Shohei Ohtani Joins the 40-40 Club in Grand Style, and He Could Have Company

While Shohei Ohtani hasn’t pitched this year after undergoing UCL reconstruction surgery last fall, he has found another area of the game in which he could excel while terrorizing opposing pitchers. The 30-year-old superstar blew past his previous career high in stolen bases in late July, and on Friday night against the Rays he swiped his 40th bag of the year. Five innings later, he collected his 40th home run to join the 40-40 club in spectacular style, when he clobbered a first-pitch, walk-off grand slam. Unfortunately, Ronald Acuña Jr.’s torn ACL deprived him of a chance to follow up last year’s unprecedented combination of 41 homers and 73 steals, but it’s not out of the question we could have another 40-40 player this season, namely José Ramírez, and at least a couple more 30-30 ones.

I’ll get to those, but first, it’s Sho time. Prior to this year, Ohtani had reached 40 homers twice (46 in 2021 and a league-leading 44 last year) but had stolen just 20 bases or more twice (26 in 2021 and 20 last year). Unburdened by the demands of pitching this year, and playing for a new team with much higher aspirations than the Angels, he’s been able to withstand more wear and tear on his legs, has had more time to study opposing pitchers, and has come to appreciate the extra dimension he can add to his new team.

“I think he has bought into stealing bases, understands the value of the stolen base, getting 90 feet,” manager Dave Roberts told The Athletic earlier this month. “He’s in a pennant race now. And I don’t think he’s been in a pennant race in his big-league career. So his enhanced focus is not a surprise to me.”

“I think now with having less on his plate from a preparation standpoint and the pitching, more focus can be put on it,” first base coach Clayton McCullough told The Athletic. “His eye for things has been impressive”

According to Statcast, Ohtani’s sprint speed ranks in the 72nd percentile, which is actually the second-lowest mark of his career; he’s been as low as the 63rd percentile (2023) and as high as the 92nd (in his brief ’20 campaign), or the 90th (’21) if you limit the comparison to full seasons. It’s clear that he can motor, and not only has he been prolific for a team that hasn’t had such a base-stealing threat in awhile — Dee Strange-Gordon was the last Dodger to steal at least 40 bases (64 in 2014) — he’s been efficient, getting caught just four times. In fact, the only Wild Card-era Dodger with a higher rate of success in a season with at least 30 attempts is Roberts himself, who had a 97.1% success rate (33 steals, one caught) in 2004. Overall, Ohtani leads the NL in homers and is second in stolen bases. His baserunning (including advancements) has been worth 5.7 runs above average, up 3.2 from last year, his previous career high, and fifth in the majors.

As for his big night on Friday, Ohtani’s stolen base came after he legged out an infield single in the fourth inning. Catcher Rob Brantly dropped the pitch and didn’t even get off a throw. The homer followed a walk to pinch-hitter Max Muncy to load the bases; needing to throw a strike, Colin Poche left a slider in Ohtani’s wheelhouse.

Not only did that make Ohtani just the sixth player in major league history to reach 40 homers and 40 steals in a season, but he also joined the club faster than anyone by a country mile:

Did I mention it’s still August? Ohtani has ample time to establish the 45-45 club, and he’s even on pace to be the founder of the 50-50 club. Toward that end, I asked Dan Szymborski to whip up some ZiPS-flavored odds that he attains those combinations:

Ohtani, who added another home run on Saturday night, is more likely than not to reach 45 homers and 45 steals. He has nearly a coin-toss chance at joining Aaron Judge in the 50-homer club (Judge has just six steals, in case you’re wondering), and better than a one-in-four chance of reaching that and 50 steals.

Two points are worth bearing in mind. As Dan reminded me upon delivering these projections, the odds of achieving the combination are a bit higher than just multiplying the two numbers together since there is some correlation. While home runs don’t directly create stolen base opportunities, if Ohtani is hitting homers, he’s probably playing better, hitting more singles and doubles as well (and facing more hittable pitchers). That’s enough to offset the extent to which hitting a homer deprives a player of a chance to reach base and steal. Second, these odds do not account for human nature in the form of the possibility that a player nearing the stolen base milestone might start trying to steal more frequently, an action that’s much more within his control than, say, a sudden attempt to hit more homers (which usually doesn’t end well).

