It’s hard to argue how good Shohei Ohtani was in 2021. The Los Angeles Angels superstar not only produced an incredible offensive season with 46 home runs, 100 RBI and 26 stolen bases, but he also took to the mound, going 9-2 with 156 strikeouts en route to his unanimous selection as the American League MVP. With such an amazing season so recently under his belt, it would seem that the choice as to who fantasy baseball managers should select with the No. 1 overall pick in 2022 is obvious … or is it?
We asked our the hosts of our ESPN Fantasy Focus Baseball podcast to weigh in on this debate — and debate they did:
Tristan H. Cockcroft: After the season he just had, Ohtani’s case for the first overall pick — regardless of format — is an easy one to make. The strongest argument against him, in fact, is that his value, more than any other player’s, hinges on how your league allows you to use him.
Ohtani placed eighth overall on the 2021 ESPN Player Rater simply as a hitter, and by my calculations, he was roughly the No. 32 starting pitcher in Player Rater terms. He also scored a 13th-ranked 454 fantasy points as a hitter, using ESPN’s traditional scoring system, and a 36th-ranked 348 fantasy points as a pitcher. As the author of our points-based rankings, I’ll focus on that latter format. In our game, if you assumed that you’d have activated Ohtani as a pitcher for every one of his 23 starts, and had him slotted in at designated hitter every other day, he’d have totaled 763 points — or 183 more than second-best Walker Buehler (580). That’s as wide a gap as there was between Buehler’s total and that of 53rd-best Mitch Haniger (397).
The ability to deploy Ohtani in his most lucrative lineup spot on any given day is a huge advantage in ESPN’s game and, just to be clear, when he’s pitching, that’s the proper spot to use him (with the possible exception of a Coors Field game). After all, the top-25 hitters in terms of total 2021 fantasy points averaged 3.08 points per game while the top-25 SP averaged 15.11. Offsite play, where daily versus weekly lineup changes, and especially splitting Ohtani’s hitting and pitching statistics into separate cards (precluding either from ranking No. 1), would pull Ohtani back towards and arguably into the rest of the rankings pack.
Study your league’s rules carefully, especially as it pertains to Ohtani. Weekly leagues will force you to weigh his probably single start — the Los Angeles Angels have used a six-man rotation whenever he has been available and have gone out of their way to avoid his enjoying any scheduled two-start weeks — versus anywhere from 4-7 games as a hitter. Using those same averages, it takes only a five-game week — five times 3.08 equaling 15.40 — to exceed the pitchers’ average.
Eric Karabell: As always, you make great points, Tristan. Ohtani just had a season for the ages, something we have never seen before. Don’t talk about Babe Ruth. Ruth never did this in one season. Ohtani was simply incredible, can’t-miss television every night and, as you mention, depending on your league rules, incredibly valuable for fantasy. We approached him in fantasy with caution entering 2021, for good reason, and he far exceeded any reasonable expectations.
That said, it’s still incredibly risky to make Ohtani the first player off the draft board, even if you can deploy him in a pitching and hitting role in the best way possible. In fact, I think it is risky to make him your first-round pick at all.
Perhaps I am more risk averse than everyone else playing fantasy baseball, but I want stability with early picks. Can we count on Ohtani batting 639 times again? Can we count on 130 1/3 innings again? Forget about that combination in any one season, but I wonder when we get that volume in either category again as long as he handles a dual role, let alone the other standout numbers in home runs, stolen bases, strikeouts, etc.
I realize I risk losing out on more history if he does it again, but Freddie Freeman and Gerrit Cole are both safer and I know how to deploy them in every league. I just activate them and leave them alone.
Cockcroft: It’s a fair point, Eric, about Ohtani’s injury history, and I find it humorous that I’ve been the one frequently preaching return on investment on your first-round pick. A key reason I’ll make this exception is the rising injury rate around the league, which (at least from a historical feel) seems to strike the first-round talents every bit as often as anyone nowadays.
Consider last year’s first round. The top four players selected (on average) in ESPN leagues were Mookie Betts, Ronald Acuna Jr., Mike Trout and Fernando Tatis Jr. Those players combined for seven IL stints totaling 252 team games lost, while top-10 picks Jacob deGrom and Shane Bieber delivered effectively half of a season apiece. Tatis remains a universal top-five overall rotisserie pick despite the questions about his shoulder, while Acuna is still regarded by some as a first-round pick despite coming off ACL surgery that threatens his base-stealing prowess for 2022.
I just don’t want to get too carried away with the idea that injury-prone players — especially 27-year-olds — are destined for extended injuries, especially when their most recent season logs were pristine. In a rotisserie league, the arguments against taking Ohtani at No. 1 overall make a tad more sense (and I’d rank him fifth there, for the record) since he was a .257 hitter last season who hit just .229 after the All-Star break. Categorical balance remains important there.
Still, countering the arguments against his injury history and an ability to repeat his historic numbers is Ohtani’s considerable upside. Could he improve? Perhaps not from a hitting perspective, where his 46 home runs and 26 stolen bases are going to be difficult to match, as those thresholds have been reached by only four other players in history and never duplicated by any of those individuals. That said, for any give-back of Ohtani’s gaudy hitting numbers, isn’t there a case to be made for an uptick in starts and innings, to perhaps the 26-and-160 range?
After the All-Star break, Ohtani made 10 starts (eight of which were quality starts), to go along with a 2.84 ERA, a 27.6% strikeout rate and a sparkling 3.6% walk rate. He also got much more of a ground-ball lean over the final stages of the year. That, coupled with increasingly polished control, makes me think he has a potentially sizable step forward to take as a pitcher in 2022. I don’t want to shortchange him that upside.
Karabell: Oddly enough, if the Angels announced that Ohtani was “only” going to hit, or “only” going to start, he would be a safer investment. It’s not that I view him as injury prone anymore, but anyone that attempts to both hit and pitch full-time is more at risk of getting injured. It is an important distinction, at least to me. If Ohtani was “only” a hitter, I still do not see more statistical upside there, and would have a tough time ranking him in my overall top 10. I concur there is far more growth available if he just pitched and made 32 starts, but I do not rank any pitchers in my overall top 10.
Then again, the Angels are not going to change a thing. They have a unicorn and will deploy him the same way until they cannot.
The point you made about roto versus points formats is critical as well. Your rankings are for points formats, the ESPN standard. I remain a roto player first, and rank accordingly. For this reason, our rankings never look alike. Fantasy managers should do their own rankings for their league(s) but also need to decide what level of aggressiveness they desire in the risk/reward department.
Anyone who thinks Ohtani may do all of this again should consider him early in Round 1, perhaps No. 1 overall. I just cannot