Shohei Ohtani has been described as the perfect baseball machine. He can pitch, outfield and hit! It's very possible future generations will find him written down in the history books in baseball's hall of fame. Regardless of whether you know him or not by now, Japanese wunderkind Shohei Ohtani is going to put on the red and white jersey of the Los Angeles Angels and get to work, doing what he does best.
According to a statement released by his agent, Nez Balelo, one of the heads of CAA Sports, Ohtani has made his final decision to play for the Los Angeles Angels. This decision was made after Ohtani spent much of the last week-plus in the U.S. visiting a handful of teams.
"Shohei is humbled and flattered by all the time and effort that so many teams put into their presentations and sincerely thanks them for their professionalism," Belelo said. "In the end, he felt a strong connection with the Angels and believes they can best help him reach his goals in Major League Baseball."
It's unclear what brought about such a strong "connection" with the LA Angels. It's possible that Ohtani may be strongly motivated to play alongside six-time all-star Mike Trout. For those unfamiliar with Mike Trout, he's an outfielder considered in baseball to be the game's most complete position player. Furthermore Trout is also as well as a future Hall of Fame player and considered by many to be the best player since Mickey Mantle. If that's not enough to get people excited, Trout also won the American League's Rookie of the Year Award in 2012 and also scooped up the league's MVP award in 2014 and 2016.
The decision brought a wave of new hope to the Angels, who haven't had the honor of making the playoffs since 2014. They were looking to add more dimension to their roster from a long term perspective and have set their sights on locking in several new wins in the short term.
Ohtani, a 6-foot-3, 23-year-old star of Nippon Professional Baseball's (NPB) Pacific League, has performed amazingly well since the latter half of 2017. He has become a legend for his fast arm and a four-seam fastball said to top out just over 100 mph. But what makes him such an outstanding player is the fact that Ohtani's versatility as a solid bat and reliable outfielder are a unique and rare combination bringing outstanding value in a single player.
A few more interesting details about Ohtani is the face that before the 2017 season, Ohtani threw over 170 strikeouts in each of the last three seasons, spanning 2014 and 2016.
At the plate, he has an amazing average. Ohtani batted .322 in both 2017 and 2016, while also providing his team solid slugging in the mid .500s both seasons.
Considering the fact that the Angels already have a reasonably solid outfield, its possible that Ohtani will play either left or centerfield for most of his first MLB season. Regardless of his outfield position, he is going to be an extremely viable option as both as a designated hitter and will certainly play an important new part of the Angels' pitching rotation.
Sources:
http://www.rollingstone.com
http://www.sportingnews.com
http://www.espncdn.com
http://www.star-telegram.com
