Shohei Ohtani has been BETTER than I could have expected

He's been insane

@Dodgers

Shohei Ohtani came to the Dodgers with pretty high expectations. He’s won two MVP’s and is considered to be the best player in all of baseball.

He signed a record-breaking contract worth $700 million. When you sign a contract like that, there are going to be astronomical expectations that everyone is going to set for you.

It’s only been one month. There’s about 9.75 years left on his contract. Plenty of baseball that still needs to be played.

With that being said, Shohei Ohtani has somehow managed to be even BETTER than I was expecting.

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Remember when Ohtani got off to that slow start and everyone was panicking? Ah, good times.

Through his first eight games as a Dodger, Ohtani was hitting only .242 with an OPS of .631 and an 83 wRC+. We knew he’d eventually come around, but he looked nothing like the hitter we were all expecting.

Since those first eight games, Ohtani has been the best hitter of all of baseball. He’s putting up numbers that he didn’t even have while with the Angels.

Over his last 27 games, Ohtani is hitting .400. He owns an OPS of 1.255 and a 250 wRC+. Just think about that for a second. Over nearly a month, Ohtani has a wRC+ that is 150 points higher than what the league average is. He’s been 2.5X better at the plate than your average hitter. That’s just crazy.

During this run, he has 10 home runs and 22 RBI. That’s a 162-game pace of 60 home runs and 132 RBI. Not bad, I’d say.

He was just named the National League Player of the Week, where he put up some video game numbers. Like these are the kind of numbers you post when you lower the difficulty settings all the way to the easiest mode.

This past week, Ohtani hit .524 with a 1.536 OPS and 330 wRC+. Like….. c’mon! I’m actually laughing while typing these numbers out. It’s just insane.

Despite his slow start to the season, Ohtani has pretty much been the best player in all of baseball this season. Here’s where he ranks among all hitters in the league.

.364 AVG (1st)

.685 SLG (1st)

1.111 OPS (1st)

.473 wOBA (1st)

212 wRC+ (1st)

52 hits (1st)

25 extra-base hits (1st)

98 total bases (1st)

10 home runs (T-1st)

30 runs (2nd)

2.4 fWAR (2nd)

The thing that sticks out most to me, despite being first in nearly every hitting category imaginable, is the fact that he’s second in all of baseball in WAR. Like, that is actually insane. He just hits. He doesn’t play defense. Despite that, he’s provided the second most value of any player in baseball this season.

To put into perspective how good that is, the next closest DH in fWAR is at 1.3. Ohtani has been nearly twice as valuable as the next DH.

We knew that Ohtani was already the best in the world, but what he’s doing at the plate this season is something we’ve never seen before. We could see him have a season similar to what we saw Barry Bonds have all those years ago.

I know Shohei won’t be on this pace all season, but his 162-game fWAR pace is 14.4. His previous career-high at the plate came last season when it was 6.5.

I just can’t believe we get to witness this as Dodgers fans. I mean, we’re truly spoiled. He’s better than I could have ever imagined, and I want to make sure every Dodgers fan out there realizes we’re watching history every night when he steps into the batters box.