One major difference between Shohei Ohtani’s move to Major League Baseball and the moves made by previous Japanese stars was not only his youth, but also the timing of his challenge.

Before Ohtani, Japanese players typically moved to MLB only after completely dominating Japanese baseball.

Ichiro and Hideki Matsui were universally recognized as the best hitters in Japan.
Pitchers like Daisuke Matsuzaka, Yu Darvish, and Masahiro Tanaka also left for the majors only after establishing overwhelming success in Nippon Professional Baseball.

In many ways, they had already “conquered Japan.”

Ohtani, too, achieved remarkable success as a two-way player and helped lead the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters to a championship.
Still, according to conventional baseball wisdom, he was expected to stay in Japan a few more years—long enough to completely dominate the league before moving overseas.

But Ohtani chose a different path.

“I think reaching the very top before going is admirable—and cool,” he said.
“But I want to go now.”

At the same time, he also believed this:

“I want to go to America while I still have room to grow—and reach my peak there.”

Of course, there were still many things he could have accomplished in Japan.
But Ohtani never saw growth as something limited to one environment.

For someone who believed he was “nothing but potential,” America represented the place where he could unlock even greater development and reach even higher levels.

And in the end, that belief proved correct.

Source

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

Shohei Ohtani: Baseball Youth I – Japan Edition 2013–2018, p.300