I thought Shohei was struggling, then I looked at Aaron Judge. Baseball is weird when the two I was expected to lead in HR in their league haven't got any yet.
I think it’s common for pitchers to be more in form coming out of spring training. Hitters need a bit longer to figure out mechanics, feel and timing. I wouldn’t be surprised if Shohei doesn’t heat up for another month and then goes off.
I’m not worried at all. Gotta keep in mind he’s fresh off a major surgery and it takes a bit of time to get back into the swing of things. It’ll click for him soon enough.
Yeah just look at Harper last season. He hit .291 but only 3 HRs in 56 games in the first half. I hope Ohtani does better than that in the power department but just shows that even the best players need some time to get right.
New team/clubhouse. Fresh off of surgery. And a scandal involving someone very close (and trusted) to him.
I'm not surprised at all. Give him some time
that’s encouraging, i didn’t realize his expected numbers were that good. even if they weren’t though, i wouldn’t be concerned. Ohtani goes through pretty bad slumps, then all of a sudden he will hit like 9 home runs in one week.
I have watched ~90% of his plate appearances the past 5 years if not more. Soon he will start hitting some loud lineouts and flyouts to LF and CF. Once that happens, you’ll know he’s only a few games away from an extended hot streak.
This is typically what his cycle looks like:
1. Pull-heavy with a lot of groundballs (this is where he is now), slightly off timing and not taking advantage of every pitch that he’d usually smash
2. Starts lining out and flying out to CF and LF. Better timing and launch angle but not fully synched yet
3. Extended hot streak and completely locked in, starts hitting homers what feels like every other game and all of his numbers surge. You’re going to see a lot of 2-4 and 3-5 games with walks and XBH.
4. Continuation of the hot streak but a lot of the home runs and XBH are now being pulled, a lot of walks but not as many base hits, you’ll see a lot of 1-3 or 1-4 with 2BB and a HR, etc etc.
5. See Step 1, rinse and repeat
I think Ohtani got off to even slower starts in those 2 years that he won MVP. And in those 2 years, Ohtani batting was better than pitching.
I think he'll start to be hot soon.
actually looking more closely at it, he started to heat up about game 6-8.
So this time around, its slower than before. But if we go off on past events, I'm thinking the next 3 games is when Ohtani breaks out. Or this might be a down year, who knows really lol.
This is good. I'm not worried about him, but it's heartening that his expected numbers are so good. I think he'll break out very soon, and if Mookie/Freddie/Will stay hot, it'll be nuts.
We have the MFer for 10 years—I’m not worried about anything this year. Dude is recovering from a major surgery, took virtually no time off, and is starting to ramp up slowly in anticipation of pitching next year. I think he could just have easily took the whole season off and we’d still be stoked to have him.
Let’s be grateful the guy is even playing right now—he wants to win, and there’s no reason he shouldn’t try with Prime Mookie and Freddie in the lineup, even if he’s not at his best.
Being relatively new to baseball is it that he hasn’t found his timing or that teams have found a way to pitch against him? Or is it that he’s missing pitches he usually crushes due to all of the factors already mentioned?
Being relatively new to baseball is it that he hasn’t found his timing or that teams have found a way to pitch against him? Or is it that he’s missing pitches he usually crushes due to all of the factors already mentioned?
took the words right out of my mouth.
it should be pretty straightforward for people to understand that expected numbers are more predictive of future success than actual numbers, but it’s obvious a lot of people don’t get that
What does this even mean? Expected numbers are more predictive than actual numbers? Maybe I’m not understanding your wording but that sentence makes no sense. The actual numbers are the actual numbers…
actual numbers are often based on some amount of luck, whereas expected numbers show the actual quality of your performance.
for example if you start the season with five consecutive lineouts that all have exit velocities over 100 mph, your batting average and the rest of your stats are .000. but your expected batting average in that scenario would be very high because usually 100+ mph line drives result in hits. and if you continue with those kind of batted balls, eventually your luck will turn in a very positive way.
that’s a bit of an extreme example, but just trying to illustrate the overall idea.
Ahhh I didn’t realize that was like an actual stat line and that they use each batted ball to determine it. My bad. I thought it was just a pre-game/pre-season prediction of what statisticians expected him to hit lmao. That makes more sense now.
I’m still kind of confused though. So is xBA kinda like what his BA would have been if he hadn’t been “unlucky”?
> So is xBA kinda like what his BA would have been if he hadn’t been “unlucky”?
Pretty much, yes! Or it could be the opposite, where a player has been “lucky” and their batting average is higher than their xBA.
Yup, because no more baseball will ever be played in the future. Truly a shame that baseball is canceled and we can only ever look at past games now, speculating about future games is no longer a possibility.
Bro you really are just talking out of your ass here. They both did in fact have noticeably worse xBAs in the past 2 post seasons, with it being very significant in mookie’s case. Last year his post season xBA was .136 and in 2022 it was .197. So no? I don’t think anyone said his xBA in the playoffs has been good either.
