Shohei Ohtani’s Injury Changes Everything—for Free Agency and Beyond

In the first inning of the first game of the Angels’ doubleheader on Wednesday, Shohei Ohtani was dealing and donging, and all was right with his two-way world. Starting on the mound for the first time in two weeks, Ohtani induced a weak groundout from Reds leadoff man TJ Friedl, then struck out two rookie sensations swinging, as Matt McLain and Elly De La Cruz succumbed to splitters and handed Ohtani his 166th and 167th Ks of the season, respectively. In the batter’s box in the bottom of the frame, Ohtani launched a 115.7-mile-per-hour, 442-foot homer, his 44th of the season, which put him back in sole possession of the major league lead. It was the sort of sports miracle Ohtani has performed so routinely that it’s gotten tempting to take it for granted—ho-hum, more pretty pitches, more majestic drives. It was also, we know now, the last time we’ll see such two-way wonders this season, and potentially for a lot longer.

Ohtani topped out at 94 mph in the top of the first, with the 68-mph curveball he threw to De La Cruz representing his slowest pitch of the season, save for one stumble-slowed delivery in April. That was kind of concerning, but Ohtani is known for conserving speed at times, and perhaps he was ramping up after skipping a start due to arm fatigue—the latest in a series of seemingly minor physical complaints he’s transcended this season, including cramping, a cracked fingernail, and a blister.

In the second inning, though, disaster struck. Ohtani walked Cincinnati’s Spencer Steer, throwing mostly off-speed stuff and a single four-seamer clocked at 92.2. He got Joey Votto to pop out on a first-pitch sweeper. Then, he called out the trainer and exited the game. “Arm fatigue,” the Angels said, but Ohtani didn’t stay in as the designated hitter, as he typically does when he’s forced to stop pitching. Later, the word came that he was having tests done because his arm didn’t feel right. And although he did DH in the second game, going 1-for-5 with a double, it didn’t come as a complete surprise when the dreaded results of those tests were announced: Ohtani has a torn ulnar collateral ligament and won’t pitch for at least the rest of the season. The greatest Sho on earth is over, at least for now.

As Ohtani stood at second base after his hustle double in Wednesday’s second game, the Reds’ all-rookie infield was drawn to the sport’s center of gravity. Noelvi Marte, one of baseball’s top prospects, bowed to Ohtani, and Marte, McLain, De La Cruz, and Christian Encarnacion-Strand clustered around him like autograph-collecting kids. Somehow, Ohtani smiled and laughed, even though he was in on his UCL’s sad secret. De La Cruz—himself an athletic outlier and the author of jaw-dropping feats of strength and speed—tapped Ohtani’s arm, as if to confirm he’s flesh and blood. Ohtani is a mere mortal just like the rest of us, which is the best and worst thing about him: the best because our shared humanity makes what he does so special, and the worst because he’s sometimes subject to our limitations too.

“Sports are terrible,” my wife said when I told her the news. That just about sums up the situation, but there is much more to say about the depressing diagnosis. So let’s review what we still don’t know about Ohtani’s injury and then consider the implications for the remainder of Ohtani’s season, his impending free agency, and his two-way future—as well as for the Angels, his hapless team.

The Unknowns

Ohtani is getting a second opinion on his elbow, and the severity of his UCL tear hasn’t yet been announced. A UCL tear can be partial or complete. If it’s partial, it can be bad enough that it won’t heal on its own or slight enough that rest, coupled with therapies such as platelet-rich plasma and stem cell injections, can potentially lead to healing without surgical intervention. If surgery is required, recovery times can vary depending on the technique.

Ohtani has been through this before. A physical prior to his 2018 MLB debut revealed a first-degree tear of his UCL—the least severe kind—and he had a PRP injection in October 2017. The elbow held up until June of his rookie season, when a second-degree UCL tear was revealed. Ohtani had PRP and stem cell injections, went on the IL for almost a month, and then returned as a hitter, but he continued to stay off the mound. In September 2018, he made one more start as a pitcher and lasted only 2 1/3 innings. An MRI after that outing showed new UCL damage, and doctors recommended Tommy John surgery, which Ohtani agreed to in late September and underwent on October 1.

