At some point, the Shohei Ohtani conversation was always going to loop back around to this.

It didn’t matter how careful the Dodgers were. It didn’t matter how good he looked on the mound. It didn’t matter how many times he reminded everyone that this is not some cute side project for him. Once Ohtani started pitching again, every offensive slump was going to come with the same question attached to it.

Is all of this really worth it?

That’s not a totally ridiculous question, either. It can sound like one because Ohtani has made the impossible feel normal, which is a pretty annoying habit if you’re trying to have a grounded baseball conversation. He’s so good at both jobs that it becomes easy to skip right past the part where one human being is trying to be an elite power hitter, table-setter, baserunner, and starting pitcher for a team with World Series expectations.

That’s not normal. It’s not supposed to be normal. There’s a reason we’re still comparing him to people from a completely different version of the sport.

So when the bat cools off, the questions are going to come. When Dave Roberts gives him a day or two to reset, the questions are going to come. When the Dodgers let him pitch but keep him out of the lineup, the questions are definitely going to come. That’s the price of being a two-way player at this level. There's no such thing as a regular slump anymore. Every 4-for-38 stretch turns into a referendum on the entire experiment.

The thing is, the answer still feels pretty simple to me.

No, Shohei Ohtani should not stop pitching. Not right now. Not while he’s doing this. Not while the arm still looks like a real weapon and the bat, even when it’s not at its loudest, still gives the Dodgers star-level production. The injury side of this is real, and it’s the one part of the argument that actually gives me pause. There will probably come a time later in his career when the Dodgers have to be more honest about protecting the offensive version of Ohtani and trimming back the pitching side.

But it’s not here yet.

The Bat Makes This A Real Debate

The argument for shutting Ohtani down as a pitcher really starts in 2024.

That was the season when he didn’t pitch at all, and the offensive version of Ohtani turned into a baseball video game character. In his first season with the Dodgers, he hit .310 with a .390 on-base percentage and a .646 slugging percentage. He launched 54 home runs, stole 59 bases, drove in 130 runs, scored 134 times, posted a 1.036 OPS, and finished with a 180 wRC+. FanGraphs had him at 9.0 WAR without throwing a single pitch.

That’s where the “just let him hit” crowd has its best piece of evidence. Not a theory. Not a feeling. Evidence. Because if that’s what Ohtani looks like when he’s not pitching, it’s not hard to understand why people get nervous about adding more wear to the machine.

It’s not like the Dodgers are trying to squeeze value out of a good hitter by letting him pitch on the side. That would be one thing. Ohtani isn’t some nice bat who becomes special only because he can also throw. He’s already one of the best hitters alive. The 2024 version of Ohtani was a full-time DH who still created MVP-level value, even with the built-in limitation of not playing defense. He became the first 50-50 player in MLB history.

Even in 2025, as he was working his way back toward being a full two-way player, the offense stayed outrageous. He hit .282/.392/.622 with 55 home runs, 20 steals, 146 runs scored, 102 RBIs, and a 172 wRC+. That wasn’t the same 50-50 shape from the year before, but come on. That’s still a monster season. If anything, it showed that the floor for Ohtani as a hitter is still higher than almost everyone else’s ceiling.

So when people look at this season and see the slugging percentage sitting at .476 through his first 53 games, they’re going to notice. They should notice. A .273/.403/.476 line with a .879 OPS and a 147 wRC+ is excellent for a normal star, but Ohtani doesn’t get graded like a normal star anymore.

The Pitching Is Too Good To Treat Like A Hobby

This would be an easier debate if Ohtani looked ordinary on the mound.

If he were giving the Dodgers four uneven innings every sixth day, walking too many hitters, running up pitch counts, and forcing the bullpen to cover half the game, then yeah, maybe this conversation would have a different tone. At that point, you could argue the two-way thing was becoming more trouble than it was worth.

But that’s not what’s happening.

That’s the problem for anyone trying to make the “just let him hit” argument. Ohtani isn’t dragging the pitching side along because everyone loves the story. He’s not getting treated like a special project who gets extra patience because the whole thing is cool.

He’s dealing.

Through his first nine starts this season, Ohtani is 5-2 with a 0.82 ERA. He's allowed only seven runs, just five of them earned, over 55 innings. He's struck out 61, walked 17, given up just two home runs, and has a 0.84 WHIP.

That’s not “good enough because he’s Shohei.” That’s just good. Full stop.

And honestly, that’s underselling it a little bit. If another Dodgers starter opened the season like this, nobody would be talking about whether he should stop pitching. The only reason Ohtani gets graded differently is because the bat is so valuable that it makes people nervous. That’s understandable, but it also shows how weird this whole conversation is.

This Isn’t A Gimmick Arm

The stuff backs it up, too. His four-seamer is averaging around 98 mph, but he’s not just out there throwing hard and hoping hitters get themselves out. He’s still mixing in the sweeper, splitter, curveball, sinker, slider, and cutter. Baseball Savant shows him leaning mostly on the fastball and sweeper, but the splitter and curveball are what really keep hitters on their toes.

That matters because there’s a huge difference between a guy with velocity and a guy who can actually pitch. Ohtani obviously has the velocity. Everybody sees that part. But the reason this works is because he can actually sequence hitters, change speeds, and make different pitches play off each other. This isn’t a part-time pitcher trying to survive. This is a real starter with real stuff.

