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New York Times
02-06-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
MLB All-Quarter Century Team: How the readers voted — with several close calls
The polls have closed. The winners are plotting their agendas. The losers are drafting their concessions. With 100 percent of precincts reporting and more than 12,000 votes tallied, The Athletic is ready to call the MLB All-Quarter Century Team for the following players who have dominated the 2000s: Jose Altuve. Adrián Beltré. Barry Bonds. Trevor Hoffman. Derek Jeter. Randy Johnson. Clayton Kershaw. Pedro Martinez. Shohei Ohtani. Buster Posey. Albert Pujols. Mariano Rivera. Max Scherzer. Ichiro Suzuki. Mike Trout. Justin Verlander. Advertisement That's 14 Cy Young awards, 18 MVP awards and 20 World Series championships since the end of the 1990s. That's 1,064 victories, 1,253 saves, 2,822 home runs, 19,761 hits and countless moments that will play in our memories forever. Some of those folks already have a plaque in Cooperstown. The rest will be there soon. And Bonds — well, he's got a place here, anyway. Pretty much the same thing, don't you think? Enough preamble. Let's get to it! Here's a look at the voting results, position by position, for our readers' team of the quarter century. Miguel Cabrera wasn't just any hitter. He's one of only three players in history with 500 homers, 3,000 hits and a .300 career average. The others? Hank Aaron and Willie Mays — and neither of those guys won a Triple Crown, as Cabrera did in 2012. For Albert Pujols to win so decisively, then, is a powerful commentary on his resume. He's second to Aaron on the career list for RBIs and total bases. He's the only player in history with 700 homers, 3,000 hits and multiple championships. And he was a titan of October, with a .995 OPS, an MVP award (2004 NLCS) and a three-homer game in the 2011 World Series. Of course, Pujols was at his best with the Cardinals, posting only 12.6 WAR (Baseball Reference) in the 10 years after leaving in December 2011. But while Cabrera's late-career fade wasn't quite as long, it was much worse: .262/.329/.381 in his final seven seasons, for minus-2.5 WAR. And Pujols left on a high, with a triumphant encore in 2022 that secured his spot in the pantheon of greats. Down-ballot surprise: Joey Votto got more votes than Paul Goldschmidt and Todd Helton — combined! Helton's in Cooperstown. Goldschmidt has more homers, RBIs, stolen bases and WAR than Votto, and is currently staging a revival with a humble little outfit known as the New York Yankees. But the people love Votto, an on-base force with a wit to match who seems certain to join Helton — and probably Goldschmidt, too — in the Hall of Fame. No broadcasting family has seen more second-base stardom in the 2000s than Harry and Todd Kalas. Harry — the late, great voice of the Phillies — narrated Chase Utley's rise in Philadelphia. His son, Todd, has called most of Jose Altuve's career as TV play-by-play man for the Houston Astros. The readers chose Altuve, a three-time batting champion with a .305 career average and nearly 2,300 hits — some 400 more than Utley, who batted .275 and has the edge in WAR (64.6 to 52.7), homers and RBIs. It's a tough call, but here's Altuve's winning case: 'He's on his way to a Hall of Fame career, and 3,000 hits is certainly in his scope,' Todd Kalas said. 'He has over 100 games played in the postseason, and only Manny Ramirez has more postseason home runs. Altuve has been a big part of the golden era of Astros baseball, one of the leaders on the team, and it's hard to imagine all of those years of success without him. Even this year, he decided to play left field to help the team as much as possible. He's a selfless player who wants to win more than anything. 'All those factors lead me to believe that the fans got this one right,' Kalas continued, 'but Dad would probably still say: 'Chase Utley, you are the man!'' Down-ballot surprise: Robinson Canó over Dustin Pedroia In the second decade of this quarter century (2010 to 2019), nobody had more hits than Robinson Canó, with 1,695. But the number that seems more likely to define him is 2, as in his career suspensions for performance-enhancing drugs. Even so, Canó easily outpaced Dustin Pedroia in the voting (1,708 to 1,334), despite Pedroia's clean reputation and his advantage in MVPs, championships, Gold Gloves, on-base percentage and stolen bases. When the 1990s ended, Derek Jeter had already won three World Series championship rings. Then he started the 2000s by winning the MVP award in the All-Star Game and the World Series in the same season. Francisco Lindor, meanwhile, was 16 years old. He's