Shohei Ohtani doesn’t have a hit with the bases empty. I kept hearing that throughout FS1’s broadcast of Game 3 of the NLCS. My first thought was, “Wow, I’m old enough to remember when they dogged star players for not hitting well enough with runners on base! I guess some people will find any reason to complain!”
My second thought was, “Huh, I thought Ohtani was having a decent postseason.” It could be better, of course. Ohtani is hitting .226/.351/.419, which I suppose is disappointing from a player with a legitimate case for being the greatest of all time. But if you told most managers that their leadoff hitter would post a .351 OBP through the first eight games of the playoffs, most of them would take it.
Out of 58 players with 20 or more plate appearances this postseason, Ohtani is 18th in wRC+ and 11th in WPA. By any objective standard, Ohtani’s been perfectly adequate at the plate overall.
In fact, later in that very game, he launched a three-run home run that left the bat at 115.9 mph, the kind of Mercury-Redstone-trajectory dinger that makes even the most jaded, cynical baseball writer lean over and go, “OK, that was pretty sick.”
And to be fair, the tone of the broadcasters’ “criticism,” if you want to call it that, was never biting or judgmental, the way it would be if Ohtani kept striking out looking with the bases loaded. It was more in the vein of noticing a bit of trivia. More, “Hey, isn’t that weird,” than “This guy’s a bum.”
And to be fair, it is indeed weird. There are 42 position players this postseason who have 10 plate appearances each with the bases empty and with runners on; there are actually three without a hit with nobody on base.
In the past 10 postseasons, eight players have gone 0-for-10 or worse with the bases empty in a single playoff campaign. Ohtani’s case is special, though, and not just because he’s about to win his third MVP award in four years.
Ohtani is currently 0-for-22 with the bases empty in 25 plate appearances; nobody else has gotten past 0-for-15. That’s irritating at the very least because Ohtani is a leadoff hitter. He hits with the bases empty at least once a game, usually more, since the last few guys in any lineup don’t get on base much.
Ohtani has had nothing but ghost runners to drive in for 25 of his 37 postseason plate appearances so far; I didn’t know it was possible for a resident of Los Angeles to encounter so little traffic.
And it’d be one thing if Ohtani were just stinking up the place all the time. Over eight games, any great hitter can go in the toilet for a number of reasons. But with men on base, he’s been — literally — the best hitter this postseason. With runners on base, he’s hitting .778/.833/1.444.
Out of that 42-player sample I mentioned earlier, Ohtani is first in batting average, first in OBP, second in slugging to Fernando Tatis Jr., first in wOBA, and first in xwOBA.
Armchair sports psychology says the opposite should be true. That when runners are on base, hitters should get nervous, grip the bat a little tighter, try to do too much. Instead, Ohtani is literally the best hitter this postseason when there are runners to drive in and literally the worst with the bases empty. (With nobody on, he’s dead last in wOBA at .083).
Given the samples involved (12 plate appearances with runners on, 25 without), random chance makes for a powerful null hypothesis here. But even if it is a coincidence, what an extraordinary coincidence it is!