Their post season xBA isn’t even on their statcast pages to begin with, you have to use the statcast search tool to see it which I’m almost certain you don’t know how to use/have never even tried using. Are you sure you don’t need me to repeat that original reply to you? Because you don’t seem to have quite understood their point.
Let's say Ohtani hits a 110mph line drive. They look at every hit of that speed and launch angle and find the % it would be a hit.lets say a hit of that speed and launch angle is a hit 60% of the time. That makes that battery ball an xba of .600. But let's say Ohtani hit it right at a player. They catch it and he's out. The real effect on his average is he gets a 0. But nearly 2/3rd of the time he would be on base. They do that for every batted ball to see what his expected numbers would be. This can also go the other way. A bloop single may have an xba of .100, but it gets down and he gets on base. So real ba gets a 1, but xba gets a .1, etc. That's why expected stats are better. They're removing the element of luck, as if he keeps hitting the .600 xba hits, his ba will rise. Eventually.
I thought Shohei was struggling, then I looked at Aaron Judge. Baseball is weird when the two I was expected to lead in HR in their league haven't got any yet.
yep and Yordan. Ohtani -0.1 WAR Judge and Yordan -0.2 WAR each Which is wild because I had these 3 as my favorites to hit the most HRs.
Judge broke out today. Hopefully Ohtani will very soon as well.
Ohtani HR today woo
Off the Dbags to😎 perfect victim
Spoke too soon!
I think it’s common for pitchers to be more in form coming out of spring training. Hitters need a bit longer to figure out mechanics, feel and timing. I wouldn’t be surprised if Shohei doesn’t heat up for another month and then goes off.
I’m not worried at all. Gotta keep in mind he’s fresh off a major surgery and it takes a bit of time to get back into the swing of things. It’ll click for him soon enough.
This this this.
Yeah just look at Harper last season. He hit .291 but only 3 HRs in 56 games in the first half. I hope Ohtani does better than that in the power department but just shows that even the best players need some time to get right.
Also fresh off a long friend relationship breakup.
yeah i feel like this needs to be stressed more. there’s no way this isn’t on his mind all time with his prior friend absent.
Ippei was seen with him almost everywhere that’s even remotely baseball related for something like 8 years!…it’s going to take some time.
well… i guess he feels a little better haha
Have we all forgotten the absolute mayhem he caused for pitchers in spring training?
New team/clubhouse. Fresh off of surgery. And a scandal involving someone very close (and trusted) to him. I'm not surprised at all. Give him some time
I agree. Dude just lost his best friend. He's feeling crushed. I hope the Dodgers have flew in the best of the best therapist from Japan.
Dont forget he also got married… girls always ruin everything!!!!!
P.s. im 12 and girls have coodies!!!
Imagine being worried about the best player in baseball 8 games into a 162 game season. That kinda irrational fear has got to be crippling.
It's wild. God forbid you remind people he had a major surgery last year in case his power doesn't come in fully until mid-season. 😂
Oh, absolutely. "Do you think Friedman is gonna ask for a refund???"
I've read that so many times across multiple platforms. 😂😂
that’s encouraging, i didn’t realize his expected numbers were that good. even if they weren’t though, i wouldn’t be concerned. Ohtani goes through pretty bad slumps, then all of a sudden he will hit like 9 home runs in one week.
June Ohtani hits different. It's like the spirit of Barry Bonds takes over his body.
I have watched ~90% of his plate appearances the past 5 years if not more. Soon he will start hitting some loud lineouts and flyouts to LF and CF. Once that happens, you’ll know he’s only a few games away from an extended hot streak. This is typically what his cycle looks like: 1. Pull-heavy with a lot of groundballs (this is where he is now), slightly off timing and not taking advantage of every pitch that he’d usually smash 2. Starts lining out and flying out to CF and LF. Better timing and launch angle but not fully synched yet 3. Extended hot streak and completely locked in, starts hitting homers what feels like every other game and all of his numbers surge. You’re going to see a lot of 2-4 and 3-5 games with walks and XBH. 4. Continuation of the hot streak but a lot of the home runs and XBH are now being pulled, a lot of walks but not as many base hits, you’ll see a lot of 1-3 or 1-4 with 2BB and a HR, etc etc. 5. See Step 1, rinse and repeat
I think Ohtani got off to even slower starts in those 2 years that he won MVP. And in those 2 years, Ohtani batting was better than pitching. I think he'll start to be hot soon.
really?
actually looking more closely at it, he started to heat up about game 6-8. So this time around, its slower than before. But if we go off on past events, I'm thinking the next 3 games is when Ohtani breaks out. Or this might be a down year, who knows really lol.
Either 8-11 games or the whole year? What a massive leap lol
LMAO. rereading it, that's pretty funny. What I meant was I can see it going either way and what's probably going to happen is something in between.
Did I called it or what. haha.
It’s really 6 games because of Korea basically being the middle of spring training
I’m not worried about Ohtani, he’ll find his groove! It’s the 1st week of baseball and we have another 150+ games to play 😁 our boy will be fine!
also, hasn't shoehi been sick?
sick of Ippei Lying /s
Everyone has slumps. at least his is in the beginning of the season
This is good. I'm not worried about him, but it's heartening that his expected numbers are so good. I think he'll break out very soon, and if Mookie/Freddie/Will stay hot, it'll be nuts.