made up ground quickly, and actually has more WAR in this quarter century than Jeter (51.2 to 47.9), primarily because of his superior glovework and a slightly better OPS (.817 to .806). But Jeter earned this emphatic victory by hitting .307 in the 2000s (33 points higher than Lindor), with six 200-hit seasons, nine 100-run seasons, nine .300 seasons — and two more World Series titles. Advertisement Down-ballot surprise: Lindor tripled Jimmy Rollins' vote total Jimmy Rollins somehow hasn't topped 18 percent in his four years on the Hall of Fame ballot — and readers of The Athletic seem just as dismissive. Rollins is one of only two shortstops with 850 extra-base hits and 450 stolen bases; the other is Honus Wagner. Yet Rollins finished third here, far behind Lindor, who thumped him in total votes, 2,777 to 905. First, his Minnesota Timberwolves fell just short of the NBA Finals. Now Alex Rodriguez finishes just shy of making The Athletic's All-Quarter Century Team. While many of his statistics dwarfed Adrian Beltré's in the 2000s — a .935 to .824 edge in OPS, a 548 to 455 edge in home runs, an 11 to 4 edge in All-Star nods — Rodriguez lost in a narrow vote to the Hall of Famer. His multiple dalliances with performance-enhancing drugs certainly didn't help. That said, the winner has no reason to apologize: Beltré actually had the exact same WAR total as Rodriguez in the 2000s, right down to the decimal point — 89.7. Down-ballot surprise: Scott Rolen finished 7th of 8. Third base is the least represented defensive position in the Hall of Fame, with just 19 members. But from the looks of it, that could change soon. Rolen has a spot in Cooperstown, but finished behind three active third basemen: Nolan Arenado, José Ramírez and Manny Machado. If you like Gold Gloves, longevity and the ability to communicate with pitchers the way Robert Redford whispered to horses, Yadier Molina's your guy. If you liked Silver Sluggers, concentrated greatness and World Series titles, Buster Posey's your pick. Our readers were basically split, with Posey edging Molina by only 57 votes. The championship edge was slim — three for Posey, two for Molina — but Posey earned it, with the Giants beating the Cardinals twice in the NLCS. Down-ballot surprise: Salvador Perez got twice as many votes as Jorge Posada. Here's another example of why New York bias is a myth. Perez has played his entire career in Kansas City. Posada was a career Yankee. Perez's career slash line: .266/.302/.455. Posada's career slash line: .273/.374/.474. Posada has a big edge in WAR and championships. But Perez was a World Series MVP in 2015, owns five Gold Gloves (Posada has none), recently passed Posada in career homers — and crushed him in votes here, 563 to 288. The next time you wonder why Barry Bonds has never been elected to the Hall of Fame, remember this: 75 percent, the threshold for enshrinement via the writers' ballot, is a huge number. Even here, in an election with no clause for character, integrity and sportsmanship, Bonds couldn't amass three-quarters of the vote. To recap, Bonds essentially broke the sport in the first eight years of the 2000s, winning four MVP awards while slashing .322/.517/.724. Of the 356 players with at least 4,000 plate appearances in the 2000s, Bonds' 1.241 OPS is by far the best — the runner-up, Aaron Judge, is at 1.022. Down-ballot surprise: Lance Berkman, the forgotten superstar Let's pause for a moment to hail our fifth-place finisher, Lance Berkman. In the 2000s, Berkman hit .294 with a .407 on-base percentage, .539 slugging percentage and 362 home runs. Only one player can match him in all four categories: Mike Trout. Berkman also hit .410 in two World Series and saved the Cardinals from elimination when they were down to their last strike in the wildest October game of the era. Criminally overlooked. We all know that Mike Trout has spent far too much of the 2020s on the injured list. But while he's largely been out of sight — he's back now from a knee injury — Trout was front of mind for our voters. His 9,451 votes were the most of any position player in the poll. That's appropriate. From his 2012 Rookie of the Year season through 2019, Trout averaged 9 WAR per year, with a .308/.422/.587 slash line. He won three MVP awards and was runner-up four times, the definition of dominance in his prime. Down-ballot surprise: Andruw Jones at less than 5 percent While Andruw Jones started wowing us in the 1996 World Series, most of his achievements have come in this century. He's the only player in the 2000s with 350 home runs and eight Gold Gloves (though Nolan Arenado is close to joining him), and while Trout is the obvious winner here, Jones