Shohei Ohtani’s defining trait may be his relentless drive to improve.
In just his second professional season in Japan, he recorded double-digit wins and double-digit home runs. In his third year, he won the pitching Triple Crown. In his fourth, he led his team to a Japan Series championship, became the first player in NPB history to be named Best Nine at both pitcher and designated hitter, and captured the Pacific League MVP award.
For most players, achieving even one of those milestones would justify satisfaction.
For Ohtani, they were not enough.
He viewed those accomplishments not as proof of completion, but as evidence of what remained to be done.
After five seasons in Japan, he chose to move to Major League Baseball at just 23 years old. The motivation was not fame or comfort — it was the desire to place himself in a harsher environment to continue leveling up.
“I still consider myself an unfinished player.”
Growth, many believe, stops the moment a person thinks they have arrived — when they believe they know everything, or that nothing is beyond their ability.
Ohtani refuses that mindset.
He always looks toward a distant peak. He approaches baseball with the hunger to master every possible skill.
From that vantage point, even the dominant Ohtani of his Nippon-Ham years was “unfinished.”
And perhaps even now, as a global superstar, he still sees himself the same way.
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.298