Part 1 of my look at the World Series champs and their iconic star.
My tank hits empty by the time game number 162 rolls around. And so over these last few seasons, I’ve vanished after that last game and not reappeared, almost like a literal hibernating bear. One of the most gratifying things that has happened along the way is that there are a number of you who enjoy and appreciate what I write.
When I started this, I only thought I was carrying the torch for a little while to keep this feature alive. But I found my voice and try to fill a little different niche. Al has always done a good job identifying quality voices and I like to think we here at Bleed Cubbie Blue have as good a group of writers as anywhere across the blog world and better than most. Let me say right now, I appreciate you guys as much or more as the kind feedback I’ve received from you all. None of this matters without an audience.
So, the plan is for me to not completely vanish this offseason. I’m not mentally in the place to pick up something as ambitious as the Historical Heroes and Goats stories I brought to you some years ago. But I would like to bring you some stories within this theme through the offseason. Long before the final out of the 2024 season was recorded, I decided I wanted to take a look at the season of, arguably, baseball’s biggest star.
Shohei Ohtani had a season that will be remembered for all time. I find it awkward to try to compare stars from different eras or even from one season to the next. I applaud the various iterations of the WAR statistics and their attempt to give us a measuring stick to attempt such a thing. How does Ohtani compare to, say, Babe Ruth? The most recent historic season was just last year with Ronald Acuña Jr. For best player in the game conversation, I think we’d look at Mike Trout.
Aside from Ruth’s and Ohtani’s excellent pitching resumes, we haven’t even opened the can of worms of pitching. It’s terrific that WAR attempts to try to allow us to compare hitters to pitchers. I don’t want to have those arguments, but I’ve long held that no matter how you categorize, parse or otherwise consider baseball royalty that Babe Ruth had to be one of the heads on baseball Rushmore.
Typically, I won’t start to consider a player’s historical legacy until his career is at least winding down. That said, no player in my lifetime has done more to force me to have uncomfortable conversations with myself than Ohtani. I’ve always said that Ruth had to be in the conversation because of A) the amount by which he statistically exceeded his contemporaries offensively and B) because his pitching numbers were also historic and there was a decent quantity there. It is reasonable to infer that Ruth would have had an excellent career as a pitcher.
And so it is that I have confusion already about what to do with Ohtani. I want to write him off as a fad, the Rubik’s Cube or a Pet Rock. But that would be so incredibly obtuse at this point. The pitching body of work isn’t immense, but it has more than a few apt comparisons to Ruth absent the postseason performances. And now, he had a season that may never be matched offensively. 50 plus homers, 50 plus steals. That alone may never be done. But also winning a World Series? Unlikely to happen. And if it does? He’s probably never going to have had a season as a pitcher that was worthy of an All-Star selection. Remember, not just selected, but worthy of the selection. There is a difference between popular and decidedly excellent.
So I start my offseason with a look at the 2024 Dodgers. I’m 98 games through looking at their season. At the All-Star break, Shohei was at +36.5 on the Heroes and Goats scale. That was a 20.5 point lead on Will Smith. I know I’m guilty of not paying attention to any of the other 28 teams (the Rays being my second team). I was not familiar with Alex Vesia who reached the All-Star break third at 10.5.
Keeping track of the Dodgers season is complicated by the presence of three different players named Hernandez (Teoscar, Enrique and Elieser). That is further complicated by Enrique pitching on four different occasions. Two of the players are abbreviated as E. Hernandez and then when I went to Baseball Reference rather than Fangraphs, they have Enrique as Kiké. Enrique has endured long enough that I’m familiar with both names. But none of this lends itself quickly to the shorthand I utilize for the spreadsheet I use to track this stuff.
At the bottom end of the standings, we find Mookie Betts (-20), Kiké (-16) and Walker Buehler (-13). Betts didn’t appear on any podium from games 75 through 98 and still comes in last. Betts and Ohtani both appear on some podium many more games than not. But Mookie had a stretch of games from Games 31 to 50 where he was -26 and never positive. Ohtani was actually -7.5 over his first five games as a Dodger. Over his first 33 games, he was only at -1. From there, Ohtani was on the positive side in four straight games and 13 of his next 14 podium appearances were positive.
Contrast Ohtani to the Cubs season winner, Shōta Imanaga. Imanaga won with 23.5. Ohtani was 13 points better just at the All-Star break. The Cubs haven’t had a player with a full season that high since 2017 when Anthony Rizzo finished with +38. Ohtani will hit 25 homers, steal 36 bases and have a wRC+ of 180 after the break. So we’re almost certainly getting WAY higher than +36.5. This is a particular curiosity because H&G doesn’t particularly reward lead off hitters. The easiest ways to add WPA are scoreless innings and driving in runs. We think of the leadoff spot as a table setter and not necessarily as a run producer. But this wasn’t an ordinary season.
We’ll check back soon and see how this season wrapped and if anyone got anywhere close to Shohei.