received just 4.8 percent of the votes. In 2009, the ninth of his 10 seasons with 200 hits, Ichiro Suzuki gave this all-time great quote to Brad Lefton of The New York Times: 'Chicks who dig home runs aren't the ones who appeal to me. I think there's sexiness in infield hits because they require technique. I'd rather impress the chicks with my technique than with my brute strength. Then, every now and then, just to show I can do that, too, I might flirt a little by hitting one out.' Aaron Judge is flirting with .400 now, showing that even a generational slugger can be a skilled technician. But Suzuki's appeal is as strong as ever, and he narrowly edged the brawny Bronx Bomber. Down-ballot surprise: Only 19 votes for Giancarlo Stanton! Speaking of hulking Yankees, Giancarlo Stanton amassed just 19 votes. He's no Suzuki or Judge, obviously, and he's missed all season with elbow injuries. But Stanton is the majors' active leader in home runs, and only four players in the 2000s can match him in both homers (429) and OPS (.871) — Pujols, A-Rod, Ortiz and Cabrera. They all got a lot more than 19 votes. David Ortiz hit 531 home runs in the 2000s. He broke a fabled curse, won three championships and made it to Cooperstown on his first try. He even had a bridge named after him in Boston. Yet he's still not our readers' pick for best DH of the 2000s, thanks to that Shohei Ohtani guy. As stupendous as Big Papi was, he didn't win an MVP award. Ohtani's won three. He stole 16 bases in 17 seasons. Ohtani stole 59 last year, while also bashing 54 homers. His career OPS, a mighty .937, still falls a bit short of Ohtani's, .952. (And Ortiz didn't pitch, either.) So congrats to Ohtani, who can add this prestigious honor to the many others he's collected in a career like no other. Down-ballot surprise: No love for Edwin Encarnación. Edwin Encarnación finished last among our eight candidates, with less than 1 percent of the vote, but what a career. He hit 424 home runs with an .846 OPS. The only guys who can match those numbers in the 2000s: Pujols, Rodriguez, Ortiz, Cabrera and Stanton, as mentioned above, plus Nelson Cruz and Adam Dunn. And among those sluggers, only Pujols had fewer strikeouts than Encarnación. (Next five: Roy Halladay, 46.7; Zack Greinke, 22.3; Jacob deGrom, 20.0; CC Sabathia, 17.1; Félix Hernández, 15.2) This was a tough one, in a way, because Randy Johnson and Pedro Martinez both have Cy Young awards that start with '19' and '20'. They starred in the World Series in the 2000s and posted winning percentages over .600 in this quarter century. All-time legends, for sure. But, man oh man, what about Roy Halladay? The Hall of Famer had a lot more starts than the others and sure did make the most of them: 194-98 with a 3.36 ERA, two Cy Youngs, a perfect game, a playoff no-hitter and 65 complete games — 26 more than the next-closest pitcher (Liván Hernández). Quite a legacy, even without the nod here. Advertisement Down-ballot surprise: Tim Lincecum got 400-plus more votes than Johan Santana. Sometimes the WAR machine malfunctions. Look at Lincecum and Santana. Both won two Cy Young awards. Both led their league in strikeouts for three consecutive seasons. Santana made 284 career starts, Lincecum 270. Both were finished before their 34th birthday. Would you believe that Lincecum compiled just 19.5 career WAR, while Santana had 51.7? It's true. Santana had better control, prevented runs more effectively and worked about 350 more innings. But Lincecum — a three-time World Series champion — had a much stronger impact on our readers, with 1,243 votes to Santana's 820. (Next two: Billy Wagner, 23.1; Aroldis Chapman, 20.4) How about that? A Yankee and a Padre. You were expecting maybe Jonathan Albaladejo and Jeremy Fikac? MLB named its reliever of the year awards after Mariano Rivera and Trevor Hoffman. They're the only guys with 500 career saves — and both topped 600! They didn't do it all in this quarter century, of course, but both had an unmistakable aura and our readers picked up on it. Down-ballot surprise: Craig Kimbrel got nearly 500 more votes than Kenley Jansen. The most similar player in baseball history to Craig Kimbrel, according to Baseball Reference, is Kenly Jansen. The most similar player in baseball history to Kenley Jansen? Craig Kimbrel, naturally. They both reached the majors in 2010. Their ERAs and strikeout totals are nearly identical. They've both pitched for the Braves, Dodgers and Red Sox (among other teams). Jansen has more career saves (458 to 440), and might become the last pitcher to reach 500. Yet it's Kimbrel — currently in the minors with Atlanta — who resonated more with our readers, with 1,468 votes to Jansen's 941. (Illustration: Dan Goldfarb / The Athletic; Photos: Elsa, Nick Laham, Ezra Shaw / Getty Images)
