The Curious Case of Shohei Ohtani in Sorare:MLB

How the most electric player in baseball fits Sorare

Shohei Ohtani came to league in 2018 and took it by storm. He was heralded as the next Babe Ruth and has lived up to that lofty comparison and more.

It all came together in 2021 for the Japanese international when he walked away with his 1st MVP award (more surely coming) after smashing 46 home runs, striking out 156 batters, and posting a 9.0 WAR (baseball-reference). He followed that up with an impressive 2022 and it took a historic season from Aaron Judge to take that 2nd MVP award away from him.

Ohtani is any general managers dream to build a franchise around (Angels please make the playoffs). He is a front-end starter and a power bat in the middle of the lineup and plays 150+ games a season.

He is undoubtedly invaluable on the diamond and any GM would want him. But we are not GMs of Major League teams, we are GMs of Sorare teams. What does this duel threat offer for Sorare and how should you play him? Let’s dive in.

The Problem

You may be asking, “What problem could having Shohei Ohtani in your gallery be???” and it’s a fair question. In Sorare, you have to make the decision of playing Ohtani at pitcher and only collecting his pitching numbers or as a hitter and only collecting his battings numbers.

On game weeks he does not pitch this is no issue, you simply slot him in at Corner Infield or in the Extra Hitter slot. The issue comes on game weeks he is slated to start. You must make a decision to pitch or not to pitch?

Let’s do some Math!

Pitching

To get to the answer, or as close to an answer we can get, we will need to do some math. Don’t worry you won’t have to do any math I got it covered.

For this case I am only looking at Ohtani’s numbers since Sorare:MLB started on July 22nd, 2022. Since that date, Shohei Ohtani played in 68 MLB games and was the starting pitcher in 13 of those games. We will take a closer look at his pitching numbers first.

The table above the 28-year-old’s accumulated pitching stats over the 13 starts he made during the 2022 Sorare:MLB Season (We will just be looking at stats that score points in Sorare).

Shohei pitched to a 6-5 record, collected 96Ks (7.4Ks per start over this span), and only allowed 21 runs over 78 innings pitched (.27 runs per innings pitched). So overall, very solid numbers and exactly what we expect from a player of this caliber. Let’s get these numbers in Sorare terms.

Over those 13 starts, the Japanese star accumulated 366 base pitching points for Sorare, an average of 28.15 base points per game (remember this number) with his best performance coming on Sept 29th, 2022, where he got the win, struck out 10 batters over 8 innings, and did not allow a run. This was good for a whopping 47 base points in Sorare.

His worst performance was on Aug 21st, 2022, and he only scored 3.5 base points for pitching. So now that we have our average points per game, our high, and our low we can compare that to his hitting and start getting to our answer.

Total Base Points: 366

Average Base Points: 28.15

High Base Points: 47

Hitting

In the 68 games that the Angles played from July 22nd through the end of the season Ohtani hit in 66 of those games. Shohei collected 74 hits, 15 home runs, 39 RBIs, and scored 39 runs which comes out to 566 base hitting points, an average of 8.58 base points per game.

The slugger’s best hitting performance came on Sept 5th, 2022, when he hit 2HRs, drove in 3 runs, and scored 3 runs which was good for 42 base points in Sorare. His low was a -2 base point game.

Total Base Points: 566

Average Base Points: 8.58

High Base Points: 42

The Answer

Now that we have our numbers and Sorare points we can start making sense of what they mean and how to best utilize the superstar in your lineup next season.

With an average base score of 28.15 for pitching versus and average score of 8.58 for hitting you may think the decision is easy to use Ohtani as a pitcher every time he is slated to start. The answer is not that simple. Remember each game week he may hit anywhere between 2-4 games and this changes the math a bit.

A game week with two hitting games Shohei averages 17.15 points, three games it goes up to 25.73 points (closer to his pitching average), and when there are four games Ohtani averages 34.3 points. The number of games and at-bats Shohei can potentially have in a given game week should be the biggest factor in your decision making process.

If the Angels are playing 4 games in a game week you should most likely go with using Shohei Othani as a hitter for the game week. Only 3 of his 13 starts (23%) would beat his 4-game hitting average of 34.3 points.

When the Angels are playing 3 games in a game week (most weekend series) the answer may seem to be pitching but it is more of a tough decision than you think. 7 of his 13 starts (53.8%) beats his 3-game hitting average of 25.72 points. This means even though his pitching average is higher, 46.2% of the time using Ohtani as a hitter is the better choice.

There is no magical solution here other than when these situations come up you will need to do a little extra work.

Check out his matchups, how he is doing currently (baseball players are streaky!), and even the weather. If those factors favor his pitching, go with the pitching. If they favor hitting, use him as a hitter.

Unfortunately, there are going to be times when you get this wrong but that’s the conundrum, we get with Shohei Ohtani and his greatness.

Finally, when the Angels have 2 or less games in a game week and Ohtani is slated to start one of those games you should be using Shohei in your pitcher slot. Only 1 of his starts did not beat his 2-game hitting average and this is probably the easiest of the 3 scenarios to decide between.

2-game series - Significant edge to pitching

3-game series - Slight edge to pitching

4-game series - Moderate edge to hitting

Is He Worth the Price?

So with all of that, there is still one more question we need to answer. Is Shohei Othani worth all this trouble with his current price tag in Sorare:MLB? As of this article, the last limited card for Ohtani sold for $255 making him one of the most expensive players in the game.

If you are smart (which you are!) and are able to get the most points out of him as possible, I say he is worth the trouble and can be a valuable add to your team. Just remember you’re buying two players for the price of one!

Wrap-up

This was the first piece of many I have planned to help you with your Sorare:MLB journey and I hope you enjoyed it. Please subscribe if you have not and share this article if you can! Would mean a whole lot to me. Thank you.

Stats from baseball-reference.com and soraredata.com. Image via Getty Images