Scouting report for pitch to Shohei Ohtani

Before each game, a team’s starting pitcher meets with his catcher and pitching coach to discuss the game plan for each batter in the opposing lineup.

Some of these plans are simple: pump speed high in the zone, constant dose of breaking balls low and away, avoid first pitch fastballs, etc.

How do opposing pitchers even approach one of the best hitters in the game? While it’s certainly no easy task, a handful of pitchers and catchers recently pulled back the curtain for MLB.com and explained how they typically approach the first 50-50 player in major league history.

To protect possible trade secrets, all players spoke to MLB.com on condition of anonymity. Each player is also a member of a non-postseason team that faced Ohtani at some point in the second half of this season.

In a pitcher’s perfect world, he could avoid pitching to Ohtani altogether.

“If you have a base open, you can pitch around him a little bit,” said one NL pitcher. “But again, it’s the Dodgers – that’s a powerful lineup. So you have to be smart about it. You have to make sure you think with him because he is trying to think with you. Try to outdo and surpass him.”

Let’s take a closer look at how a pitcher might be able to do this.

This may go without saying – and is true for every big league hitter – but it is especially true for Ohtani. Against most batsmen, you may make a mistake from time to time. Action will rarely, if ever, be taken against Ohtani.

“You make good pitches and hope he gets out,” said one AL pitcher. “He is very good. He will hit good shots. He will also hammer in mistakes. That’s what really good batsmen do: they don’t overlook their mistakes and do damage.”

One NL pitcher added: “Don’t give him anything too good to hit. Meet your seats. Don’t miss out.”

So what exactly are “your spots” against Ohtani?

“I don’t really want to give it away because just giving away the game plan is counterproductive, but I can tell you – if you implement it, you should be fine in most cases,” one NL catcher said. “Obviously he’s a really good hitter so if you miss he’ll make you pay, but I don’t really want to give away our plan of attack.”

One element that came up again and again: Never become predictable against Ohtani.

“You have to mix it up. You can’t go to the same place at the same speed,” another AL pitcher said. “So you have to be able to go up, down, in and out. You either have to throw it backwards or accelerate it early to expose it to breaking balls later. I mean, it’s tough because even if he hits a ball wrong, he’s so fast it’s a hit.”

One NL pitcher added: “It’s one of those things where you can’t fall into a pattern. Under no circumstances should he double or triple, because then he will have seen the field. Kind of keep him on his toes and make him think that your best chance is up there.”

Never, always fall into a pattern.

“With him, most of the time you just try to stay out of patterns — that’s the biggest thing,” another NL pitcher said. “You have to move the ball up, down, in and out to just keep it off certain pitches.”

Even if the order is perfect, there are no guarantees. Just ask this NL pitcher who went out of his way to change Ohtani’s eye level during a long at-bat. After burying pitches below the zone and outside the plate on the way to filling out, the pitcher attempted to throw a high pitch – something like this: Really high – fastball past Ohtani.

Ohtani hit one of his 54 home runs.

“We got to 3-2, fastball on top – way over top – and he got me,” the pitcher said. “It was a pitch that not a lot of guys can relate to, especially after we just pushed him down and away – and pushed his eyes all the way down, all the way away, as far as I could. I tried to get to the top and he managed to get the barrel there.”

Ohtani can hit on any type of pitch – just look at Baseball Savant’s run value metric. Ohtani had a run value of +24 against four-seam fastballs this season. That’s the second-highest of any hitter against any pitch type (Aaron Judge, +34 vs. four-seamer), but now look at Ohtani’s other run stats: +17 vs. slider, +10 vs. sinker, +8 vs. Changeup, +7 vs. curveball and +7 vs. splitter.

That’s a run value of 7+ against it six different pitches – most in the majors. No other NL hitter has a run score of 7+ against three Pitch types. Only a trio of elite AL hitters have a 7+ run score against five different pitches: Judge, Bobby Witt Jr. and Juan Soto.

“Fastballs down and away, breaking balls off, two-seam fastballs in, changeup down,” said one NL pitcher. “The outer half is pretty open, but don’t miss it. You will get hurt. Only [the] outer half.”

“If you look at his heatmaps, you can see there aren’t many holes in his swing. He obviously covers the entire zone and basically hit the entire zone,” another NL pitcher said. “From my scouting, the best strategy available is to get under the zone with spin. He’s obviously very good at hitting pitches – errors of any kind.”

Since Ohtani doesn’t have many real weaknesses, some pitchers simply choose to play strength against strength.

“I would say you just have to challenge him and do his best,” another NL pitcher said. “Your only hope is that you can’t shy away from these guys. Go at them with your best stuff and hope for the best.”

This last answer also came up often. You make your pitch and then…

“You just pray for the best,” said one NL catcher. “That’s pretty much the only hope you have.”

An AL pitcher added, “When he puts a ball in play, you hope it stays in the yard. “It’s a guessing game, and hopefully you guessed right.”

Ultimately, there are only so many ways to stop Ohtani. There’s a reason his every attack has turned into appointment viewing. And as much as you never want to see him in the box as a pitcher, there’s still an admiration for what Ohtani does – even from some of the guys he does it against.

“When I’m in competition mode, no matter who’s in the box, no matter what team we’re playing, I hate you,” one NL pitcher said. “I want to dominate you. We will win this game. I don’t care what you do. After the game, review everything you did. You are watching a video.

“And then you think, ‘That was a great pitch I made, and he swung it even better.’ There’s nothing you can do about it.’ You have to put the crown on the best player in the league.”