Shohei Ohtani Signs with the Angels

[philosophizer75]

You don't understand, Ohtani had the gall to spurn the best team in baseball. They're just flabbergasted and struggling to express it. The only possible reason he would pick another team has to be due to the DH. Nobody in their right mind would choose not to play for the Doyers.

[Regular Show]

horsefeathers pitchers, man

 

 

Would playing in the OF and occasionally making a throw from LF add that much more stress to his UCL? He isn't playing the game after he pitches and he might not play the game before he pitches either. I mean the Cubs don't have a DH so he wouldn't get as many PAs, but he would get a lot of playing time here in Chicago.

 

I can't fault him for signing with the Angels. They have a DH and the Cubs don't.

[Sammy Sofa]

I can fault him because I'm petty and bitter like that and don't think he'll pan out hitting-wise as much more than an OK PH option at best.

[Bluescale]

Lol Dodgers.

 

[tweet]https://twitter.com/lindseyadler/status/971739349237882880[/tweet]

 

And there's this latest quote from Kershaw:

 

"I [couldn't] care less now," Kershaw told reporters Wednesday when asked if he was excited to face Ohtani. "He didn't pick us. Good luck to him."

 

Some of these guys sure are salty about his choice...

[ConstableRabbit]

Lol Dodgers.

 

[tweet]https://twitter.com/lindseyadler/status/971739349237882880[/tweet]

 

And there's this latest quote from Kershaw:

 

"I [couldn't] care less now," Kershaw told reporters Wednesday when asked if he was excited to face Ohtani. "He didn't pick us. Good luck to him."

 

Some of these guys sure are salty about his choice...

I always find it amusing when pro athletes say “I could care less” and editors have to fix the quote with brackets so that it makes sense.

[We Got The Whole 9]

Lol Dodgers.

 

[tweet]https://twitter.com/lindseyadler/status/971739349237882880[/tweet]

 

And there's this latest quote from Kershaw:

 

"I [couldn't] care less now," Kershaw told reporters Wednesday when asked if he was excited to face Ohtani. "He didn't pick us. Good luck to him."

 

Some of these guys sure are salty about his choice...

I always find it amusing when pro athletes say “I could care less” and editors have to fix the quote with brackets so that it makes sense.

To be fair I feel like it's a eureka moment when I hear somebody use the phrase properly

[Ding Dong Johnson]

but really, in a way, couldn’t we all care less?

[We Got The Whole 9]

The Tijuana Toros put up 6 runs in 3 innings off of Ohtani today but he did put up a 6:1 KBB

[David]

I rant against looking at spring training numbers as much as anyone, but I would be pretty bummed right now if we'd gotten him and he looked like this, esp given that he'd almost certainly have a rotation spot (and we wouldn't have signed darvish)

[Regular Show]

I rant against looking at spring training numbers as much as anyone, but I would be pretty bummed right now if we'd gotten him and he looked like this, esp given that he'd almost certainly have a rotation spot (and we wouldn't have signed darvish)

 

We might have still signed Darvish and then decide to go with a 6-man starting rotation. I'm skeptical of Ohtani being capable of throwing 150+ innings this year.

 

I mean he could do that, but it wouldn't be prudent considering how few innings he threw last year in Japan. Ohtani didn't cost that much in terms of a signing bonus. Actually, all the Cubs could offer was $300K, which is nothing. The Cubs could easily afford both Ohtani and Darvish.

[Bluescale]

I rant against looking at spring training numbers as much as anyone, but I would be pretty bummed right now if we'd gotten him and he looked like this, esp given that he'd almost certainly have a rotation spot (and we wouldn't have signed darvish)

 

If the Cubs had snagged Ohtani, as cheap as he was, I wonder if they would have skipped signing Chatwood, and gone straight after Darvish from the beginning. If I'm not mistaken, Ohtani made his choice a day before the Cubs inked Chatwood.

 

Eh...probably not...

[JennieGarthAlgar]

I rant against looking at spring training numbers as much as anyone, but I would be pretty bummed right now if we'd gotten him and he looked like this, esp given that he'd almost certainly have a rotation spot (and we wouldn't have signed darvish)

 

Probably depends on how accurate that rumor of him not wanting to play with other Japanese players was, too

[sneakypower]

Ohtani might just be a real-life superhero

 

He is, at the moment, tied for the best hard-hit rate in baseball (57%), which is another way of saying "no one hits it harder more often." If he keeps it up, it’d be the fourth-best seasonal mark on record. If you’re down with barrels -- the Statcast metric that quantifies the perfect combinations of exit velocity and launch angle, i.e., “the only thing better than hitting the ball hard is hitting it hard in the air,” then no one, not Judge or Stanton or Ronald Acuña Jr. or Vladimir Guerrero Jr. or anyone, has their plate appearances end in a barrel more often.

 

When he puts the ball in the air, absolutely no one hits it harder, averaging over 101 mph.

Put it this way: Since pitch tracking began in 2008, there have been nearly 4,500 combinations of pitcher+pitch type where a hurler has thrown the pitch at least 400 times. The outcomes on Ohtani’s splitter -- the Weighted On-Base Average, if you really want to know -- are the third-best of any pitcher’s pitch type.

 

Most dominating pitches since 2008

 

.103 -- Felipe Vázquez slider

.105 -- Jonny Venters slider

.106 -- Ohtani splitter

.116 -- Billy Wagner slider

.123 -- Zack Britton slider

there are a million funny/amazing Ohtani stats (his ISO is higher than Paul Goldschmidt's SLG!) but i didn't even realize he was, on top of everything else, top-5 home plate-to-1B

 

just a mind-blowing season; poor Vladdy Jr is going to win the triple crown and it'll barely register

[UMFan83]

Rereading this thread because it was bumped, crazy to see how confident we were in the FO and the club's direction. We thought the magic of Theo would singlehandedly get us Ohtani (and it almost did!). Little did we know that from that point on this core would not even play in another NLDS game and is now positioned for a rebuild.

[Ding Dong Johnson]

I more enjoy the trip down memory lane thinking about the once regular posters who are now dead or whatever.

[Derwood]

Stay for the national baseball writers misspelling Japanese guy's name

[Andy]

Stay for the national baseball writers misspelling Japanese guy's name

I'm not going to go diving through the entire thread, but his own agents didn't clarify that it was spelled 'Ohtani' until November 2017, so whatevs.

[imb]

seriously is he a hitter or a pitcher or both when he comes over?

 

Longenhagen(FG prospects guy) doesn't see him as a top 100 prospect, if looked at as a hitter only.

 

lol

[sneakypower]

he hit a ball through the roof of the tokyo dome

[We Got The Whole 9]

It's insane how great he is against both sides pitching too. I'd venture that the list is short of pitchers to ISO 400 against both sides. He's just absolutely having one of the greatest seasons we've ever witnessed.

 

Sent from my motorola one 5G UW using Tapatalk

[cl smooth]

 

the horsefeathers is this garbage?

[Old Style]

Sounds like this guy was made for Joe Maddon.

This post aged well. :)

 

EDIT: Post was made Sun May 08, 2016 7:46 pm and can be found on page 1.

[Bull]

 

the horsefeathers is this garbage?

Deleted. Care to share?

[Tryptamine]

 

the horsefeathers is this garbage?

Deleted. Care to share?

 

Steven A. Smith stating it was bad for baseball that its best player needed an interpreter in interviews and other xenophobic nonsense.

[ChiCubsFan]

Sounds like this guy was made for Joe Maddon.

This post aged well. :)

 

EDIT: Post was made Sun May 08, 2016 7:46 pm and can be found on page 1.

 

Well, horsefeathers me