Why the Dodgers are prioritizing Shohei Ohtani at the plate rather than on the mound
Yahoo Sports senior MLB analysts Jake Mintz and Jordan Shusterman discuss how the Los Angeles Dodgers are prioritizing Shohei Ohtani as a hitter more than as a pitcher. Hear the full conversation on the "Baseball Bar-B-Cast" podcast - and subscribe on Apple Podcasts , Spotify or wherever you listen.
Video Transcript
They won the World Series last year because of the rotation, right?
Like every day they were sending out a world beater and they were showing up and performing.
This is going to be an upgrade.
Okay.
If you take Otani out of that group from last year and you put in Scooble, that's better.
Scooble is better at pitching than Otani.
That's a fact.
Okay.
Otani was great at points on the mound in October.
Scooble is better.
Now, what is the difference between last year's Snell glass now versus this year's Snell glass now is a huge question.
But in terms of trading out Otani for Scooble is kind of a no brainer.
At this point, Otani, in my opinion, should just go hit for the rest of the year.
Like you can go pitch next year.
That's fine.
But where his body's at right now and the way he's been hitting, which has been just okay, just they got arms.
And that was, I think, the most interesting thing that Dave Roberts said over the weekend was he and I'd have to pull up the quotes.
I'm sure we'll end up writing about this at some point this month leading up to October as we continue to just have no clarity on when he's going to pitch again.
But Dave Roberts, when kind of pushed on it, pretty much admitted, said out loud, like, yeah, his bat's more important to us than his arm.
Like the way that our roster is right now, we need his bat.
And that's why he remains in the lineup even as he's battling these things, right, because they're trying to get him going offensively.
He's also reiterated that Otani at no point has said that his knee or his bicep is bothering him when he's hitting.
And that's fine.
Maybe that's true.
Maybe it's not.
But that speaks to the fact and he said if it was, then we would also consider giving him a day off there.
But we can't.
And part of that is because their offense has been so inconsistent that they don't want to take Otani out of the lineup.
So I agree with you.
I think there are a lot of people that agree with you at this point.
And as how it relates to MVP, we're going to get to PCA in a second.
But, yeah, I think your point about just the state of the Dodgers pitching in general, and as we keep saying with all these teams, let's see how healthy all these guys are once we get to the end of the month.
But I agree with you.
