The Big Sho: Nearly Two-Thirds of Baseball Fans Say Ohtani is Already a Hall of Famer

Sports fans know greatness when they see it.

It's no surprise that the most revered athletes of this (or any) generation are predominantly the ones who perform at the highest level. And there is no greater body of evidence than the global adoration heaped upon baseball unicorn Shohei Ohtani.

The Los Angeles Dodgers designated hitter has rearranged the MLB history books to an extent that only a handful of players have matched. He finished a truly mind-boggling 2024 regular season as the only member of the 50-homers, 50-steals club, a fraternity so exclusive that no other player in history has even come close. And he did so with emphasis, finishing with 54 home runs and 59 stolen bases.

I didn't mention that Ohtani has done this while also batting .310 for the season, leading the National League in homers, runs batted in, slugging percentage and OPS (on-base percentage + slugging) and pacing the entire league in runs scored and total bases. He's a big reason why you'll see the Dodgers as favorites across the majority of our MLB picks throughout the postseason.

I also didn't mention that Ohtani is also a pitcher (though he hasn't thrown an inning this season due to an elbow injury that required surgery at the end of last season). And he isn't just a pitcher – he's a darned good one, boasting a 3.01 career ERA and 11.4 strikeouts per nine innings over 86 career starts.

He's the most unique player the sport has ever seen – and all of that greatness packed into one charismatic frame has earned him an unprecedented amount of respect from fans, not to mention oddmakers who have made the Dodgers the World Series favorites in our latest World Series odds.

I wanted to get a sense of just how revered Ohtani is – so I surveyed more than a thousand baseball fans to get their take on Ohtani's incredible season, and his place in history.

Is Shohei Ohtani the best player in Major League Baseball?

The fact that he gets a lot more media attention than your average MLB player certainly doesn't hurt, but this is as decisive a result as you'll find in this survey.

More than three in four respondents believe that Ohtani is the best player in baseball right now, and there's a mountain of evidence to support their stance (most of which I went over in great detail in the intro). Even though he hasn't played an inning of defense or thrown a single pitch, his statistical benchmarks as a hitter are absolutely stratospheric.

Aaron Judge, Bobby Witt Jr., Jose Ramirez, Francisco Lindor and several others might have a claim to be the best player in the league (certainly backed by their respective fan bases), but our survey says it's Shohei – and it isn't close.

Where would you rank Ohtani's season among the best of all-time?

I suspect the protestations for this response will be greater than for the first question.

Based on the universal catch-all metric WAR (meaning Wins Above Replacement, a stat that essentially measures a player's overall contributions versus a replacement-level alternative), Ohtani's 2024 season isn't anywhere near the list of the top-20 campaigns of all-time. But you'll have a hard time convincing our survey respondents otherwise.

Nearly half say this Ohtani performance is one of the five greatest single-season showings in MLB history. And it's kind of easy to see why, isn't it? The proliferation of highlight packages and social media reactions has elevated today's players and performances higher than ever before. Ohtani is everywhere – and he's dominating pretty much the entire time.

It might not be a top-5 all-time performance (and in fact, popular baseball site FanGraphs has Ohtani tied for the second-highest offensive WAR this season), but it sure feels like it is.

Another 33 percent rated Ohtani's season as a top-10 performance, while 15 percent have it ranked inside the top-20.

If Ohtani didn't play another MLB game, is he a Hall of Famer?

First, some clarity: Ohtani isn't technically eligible for the Baseball Hall of Fame based on the current rules, which require players to have a minimum of 10 years of Major League Baseball experience. Ohtani's time in Japan doesn't count toward this service time.

Let's set that aside, though, in the spirit of reality suspension, and enjoy the results of our hypothetical. Even if Ohtani didn't play another MLB game, nearly two-thirds of respondents believe he should still be elected into the Hall.

Surely this is probably just the recency bias talking. But it's worth noting that Ohtani is a heavy favorite in our MLB MVP odds to become just the 12th player in major-league history to have won three Most Valuable Player awards – and that club is full of current and future Hall of Fame players.

It should also help his cause when the time comes that, at his peak, he was not only one of the most complete offensive players of his generation, but also a top-10 starting pitcher with a 100 mph fastball and wipeout secondary pitches.

It's a good bet that Ohtani will get to the Hall eventually. And the majority of fans say he has already done enough to deserve a call.

How much extra would you pay for a ticket to see Ohtani in person?*

Gauging fans' overall enthusiasm for a popular player is one thing. Asking those same fans if they would pay more to see that player in action is an entirely different question.

With cost of living increases outpacing earning power by an alarming margin, most people don't have the extra cash to spend on entertainment – even if we're talking about a player ChatGPT describes as "not just a baseball player, but a living, breathing baseball deity sent from another dimension to remind humanity of its own inadequacies."

(Maybe my prompt had something to do with the level of praise.)

Nearly three in four baseball fans would either agree to a tiny price bump, or wouldn't pay a single penny more than the cost of a regular ticket. And of the 10.7% of respondents willing to pony up 20% or more, I wonder how many of them have the potential cash-in of an Ohtani home run ball on their minds.

It's worth noting, as well, that a whopping 21.6% of Dodgers fans say they would pay an additional 20% or more to watch their guy take the field, compared with just 9.9% of non-Dodgers fans. And it's a good thing those LA supporters are happy to open their wallets – after all, they're paying a good chunk of Ohtani's $700 million price tag for services rendered in Dodger blue.

Should the Dodgers limit his pitching or have him give it up altogether?

All of this offensive success Ohtani is enjoying in 2024 will be difficult to equal or surpass – especially if he returns to the mound.

Not having to worry about throwing 90+ pitches every five or six days has given his batting a boost, and avoiding the field altogether (every one of his at-bats has come as a DH) has significantly reduced his injury risk. And it begs the question: Might the Dodgers consider managing Ohtani's pitching workload in the future?

Our survey respondents sincerely hope not.

Nearly 72 percent of participants believe LA would be making a mistake by reducing Ohtani's pitching impact – and based on his career numbers as an ace, it's hard to counter that. Sure, Ohtani has already had two major arm injuries since coming to America, but he came back better than ever the first time – and is expected to do the same in 2025.

Methodology

We surveyed 1,008 people who identify as baseball fans; the survey was completed from Sept. 20-22, 2024.