Shohei Ohtani is having a down year at the plate. It shows just how special he is

Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Shohei Ohtani throws to the plate during the first inning against the Giants on May 13. (Mark J. Terrill/AP via CNN Newsource)

NEW YORK -- It’s hard to imagine a more useful skill for a professional athlete than being able to improve a particular facet of their game at will.

It’s not effortless, of course, this upgrade. It takes work and work takes time; but it is essentially a guarantee: Effort = ability. To try is to succeed. Who lives like that?

Shohei Ohtani does.

This season, even though it’s currently the source of some consternation in Southern California, practically proves it.

So far this season, Ohtani is a little more than 30 per cent better than league average at the plate. He has just seven home runs, six stolen bases, and his .265 batting average would be the lowest of his career over a full season. Although we’re not yet to Memorial Day, it has become concerning enough that the Dodgers are resting him regularly amid this slump.

These are disappointing numbers for a designated hitter. Ohtani has won four MVP awards – all unanimously – but if his offensive production doesn’t improve dramatically, he won’t be worthy of a fifth. Except, of course, when you consider that even if he doesn’t leave the yard again this year (highly unlikely), his seven homers will certainly lead the league among pitchers.

And right now, Ohtani is among the best pitchers in the sport.

This season, Ohtani is actively and deliberately pursuing a Cy Young-worthy performance on the mound. It seems to be costing him some amount of offensive production. Even a unicorn, apparently, is subject to the same quotidian constraints of space and time and perhaps energy conservation within the universe at large, same as the rest of us. But, if anything, this just underscores how special he really is.

Ohtani turns it on – and off

Although globally famous for his utterly unparalleled two-way ability, there were signs even before this season that Ohtani could be the best at hitting or pitching – but perhaps not both simultaneously.

His best – and most demanding – season as a starter prior to now came in 2022, when he had a 2.33 ERA over 166 innings for the Los Angeles Angels. He finished fourth in Cy Young voting that year, but hit just –“just” – 34 home runs (good for 11th-best in baseball) and produced an all-around offensive profile 42 per cent better than league average (14th best among qualified hitters).

Ohtani had just – again, “just” – one MVP at that point, had yet to demonstrate the peak of his prowess offensively, and the novelty of doing both at the big-league level was still potent. In other words, we weren’t yet spoiled with expecting him to be two of the best athletes on the planet in one person. In retrospect, though, it certainly seems that pitching success that season cost him something at the plate.

In 2024, unable to pitch during his return from Tommy John surgery, Ohtani’s offence reached a new level – for himself and in baseball history. In his first season with the Dodgers – and en route to his first World Series ring – Ohtani became the first ever member of the 50/50 club: 54 home runs and 59 stolen bases, more than double his previous career high, plus a .310 batting average. The gaudy offensive stats propelled him to the first MVP win by a DH.

Essentially, when injury limited him to the offensive side of his game, Ohtani arguably did it better than anyone else ever has. Unable to pitch, he simply opted to dedicate more energy to baserunning and – admittedly aided by the new rules limiting pickoffs – became an absolute thief, finishing second in MLB in stolen bases that season.

Before we return to this year, let that sink in. Ohtani had hit 40+ home runs twice previously in his career. To clear the 50-homer benchmark would have been a worthy goal for a season spent focusing exclusively on offence. But he understood, or at least hoped, that he could do more than play up his power; he had an entire starting pitcher’s workload to spare and spent it on speed. He chased the steals intentionally and that intent translated to results. Ohtani wanted to be better at something and then he just was.

And now he’s doing it again.

The hunt for the Cy Young

In addition to the four MVP awards, Ohtani has enough accolades that he could let Decoy the dog bury a few in the backyard and hardly miss them. He’s won Rookie of the Year and four Silver Sluggers. He’s been a World Series champion twice and a World Baseball Classic hero for his home country, authoring perhaps the single most exciting moment in baseball’s history to secure Japan’s WBC gold medal. He’s a five-time All-Star and a two-time Major League Player of the Year (which is an award I just learned exists and now think he deserves to have more of).

He has not, however, won a Cy Young award.

It was no secret heading into this season, now more than two years removed from his second elbow surgery, that Ohtani aspired to be the league’s best pitcher.

“He seems like he’s on a mission, pitching-wise,” Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman told ESPN in spring training. “Whenever we’ve seen him on a mission, good things happen.”

It’s hardly worth calling that prognosis prescient when it comes to Ohtani and yet, of course, by now we know it was. Through the first 30 per cent of the season, Ohtani the Pitcher has been practically unhittable – opposing players are batting just .161 against him – and Ohtani the Hitter seems to be suffering as a result.

His bat speed is down this season. It’s still above league average but a full mile an hour slower than last season, and his percentage of fast swings is way down. It’s the swing profile of someone who is busier than every other athlete and not actually superhuman. Someone who is, in a word, tired.

Fighting through it

Fatigue is a real concern over the course of a baseball season, especially for a team that reasonably plans to play deep into October. The Dodgers started keeping Ohtani out of the lineup on days that he pitched. Last week, they added an extra day of rest.

And over the weekend, he exploded offensively. He was 6-for-13 with seven RBIs as the Dodgers swept his former club in Anaheim.

“We were hoping to get a reset with a couple days off,” manager Dave Roberts told reporters, “and I think that’s what happened.”

After resting for a couple days, Ohtani didn’t look so tired anymore.

Some people will argue this is a sign he can’t truly do both. That watching him learn, along with the rest of us, the exact outer limits of what his efforts can accomplish punctures the myth that he is something greater than every athlete who has come before. If there are any limitations at all he might as well pick: pitcher or hitter.

But Ohtani was always human. Always going to age and, eventually, retire. He cannot bend time or cease the need for recovery. His energies are not infinite. His talent, however, has never been more obvious.

Four-hundred and ninety-one pitchers have thrown at least five innings this season. All of them wish that not hitting at an MVP-level meant they could have a sub-1.00 ERA – because none of them hit at all anyway.

But even more broadly, Ohtani is proving yet again that he excels at whatever feat he is most focused on. Before, it was an unparalleled power-speed combo, now it’s pitching, and if he decides to go for gold in gymnastics before next summer, well, what was it Andrew Friedman said?

The remainder of this season will reveal just how finely Ohtani can adjust the SKILL bars on the real-life video game of himself. Can he nudge the pitching prowess down a bit in exchange for better results at the plate? Is it worth it to give him a couple days off every now and then if it means the series he just had? Do the Dodgers, of all teams, really need him in the lineup on start days, as cool as that may be?

Or will his capacity simply expand as he finagles things behind the scenes?

Part of what makes this season so compelling is that Ohtani has made his desires so manifest. Every athlete wants to win, and may have individual goals in mind as well. But for Ohtani, we’ve learned how to spot his priorities based on his production. There are months to go, but at this rate, the baseball superstar is making a compelling case for his first Cy Young Award.

Surely, his fifth MVP would accompany it. The Dodgers have the highest odds to win the World Series of any team in baseball right now. That would be his third championship ring. And then what? What will Ohtani try to do next?

We’ll probably find out when he does it.

Analysis by Hannah Keyser, CNN