Shohei Ohtani was a diminished version of himself over the final two months of the Dodgers season and postseason, dealing with injuries to his left knee and right biceps. President of baseball operations Andrew Friedman said Wednesday that surgery won’t be necessary for Ohtani this offseason for either injury.
“[Surgery] is not on the table. He got assessed, and had a lot of stuff going on,” Friedman told reporters at an end-of season press conference on Wednesday at Dodger Stadium, as shown on SportsNet
LA. “Knee was bothering him off and on, and it was a little bit of an unfortunate game of whack-a-mole. The knee got to a better spot, and then the bicep area was bothering him. Just a number of different things, some that would calm down for some period, some that would get re-irritated. It was a lot of things to try to contend with at once.”
Ohtani was first shut down from pitching in July, and got treatment on his left knee over the All-Star break, causing him to miss the midsummer classic. Right biceps inflammation was the malady for which Ohtani was placed on the injured list in September.
“It’s everything. It’s the upper body, it’s the knee, and he’s just not perfect. He’s not,” manager Dave Roberts said of Ohtani before Game 3 of the NLCS. “But in his words, he’s ready to go.”
Ohtani homered in Game 4 of the National League Championship Series, snapping a stretch of 155 plate appearances without a home run, dating back to August 18. In eight postseason games, Ohtani had five hits in 26 at-bats with four walks, that home run, a hit by pitch, and a stolen base, hitting .192/.323/.308 with 10 strikeouts.
“It’s hard to tell at this point,” Ohtani said after Game 4 of the NLCS, through interpreter Will Ireton, when asked about potential surgery in the offseason. “It’s something that’s going to be analyzed and discussed over the offseason and see if that’s a viable thing to do.”
Through August 18, when Ohtani hit his last regular season home run, Ohtani was hitting .294/.390/.558 with a 153 wRC+ and 30 home runs, at that time leading the National League in OPS and slugging percentage, and second in on-base percentage and wRC+. Afterward, Ohtani hit .167/.298/.240 with just the one home run in his last 26 games, including the postseason.
“The injury started in early July. Through mid-August he was still, I think, the consensus MVP,” Friedman said. “Us continuing to put our heads together and understand where things are at at any given time, I think will increase our chances of him doing what is completely unprecedented, and the toll that it takes for him to be able to do it, impact our team in the regular season to accomplish our regular season goal, and then be in a good position going into October. Exactly what that looks like, we don’t know right now.”
Back in April I said that managing Ohtani’s time would be a key to the season as it was his first time as a full-time two-way player again since 2023.
Even though Ohtani didn’t pitch after July 3, and even with his missing 17 games in September, Ohtani still batted 618 times and faced 340 batters as a pitcher. His 958 total plate appearances in which he was directly involved were still most in the major leagues, 7.2 percent more than Marlins ace pitcher Sandy Alcantara, whose 894 batters faced were most among pitchers.
Ohtani said he plans to pitch again in 2027. Friedman reiterated that on Wednesday, and said he expected Ohtani to be ready for the start of spring training. Ohtani in his 14 starts had a 1.79 ERA and 2.73 xERA with 95 strikeouts and 26 walks in 85 2/3 innings, and lasted at least six innings in 13 of his 14 starts.
“This is unprecedented what he’s doing,” Friedman said. “I’m not only expecting him to pitch, we’re excited about him pitching. So now it’s about, how do we do that? How do we manage though a long season and have him at his best going into October. That’s a challenge, and we’ve got to figure it out together.”
The team has talked previously about how to manage Ohtani’s workload, but whether that means building in more rest days throughout the season remains to be seen.
“We’re going to have to be very deliberate about it on all sides, because the value is incredible,” Friedman said Wednesday. “Therefore it’s incumbent upon all of us to figure out the best way to do it.”
