Angels News: Expert Believes NL Pitchers Have Surpassed Shohei Ohtani

Our superstar is not number 1 in his eyes.

In any professional sport, versatility is always viewed as a plus in most regards. While it is always great to be a well-rounded player, most teams prefer for their guys to master one position and be able to produce at a comfortable level in others. 

And then you have Shohei Ohtani who just completely shatters that normality among baseball players. There are not too many pitchers who are able to consistently get hits at the plate let alone connect on 32 home runs and post a slash line of .273/.356/.519. The 28-year-old superstar was able to do just that and also put his name among the best pitchers in the MLB last season.

In 2022, he started in 28 games on the mound and struck out 219 batters en route to a 2.33 ERA. His reputation speaks for itself but some experts still are not 100% sold. Bleacher Report's latest starting pitcher rankings certainly showed Ohtani love but placed Miami's Sandy Alcantara and Milwaukee's Corbin Burnes over him.

Zachary D. Rymer went on to explain their thought process for both of them.

An Australian Pitcher breaking down what it was like to face Shohei Ohtani.

Well worth the watch pic.twitter.com/dfRW8tyYFI

— Barstool Baseball (@StoolBaseball) March 23, 2023

"Who says modern pitchers don't go deep into games anymore? Certainly not Sandy Alcantara, that's for sure. He's the

only pitcher

to face at least 800 batters in each of the last three full seasons. And despite the fact he didn't get credit for one when he went nine innings in a contest that was decided in extra innings on July 8, the six complete games he pitched last season were still

more than

any other

team

."

"We're basing this assertion largely on Burnes' results since that fateful day in August 2020, as his 69 starts since then have yielded a 2.60 ERA and a league-high

14.2 fWAR

. That he leads the NL with

541 strikeouts

in this span is also a nice touch. Besides, bonus points are in order for how Burnes' cutter is the single best out pitch in baseball. This truth of this is debatable, but not the fact of it. Across the last two seasons, no single pitch has been responsible

for more outs

than his cutter.

(Via Bleacher Report)

Rymer's opinion certainly is respectable considering that he still placed Ohtani at number three but one outlying issue I have here is that in all of the other Bleacher Report rankings this week, they take into consideration the players' performance at bat.

If they had done so here, Ohtani would clearly be above them. Nonetheless, he can use this as yet another form of motivation heading into the 2023 season.