Forbes
23-05-2025
- Sport
- Forbes
Aaron Judge Living Up To Preferred ‘Hitter' Label With .396 Average
New York Yankees' Aaron Judge during the first inning of a baseball game against the New York Mets ... More Sunday, May 18, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II) Aaron Judge started being labeled while playing collegiately at Fresno State. He didn't like it. Scouts looked at the 6-foot-7 Judge and immediately tabbed him as a 'slugger.' While Judge could hit the ball over fence with regularity, he wanted to be described by another word. Hitter. 'I grew up as a fan of the San Francisco Giants and I loved Barry Bonds and Jeff Kent and I also watched Miguel Cabrera and Albert Pujols,' said Judge, who grew up in Linden, Calif., near Sacramento. 'You look at Pujols, he hit for power, but he also went gap to gap and was hitting .330 every single year and driving guys in. 'I just didn't want to be, especially when I started coming up through the minor leagues, where everyone might say, 'Oh, he's just a power hitter.' I just wanted to really be known as a team player and someone who could help their team win in as many ways possible.' Judge has been one of the top home run hitters of his generation. He has gone deep 331 times since making his major-league debut late in the 2016 season and has had seasons of 62, 58 and 52 homers. Yet Judge is proving more than ever this season that he is every bit a hitter as a slugger. Those scouting report preceding Judge being a first-round draft pick by the Yankees in 2013 are obsolete. Despite going 0 for 3 in a 1-0 victory over The Texas Rangers on Thursday at Yankee Stadium, Judge is hitting .396/.486/.743 with 16 home runs in 49 games. He leads MLB in each of the triple-slash categories as well as hits (74) and RBIs (44). It is little wonder that Judge is being compared to Bonds. No MLB player has batted at least .400 in a season since Ted Williams hit .406 for the Boston Red Sox in 1941. However, Judge is flirting with it. Judge is making a strong case to win the third American League MVP award of his 10-year career. He has helped the Yankees to a 30-19 start and a five-game lead over the Toronto Blue Jays in the AL East. Judge has also thrived despite losing protection in the batting order when outfielder Juan Soto signed as a free agent with the New York Mets in the offseason for a record $765 million over 15 years. 'I always say I'm running out of superlatives to describe him,' Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. 'But I really am because he's playing a different game than everyone else. It's hard to describe.' What stands out as much about Judge as his hitting ability is how he handles playing in the spotlight of New York, the largest media market in the country. Judge has never been involved in any scandals or controversy, his reputation as clean as that of his predecessor as team captain, Derek Jeter. 'There are many reasons,' Judge said when asked what keeps his grounded. 'Coaches. Family. Teammates. I just kind of watched the guys in front of me when I'd go to big league camp during spring training when I was younger. NEW YORK, NEW YORK - MAY 20: Aaron Judge #99 of the New York Yankees reacts after hitting a two-run ... More home run against the Texas Rangers during the eighth inning at Yankee Stadium on May 20, 2025 in New York City. (Photo by) 'I was around a lot of great players and guys who played in this market for a long time and were success. So, it was really watching them and wanting to emulate them.' Signed to a nine-year, $360-million contract that runs through the 2031 season, a case can be made that Judge is entering legend territory for a franchise that has won 27 World Series. However, Judge hasn't won a championship and struggled in his first World Series appearance last fall when the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Yankees in five games. Judge was just 4 for 18 in the World Series and 9 for 49 overall in the postseason. That poor performance stayed with Judge throughout the winter. 'It left a very bad taste in my mouth, and I wanted to be sure that I was prepared right from the start of the season,' Judge said. 'Last October was definitely a motivator for me.' Boone, though, thinks the biggest separator for Judge is his passion for baseball. 'He loves, just loves the game,' Boone said of Aaron Judge. 'There are people who can get by on talent — and he certainly could get by on talent — but I think to be truly great you've got to fall in love with the game. He really loves the game, and it shows every single day.'
