New York Yankees: Fans should be happy without Shohei Otani

New York Yankees fans should be thrilled that Shohei Ohtani signed elsewhere.

Shohei Ohtani, also known as the ‘Japanese Babe Ruth’ tore up the Japanese Baseball League with his pitching that rivaled Max Scherzer, and his hitting that rivaled Giancarlo Stanton. With this in mind, everyone thought he would come to the MLB without missing a beat, so teams including the New York Yankees were interested in signing him. However, his performance is showing that  is not the case.

Spring Training is nearly over and here is what Shohei Ohtani’s stat line looks like: 

Year                W   L               ERA                G               GS             SV              IP              SO               WHIP

2018               0    1              27.00              2                2                0               2.2              5                  4.12

Yes, you read that correctly, Ohtani has a 27.00 ERA. A 27 earned run average is just hard to fathom. It is not only his pitching that has been horrible but it is also his batting. Ohtani has struggled at the plate because it is as if he has never seen a curveball, or any pitch with movement on it.

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Now, to be fair we have only seen him play for a little over a month and we have yet to see him in an actual MLB game, but there is a chance we don’t. Why would the Angels risk it and allow a pitcher with a 27.00 ERA, to pitch in a game? Sure they’ve got him for under contract for six years and they gave him a $2.315 million signing bonus, but if he is struggling he won’t be playing.

Oh, and it’s not only the fact that Ohtani has a 27.00 ERA, and can’t hit a curve ball, he also has a damaged UCL in his pitching elbow which was not made aware to MLB teams when they were attempting to sign the hot rod. This is an injury that depending on how serious it is, could keep players out for months at a time. Had the Yankees known about this injury they might not have even gone after Ohtani.

There is a good chance we see Ohtani shipped out to Salt Lake City to play AAA ball with the Bees because of how bad he has been playing, and to get his confidence up. Ohtani has been an experiment so far for the Angels and up to this point it is one that has not paid off.

Like I said earlier though, he is under contract for six years and that is plenty of time to change opinions that were formulated from a single spring training. However, if he wants a shot in the MLB he is going to need to step it up.

Next: Predicting the Yankees opening day roster

If Ohtani had decided to go to the East Coast rather than the West and put on Pinstripes, this off-season would have been much different. If the Yanks landed Ohtani there is a good chance that we would not have gotten Giancarlo Stanton because if we had Ohtani for six seasons we wouldn’t want to pay Stanton’s salary.

Needless to say, Ohtani is a hot mess and you should be glad he ended up signing with the Angels, sorry Angels fans.