Shohei Ohtani has already had an illustrious career. He has won four MVP awards along with the Rookie of the Year award and two World Series titles. One award he hasn’t won is the Cy Young, yet Ohtani is laying claim to it this year.
The starting pitcher for the Los Angeles Dodgers has had a rough start on the mound. He posted an MLB-leading 0.82 ERA entering Thursday’s game. Ohtani also has a ridiculously low 0.82 WHIP in 44 innings. Can that success continue long enough to earn him a National League Cy Young Award?
What changed for Ohtani?
Prior to 2026, the highest Ohtani had ever achieved in Cy Young voting was fourth in 2022 when he was with the Los Angeles Angels. Despite a career 2.83 ERA over seven seasons in MLB, he was never a top-three finisher. This season is his first full year of pitching since undergoing Tommy John surgery in 2023. He made his pitching debut with the Dodgers in June of 2025 and impressed with a 2.87 ERA in 47 innings.
So how has Ohtani never won the award before? However, his biggest strength has also been his biggest weakness. Ohtani’s ability to be a two-way player has made him a unicorn of an athlete. But that kind of game also costs money. This has divided his attention between hitting and pitching rather than allowing him to concentrate on either one of them.
Ohtani has always been talented at both, but it’s no surprise that his best hitting seasons came when he couldn’t pitch. The year he was rehabilitating from Tommy John, Ohtani wrote the first 50-50 season in MLB history. It was arguably the greatest offensive season ever. That season he concentrated only on hitting and defied all expectations.
It is no surprise that the same holds true in 2026. For the first time in his career, Ohtani has decided not to hit in the games he plays. It’s turning out incredibly well so far. Although he has had a rough offensive start, hitting .240/.370/.427, his pitching has been excellent.
The underlying metrics are somehow even better
It’s easy to attribute Ohtani’s hot start to good luck, and part of it certainly is. his era is excess His lower than expected ERA, although the expected mark is still incredibly good at 2.17. The same goes for his .182 expected batting average. So luck is definitely a factor to some extent. But, overall, Ohtani’s pitching run value has increased from the 85th percentile (2023) to the 97th percentile (2026). What is the reason behind this change?
The biggest change has come in his speed. Since his Tommy John surgery, the pace has really picked up considerably. In 2023, Ohtani’s two primary pitches were his sweeper and four-seam fastball. Both averaged 83.7 and 96.8 mph, respectively. In 2026? He is using his four-seamer more frequently and has added nearly two miles of distance to it while averaging 98.0 mph. The sweeper also moved up, averaging 84.9 mph. These are, by far, Ohtani’s two most valuable pitches.
Ohtani is also scoring good marks in underlying statistics like Fielding Independent Pitching (FIP). That metric ensures that pitchers are graded only based on outcomes they control (strikeouts, walks, home runs, and hits-by-pitch). In that stat, Ohtani posted a 2.52 FIP with an xFIP of 3.11. Even though his chase percentage is low (30.9 percent), his whiff percentage is in the 89th percentile at 32.0 percent. The ability to make bats miss has worked wonders for Ohtani.
The question is whether luck will favor him or not. ERA- and FIP- (metrics that adjust ERA and FIP by park and league where 100 is average and lower is better) have historically been solid ways to analyze pitching. So far in 2026, Ohtani has boasted a 24 ERA—and 60 FIP—for the best and seventh-best marks in the league, respectively. Skill-Interactive ERA (SIERA), a statistic that predicts future ERA, paints an even better picture of Ohtani’s ability. He has averaged 2.95 points, good for 11th-best mark in MLB.
Shohei Ohtani: King of the Shutout
Ohtani has four shutout starts so far this year. The strangest thing is that he has accomplished this in only seven starts. This has been a big part of his historically low ERA. Tonight, Ohtani added to that by throwing seven shutout innings against the division-rival San Francisco Giants. He scattered four hits and two walks throughout the outing, but neither of them were for extra bases.
The long and short of it is that Ohtani has dominated on the mound this season in a way he never has before. honestly it’s a way No one Have ever done it before. If Ohtani continues to pitch at this level, despite stiff competition from players like Nolan McLean, Jakub Misiorowski and Paul Skenes, he should be able to take home the NL Cy Young Award. only time will tell.
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