Shohei Ohtani rivals Babe Ruth as an all time great, says MLB historian

The Current12:16Is Shohei Ohtani the best baseball player ever?

Baseball star Shohei Ohtani's unique skill set — and dominance as both a pitcher and a home run hitter — put him among some of the all time greats, according to official Major League Baseball historian John Thorn. 

"He is frequently referred to in the press as a unicorn, as if he were singular. But unicorn simply means one horn and is an imaginary beast. Ohtani comes as close to an imaginary beast as we have ever had in baseball," said Thorn. 

Ohtani, a starting pitcher and designated hitter for the Los Angeles Angels, has struck out 156 hitters this year, all while smashing 38 home runs. 

His numbers, Thorn says, haven't been seen since Babe Ruth played for the New York Yankees in the early 1900s. And even though Ohtani is only 29, some people are already calling him the best player ever. 

Historian John Thorn spoke with The Current guest host Kathleen Goldhar about Ohtani. Here is part of that conversation. 

Just how good is Shohei Ohtani? 

We have never seen anything like him. He is a Darwinian throwback to an era of baseball back in the 1850s, before the Civil War, when the pitcher wasn't even in a specialized position and anybody could pitch. 

Give me some of his other accomplishments just so that we can better understand quite how amazing he is. 

The fact that he has 38 home runs means that he's threatening Aaron Judge's American League record. He will, in all likelihood surpass Ruth's 60 in 1927. The only rival that anyone can think of for Ohtani is Babe Ruth, because Ruth was a very successful pitcher before he became a home run slugger. 

But Ohtani is both at once. We have never seen anything quite like this. The comparison I can think of would be Guy Hecker, who in 1886 won the batting championship and won 26 games as a pitcher. 

What makes him just so good? 

He's fast, he's big, he's strong, he's athletic, and he belies the notion that we all had in Major League Baseball 50 years ago, that Japanese players were too small and too frail to succeed in the then white major leagues. 

Not everybody understands just how hard it is to be a pitcher and a starting pitcher and a home run slugger. Can you explain just how hard that is to do? 

Well, we have had successful pitchers who became successful batters and vice versa, but we've never had anyone do what Ohtani is doing. 

Even those apologists for Babe Ruth in 1918 and 1919, when he was playing outfield and pitching, neglect that his strikeouts were dropping off from his previous highs, his hits and walks to innings pitched ratio were in decline. 

Ruth could not have continued as a pitcher into the 1920s at the same rate as he was in 1915 and 1916. 

Ohtani is from Japan. He's in his sixth year here in the Majors. What was his reputation in Japan like before coming to North America? 

He was the greatest player in Japan at that at the time of his signing. But the Angels thought that he would have to make a choice. He would have to play the outfield or designated hitter or pitch. 

The idea that Ohtani had was, why can't I do both? It flies in the face of baseball history. The trend towards specialization had all the scouts and all the general managers thinking he had to make a choice. He said no.

He's frequently compared to Babe Ruth. Is it fair to make that comparison? 

It is fair to make the comparison in terms of, not absolute stats, not home runs or RBIs or strikeouts, but rather the impact Ruth had on Yankee teams in the 1920s and the impact Ohtani has on the Angels in our decade. 

Now we know so much more about how to eat properly, how to work out, we have obviously changed the technology of things that we use. And to Babe Ruth, he wasn't exactly the healthiest man on the planet. If Babe Ruth was around today, would there be a showdown between the two of them? 

It is very similar to asking who is the better painter, Rembrandt or Picasso? If Rembrandt were taken into Picasso's age, he would no longer be a Rembrandt. He would take advantage of the trends of the day. 

How did the major leagues here in America regard the Japanese league? You had mentioned something earlier that they thought they were too small to play. 

Yes. I think that the Japanese Major league was viewed as a quadruple A. You know, they were they were better than triple A minor league baseball, but not quite as good as the major leagues. And whether that distinction holds at the present moment is up to debate. 

Even with all the amazing Japanese players that we've seen come to North America. 

Well, we are plucking the stars. And the same might be said of white Major League Baseball's approach to the Negro Leagues after Jackie Robinson. Some of the older stars were no longer attractive to white owners. Had they been able to take Josh Gibson and Oscar Charleston in their primes, it would have been quite another story. 

Ohtani has had to deal with racism on and off the field. One sportscaster said that he shouldn't be the face of the league because he uses a translator. His English isn't great. 

And the former Blue Jay Hall of Famer Jack Morris made a racial slur during a broadcast when Ohtani was up to bat. Both of them have apologized since, but what does that say about the racism he faces now and the racism that's still around in the league? 

Major League Baseball grew up Eurocentric and white. That it has embraced Latin players, that it has embraced the Negro Leagues history as well as black players, this is all to the good. Baseball is too good a sport to be confined to North America. 

What does a player like Ohtani mean for the league as a whole? 

I think what Ohtani signifies for the league as a whole is that you're scouting cannot be confined to the Caribbean Basin or to North America, that you have to look all over the world. The next prospect could come from New Zealand. Who knows?