MLB PREVIEW 202023SHORTLY AFTER
Ohta ni signed w it h L. A. a nd ret ur ned
to Japan, a contingent from the Angels
visited and put him through a series
of tests to establish his strength and
conditioning baseline. Ohtani scored
well above average in all measure-
ments but one, the vertical jump.
After the jump Ohtani asked
Eppler, “How was that?”Eppler looked at the measurement
and compared it with the historical
bell curve for athletes. He was sur-
prised, if only because Ohtani was
near the top of the charts in every-
thing else.
“Uh, good,” Eppler said. “Right
around average.”
Ohtani looked crestfallen. Average?
The word cut through him.
A month later Ohtani reported to
spring training in Tempe. All the
Angels went through the same base-
line testing, including Ohtani. He
took another shot at the vertical jump.
Team personnel looked at the num-
ber and said, “No, this must be wrong.”
They told Ohtani, “Do it again.”
He did. Same number.
It was true: Ohtani jumped 10 inches
higher than he did te f irst time he tried
it, four weeks earlier.
“People train all winter for it, andcolor of Ohtani’s high school, and he
clinched the deal by choosing beige
skivvies to honor the color of Ohtani’s
family dog, Ace.
Kuriyama presented Ohtani with
a novel idea: He could be both a hit-
ter and a pitcher, a duality Ohtani
had not considered possible until the
manager included it in the 30-page
presentation.
“Travel down a path no
one else walked down,”
Kuriyama told him.
The Fighters introduced
Ohtani on Dec. 25, 2012,
at a news conference in
a Hokkaido hotel that
drew 150 media person-
nel. One of them asked
Ohtani whether he liked
Japanese history.
“There are parts I know
well,” he answered. “Like
the end of the Edo period.
Sakamoto Ryo ̄ma? Yes, he
is interesting.”
In addition to being a
samurai, Ryo ̄ma was an
activist and visionary.
He was 17 when he saw
the ships of Commodore
Perry and the U.S. Navy pull into Edo
(Tokyo) Bay. The sight of them made
him envision a Japan that broke from
its 264-year Tokugawa shogunate
rule and isolation toward a coun-
try more connected internationally
and guided more by the voices of the
people. Ryo ̄ma worked to make that
happen until he was assassinated at
31, dying by the sword.
Ryo ̄ma reputation enjoyed a re-
naissance during Ohtani’s high
school years, marked by TV series,
books and commemorative coins. It
especially resonated with the youth
of Japan, who viewed the rise of tech-
nology as the 21st-century version of
Commodore Perry’s ships: a call to
global partnership.
Ryo ̄ma is considered a founding
father of Japan’s modern age, and
Ohtani heeded his message: A hero
should go his own way.if they improve by 2^1 / 2 inches that’s a
lot,” Eppler says.
It stood as the third-highest ver-
tical in the organization’s history.
Eppler came to find out that after
Ohtani learned he earned an “aver-
age” grade he scoured videos to learn
the techniques on ways to improve:
how to load your hips; how to use
ground forces; how to use the entire
foot, including the heel, at
push off; how to swing the
arms. He not only studied
the movements but also
mastered them quickly.
“It’s not as obvious from
an outside perspective,”
Eppler says, “but whenever
people sit around talking
about the most competi-
tive players in football,
basketball or any sport,
he deserves to be in the
conversation.”
Before each season
Ohtani asks the Angels to
send him video of all the
pitchers in the AL, with
a heavy concentration of
starters and especially
those from division rivals.
As his pitching schedule gets penciled
in—he generally starts once a week,
on Sundays, because Monday is the
most common scheduled off day—he
asks for video of opposing hitters from
his likely opponents. “Back in Japan
I never used to study,” he says. “I felt
like I never really needed to. Once I
came over here I felt the competition
was a lot higher so I wanted to use
that to my advantage.”
What might those numbers look
like at the end of this season? I tell
Ohtani about a statistical model that
forecasts what he will do this year.
We will play a game: I will tell him
the numbers, and he will tell me if he
would accept them.
“Hitter: 421 plate appearances, .282
batting average, 21 home runs, 71 RBI.”
“Hmm,” he says. “That’s a good
area. It’s really realistic. I wouldn’t
take it, though.”SPLIT PERSONALITY
Ohtani has slugged .532, and throws 96.7
mph heat with an even nastier splitter.MA
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20 FOR THE ’20SSHOHEI OHTANI