Long Before Shohei Ohtani Became an MLB Sensation, The Angels Star Opened Up About What “Feared” Him Most in His Rookie Year

Shohei Ohtani is undoubtedly one of the best Two-Way players after Babe Ruth. Every single game he played during his Los Angeles Angels time showed his skill and passion. But this journey was full of insecurities and fear. Even the baseball legend was not sure about his place in the MLB after his 2018 Debut. He was feared to get benched.

The Angels’ star pitcher doesn’t really appear for interviews to share his opinions and stories. That’s mostly because he loves to be a low-key person, and the second is his communication problem. However, during an interview for a Japanese documentary, he shared his fear of getting benched during his rookie year. He got a UCL tear to put a big question mark on his career. But the Japanese Sho-time figured out his ways to deal with them.

Shohei Ohtani Revealed His Fear and Solutions to It

The Los Angeles Angels’ Designated Hitter was one of the most celebrated baseball stars of recent times. However, the situation was entirely different when he first joined. After his massive success and popularity in Japan, Sho-time had to repeat the same process in the US. But it was a lot more challenging journey. In the same year of his debut, he was diagnosed with a UCL tear that even created a fear of getting benched. Out of fear, the legend starts doing an interesting thing that he never did before. He used to analyze the stats and performance of Pitchers and Batters that he would face.

During his interview in his documentary, the legend revealed, “When I was in Japan, I never used data analytics. I never looked at it. I tried to ignore a lot of important information. But when I came here, I wondered what I could do to hit. I got to the point where I feared getting benched. So I started to look at the data and adjusted accordingly….”?Despite his 2018 UCL tear, the Japanese Star pitcher played for 1 month before surgery.

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The documentary shows the two data analytic books of Ohtani containing all the data of the Pitchers and Hitters he needs to face. It probably helped him and became his secret to becoming an MLB legend, despite his turbulent start. However, again, the legend stands at the same point in 2023, with another UCL tear and another pre-mature season end. Fans have been worrying about his upcoming Free Agency.

Shohei Ohtani Missing the 2023 Free Agency For His TJ Surgery?

Well, the surgery is confirmed, but there’s no update on him missing his Free Agency. Though fans fear this ULC surgery will hamper his Free Agency, there’s no official update on that. Instead, a few days back, his agent confirmed that the Two-Way phenom would continue both after his surgery. However, his $500M value may get a bit affected.

TJ surgery required more than 6 months to recover. However, there’s no other option to fix the broken UCL. So, again, the legend has to go through the same process to return to his MLB kingdom.

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