Although he will almost certainly not be posted (made available to MLB teams) this winter, Shohei Otani continues to capture our attention from 6,000 miles away. If you’re still unfamiliar with the Japanese baseball phenomenon, I’d first like to congratulate you on waking up from your coma.
Then, I’d like to tell you what else you’ve missed
- The Cubs won the World Series,
- Donald Trump is president elect,
- There’s another Star Wars movie coming out, and
- Shohei Otani, the 22-year-old Japanese baseball legend, lead his league in both pitching and hitting, like some sort of modern day Babe Ruth.
He even crushed a baseball through The Tokyo Dome ceiling.
And, perhaps to the surprise of nobody, he’s made history once again.
NPB Best Nine teams. Shohei Otani the first-ever to be named at pitcher and DH in the same season. #NPB pic.twitter.com/cSSsxEsQn8
— Jason Coskrey (@JCoskrey) November 25, 2016
Think about that.
After recording a 1.86 ERA with 174 strikeouts in just 140 innings, Otani beat out the Chiba Lotte Marines starter, Ayumu Ishikawa, by 42 votes. Then, thanks to a .322 batting average, 22 home runs, and a rule change specifically with him in mind, Otani beat out another Marine, Alfredo Despaigne, for the designated hitter job by an amazing 143 votes.