If the latest tear doesn’t seem severe, Ohtani could try rest and PRP again—third time’s the charm?—in which case he could enter the offseason (and free agency) with his two-way status for next season uncertain. He could even delay his decision about where to sign until January or February 2024, in hopes that by then, new imaging would show him to be healed. However, any team would be wary about whether the UCL would stay intact without surgery, and if he were to squander the winter on a fruitless attempt to avoid TJ, he could delay his return as a pitcher until well into 2025 or beyond. Odds are that Ohtani will require surgery again, and given his past PRP experiences and probable desire to clarify his outlook as he enters free agency, he may opt to go under the knife either immediately or right after the regular season, as he did in 2018.

If he has to have a full reconstruction of the UCL—Tommy John surgery—he won’t be able to pitch until 2025, though he could still DH next season, as he did in the second half of 2018 and during his 2019-20 recoveries from TJ surgery and knee surgery. Although his offensive output was diminished in 2019 and nearly nonexistent in 2020, that wasn’t necessarily Tommy John related; it was more likely a result of knee woes and postsurgical weakness (on top of a flexor strain in his surgically repaired elbow) that hobbled him until he returned to full strength in 2021. In 2018, when he was uncompromised aside from the UCL, his hitting showed no ill effects. Ohtani actually hit better after he returned from his midseason IL stint (.283/.354/.580 with 16 homers in 238 plate appearances) than he did before it (.290/.372/.535 with six homers in 129 plate appearances). Most memorably, he had four hits, with two homers and a stolen base, in his first game after the TJ recommendation.

The prognosis for second-time TJ recipients is worse than for first-timers, though still pretty positive on the whole. A late-2020 review of 29 previous studies found that MLB pitchers undergoing their first Tommy John surgery “returned to play in 80% to 97% of cases in approximately 12 months; however, return to the same level of play (RTSP) was less frequent and took longer, with 67% to 87% of MLB pitchers returning in about 15 months. RTP rates for MLB pitchers after revision UCLR were slightly lower, ranging from 77% to 85%, while RTSP rates ranged from 55% to 78%.”

There’s also some possibility that Ohtani could qualify for an internal brace repair, a newer TJ alternative that’s gaining in popularity because it’s less invasive and has an expected recovery time of nine months compared to TJ’s 12 to 15. According to Stan Conte, the former Dodgers vice president of medical services (who now operates a sports performance company), whether Ohtani is a candidate for that procedure “all depends on the tear.” Internal brace repairs have been performed, with some success, on pitchers who’ve had a previous UCL reconstruction. (Rich Hill, for one; the Rays’ Drew Rasmussen had an internal brace repair this summer after two prior TJ surgeries.) Dr. Glenn Fleisig, the research director at the American Sports Medicine Institute, says that internal brace pioneer Dr. Jeffrey Dugas and his colleagues have studied “a series of collegiate and professional baseball pitchers with revision UCL repair with internal brace after previous UCL reconstruction,” and that of the 10 with follow-ups after at least a year, “all 10 were able to return to play [at] the same (or higher) level” in an average of nine months.

The Fallout for This Season

Given Ohtani’s history of continuing to DH when he’s been unable to pitch, and the likelihood that waiting a little more than a month to have surgery won’t affect his return timeline, there’s reason to think that Ohtani will keep playing, and raking, for the rest of 2023. (For now, the Angels have said he’s “day to day” as a hitter, and he’s expected to play against the Mets this weekend.) If he keeps DHing, he could demonstrate once more that an injured UCL alone doesn’t hamper his hitting, and he could claim a home run crown. (He’s third in the league in RBIs and batting average, but he trails AL batting average leader Yandy Díaz by 22 points, so the Triple Crown is a long shot.)

Even if he shut it down entirely to have surgery as soon as possible, with the Angels all but out of the playoff picture and free agency fast approaching, he would still almost certainly win the American League MVP award. That’s a testament to how much better than every other big leaguer he’s been. WAR-wise, no other player is within shouting distance, especially within his own circuit; Ohtani holds an AL lead of 3.9 WAR according to Baseball Reference, or 3.5 per FanGraphs.