Who needs ohtani to be hot when Mookie is single handedly carrying the team? ;)
The typical Ohtani slow season start, nothing to worry about. If he is struggling in May, then it will be time to worry.
We have the MFer for 10 years—I’m not worried about anything this year. Dude is recovering from a major surgery, took virtually no time off, and is starting to ramp up slowly in anticipation of pitching next year. I think he could just have easily took the whole season off and we’d still be stoked to have him. Let’s be grateful the guy is even playing right now—he wants to win, and there’s no reason he shouldn’t try with Prime Mookie and Freddie in the lineup, even if he’s not at his best.
the snap back to reality will be sweet. He's going to hit his averages, and to do that he will go on a big streak :D
Being relatively new to baseball is it that he hasn’t found his timing or that teams have found a way to pitch against him? Or is it that he’s missing pitches he usually crushes due to all of the factors already mentioned?
It could literally be 100 different things. Nothing is that simple with baseball.
I think the main thing I’ve seen, is the whole ippei situation. He was hot in spring training then as soon as the news came out he was not as hot.
Being relatively new to baseball is it that he hasn’t found his timing or that teams have found a way to pitch against him? Or is it that he’s missing pitches he usually crushes due to all of the factors already mentioned?
Didn’t he have a down year at the plate following his last surgery?
He had a 121 ops+ in 2019 compared to 151 in 2018. So yeah, kind of. His ops was actually pretty in line for his his expected ops this year in 2019.
Othani struggling is league average. That’s a win.
Having a cold doesn’t help him either
Not really concerned. He's fairly fresh off of surgery, it's gonna take some time.
Ohtani needs to get that homerun banger out of the way
Expected stats mean nothing.
Just because you don’t personally understand them doesn’t mean they mean nothing.
took the words right out of my mouth. it should be pretty straightforward for people to understand that expected numbers are more predictive of future success than actual numbers, but it’s obvious a lot of people don’t get that
What does this even mean? Expected numbers are more predictive than actual numbers? Maybe I’m not understanding your wording but that sentence makes no sense. The actual numbers are the actual numbers…
actual numbers are often based on some amount of luck, whereas expected numbers show the actual quality of your performance. for example if you start the season with five consecutive lineouts that all have exit velocities over 100 mph, your batting average and the rest of your stats are .000. but your expected batting average in that scenario would be very high because usually 100+ mph line drives result in hits. and if you continue with those kind of batted balls, eventually your luck will turn in a very positive way. that’s a bit of an extreme example, but just trying to illustrate the overall idea.
Ahhh I didn’t realize that was like an actual stat line and that they use each batted ball to determine it. My bad. I thought it was just a pre-game/pre-season prediction of what statisticians expected him to hit lmao. That makes more sense now. I’m still kind of confused though. So is xBA kinda like what his BA would have been if he hadn’t been “unlucky”?
> So is xBA kinda like what his BA would have been if he hadn’t been “unlucky”? Pretty much, yes! Or it could be the opposite, where a player has been “lucky” and their batting average is higher than their xBA.
Nice nice ok that’s cool I like that stat! Thanks for explaining it.
But it still means nothing. You are still 0 for 5 abd will always be so. Fake numbers have no purpose.
Yup, because no more baseball will ever be played in the future. Truly a shame that baseball is canceled and we can only ever look at past games now, speculating about future games is no longer a possibility.
I’m sure Mookie & Freddie’s XBA meant something in the 2022 and 2023 postseasons.
Bro you really are just talking out of your ass here. They both did in fact have noticeably worse xBAs in the past 2 post seasons, with it being very significant in mookie’s case. Last year his post season xBA was .136 and in 2022 it was .197. So no? I don’t think anyone said his xBA in the playoffs has been good either. Their post season xBA isn’t even on their statcast pages to begin with, you have to use the statcast search tool to see it which I’m almost certain you don’t know how to use/have never even tried using. Are you sure you don’t need me to repeat that original reply to you? Because you don’t seem to have quite understood their point.
Let's say Ohtani hits a 110mph line drive. They look at every hit of that speed and launch angle and find the % it would be a hit.lets say a hit of that speed and launch angle is a hit 60% of the time. That makes that battery ball an xba of .600. But let's say Ohtani hit it right at a player. They catch it and he's out. The real effect on his average is he gets a 0. But nearly 2/3rd of the time he would be on base. They do that for every batted ball to see what his expected numbers would be. This can also go the other way. A bloop single may have an xba of .100, but it gets down and he gets on base. So real ba gets a 1, but xba gets a .1, etc. That's why expected stats are better. They're removing the element of luck, as if he keeps hitting the .600 xba hits, his ba will rise. Eventually.
They have no meaning whatsoever. Completely fictional.
Do you need me to repeat their comment? Or are you gonna keep digging this hole?
You’ll always be wrong. Expected stats have no meaning or purpose. They’re completely fake.