Shohei Ohtani loved every part of baseball growing up — pitching, hitting, and running. While he enjoyed doing both, he never truly imagined that playing both ways would be possible at the professional level.

From his first year at Hanamaki Higashi High School, MLB scouts — particularly from the Los Angeles Dodgers — evaluated him primarily as a pitcher. Ohtani himself assumed that if he went to America, it would be as a pitcher. That was the conventional path. That was the logical expectation.

That is why the proposal from the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters after selecting him first overall in the draft was so unexpected. They did not ask him to choose. Instead, they proposed something unprecedented: becoming a two-way player in professional baseball.

Ohtani later reflected:

“When I first heard about the two-way idea, it wasn’t that I doubted it, but I did wonder if I might just end up becoming a hitter.”

The concern was understandable. Once a player begins succeeding as a hitter, especially in professional baseball, the temptation to specialize is strong. The history of the sport offered no clear blueprint for sustaining excellence in both roles.

Yet manager Hideki Kuriyama was fully committed. He famously told Ohtani, “I see two first-round picks in you. An ace and a cleanup hitter.” According to Kuriyama, developing an “ace” or a “cleanup hitter” is extraordinarily difficult — they require rare, natural qualities. In Ohtani’s case, he possessed both.

What began as uncertainty gradually turned into conviction. Kuriyama’s belief, combined with Ohtani’s willingness to explore what was possible, laid the foundation for what would become modern baseball’s most revolutionary experiment.

This was the moment the conventional path split — and Ohtani chose not to narrow himself, but to expand.

Source

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

Baseball Chronicle II: MLB Years 2018–2024, p.54