Last year, four players combined at least 30 homers with 30 steals for just the fourth time in history (1987, ’97, and 2011 were the others), and four others gave the combination a run for the money, finishing with at least 25 homers and 25 steals. It’s not hard to understand why. The new rules put in place for 2023 that favor stolen bases — namely the pitch clock, the limit on pickoff throws, and the slightly larger bases — pushed the per-team, per-game rate to 0.72, the highest it had been since 1997, that in a season that produced the fifth-highest home run rate of all time (1.21 per team per game). Stolen bases are up to 0.73 per team per game this year, and while the home run rate has fallen to 1.12, that’s still the 10th-highest mark of all time. Note that from among those seasons with four 30-30 members, 1987 marked the first time the home run rate broke 1.0 (1.06, up 0.15 from the previous year), while ’97 and 2011 both had localized highs for stolen bases (0.73 and 0.67, respectively), combined with reasonably high home run rates.

Acuña isn’t the only one whose injuries have prevented another shot at a cool combo. The same is true for one of last year’s 30-30 members, Julio Rodríguez (whose play has also fallen off), and near-misses Fernando Tatis Jr., Kyle Tucker, and Trea Turner, and while Corbin Carroll has been healthy (though we’ve all wondered about his shoulder), he just hasn’t been able to muster the same magic.

Nonetheless, one other player has already reached both plateaus before the end of August: Ramírez, who hit his 30th home run in the second game of a doubleheader against the Diamondbacks on August 7 (he’s added three since), and stole his 30th base against the Yankees on Thursday (he’s added two since). This is his second time reaching the two thresholds in the same season. He hit 39 homers and stole 34 bases in 2018, setting career highs in both categories; he also came close in ’21 (36 homers, 27 steals) and last year (24 homers, 28 steals).

Ramírez has benefitted from exceptional efficiency, as he’s been caught just four times, and he actually has a reasonable chance of joining the 40-40 club. Here are his ZiPS odds for that, as well as those for the potential 30-30 members:

Witt and Lindor both reached 30-30 last year, as did Acuña and Rodríguez, and both are right in the thick of MVP races in their respective leagues, though probably underdogs. Witt’s 9.0 WAR trails only Judge’s 9.6. The shortstop, who is in his age-24 season, is vying to become the youngest player to achieve two 30-30 seasons; Acuña was in his age-25 season when he did it for a second time last year.

Lindor has overtaken Ohtani for the NL WAR lead, 6.5 to 6.2. As I noted just last week in relation to the shortstop’s MVP chances, his low batting average is likely to work against him even in an age where we know that the stat isn’t the be-all and end-all of production. Ohtani’s 2021 season is the only one of the past 51 years where a hitter won the award with a batting average under .280, thanks to his 46 homers and excellence on the mound. As this August dawned, Ohtani held a .309 to .254 edge on Lindor in batting average, and a 5.6 to 5.0 edge in WAR, but lately things have favored the switch-hitting Met, and the two are now just 23 points apart in average, .292 to .269.

Meanwhile, on Wednesday, De La Cruz stole his 60th base, making him the youngest player (and just the fifth overall) to combine at least 20 homers (he has 22) with 60 steals within a very electrifying group:

With five weeks remaining in the regular season, De La Cruz still has a decent shot at 30 homers. The Reds have 31 games remaining, and according to Baseball Reference, he’s had multiple overlapping spans this year in which he’s hit eight or nine homers, starting with one that ran from Opening Day (March 28) to May 3.

As for Chisholm and Doyle, neither has strong chances of getting to 30-30, but enough of the season remains — 31 games for each of their teams — that it’s not entirely out of the question. Chisholm not only homered 10 times in a 31-game stretch in 2022 with the Marlins (May 8 to June 22), he had a series of similarly productive overlapping spans this year, starting with one that began on July 3 and ended with the second game of a doubleheader on August 10, and was highlighted by back-to-back two-homer games on July 29 and 30, his second and third after being traded from the Marlins to the Yankees. He just returned from a mild UCL sprain in his left elbow, and while he has yet to homer or even barrel a ball since coming back, he does have five hard-hit balls (95 mph or higher) in three games. Doyle had several stretches where he’s has hit as many as 12 homers over a 31-game span this year, starting with one that began on June 17 and ended on July 24. It probably doesn’t hurt that he plays in Colorado, though this year he’s hit 11 of his 21 homers on the road.

Because of his contract, his market, and the unprecedented nature of his pursuit, Ohtani’s chase will probably remain the one that captures our attention — and hey, when you can do it like he did on Friday night, that attention is well-earned. But particularly because some of them they may affect the MVP races, and perhaps even give us the largest bumper crop of 30-30 players, all of these pursuits are worth keeping an eye on as we head into the home stretch.