Shohei Ohtani believes that trust is not built in a single moment — it is built through accumulation.

In his first season in Major League Baseball, before he had fully established himself, Ohtani said:

“Nothing changes because of just one game. Everything is about accumulation. I want people to feel that when Shohei plays, those games tend to become wins. I want to do that kind of work — one at-bat, one inning at a time.”

At that stage, he had yet to build a long track record in the majors. But even then, his mindset was clear: performance and trust come from stacking small efforts consistently.

This philosophy was not new. He had emphasized the same principle during his years with the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters.

As a rookie in Japan, he treated his first professional season as “extremely important.” In his second year, he again considered it a “make-or-break season,” which led to his historic achievement of double-digit wins and double-digit home runs. In his third year, he won the league’s most wins title, but after struggling at the plate, he approached the following season once again as a decisive year — eventually helping lead his team to a Japan Series championship.

For Ohtani, every year is a pivotal year.

There is no season that matters less than the previous one.

Trust takes years to build and only moments to lose.
The global respect Ohtani commands today rests on the quiet, relentless accumulation that began long before the spotlight of MLB.

Source

This quote comes from a Japanese book published in Japan and is not currently available in English.

Opening a Path, Crossing the Ocean: The True Story of Shohei Ohtani, p.7