Yahoo
20-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Zacks Investment Ideas feature highlights: Moody's, Broadcom, Microsoft and CoreWeave
Chicago, IL – May 20, 2025– Today, Zacks Investment Ideas feature highlights Moody's MCO, Broadcom AVGO, Microsoft MSFT and CoreWeave CRWV. In poker, a "tell" is a player's subtle character or demeanor change that can unknowingly tip off an opponent and provide crucial information about how strong a hand they may have. The best and most powerful market tell on Wall Street is price action versus news. When the market gets hit with bad news, how fast it rebounds can be a tell for savvy investors. Friday, after the market closed, the Nasdaq and other major US indices fell more than 1% after Moody's credit rating agency downgraded US debt based on the rising US budget deficit. Though stocks suffered a knee-jerk reaction Friday evening, cooler heads prevailed Monday, and stocks shook off the bad news. Such action is a hallmark of a bull market. Savvy investors should ask themselves, "If bad news can't bring down stocks, what is likely to occur when there is no news?" BeSpoke Investment Group (@bespokeinvest) posted a fascinating chart recently that compared the releases of Netscape versus ChatGPT. The precedent, which tracks the tech-heavy Nasdaq, is very similar and provides a strong precedent. After all, the release of the Netscape web browser jump-started the internet boom in the late 1990s, while the ChatGPT chatbot release brought large language models (LLMs) to the masses and started the AI revolution. The overlayed chart shows the current Nasdaq tracking the late 1990s precedent very closely, rising 74.18% through 617 days, while the 90s example tracked 93.42% through the same time. Beyond the price action in the Nasdaq, the performance in individual AI names like Broadcom, Microsoft and CoreWeave shows that the party may just be getting started. If there's anything baseball's steroid era taught, it's that power and distance are correlated. Muscular hitters like Barry Bonds and Sammy Sosa smashed records and often hit baseballs out of the stadium. The same metaphor holds for stocks. The S&P 500 Index screamed higher by more than 19% in just 27 days following a warming of trade tensions between the US and China. Considering that S&P 500 returns are historically ~10%, most amateur investors may assume that the market is done moving higher for the year. However, historical data from Ryan Detrick (@ryandetrick) of Carson Investment Research shows us that the exact opposite is true. In fact, since 1950, the S&P 500 Index has been higher one year later 100% of the time when it gains more than 19% in 27 trading days. On Wall Street, just like in poker, observing the subtle tells can be incredibly insightful. The market's resilient reaction to the Moody's downgrade, coupled with the historical precedent of the late 1990s, signals a bullish market ahead. Why Haven't You Looked at Zacks' Top Stocks? Since 2000, our top stock-picking strategies have blown away the S&P's +7.7% average gain per year. Amazingly, they soared with average gains of +48.4%, +50.2% and +56.7% per year. Today you can access their live picks without cost or obligation. See Stocks Free >> Media Contact Zacks Investment Research 800-767-3771 ext. 9339 support@ Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Inherent in any investment is the potential for loss. This material is being provided for informational purposes only and nothing herein constitutes investment, legal, accounting or tax advice, or a recommendation to buy, sell or hold a security. No recommendation or advice is being given as to whether any investment is suitable for a particular investor. It should not be assumed that any investments in securities, companies, sectors or markets identified and described were or will be profitable. All information is current as of the date of herein and is subject to change without notice. Any views or opinions expressed may not reflect those of the firm as a whole. Zacks Investment Research does not engage in investment banking, market making or asset management activities of any securities. These returns are from hypothetical portfolios consisting of stocks with Zacks Rank = 1 that were rebalanced monthly with zero transaction costs. These are not the returns of actual portfolios of stocks. The S&P 500 is an unmanaged index. Visit information about the performance numbers displayed in this press release. Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report Microsoft Corporation (MSFT) : Free Stock Analysis Report Moody's Corporation (MCO) : Free Stock Analysis Report Broadcom Inc. (AVGO) : Free Stock Analysis Report CoreWeave Inc. (CRWV) : Free Stock Analysis Report This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research ( Zacks Investment Research
Yahoo
20-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
US Stocks Brush Off Moody's, Echo Past Tech Booms
