NPB Historian Believes Japanese Players Better Than Dodgers’ Shohei Ohtani Will Emerge. Shohei Ohtani delivered one of the greatest seasons in MLB history in 2024.
From a National League MVP award in his first season as a member of the Los Angeles Dodgers, becoming the first player to hit 50 or more home runs and steal 50 or more bases in a season, and end it all with a World Series trophy, fans have had trouble wondering if it can truly get better than this.
According to a historian of the Nippon Professional Baseball league, it just might.
It doesn’t take a top baseball insider to know that Japan has been producing serious talent on the diamond in the past few seasons.
With legends like Hideo Nomo, Ichiro Suzuki, Hideki Matsui, and other notable products from overseas, the recent wave of Japanese-born players like Ohtani, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Shota Imanaga, and now Roki Sasaki have been wowing fans with their talent on the diamond.
Not to mention, the 2023 World Baseball Classic winners and only nation to have won the tournament multiple times since it’s 2006 inception (3 total wins) is Japan.
Nobby Ito, the official historian of NPB believes that this is just the beginning of Japanese dominance over the sport of baseball, via The Athletic’s Fabian Ardaya.
“I think the next 50, 100 years — much better,” Ito said. “I believe better players than Ohtani will appear. … So the question, is this current Japanese baseball the golden age or not? Yes, of course. But it’s getting better and better and better.”
In terms of ace-caliber pitching and league-leading slugging, a current player in the Athletics’ minor league track could start to give Ohtani a run for his money.
Shotaro Morii, an 18-year-old two-way star, skipped NPB altogether to join the Arizona Complex League. With 45 home runs in his high school career as a left-handed batter, Morii has touched 95 mph as a right-handed pitcher.
Perhaps it will be a few more years until Morii matches the accolades of Ohtani, but for now fans can bask in the glory that is the upcoming talent from Japan.
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