Still in the process of development…!　Shohei Ohtani’s “growth and challenges” this season as revealed by his “statistical data

Expert analysis of “12 numbers.”

The first one in 60 at-bats flew into the left-field bleachers at his home plate with a velocity of 109.8 mph (176.7 km/h) and a pitch angle of 28°.

Shohei Ohtani, 31, of the Dodgers, had three hits, including his sixth home run, against the Cubs on April 27 (Japan time), helping his team to victory.

The data shows that Otani is a slow starter from the beginning.

As you can see, there is often a discrepancy between the impression fans and the media have of Ohtani and his actual performance. The only clue that can fill this gap is the vast amount of data recorded by the 30 MLB teams. Here, we take a look at Ohtani’s growth this season and the challenges he faces, with commentary from Hiroshi Miyashita, an analyst with DELTA, a company that analyzes baseball statistically (figures as of April 27).

The first thing to note is his average swing speed. The fastest year of his career was in 2011 when he was with the Angels. The fastest year of his career was ’23 with the Angels, when his average swing speed was 77.4 mph. This season, however, it is 74.5 mph (119.9 km/h), a drop of nearly 3 mph. This has more to do with a change in role than a decline in power.

During his time with the Angels, his full swing for home runs was noticeable, but now that he has established himself as the Dodgers’ leadoff hitter, he is probably more conscious of getting on base and aiming to make clean contact.

Instead of daring to reduce his swing speed, Ohtani had evolved a measure called “squaring up.

It is a measure of how well one is able to convert swing speed into batted ball velocity. The major league average is 33%, and Otani’s in ’23, when he won the home run crown, was 28.8%. In other words, although his batting efficiency was poor, he was able to send the ball flying with more than enough power to compensate for it.

On the other hand, since joining the Dodgers, Ohtani has significantly increased this figure, averaging over 35% for three years. A hitter who used power as a weapon has succeeded in dramatically increasing his contact rate while maintaining some power.”

As Miyashita said, Ohtani’s batted-ball efficiency is at an all-time high. This is shown by the improvement in the barrel rate (the percentage of all batted balls that recorded a velocity or angle that is likely to result in a long ball).’ Barrel rate, which was 19.6% in 2011, is 21.6% this season. His ability to successfully angle the ball and hit long balls has evolved.

The slight decrease in swing speed and improvement in batted-ball efficiency indicate that Ohtani has reached a state of “energy conservation” after overcoming his injuries. This is also evident in his sprint speed (base running speed).

In 2012, when he recorded a 50-50 record, his sprint speed was 28.1 feet per second (about 30.8 km/h), but so far this season it has been 26.5 feet per second (about 29 km/h). He has intentionally reduced his full power play in anticipation of a long season as a two-sport athlete.

On the contrary, this season Ohtani has been placing more emphasis on the four-seam fastball, which allows him to get on base without running as fast as he can. His BB%, which indicates the ratio of walks to all at-bats, is at an all-time high of 15.5, and his K%, which indicates the ratio of strikeouts to all at-bats, is 24.0, which is lower than last year. In other words, his pitch selection has improved.

Compared to last year, I am pulling the ball closer and hitting it better. The angle of attack direction (angle of the bat at impact) was usually tilted 2° toward the pull direction, but this season it is 0° toward the center. This is evidence that he is hitting with the bat in his pocket.

This has led to an improvement in his batting performance against left-handed pitchers, which was not his strong suit last season, with a .279 batting average and 15 hits against left-handed pitchers. Ohtani is currently hitting .367 with a .472 on-base percentage and an OPS of 1.205 against left-handed pitching, showing tremendous growth.

He has been able to hit fastballs well this year, although his swing rate in the strike zone against left-handed pitchers has declined. In other words, I think he has been able to “split the difference” between missing hard-to-hit breaking pitches even if they are in the zone and targeting sweet fastballs. In particular, the probability of missing left-handed pitches has increased compared to last year.
The issue for the future is the decline in his dynamic vision and physical ability due to age. Otani will probably be more conscious of efficient hitting, such as reducing his power output and looking at the ball more carefully.

On the other hand, the decline in batting average against right-handed pitchers compared to last year is an issue.

Reasons for Improved Control

Let’s turn our attention to pitcher Ohtani. He has an amazing record of 2-0 with a 0.38 earned run average in four appearances so far. ……

Compared to 2011, when he was a two-tool pitcher, his average fastball velocity has increased by 1.2 mph (about 1.9 km/h) and the amount of vertical change (how much the fastball hangs down) has improved. The pitch has genuinely increased in power. Also, when we take the standard deviation of arm angle (arm angle) and release point, the blurring is clearly smaller than last year. In other words, the repeatability of his pitches has improved, and his control is better.

In fact, his walk rate, which was 10.4% in 2011, has improved to 6.5%.

Ohtani has also been able to “save energy” in his pitching.

The percentage of ground balls hit by opposing batters has increased from 45.8% in 2011 to 55.0%. This is probably due to the revival of the control of the split, which had tended to be rough. In fact, this season, the probability of successfully hitting and taking pitches in the ball zone has increased.

He says that there has also been a change in his sweeper, which he had been using as his family heirloom since before his injury.

In the majors over the past few years, sweepers coming in from outside left-handed batters have tended to be hit more easily,” he said. Therefore, Ohtani has reduced the sweeper’s bend a little bit compared to ’23 and, conversely, increased its velocity by 1.5 mph (about 2.4 km/h), thereby improving its power.

In addition to his evolved splits and sweeper, he has also used his curve effectively this season. Against right-handed hitters, four-seamers and sweepers account for 80% of my pitches, but against left-handed hitters, I reduced the percentage of sweepers from 9.5% last year to 5.7% and increased the curve instead. He uses the curve as a counting pitch and throws a sweeper to the knees after driving the ball into the count.

What kind of player is Ohtani, who has shown remarkable growth in both pitching and hitting, in terms of data?

Each of them is a different type of player, but in terms of numbers, he is Max Scherzer (41, Blue Jays, 3 Cy Young Awards) in his prime and Sammy Sosa (57) with 66 home runs. And looking at the stats at this point, especially for pitchers, there is still a lot of potential to improve their performance,” he said.

Even at this point, he is still in the process of developing. Ohtani is truly a formidable man.

From the May 15-22, 2026 issue of FRIDAY