The 2024 MLB postseason could be a coronation of sorts for one of the league's most impressive talents, Shohei Ohtani.
The Dodgers standout casually put forth one of the greatest seasons in big-league history, consciously setting out to wreak havoc at the plate and on the base path after being tethered to just one side of the diamond following Tommy John surgery.
Now, he readies for his big break: a trip to the postseason, a place that has eluded him throughout his big-league career.
Ohtani is one of the most gifted players of his generation. He's shown that in abundance during regular season play, be that at the plate, on the mound or while striding to second and third on steal attempts.
Has that skillset translated to the postseason? The Sporting News details Ohtani's playoff exploits thus far in his legendary career.
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Has Shohei Ohtani ever been to the MLB playoffs?
Prior to the 2024 season, Ohtani had never taken part in October baseball. Frankly, he hadn't been all that close to making the postseason.
The Japanese supernova spent the first six years of his career with the Angels. During that time, he impressed, capturing two AL MVP awards while forming a daunting duo in the heart of Los Angeles' lineup with Mike Trout.
All that amounted to zero playoff berths for Ohtani and Trout during their tenure together. The closest the pair got to reaching postseason play was a 26-34 finish in the COVID-19-shortened 2020 season.
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There's reason to believe Ohtani's game could translate to playoff success. Ohtani has a .307/.434/.607 slash line in high-leverage situations — an index that measures how crucial an at-bat is in determining a game's final result — across his career. By comparison, Aaron Judge "only" has a .955 OPS in high-leverage situations, a far cry from Ohtani's 1.041 mark.
Outside of MLB, Ohtani has won at every level he's played. He was a member of the 2016 NPB-title winning Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters. The Ringer's Ben Lindbergh chronicled some of Ohtani's postseason exploits as a then-22-year-old.
On Sunday in Sapporo, Japan, in front of 41,000-plus fans, Shohei Otani, the best starting pitcher in Japanese baseball, did something that would have broken the baseball internet had it happened here. He got a save.
It was Otani’s first career save, but that undersells its significance. This save, which sealed the semifinals of the "Climax Series" — Japan’s perfect term for the playoffs — sent Otani’s team, the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters, to the Japan Series, a seven-game showdown between the winners of the Central League and the winners of the Pacific League. In his one inning of work, Otani retired three consecutive hitters from the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks, the two-time defending Japan Series champions. In the process, he threw two fastballs 165 kilometers per hour — 103 miles per hour, to those of us still spurning the metric system. That broke the NPB record of 164 he’d set in September, which broke the previous record of 163 he’d set in June.
There's also the matter of his displays in the 2023 World Baseball Classic.
Ohtani captured MVP honors after leading Japan past the United States in the WBC final, recording a 1.345 OPS along with a 1.86 ERA. Ohtani capped off his tournament run with a flourish, duping Trout with one of his patented sliders that bottoms out the zone to deliver Samurai Japan its third WBC title.
SHOHEI OHTANI STRIKES OUT MIKE TROUT TO WIN THE #WORLDBASEBALLCLASSIC! pic.twitter.com/F7vUtIiRR1
— MLB (@MLB) March 22, 2023
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Ohtani has tended to come up clutch more times than most in his professional career. He might be lacking in big-league reps during the postseason, but he has a track record of performing when the lights are at their brightest.
If he can do so again in 2024, he might have to add a new accolade to his laundry list of them in MLB: World Series champion.
Angels record with Shohei Ohtani
Ohtani spent six seasons with the Angels. Not once did Los Angeles make the playoffs during his time with the franchise.
| Year | Record | Finish in AL West |
| 2018 | 80-82 | 4th |
| 2019 | 72-90 | 4th |
| 2020 | 26-34 | 4th |
| 2021 | 77-85 | 4th |
| 2022 | 73-89 | 3rd |
| 2023 | 73-89 | 4th |
| TOTAL | 401-469 | — |
