Will the Real Shohei Ohtani Please Stand Up?

When he arrived in 2018, Shohei Ohtani was regarded as one of the most dynamic and difficult-to-value players in the league. After two excellent, but injury-marred seasons, that much hasn’t changed. We have a clearer sense of Ohtani’s talent, but drafting him is still a unique challenge. In fact, the fantasy owners I've talked to seem to think drafting Ohtani this season is as uncertain as picking a rookie with no MLB track record, e.g., Luis Robert.

Ohtani generates top-20 value per game on offense, and his reduced innings will be less of an issue when starters are throwing fewer innings than ever...

Here’s what we know about Ohtani’s last two seasons: As a pitcher, Ohtani logged only 51.2 innings during 2018. He provided a 3.31 ERA, 1.16 WHIP, 63 strikeouts, and 4 wins. It was a promising, if limited debut. Fortunately, the xStats help us a little here. If he had generated enough innings, Ohtani’s .286 xwOBA would have made him 21^st among qualified starters. That’s not world-beating, but it's close to high-value starters like Charlie Morton (.284) and Mike Clevinger (.285).

As a hitter, Ohtani has given owners more to assess. Since 2018, he’s had 792 plate appearances resulting in 40 HR, 110 R, 123 RBI, 22 SB, and a .286 average. If Ohtani were a full-time outfielder, he’d probably be drafted somewhere between Juan Soto and Bryce Harper. His career xwOBA sits around .370, but it’s easy to imagine some of that is still recovery from Tommy John surgery. Jeff Zimmerman wrote a fascinating article that describes how hitters seemed to struggle for the first two months after they returned from that surgery. While the results are uncertain, Ohtani’s progress and difficult first months matched Corey Seager’s and Didi Gregorius’s respective recoveries. Still, we’re talking about a hitter who managed 18 HR in 425 PA last season. It’s not as though Ohtani muddled through a poor 2019.

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2020 Projected Outlook

The Angels recently announced that Ohtani will pitch only once a week during the heart of the season (obviously less often in the early weeks), so owners can only expect around 18-20 starts or so. Steamer and ATC peg him for 18 and 19 starts respectively. In daily leagues, managers may want to think of Ohtani as Brandon Woodruff with reduced counting stats. For clarity's sake, I am a Brandon Woodruff true believer. From a pitching perspective, that will likely mean 125 innings of 3.60 ERA, 1.19 WHIP, 135 Ks, and 10 wins. Pitching-wise, that makes him around a top-100 player, but the lower volume will exacerbate any variance. For instance, if Ohtani only earns only 7 wins, rather than 10, it will significantly impact his value.

Offensively, Joe Maddon has said he is open to using Ohtani as a hitter more aggressively than we’ve seen in the past. That includes using Ohtani as a hitter even when he pitches, and that is where things become exceptionally interesting. It’s worth noting that if the team uses Ohtani as both a hitter and pitcher when he starts, the team is locked into playing without a DH for that night. Once Ohtani leaves the game, the Angels would have to cycle through pinch hitters every time through the order as though they were an NL team. The roster expansion makes that easier, but fantasy managers should not count on it.

ATC provides a nice conservative projection of 112 games with 455 PA, 22 HR, 62 R, 72 RBI, 12 SB, and a .282 average. Those numbers are good enough to make him a top-130 player based solely on his offensive production.

On the other hand, Steamer projects Ohtani as though he will hit on almost every “rest” day or that he will bat for at least some of his starts. It gives him 130 games with 555 PA, 29 HR, 80 R, 89 RBI, 13 SB, but only a .280 BA. That production would make him a top-60 player

A reasonable expectation is for Ohtani to provide 480 plate appearances with something near .285 batting average, 24 HR, 72 R, 80 RBI, and 10 SB.

One thing to remember is that those rankings are calculated as if managers dropped Ohtani into the Utility spot and played him every single day regardless of whether he started or not. For weekly leagues, that may be the case (more on this later), but for daily leagues, owners will be able get more value out of their supporting bench players.

Simply put, Ohtani generates top-20 value per game on offense alone. As a pitcher, his innings limit is less of an issue when starters are throwing fewer innings than ever. Getting the best value out of him requires managers to understand whether their league allows them to exploit that high-level lower-volume performance OR if they need the higher volume for Ohtani to pan out.

League Context is King

Every league is different, that’s true because of things like settings, format, and platform, as well as the specific league managers. JB Branson just published an excellent article on core fantasy principles that managers tend to forget, and his first, second, and third principles focus on understanding your league and knowing how to value players based on that. That’s true for all players, but there’s no player to whom it applies more than Shohei Ohtani.

Remember that Yahoo treats Ohtani as two separate players, a Utility-eligible hitter and a Starting Pitcher. For Fantrax, ESPN, and NFBC, Ohtani is a two-way player who can only be slotted into one position (Util or SP) each night. No matter which platform you use, keep lineup settings in mind. Generally speaking, while daily leagues make Ohtani more valuable, weekly leagues reduce his value.

