Shohei Ohtani stats: How Dodgers slugger is positioning himself as NL MVP favorite without pitching

It might seem crazy to say, but Shohei Ohtani might actually be better than ever.

That is almost unfair. He made a major splash in the offseason signing with the star-studded Dodgers on a historic 10-year, $700 million contract. The expectations for the reigning AL MVP were that he would add to the depth of an explosive Dodger lineup and be the missing piece to help push an underachieving Los Angeles squad over the hump in 2024 — and that was all before he would even return to pitching in 2025.

Just over a month into the season, Ohtani's batting numbers are extraordinary. He leads the majors in OPS and home runs as of May 7, and the underlying numbers show that his early 2024 success is no mirage.

There will still be a challenge to Ohtani winning MVP since he will only be playing as a designated hitter in 2024, but if he keeps at this torrid pace at the plate, he could put himself in position to capture his third MVP.

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Shohei Ohtani 2024 stats

The overall numbers to this point in the season for Ohtani are patently absurd. He leads the majors in a litany of categories, and nearly all the most prominent stats. Home runs? Check. Hits? Check. Slugging percentage? Check.

Even in the stats he's not leading, like on-base percentage and stolen bases, he's still top 10.

Only teammate Mookie Betts ranks higher in on-base percentage than Ohtani with a .463 number. Cincinnati's Elly De La Cruz has 19 stolen bases, but Ohtani finds himself not far off the runners-up in that category.

According to MLB researcher Sarah Langs, many of those stats are Ohtani's best through his first 36 games as a batter.

Ohtani already has 2 unanimous MVPs and is off to his BEST start thru 36 games as a hitter:

XBH: 26, most
Hits: 54, most
BA: .370, best
Runs: 31, most
Total bases: 103, most
OBP: .434, best
SLG: .705, best
OPS: 1.139, best

— Sarah Langs (@SlangsOnSports) May 7, 2024

Ohtani's 103 total bases also currently put him on pace for 451 total bases. That would be the first time a player reached at least 400 total bases in a season since 2001, when Sammy Sosa (425), Luis Gonzalez (419), Barry Bonds (411), and Todd Helton (402) all did so, per Stathead. It would also be on pace for the second-most total bases in a season all-time behind only Babe Ruth's 457 in 1921. He would be only the 30th player in MLB history to reach at least 400 total bases in a season.

Shohei Ohtani Baseball Savant

General statistics are useful to see how a player has performed to this point in the season, but Baseball Savant's numbers do a better job at showing just how much to believe a player's hot start.

Baseball Savant has a table at the top of each page that shows a player's performance relative to the rest of the league, showing certain numbers to be red if they are near the top of the league (the 100th percentile) or blue if they are at the bottom (the 1st percentile). As things stand through May 7, Ohtani is the Crimson King.

Ohtani is in the 100th percentile in xwOBA (expected weighted-on base average), xBA (expected batting average), xSLG (expected slugging percentage), barrel rate, and hard-hit rate. He's also in the 99th percentile in average exit velocity and 98th percentile for sweet-spot percent.

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Long story short: no one is hitting the ball with more authority than Ohtani to begin the season. He is punishing the baseball when he gets his pitch, which is always a promising sign for projecting out the remainder of a player's season.

The chase rate and whiff rates are around league average, but impressively, his strikeout rate of 18.6 percent is the lowest of his career, with his previous season-low coming in 2023 at 23.9 percent. He's also walking at 10.8 percent, which is lower than his career average of 12.1 percent but still is right around his typical high walk rates.

Ohtani's .406 BABIP (batting average on balls in play) is high even for a player who hits the ball as hard as he does and runs with his speed (77th percentile in sprint speed), but there's still little reason to believe he can't continue to blister the baseball all season.

Shohei Ohtani career stats

Ohtani is already off to a remarkable start to his MLB career, particularly having made himself among the league's most dominant hitters dating back to winning his first MVP in 2021. He won a second MVP in 2023.

Here's a look at his hitting stats.

NL MVP odds

Ohtani's been undoubtedly the best player to begin the 2024 season, but only playing designated hitter will make it a challenge to win MVP. Each of his previous two MVP campaigns came when he was also a pitcher.

In the early running, Ohtani's biggest competition for the MVP will be his new teammate, Mookie Betts, who won the American League MVP in 2018 while playing for the Red Sox.

Here's a look at 2024 NL MVP odds, per BetMGM.

Will Shohei Ohtani pitch in 2024?

Ohtani will not be pitching in 2024 after having offseason elbow surgery. The exact procedure has not been fully disclosed, but he is expected to return to the mound again in 2025.

This will be the second time in Ohtani's career his focus is solely on batting. He had Tommy John surgery late in the 2018 campaign, and he was only a batter in 2019. He briefly pitched in 2020, making a pair of outings for a combined 1.2 innings of work. He has since made 74 starts over the past three seasons.