As of right now, there aren’t many ‘two-way players’ in the MLB such as Shohei Ohtani. About a century ago, Babe Ruth changed baseball forever as the first great true ‘two-way player’. After more than 100 years, Shohei Ohtani appeared and turned the MLB into an even more interesting sport than it already is. For some reason, the MLB is convinced that helping these types of players develop inside the game will help the sport grow as more players who can do both things will emerge. Last season, Ohtani mesmerized the entire world by pitching incredible games and slugging his way to win an MVP award despite not getting Los Angeles Angels to the post-season. But last season, Ohtani wasn’t able to finish the 9 innings on the plate if he didn’t finish the game on the mount.
All of that changes today as the MLB just approved the new ‘Ohtani Rule’ that allows pitchers who bat to keep batting eeven after leaving the mount. This will help Shohei Ohtani specifically to have even bigger chances to increase his home run average per game. Last season, not having this rule prevented him from winning the home run award for a single player throughout the season. He got quite close to it but he was defeated by Salvador Perez and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. Both of these sluggers reached 48 hommers against Ohtani’s 46. In order to understand this rule better, we need to offer an in-depth explanation of how it works. Ohtani will essentially be the only player who benefits from this rule, that we know of. It’s still possible that a new MLB slugger who also pitches well can appear this season. We’ll just have to wait and see.
How does the ‘Ohtani Rule’ works?
The tentative agreement is to expand rosters frmo 26 to 28 players through May 1 in order to balance a 3 and a half week training in some manner. This ‘Shohei Ohtani’ rule has a designated hitter becoming universal in the new agreement. It also stipulates that if the starting pitcher is also part of the batting lineup, said player will remain as the designated hitter even if he is removed from the start. As an example, say Ohtani only pitches 4 innings, this rule would allow him to still bat through the rest of the game. Also, this rule will remain not just for the like of the new CBA and not only for 2022. Thus, this rule can help more ‘two-way players’ get the chances they needed in order to express their talents to their full capacity.
Marca