Remember how amazing Ohtani’s 2021 was? He’s long since surpassed his WAR totals from that season. Remember how amazing Ohtani’s 2022 was? He’s already equaled his Baseball Reference WAR from that campaign, and there are still five weeks of games to go. Ohtani leads all qualified batters in OPS+ and all qualified pitchers in ERA+. In addition to leading the majors in dingers, he’s also tied for the lead in triples and has 17 steals. Even though he hasn’t been as effective on the mound as he was last season, he’s still been baseball’s least hittable pitcher, cementing his status as one of the game’s greatest arms. In short: Ohtani got hurt in the midst of what was shaping up to be one of the most valuable, and undoubtedly most impressive, seasons of all time. This injury, and the less serious ailments that preceded it, cost him, and us, the chance to find out what the single-season pinnacle of a healthy two-way Ohtani could be.

The Fallout for Free Agency

Ohtani’s free agency was set to be the biggest story of the offseason. It probably still will be—this class of free agents is otherwise weak—but the payout he’ll get won’t be as enormous as anticipated. Of course, it could still be substantial and potentially record breaking. But Ohtani may be more receptive to creative contract structures than he would have been if not for this UCL setback.

If Ohtani has Tommy John surgery, he’ll be limited to DH next season, unless he decides to try playing first base or in the outfield when his arm allows later in the year. (After having TJ surgery on October 1, 2018, Ohtani returned to DH on May 7, though the recovery would likely be longer after a second TJ. Bryce Harper, who had Tommy John surgery on November 23, 2022, shocked everyone by returning to DH on May 2 and then by playing first base on July 21, though he still hasn’t played in the outfield.) Ohtani played outfield early in his NPB career, and he practiced taking grounders at first and flies in the outfield in 2020. He doesn’t lack for athleticism, but assuming he stays committed to two-way play, he may opt to focus on his hitting and rehabbing rather than introduce the complication of learning first base (obligatory reference) or making outfield throws.

Most teams these days don’t have dedicated DHs, but any team would be happy to have an everyday DH of Ohtani’s caliber; he’s been worth more than 6 WAR this season as a hitter alone. So it’s not as if the injury should take any team out of the running. Plus, if he can’t pitch post-surgery, or isn’t as effective as he once was, he wouldn’t be relegated to DH for the rest of his career: Ohtani could still be a plus everyday defender. His long-term ceiling isn’t significantly lower as a potential Gold Glove right fielder than as a DH who pitches every six games, and it would be sort of satisfying to see him excel in a way he hasn’t had a chance to. That role might also allow him to take the mound in relief if he’s capable of pitching but isn’t as dominant or durable as he was before.

That said, the injury certainly lowers his ceiling for 2024, which may make teams that need a difference-maker next season slightly less interested. And if he has to stop playing two ways earlier than expected, Ohtani wouldn’t be as singular a star or as big a draw, which would mean fewer endorsement dollars for him and less ticket revenue for his team. Thus, he can kiss that potential $600 million payday goodbye. But as the reigning best hitter in baseball, he could still surpass Aaron Judge’s free agent–record $360 million deal from last winter. (Again: Consider how extraordinary it is to talk about this kind of contract for a player who’s probably about to have his second Tommy John surgery.)

Alternatively, Ohtani could seek to sign a one- or two-year deal (or a longer one with an early opt-out clause), reestablish his two-way viability, and cash in next winter or the following winter instead. He still wouldn’t make as much as he was in line to earn before this injury, because he’d be older and a two-time UCL tear sufferer, but combined with the premium he’d get from signing a short-term contract this winter, he’d do quite nicely overall. If he does try that route, more teams might be in the bidding—and the Angels might have a better shot at retaining him. For one thing, they’d be more likely to approximate his highest offer for one or two years than they would over a 10- or 12-year term. For another, Ohtani might prefer to rehab in familiar surroundings; the Angels have helped see him through this before. But if Ohtani wants to win, he has to know that’s even less likely to happen in Anaheim without him on the mound.

The Fallout for Ohtani’s Two-Way Future

There’s no reason to think that Ohtani can’t be a great two-way player again, but we can’t count on it happening either. There’s no guarantee that his elbow repair will work or that his stuff will still be as nasty on the other side of this injury. Moreover, it won’t get any easier for him to maintain his two-way regimen as he gets older. Ohtani turned 29 in July. If he has a second Tommy John surgery, he’ll be coming up on his 31st birthday by the time he gets back on the mound—hardly old, but past most MLB players’ primes.

