[Passan] Shohei Ohtani will not pitch in the World Baseball Classic, according to Dodgers manager Dave Roberts. Ohtani still will DH for Samurai Japan, the defending champions and winner of the event three out of the five times it’s been held.

27 comments

  5. Honestly, as much as we all want to see “Pitching Shohei” go God-mode again like he did against Trout in ’23, him staying off the mound for this WBC is probably the smartest move he’s ever made.

    The dude has already had two major elbow surgeries; we’re basically playing with house money at this point. If he tries to dial it up to 100mph in March, when most pitchers are barely tossing 50-pitch simulated games in spring training, he’s just asking for another stint on the IL. 

    Plus, the Dodgers didn’t give him $700 million to blow out his arm in an exhibition tournament, no matter how much pride is on the line. Japan’s pitching factory is absolutely loaded anyway (Sasaki and Yamamoto, anyone?), so they’ll be fine. 
    I’d much rather have 162 games of Shohei hitting nukes and a healthy arm for the MLB postseason than one “epic” highlight in the WBC that costs him another year of his career.

  10. If he were only a pitcher the team would’ve been allowed to refuse him because if the time he would’ve missed from injury.

    It seems fair that he’s only allowed to DH taking that into account

  11. Smart move. I was wondering if he was really gonna try and throw 100 mph for 8 months straight.

    Maybe instead of the All-star game Baseball sneaks in an extra week of WBC in the middle of the season?

  14. According to Boob, an hour ago, Ohtani just said to reporters at DodgerFest that he has yet to make a decision about pitching at the WBC. Weird to see it change so fast.

  15. Really bums me out. I’ve always thought of Ohtani as a Japanese national team player that happens to play for the Dodgers and I thought that added to his aura. Not that he needs it

  19. Is there a reason why the WBC cant be held after the postseason so that the wbc’s prestige increases? I still think many people isnt as serious about the WBC and thinking its a mere exhibition game.

  21. Imagine if NHL players wanted to limit their minutes in the upcoming Olympics. This is bush league stuff all around.

  24. That’s so lame. I honestly don’t think players injury chances are a valid enough reason to hold a player back from the WBC. I don’t see how they are any more likely to get injured at the WBC than they are at spring training. Might as well not have spring training if teams are so scared their players will get injured playing in baseball games that don’t count.

  25. So Imai, Roki and Shohei will be missing from our roster. The good news is that they aren’t pitching not because they’re injured. Roki is too injury-prone and there is a provision that allows the dodgers to refuse Roki to participate in WBC. For Imai, this will be his first MLB season and his annual salary has just gone up fifteenfold. I don’t blame him for wanting to focus on preparing for the upcoming season. Shohei is still hitting DH. That’s gonna help us a lot.

Leave a Reply