Baseball Hypothetical – At What Level Of Baseball Could Shohei Ohtani Literally Win A Game By Himself?
Shohei Ohtani. The greatest baseball player the world has ever seen. The greatest athlete in the history of sports. The single most impressive human being to walk this planet since Jesus Christ himself. But give him a few years. If Ohtani starts getting a little more movement on his 4-seamer, and wins a couple more rings, he'll give Jesus a run for his money.
I was thinking about this Shohei Ohtani hypothetical last night. I'll admit, I had smoked a little weed before bed. When I first had this thought, and took these notes in my phone, I thought it was the most thought provoking hypothetical a human being has ever come up with. Now that I'm writing this, I'm starting to think this is just a pretty regular ass, run-of-the-mill hypothetical. One that's probably been discussed multiple times before. But I still enjoy it.
The question is, "At what level of baseball could Shohei Ohtani win a game by himself?"
Here are the stipulations. Keep in mind, this is a real game we're talking about. There are rules we have to take into account... with a couple minor exceptions.
Ohtani must pitch every inning from start to finish (obviously)
Ohtani gets no defensive help
- No fielders behind him. No catcher to catch his pitches. He's throwing to nobody
- Umpire will have to figure that out. Maybe he can call balls & strikes from behind the mound (or use robots)
- Ohtani essentially has to strike out every batter
Ohtani only comes up to bat every 9 hitters
- When I umpired little league, if a team only had 8 players, it was an automatic out every time they got around to the 9th spot in the order. Those are the rules. So a team that is only Shohei Ohtani will have 8 automatic outs in the lineup
- Which means Ohtani will only get to bat a few times per game. There are 8 outs behind him every time. So every time he hits the ball, he has to score, or the inning is over
- By my math, in a 9-inning game (without extras), the most runs Ohtani can score is 4
Opposing team cannot walk Ohtani
- Need this exception to make the hypothetical possible
- The opposing team can pitch around Ohtani, but the count resets after ball four (or else a 12u travel team could walk him every at bat, take the automatic outs, and the game would last until Ohtani's arm literally falls off his body)
No dropped third strikes
- That should go without saying. But runners are still allowed to steal on him. Meaning pretty much every base runner is an automatic run
No bunting
- I wrestled with what to do about bunting. I don't like putting in a second stipulation that favors Ohtanti. But in the end, if we take bunting off the table, it makes for a better hypothetical
I don't know the answer to this question. Nobody does. But going through the different levels of baseball, these were my thoughts.
Major League Baseball
- I think it's safe to say Shohei Ohtani could not win a Major League Baseball game by himself. No MLB pitcher has ever recorded more than 21 strikeouts in a game. Pretty much every hit ball that leaves the infield against Ohtani is a run. If Ohtani hits a home run every time he comes up to bat, he can afford to let up a couple, but he will still most likely need to record 27 K's to win the game.
Minor League Baseball (Triple-A, Double-A, High-A)
- Maybe the gap between Triple-A and High-A is too wide to be lumped together in a group, but I don't think Ohtani could do it at any of these levels. If he pitched perfectly, I could maybe see Ohtani getting halfway deep into a game with a 2-0 lead. But he's going to be throwing a lot of pitches. At 5 pitches per batter, he'll be at 100 pitches in the 7th inning. By the third time around in the order, when the batters have faced him a couple times, and Ohtani's arm starts to get tired, I gotta think more than a couple of batters are going to get on base. Every time a batter gets on base it's a run (because Ohtani doesn't have a catcher… it's an automatic 4 steals.
Minor League Baseball - (Low-A, Rookie Ball)
- I think this is the level where Ohtani could eventually do it. Not consistently. But if he plays his whole career on a team by himself in Rookie Ball, I think he can scrape out a win. Eventually, he's going to pitch a perfect game where strikes out every batter in around 120 pitches, and hits a couple balls out of the park himself.
College Baseball
- Now Ohtani gets an aluminum bat to hit with. So does the opposition, but you gotta think that with an aluminum bat, unless Ohtani is facing an elite MLB prospect, he's almost certainly going to pop one over the fence. I still don't think he's consistently beating a high-level college baseball team. However, if Shohei Ohtani is playing in the MAC… he might be a problem for the likes of Ball State. When we get into lower divisions, I think that's where Ohtani might become a formidable opponent. Shohei Ohtani vs Valdosta State could be a matchup for the ages.
High School Baseball
- High school baseball is the point where I think Ohtani must become the favorite. Now he only has to get through 7-innings. He's going to get at least 3 at bats. In college, most players have faced a major league prospect at some point. They're probably used to seeing pitches in the 90's. They've maybe seen close to 100 MPH. But nobody in high school has faced anything that comes close to resembling an MLB pitcher. Every batter Ohtani faces, he would be a heavy betting favorite to strike out. The question here becomes, in what states (and at what level) could Shohei Ohtani win the state championship?
In conclusion… I have no fucking idea what I'm talking about. I'm only spitballing here. I simply do not have the experience as a baseball player to know at what level Ohtani's pitching becomes unhittable. Because that's what the question is – at what level of baseball does Shohei Ohtani become unhittable as a pitcher, mow down every single batter he faces, and record 27 strikeouts without more than a couple batters putting the ball in play.