What makes Shohei Ohtani completely different from different star sluggers? It is not simply the quantity of dwelling runs, and even the explosiveness of the house runs. It is also how he hits them.
The mantra of the modern-day MLB energy hitter is to “hit the ball out in entrance” — in different phrases, get the barrel of the bat to the ball when it is nonetheless forward of the plate, forward of their our bodies. That is how hitters like Mookie Betts, Jose Altuve and Nolan Arenado hit their dwelling runs. It offers their bat extra time to speed up, and lets them pull the ball within the air for dwelling runs.
However there’s additionally a choose group of elite all-fields energy hitters who don’t depend on hitting the pitch out in entrance. These hitters “let the ball get deep.” These are the Aaron Judges, the Freddie Freemans, the Juan Sotos of the world.
And main the way in which is Ohtani.
The back-to-back reigning MVP, who begins his 2025 quest for a three-peat on Tuesday when the Dodgers face the Cubs within the Tokyo Sequence, has one of many deepest contact factors of any Main League hitter — and particularly in comparison with different MLB sluggers.
Statcast now tracks a wealth of batter place and speak to level knowledge, together with the place each MLB hitter stands within the batter’s field and the place they make contact with the baseball, in comparison with each the entrance fringe of dwelling plate and their very own heart of mass. That knowledge is coming to Baseball Savant for Opening Day 2025 — however this is a sneak peek of what it will possibly present us:
Ohtani’s deep contact level is the key to his unbelievable all-fields energy.
He can see the ball longer than most massive league hitters, and nonetheless has the bat velocity, the damaging swing path and the bat-to-ball ability to crush dwelling runs to each a part of the ballpark.
The one manner Ohtani can hit the ball so deep, and nonetheless have 54 dwelling runs and 99 extra-base hits in 2024, is as a result of he has elite bat velocity. Ohtani’s bat velocity final season was 76.3 mph, rating within the prime 10 in baseball. He was one in all solely 25 hitters whose common swing was above Statcast’s 75-plus mph “quick swing” threshold.
Amongst that group, Ohtani had by far the deepest contact level.
Deepest contact level amongst hitters with 75+ mph bat velocity in 2024Measured vs. the entrance fringe of dwelling plate
Ohtani’s mixture of excessive bat velocity and deep contact produces some ridiculous dwelling runs. Like when he circled a 100.1 mph fastball from Paul Skenes and launched a 105.6 mph, 415-foot dwelling run to heart discipline in his first showdown with the Pirates flamethrower on June 5.
On that swing, Ohtani made contact with Skenes’ triple-digit heater virtually three inches behind the entrance fringe of the plate. However his swing nonetheless reached 80 mph — the best finish of bat velocity — and that permit him drive the ball out to useless heart. Here is what that dwelling run swing seemed like, with Statcast’s monitoring of Ohtani’s swing as much as the purpose of contact.
Here is one other one: Ohtani’s 114.3 mph, 451-foot blast to left-center discipline at Dodger Stadium on June 16.
This time, Ohtani merely waited on the pitch — it wasn’t a 100 mph elevated fastball, it was a 92.5 mph fastball proper down the center from Brady Singer. After which, solely after it had gotten virtually 4 inches previous the plate, he hammered it with an 81.1 mph swing.
Yet one more: Ohtani going 110.6 mph and 464 toes, once more to left-center at Dodger Stadium. This one was an inside-out swing in a lefty-lefty matchup in opposition to Braves reliever A.J. Minter.
Minter’s pitch was almost seven inches deep previous the plate when Ohtani’s barrel related with the ball. His bat velocity at influence was nonetheless 76.9 mph, and that permit him hit one in all his longest dwelling runs of the season to the other facet of the sphere.
Due to swings like these, Ohtani has an exquisite spray chart. Throughout the common season and postseason, Ohtani solely pulled about half of his 57 dwelling runs and 103 extra-base hits. The remaining have been unfold round to straightaway heart and the other discipline. If Ohtani’s contact level have been farther out in entrance, his batted ball profile would look quite a bit completely different.
Ohtani completed the Dodgers’ World Sequence run with 24 dwelling runs, and 53 extra-base hits, hit with a contact level at or behind the entrance of the plate. Each of these led the Majors. And, as you may anticipate, most of these ended up in heart discipline or the other discipline.
Most HR with contact level at or behind the plate, 2024Regular + Postseason
Most XBH with contact level at or behind the plate, 2024Regular + Postseason
Even in opposition to ace pitchers, Ohtani’s hit-the-ball-deep method pays off. Apart from Skenes, Ohtani homered in opposition to Max Fried, Freddy Peralta and Michael King final season on swings the place he made contact behind the plate. Even his dramatic postseason homer off Dylan Stop within the NLDS, which was a dead-pull dwelling run to proper discipline, nonetheless got here off a deep-contact-point swing.
And lots of the time, Ohtani sees the pitch, waits on it, unleashes a high-speed swing and launches a rocket. Ten of his dwelling runs final season with a contact level behind the plate additionally had an exit velocity of 110 mph or greater.
Here is what a few of these swings seemed like:
Now, the purpose of all this is not to say that Ohtani’s fashion of hitting, hitting the ball deep, is the “finest” solution to hit. Loads of MLB superstars hit the ball out in entrance — Betts, Julio Rodríguez, Manny Machado, Yordan Alvarez, Bryce Harper and Gunnar Henderson, to call a couple of marquee gamers — and are nice due to it.
However it’s his signature, as it’s the signature of the opposite nice all-fields hitters in baseball.
So if you watch Ohtani in 2025, and also you see the house runs flying to left-center, you may know he is not letting the ball journey accidentally. Ohtani making contact deep behind the plate just isn’t a product of him getting beat by pitches and barely catching up. It’s a hallmark of his MVP method on the plate.
