looking back, in fact he was going to do it. On Thursday, Shohei Ohtani turned the primary participant in historical past to hit 50 dwelling runs and steal 50 bases in the identical season, and he did it loudly. His 6-for-6, three-homer, two-steal sport could be among the many finest single-game traces by any participant all 12 months even when it hadn’t concurrently helped him obtain a feat that nobody has ever completed earlier than. Typically you simply need to marvel on the greatness.
Ohtani wasn’t speculated to be at his peak this 12 months. He’s rehabbing from UCL restore surgical procedure and thus not pitching. His two-way prowess has all the time been a part of the Ohtani mystique, and 2024 felt like a warmup for subsequent 12 months, his first totally operational marketing campaign with the Dodgers. However as a substitute, Ohtani reached new heights as a hitter this 12 months. He’s already set profession bests for each counting stat conceivable. He’d have highs in each price stat too, if it weren’t for his offensive breakthrough in 2023 (.304/.412/.654 for a 179 wRC+).
Ohtani all the time felt like a risk to hit 50 homers – he hit 46 in 2021 and 44 final 12 months — however 50 steals felt like a pipe dream; he’d swiped solely 86 complete bases in 716 video games earlier than this 12 months, and even with final 12 months’s rule adjustments that elevated stolen base makes an attempt and success charges, he swiped solely 20 baggage in 135 video games.
Early in 2024, that development continued. Throughout his first 20 video games, he stole three bases and hit 4 homers. Nobody puzzled whether or not the house runs would come – clearly they might. He additionally smashed 10 doubles in these video games en path to a 177 wRC+. The ability is clear each time you watch him play. However steals? Regardless of his blazing velocity, they’d by no means actually been a part of his sport, and nothing concerning the begin of this 12 months indicated a change on that entrance.
Throughout his subsequent 20 video games, he batted a daft .364/.462/.701, socked seven dwelling runs, and stole six bases. That introduced his season complete to 11 homers and 9 steals in 40 video games, a 162-game tempo of 44 and 36. Then his hits began to go away the yard at a good higher price and his steals stalled a bit. By June 30, Ohtani had blasted 26 homers and stolen 16 baggage in 82 video games, good for a 162-game tempo of 51 and 31. Fifty dwelling runs was affordable, however 50 steals? It didn’t appear to be within the realm of risk.
One factor I’ve discovered within the final half decade, although, is that you just doubt Ohtani at your personal threat. He beat colossal odds and upset preconceived notions throughout the game when he established himself as a two-way fixture within the majors. Scouts thought he couldn’t hit. Then they thought he couldn’t hold doing it. They thought he’d put on down. They thought the primary main arm harm would flip him right into a full-time hitter. None of those predictions was appropriate. Why couldn’t he begin stealing bases at will?
That’s precisely what occurred. His 16 steals by June 30 ranked eleventh within the majors, so it’s not as if he was a disappointment on the basepaths, but it surely was simply one other superb factor that Shohei may do when he felt prefer it, nothing greater than that.
Effectively, that’s what we thought anyway. Over his subsequent 12 video games, which took him to the All Star break, he stole seven extra. Then he began to steal in bunches. He swiped three baggage on August 3, two on August 14, and one other two on August 17. He stole 15 bases in August – about as many as he swiped within the first half of the season!
All the sudden, 50/50 was on the menu. And it by no means got here off it, as a result of he stored his foot on the gasoline pedal. Ohtani leads baseball in stolen bases within the second half of this season. He’d been flirting with a 50-homer tempo for many of the 12 months; the sudden inflow of steals was all he wanted. To grasp how rapidly issues modified for Ohtani, I like taking a look at this graph:
The diagonal line is the required tempo to get 50 of a given stat in a full season. As you possibly can see, the steals aspect of the equation was very a lot unsure till he received going – and it’s been clean crusing ever since.
Ohtani didn’t precisely coast over the end line, both. He’s been roughly on tempo to hit 50/50 for the previous few weeks, even after an oh-fer in a four-game stretch in Atlanta. After I ran a simulation Thursday morning to try to foretell which day he’d get to 50/50, the almost definitely consequence pointed towards the top of this week or the beginning of subsequent week. Then Ohtani produced maybe the best offensive day of all time: 6-for-6 with three homers, two doubles, 10 RBI, and two steals.
That’s 17 complete bases and no outs. Uh yeah, that’s fairly good. Two steals for good measure? How do you even steal two bases in a sport the place you may have just one single and no walks? How do you do it when half of your plate appearances are dwelling runs? It’s outrageous. I like this be aware from Opta Stats:
Since RBI turned official in 1920, just one MLB participant has had, over the course of his complete profession (similar sport or not),
a sport with 10+ RBI
a sport with 6+ hits
a sport with 5+ XBH
a sport with 3+ HR
a sport with 2+ SBThat one participant is Shohei Ohtani. He did all of it at the moment. pic.twitter.com/njXOmwHKnm
— OptaSTATS (@OptaSTATS) September 20, 2024
It’s laborious to say rather more than that, actually. Ohtani didn’t simply attain the 50-homer, 50-steal mark by grinding out the previous few tallies separately, inch by painstaking inch. He saved his finest for final, placing up actually the perfect offensive sport of his profession, and maybe the perfect sport of anybody’s profession, to set the report.
It was his first multi-homer sport with a steal all 12 months. It was solely the fourth of his profession. And it wasn’t two homers and one steal, like the opposite three had been – it was three homers and two steals. Nobody’s had that form of sport earlier than, by no means thoughts all the opposite superb components about it.
What else are you able to say? Ohtani is peerless, utterly with out comparability. He may be the best to ever do it. He’s definitely probably the most singular. In fact he received to this seemingly unreachable milestone with a seemingly not possible offensive outburst. That’s simply how he’s all the time completed issues.
This sport was so spectacular that I wished extra. I made a decision to ask my Ohtani 50/50 prediction mannequin whether or not he may get to 60/60. I tweaked a couple of variables, added to his dwelling run price, and eradicated relaxation days. It mentioned, basically, “lol no.” In a single million simulations, he by no means hit 9 homers and stole 9 bases in the identical nine-game stretch. Even Ohtani may not be up for that one.
Alternatively, his probabilities of attending to 55/55 are surprisingly affordable. With none changes to my pre-existing mannequin, I give him an 8% likelihood of hitting quadruple nickels – 55 twice. If I exploit his second-half tempo as a information as a substitute of our projections, it’s extra like 11%. It’s unlikely however doable, which is greater than I can say for the sport we simply witnessed.
However sufficient about math. Sufficient about what Ohtani would possibly do to make his feat much more spectacular. It’s already a staggering achievement, set in a method that nobody else can match. What a participant. What a sport. What a season. When Ohtani places his thoughts to it, something is feasible.