There’s no evidence that hitting has made Ohtani more susceptible to UCL problems; plenty of pitchers have had similar arm issues without the burden of two-way play. And though some skeptics may call for him to specialize, Ohtani has always ignored the doubters and asserted that he’s happiest playing two ways. Of course, he could decide that he doesn’t want to put himself through this type of psychological and physical strain anymore; he has little left to prove, and playing first base or right field could take less of a toll.

Maybe Ohtani’s two-way play will pick up in 2025 where it left off this year. But between this injury and his pitching pause from the second half of 2018 through 2020—plus some previous, less prolonged absences in Japan—we’ve already missed out on much of his potential two-way prime. I’ve run the risk of exhausting readers and listeners alike with how much I’ve written and talked about Ohtani over the past several years. But in a sport that pushes pitchers to throw harder than humanly possible, where UCLs last no longer than the wax in Icarus’s wings, Ohtani’s success has always seemed too good to be true—so tenuous that I had to tune in to every start, savor every second, and highlight every accomplishment, because any inning like his first one on Wednesday could be the last. And if Ohtani’s two-way peak—including his 2016 MVP campaign in Japan—turns out to be short, it will be even less likely that we’ll ever see someone attempt to do this again. I can hear the two-way naysayers now: Only Ohtani could do it, and even he couldn’t do it for long.

The Fallout for the Angels

To add insult to injury, the Angels were swept in Wednesday’s doubleheader, leaving them 10.5 games out of the third and final AL wild-card spot. And to add injury to injury, Mike Trout, who had just returned from the IL, went right back on it, thanks to lingering soreness in his surgically repaired hand. The soreness wasn’t a surprise—in fact, when Trout returned, he said, “There’s definitely going to be soreness in there”—but maybe he and the Angels decided it wasn’t worth playing through the pain with Ohtani done as a pitcher and the Angels done as a playoff contender. (On Thursday, their playoff odds flatlined at 0 percent, per FanGraphs.) The Angels are second this season in games missed to injury, and they may yet take that title when all is said and done.

On the day of the trade deadline, the Angels were only three games out of the third wild-card spot, but their decision to hold on to Ohtani and reinforce their roster could hardly have had a worse outcome. Not only did they lose seven games in a row right after the deadline, the start of an MLB-worst 5-16 August (so far), but now they’ve lost two-way Ohtani too. They couldn’t have known their playoff fortunes would tank so suddenly and spectacularly. They couldn’t have known their deadline additions—Lucas Giolito, Reynaldo López, Dominic Leone, Randal Grichuk, and C.J. Cron—would collectively amass minus-0.9 WAR to date. They couldn’t have known Ohtani would get hurt. They did what they could to stay in the race and to persuade Ohtani to stick around. It didn’t work. It didn’t come close to working. But it wasn’t the worst idea.

In a sense, this is a sadly fitting denouement to the Angels’ last several seasons, in which they’ve treated their fans to incredible individual campaigns but failed to convert those exploits into playoff appearances, or even winning seasons. It’s appropriate that the Angels’ latest additions have collectively crapped the bed, because over and over, stars have seen their fortunes go south in surprising fashion as soon as they’ve arrived in Anaheim. It’s also appropriate that Trout and Ohtani barely overlapped before both got hurt again, because although the Angels are infamous for squandering peak Trout and Ohtani, they actually haven’t had both of those players on the field and at their best very often.

The Angels now have baseball’s second-worst farm system, according to FanGraphs. They have some promising youngsters—Zach Neto, Nolan Schanuel, Reid Detmers, Chase Silseth—but nothing close to a championship-caliber core on the way. Ohtani might remain, in diminished form, but it seems more likely he’ll leave. Trout is 32, often injured, and lately less than superlative even when he’s been active. It’s hard to see how things will get better anytime soon.

At least Angels fans have had the pleasure of seeing two-way Ohtani up close. Unless and until a fully operational Shohei returns, there’s a lot less joy in Anaheim and Mudville and everywhere else people appreciated his unprecedented, unparalleled performance. Sports are sometimes terrible, but they’re also sometimes wonderful. Ohtani taught us that too.