Separate Pitcher Value in Yahoo Leagues

As a pitcher in daily leagues, Ohtani should offer a strong value given his current 207.5 ADP on Yahoo. He’s currently being taken after players like Andrew Heaney, Lance McCullers, and Kenta Maeda. All three of those players present at least as much uncertainty as Ohtani, and only Maeda has ever achieved the type of performance projected for Ohtani. In a daily league, if he's is available after pick 170, and someone like Max Fried or Lance Lynn hasn’t fallen (and they probably won’t), Ohtani is likely the best pitcher still on the board.

Ohtani’s pitcher value in weekly leagues is shakier, but still solid. He’s never going to offer a two-start week, so the bonus value that goes with that is gone, but otherwise the things that make him valuable in daily leagues still apply. The patterns above, an innings-capped high-value pitcher,  keep Ohtani’s value as a pitcher quite high. Will he outperform Woodruff who is going 100 picks earlier? Probably not, but there’s far more room for profit with Ohtani.

Hitter Value in Daily Lineup Leagues

As a hitter in daily leagues, Ohtani’s value is bolstered by having a fantasy team with some quality bench depth. Because he generates his value in fewer games, managers can use one of their bench players to fill those starts. Ohtani should easily exceed his current ADP of 117 on Yahoo. Owning Ohtani will be like owning a strong-side platoon player, except that he’s not easily marginalized late in games by relievers exploiting matchups.

If we think about Ohtani being able to add value based on individual starts and add a 12-team league replacement-level player's production to his performance, we get an aggregate player who is well ahead of Ohtani’s draft slot at 117. To illustrate, let’s use Eric Hosmer as our waiver-wire stand-in: If we give Ohtani’s offensive line 120 PA of Hosmer’s production, we end up with 600 PAs of a .281 BA, 28 HR, 85 R, 95 RBI, and 12 SB. Compare that to Eddie Rosario, who is going 30 picks earlier than 117, and whose ATC projection is 596 AB of .280 BA, 31 HR, 87 R, 97 RBI, and 4 SB. Our Ohtani-Hosmer monster loses a little in HR, R, and RBI, but makes up for it in SB. Obviously, if you believe in Steamer’s projection more than my balance between Steamer and ATC, then Ohtani’s ceiling starts to rise. Even if the waiver wire player you platoon with Ohtani isn't quite at Hosmer's production level, there is still a lot of room for profit.

The only tricky thing about drafting Ohtani as a hitter in daily leagues is that he’s available near many other high-upside outfielders. Currently, Trey Mancini, Yasiel Puig, and Michael Conforto are going just ahead of him. Meanwhile, Oscar Mercado and Marcell Ozuna are going just after him. Those players may end up outperforming Ohtani, but as I described earlier, they’re not likely to outperform his value per game. In order for managers to get real value out of Ohtani, they will need to be aware of their roster construction. If you aren’t well-positioned to take a Utility-only player, drafting Ohtani may limit your lineup options. If that happens, those everyday starters may well be better choices. Otherwise, Ohtani offers a compelling option at his current price point.

By contrast, Ohtani’s value in a weekly league is exactly in line with his projections. His playing time limits his absolute value, and in weekly leagues, owners will do just as well if they draft a player with a full-time starting role. If Maddon does start using Ohtani as a hitter during his starts, this problem is reduced, but it would absurd to count on that.

Dual Value in Daily

In daily leagues with dual eligibility, where Ohtani can start as a hitter or pitcher, he's a silly value. I’ve checked it a few times to try to figure out what I’m missing. One issue is that the combined values of Ohtani's Steamer projections don't take into account that owners cannot start him as both a hitter and pitcher, so we need to use ATC’s more conservative projections to give us a baseline because it does not seem to count on him hitting as often. If we combine Ohtani’s value as a hitter and pitcher, we end up with a $16 player ranking around the top 80. Ohtani’s current ADP on Fantrax is 126; on NFBC, it’s 102.

If we use the value of our Hosmer-Ohtani aggregate, the marginal value increase jumps to around $20, a top-40 player. Keep in mind that in this scenario, Ohtani provides value on both sides and he effectively clears up a roster spot. That’s part of the reason it makes sense to think about his value with the additional stats of his platoon partner.

Dual Value in Weekly

In weekly leagues with dual eligibility, Ohtani gives up almost all of the value above and returns to basically being the best version of his single-position self: a player likely to finish around the top 100. The caveat is that he does offer owners the ability to flex between having an excellent hitter or an excellent starter from one week to the next. That added flexibility is helpful on a week when the pitching staff has a number of undesirable matchups or when a manager has another hitter with only four scheduled starts. However, the upside value is more limited.

Leagues with Maximum Weekly Starts

In leagues with maximum weekly starts, Ohtani gets a very minor bump because even when pitchers have two-start weeks, one of those often comes against an undesirable opponent. Additionally, since owners are capped in the number of starts they can make, Ohtani’s lower-volume work is less of an issue. Owners will simply get the full value of a single start.

Conclusion

The uncertainty around Ohtani seems to be driving owners to undervalue him. Owners are shying away from a player who has lost his prospect hype and who doesn’t fit our expectations of how to value players. Despite that confusion, we can say this: Ohtani is absolutely more valuable in daily leagues and/or leagues that offer dual eligibility. However, with the exception of being a DH-only player in weekly leagues, Ohtani should offer fair-to-excellent value depending on context.

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