In poker, a 'tell' is a player's subtle character or demeanor change that can unknowingly tip off an opponent and provide crucial information about how strong a hand they may have. The best and most powerful market tell on Wall Street is price action versus news. When the market gets hit with bad news, how fast it rebounds can be a tell for savvy investors. Friday, after the market closed, the Nasdaq and other major US indices fell more than 1% after Moody's (MCO) credit rating agency downgraded US debt based on the rising US budget deficit. Though stocks suffered a knee-jerk reaction Friday evening, cooler heads prevailed Monday, and stocks shook off the bad news. Such action is a hallmark of a bull market. Savvy investors should ask themselves, 'If bad news can't bring down stocks, what is likely to occur when there is no news?' BeSpoke Investment Group (@bespokeinvest) posted a fascinating chart recently that compared the releases of Netscape versus ChatGPT. The precedent, which tracks the tech-heavy Nasdaq, is very similar and provides a strong precedent. After all, the release of the Netscape web browser jump-started the internet boom in the late 1990s, while the ChatGPT chatbot release brought large language models (LLMs) to the masses and started the AI revolution. Image Source: BeSpoke Investment Group The overlayed chart shows the current Nasdaq tracking the late 1990s precedent very closely, rising 74.18% through 617 days, while the 90s example tracked 93.42% through the same time. Beyond the price action in the Nasdaq, the performance in individual AI names like Broadcom (AVGO), Microsoft (MSFT), and CoreWeave (CRWV) shows that the party may just be getting started. If there's anything baseball's steroid era taught, it's that power and distance are correlated. Muscular hitters like Barry Bonds and Sammy Sosa smashed records and often hit baseballs out of the stadium. The same metaphor holds for stocks. The S&P 500 Index screamed higher by more than 19% in just 27 days following a warming of trade tensions between the US and China. Considering that S&P 500 returns are historically ~10%, most amateur investors may assume that the market is done moving higher for the year. However, historical data from Ryan Detrick (@ryandetrick) of Carson Investment Research shows us that the exact opposite is true. In fact, since 1950 S&P 500 Index has been higher one year later 100% of the time when it gains more than 19% in 27 trading days. Image Source: Carson Investment Research Bottom Line On Wall Street, just like in poker, observing the subtle tells can be incredibly insightful. The market's resilient reaction to the Moody's downgrade, coupled with the historical precedent of the late 1990s, signals a bullish market ahead. Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report Microsoft Corporation (MSFT) : Free Stock Analysis Report Moody's Corporation (MCO) : Free Stock Analysis Report Broadcom Inc. (AVGO) : Free Stock Analysis Report CoreWeave Inc. (CRWV) : Free Stock Analysis Report This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research ( Zacks Investment Research Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
16-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Shohei Ohtani's Latest Massive Home Run Goes Viral
At some point soon, Los Angeles Dodgers superstar Shohei Ohtani will finally get the Barry Bonds treatment. For the unfamiliar, the 'Barry Bonds treatment' is simple. Teams would rather walk you than risk you smashing a ball deep into the right-field seats. Advertisement The idea may sound ridiculous, at least until you see Ohtani's latest mammoth home run. The three-time MVP crushed a 448-foot leadoff blast Wednesday night, setting the tone for a seven-run first inning. Ohtani's sixth homer of the season quickly went viral, amassing over one million views on X (formerly Twitter) as of Wednesday morning. 'If it was a day game, or as we get into the summer, that ball's out of the stadium,' manager Dave Roberts said, according to the Dodgers' official website. 'It's going to happen at some point.' According to MLB Statcast, Ohtani has hit 12 home runs of at least 445 feet dating back to Opening Day 2024. Advertisement 'I'm starting to listen to people saying this guy is the goat,' an X user wrote. 'If not, it seems he'll be there by the time he hangs it up.' Added another: 'There will never be another player like him in my lifetime 🦄' Los Angeles Dodgers designated hitter Shohei OhtaniJayne Kamin-Oncea-Imagn Images Numerous users questioned Colorado Rockies pitcher Germán Márquez's pitch choice: an 85 mph slider in Ohtani's wheelhouse. 'That ball knew what it did,' quipped one X poster. It's been business as usual for Ohtani, who enters play Thursday with an NL-high six home runs. The two-way phenom is expected to return to the mound in the coming weeks and make his first start since August 2023, when he still played for the Angels. Advertisement 'Whether you're are 8 years old or 80 years old, you are seeing a one of a kind baseball player who will be talked about not just decades from now, but 100 years from now!' an X user commented. Related: Dodgers' $150 Million Star Shares Surprising Admission on 2026 Plans
