Category Archives: Research

A repository for research articles

Baseball, Commentary, Paid Content, Research

Shohei Ohtani’s inside story

Leave a comment

I guess we all remember the scouting report, heck I wrote one that was published in Japanese by Slugger Magazine. Prior to his MLB debut, a majority of scouts believed that Shohei Ohtani would be vulnerable to inside pitches because of his long swing.

Thus, it should come as no surprise that for the first few weeks, the majority of pitches (51.2 percent) to Ohtani were either inside over the plate or inside off the plate with the data thanks to Brooks Baseball.

Announcers and analysts noted his early tendency to back away from the plate — even on outside pitches — at the start of the season. But it seems after he hit too many balls hard on pitches in on his hands, pitchers have changed their tactics and are now trying more and more to get him out away.

All pitches to Shohei Ohtani from March 30 to April 13, catcher’s view

During that time, Ohtani had the following batting averages per pitch in each zone:

Batting average on pitches from March 30 to April 14, catcher’s view

Since then, pitchers have been vastly more careful about throwing pitches inside to Ohtani, who likes to extend his arms and drive balls to center.

Catcher’s view of total pitches to Shohei Ohtani since April 14, 2018

Here are the results since then.

Batting average on pitches since April 14, catcher’s view
Commentary, Paid Content, Research

How would you pitch to Shohei Ohtani?

Leave a comment

I was asked this morning how I would pitch to Shohei Ohtani, and since I can’t pitch, the answer would be to roll the ball up there until he takes first base.

Kidding aside, I hadn’t really thought much about it until now. It’s hardly an educated analysis, but he does hammer fat fastballs that aren’t at his knees, and chases sliders, splitters and changes that drop out of the zone when he’s looking to hit the ball hard. He’ll swing and miss a lot on those and on good high fastballs.

With that in mind…

He tries to drive the ball so much that he’ll chase splitters, sliders away, and change ups and look bad doing it.
I’d start him with a fastball or cutter (RHP) high and inside, then try to go low and away with something that drops. Two-seamers should kill him the 1st 6 months. NPB’s low mounds and rough balls make it hard to throw a good two-seamer here, so it’s a rarity.

You can mix in a slider on the hands to keep him off those pitches away. But don’t hang it. Same with fastballs that aren’t low in the zone. He’ll crush anything without bite or movement and drive it to center if its middle away.

He’s used to seeing the best curves in the world, so unless it’s coming off a fastball with two strikes it needs to be really good. To get ahead in the count, you have to throw strikes or be on the edge of the zone to start with because he has good discipline. However, because the NPB zone is truer horizontally — not shifted away from the hitter — than MLB’s used to be, so until he makes that adjustment, pitches outside that are balls in NPB but MLB strikes will be another challenge.