The Padres game was probably the best example of why this conversation is so complicated.

Ohtani led off the game with a home run on the first pitch. Then he gave the Dodgers five scoreless innings, allowed only three hits, walked two, struck out four, and helped them beat a division rival 4-0. It wasn’t even perfect, which almost made it a better example. He had traffic to work through. He loaded the bases in the fifth. There was emotion when he escaped it. It felt like a real start, not some novelty act everyone was politely pretending to take seriously.

That’s what the “stop pitching” argument has to fight against. Not the idea of Shohei Ohtani. The actual thing happening on the field.

When a player can hit leadoff, homer before he throws a pitch, then give you five scoreless innings against the Padres, that’s not something you shut down because you’re nervous about a May slump. That’s the kind of thing that can swing a playoff series.

And the Dodgers know that better than anyone.

Every Slump Is Going To Become A Debate

The annoying part for the Dodgers is that this conversation isn’t going away.

When Ohtani slumps while pitching, the two things are always going to get linked. Doesn’t matter if he’s still hitting the ball hard. Doesn’t matter if the underlying numbers still look great. Doesn’t matter if pitchers are just attacking him differently for a couple weeks. Once he’s back on the mound, every cold stretch becomes part of the debate.

That’s just the deal now.

Earlier this month, Roberts acknowledged that fatigue could be bleeding into the swing during one of Ohtani’s rough stretches. That doesn’t mean the Dodgers are panicking, but it does give you a peek behind the curtain at the kind of workload he's dealing with.

Pitching takes something out of you. Shocking, I know.

That’s why the critics will always have an opening here. If he goes 0-for-17, people aren’t just going to shrug and say, “Hitters slump.” Not when he’s also throwing bullpens, recovering from starts, and managing an arm with a surgical history.

The Dodgers have already shown they’re willing to create those weird in-between days for him, too. Sometimes he’ll pitch and hit. Sometimes he’ll pitch and not hit. Sometimes they’ll build in extra rest. It all makes sense, but it also feeds the conversation.

But that’s where the debate gets more interesting than the headline.

The real question isn’t, “Should Shohei stop pitching?” It’s, “How much regular-season offense are you willing to trade for the chance to have Shohei the pitcher in October?”

Because if pitching were turning him into an average hitter, this conversation would change fast. But that’s not happening. Even with the power numbers a little below his ridiculous standard from the last two years, he still has a .403 OBP and a 147 wRC+. He’s still getting on base. He’s still hitting the ball hard. His expected numbers are actually better than the results.

That’s why Joey Votto’s breakdown (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=daMRRCmP5AY) was so interesting. He didn’t just say Ohtani looked tired. He pointed to approach and contact direction. Ohtani’s pulling the ball way more this year and using center field far less than normal. That sounds more like timing and approach issues than a hitter whose body is falling apart.

The Dodgers still have to manage it carefully. There’s a body under all this. There’s recovery involved. There are limits.

But there’s a huge difference between managing Ohtani intelligently and stripping away the thing that makes him different in the first place.

This Is The Value The Dodgers Paid For

Would Ohtani still have gotten a massive deal as a hitter-only? Of course. But does it become this deal without the pitching? Probably not.

The Dodgers didn’t hand out $700 million for a DH with absurd offensive numbers. They paid for the full version of Shohei Ohtani. The hitter. The ace-level arm. The fact that one player can completely impact a game in two different ways.

That’s what makes him different from every other superstar in the sport.

So voluntarily taking away half of that before you absolutely have to would feel pretty foolish. This is what they paid for.

And honestly, the deferred structure of the contract almost pushes them toward being aggressive while this window is open. The whole point was to keep building a superteam around him and chase championships, not play scared.

Plus, while the Dodgers can buy pitching better than almost anyone, they still can’t buy another Ohtani. Nobody can. There’s no replacing a guy who can hit like an MVP and pitch like a front-line starter at the same time.

That matters even more in October.

We already saw it in the 2025 NLCS, when Ohtani hit three home runs and struck out 10 over six-plus scoreless innings in Game 4.

Baseball Needs This Too

There’s another part of this that still matters, even if it shouldn’t actually drive the Dodgers’ decision.

Ohtani pitching is just good for baseball.

Yeah, that sounds a little corny, but it’s true. Baseball spends so much time trying to manufacture excitement, then every once in a while the sport just hands everyone something obvious. Ohtani is one of those things.

People will watch a random Dodgers game in May because he’s pitching. People stop scrolling when he hits a leadoff homer and throws five scoreless innings in the same night. There are kids growing up thinking this is just something baseball players can do now.

That's huge for the game.

Sports need players who make the impossible feel normal. Steph Curry did that for basketball. Ohtani does it for baseball. And honestly, why rush to turn that off?

The Dodgers obviously shouldn’t be reckless. If his body starts telling them no, they need to listen. But right now, the best version of the Dodgers still includes Ohtani pitching.

So let him go for it.

There will be time later to scale things back if they have to. But right now, this conversation shouldn’t keep popping up every single time Ohtani has a rough week at the plate. Slumps happen. They happen to every hitter in baseball. And as long as he’s still getting on base, throwing 98, missing bats, and giving the Dodgers a chance to completely swing a playoff series by himself, taking the ball out of his hand would feel wrong.

All stats courtsey of MLB.com and Fangraphs.

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