The Los Angeles Dodgers’ season ended on Thursday, which brought the arrival of an uncomfortable question: Is there such a thing as too much Shohei Ohtani?
The Dodgers’ two-way superstar began the season in the rotation and ended it fighting injuries that kept him off the mound and sapped his power until the final game of the season. Judging from the player himself, though, there are no plans to make a change.
Here’s Ohtani’s commentary after the Dodgers’ season-ending NLCS loss, via MLB.com:
“Yes, definitely,” Ohtani said through interpreter Will Ireton when asked if he plans to pitch in 2027. “And looking forward to having a better season next year.”
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Ohtani declined to say if his route back to playing both ways would include an offseason procedure.
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It’s not a surprise to hear that from Ohtani, who has been adamant about playing both ways whenever medically possible. The more interesting perspective here would be the Dodgers’, as the club has good reason to put Ohtani on the mound whenever possible and possibly better reasons to limit that time, given his history.
Let’s talk about two things that are definitely true about Ohtani. One is that he’s the most successful two-player in the history of baseball, even taking into account Babe Ruth because the New York Yankees legend dared to hit and pitch for only two seasons before becoming a full-time outfielder.
The second fact is that Ohtani has qualified for the ERA title once in his MLB career.
For the first time in his three-year Dodgers tenure, Ohtani began the 2026 season in the team’s rotation and proceeded as usual by his standards, pitching once a week while leading off in every game.
By midseason, he was the overwhelming MVP favorite. By the postseason, he was telling reporters he was still trying to figure out what was causing his knee, biceps and neck issues.
Ohtani made his last start on the mound on July 3, then stopped pitching while receiving a lubricant injection in his knee during the All-Star break. The stated plan was to bring him back as a pitcher when ready, but setbacks in bullpen sessions pushed that date into 2027. He plugged on as a hitter until the combined issues saw him lose his form there in September, and he landed on the injured list.
Ohtani simply didn’t look the same upon coming back from the IL, as much as the Dodgers tried to find a lineup placement that worked. Few could’ve imagined he would go 26 games between home runs, with a three-run blast in Game 4 of the NLCS representing his first long ball since Aug. 18.
The situation steadily devolved into a nightmare for the Dodgers, who successfully navigated a compromised rotation to win a title in 2024, then won the World Series with a compromised rotation again in 2025. But they could not survive in 2026 with a compromised offense featuring a compromised Ohtani.
Even with the homer, Ohtani hit .192/.323/.308 with 4 walks and 10 strikeouts in 32 postseason plate appearances.
The most concerning part for the Dodgers is that there’s no guarantee that this won’t happen again, with Ohtani now 32 years old and seven years left on his contract. You might point to Ohtani’s historic, unprecedented past as evidence to stay the course, but at this point, we should count the number of times Ohtani has begun and ended an MLB season as a full-time two-way player.
The answer is twice: in 2021 and 2022. And in 2021, he made only 23 starts, with the Angels limiting his workload to 130 1/3 innings.
Ohtani posted more full two-way seasons as a younger player in Japan, but since coming to the U.S., he blew out his elbow as a rookie in 2018, spent 2019 rehabbing the elbow, got shut down due to further elbow issues in 2020, blew out again in 2023, and spent 2024 and part of 2025 rehabbing. It’s legitimately a wonder that Ohtani has managed to accomplish as much as he has in MLB while dealing with all those injuries.
This season was supposed to be the year of the fully functional Ohtani, and it wound up being his worst year in Dodgers uniform thus far. What lesson are we supposed to take from that?
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The most extreme option would be to go the Bambino route and make Ohtani a full-time hitter, accepting that a full pitching workload is just too much for him to juggle while maintaining his usual excellence at the plate. Few would be happy about that, least of all Ohtani, judging from what he said Thursday.
Another roll of the dice is also possible. Have Ohtani do what he needs to do to be confident in his body during the offseason, then throw him back into the Opening Day rotation and hope his age-33 season ends differently than his age-32 season. That would be a risk, the exact kind that went south this year, though it could be mitigated with further workload restrictions.
A compromise could be found between those, but even that option would be an aggressive move. The Dodgers could essentially replicate Ohtani’s 2025 workload, but with no injury to rehab. They could have him wait a few months to get started as a pitcher and then slowly integrate him, with appearances increasing from a single inning to a full start. After all, Ohtani spent about three months of 2025 and three months of 2026 as a quality starting pitcher. The starts in 2025 were simply better timed.
That would be a hard sell for Ohtani, who clearly wants to pitch the entire season, but this season has offered a compelling argument against that. The modern Dodgers simply don’t need the pitching version of Ohtani to make the playoffs or even to win the NL West. But they definitely need him healthy for the postseason.