In 2024, Los Angeles Dodgers superstar Shohei Ohtani put together one of the very best seasons at the plate in MLB history. He also put together one of the very best seasons on the basepath in MLB history. The numbers most frequently invoked for this unique duality are his raw totals for homers and stolen bases -- 54 and 59, respectively -- but that's only just the very tip of the iceberg.
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00:00It's September 19th, 2024.
00:03The Los Angeles Dodgers are in Miami to face the Marlins with 10 games to go in the regular
00:07season and their superstar leadoff hitter Shohei Otani is in the twilight of a dual-threat
00:13season for the ages.
00:15With 48 homers and 49 stolen bases, he enters this game 20 days, 5 homers, and 6 stolen
00:22bases removed from having already established a club unto himself when, back on August 30th,
00:29he became the only player to ever reach 43 of each in a season.
00:34Everything since is just adding cushions and pushing boundaries.
00:39He gets tonight's party in South Florida started with a double off the wall, so if he
00:43has designs on swiping bag number 50, it'll have to be the much tougher third base, which
00:49he subsequently indeed deftly does.
00:52And oh by the way, that's also his 27th consecutive successful stolen base attempt as he eventually
00:59scores to put his team on top early.
01:02Next inning he drives an RBI single to right where broadcaster Joe Davis already seems incredulous
01:08by Otani's early fingerprints on the statue.
01:10He's got two hits, he's got a stolen base, he's got a run scored, he's got a run batted
01:15in.
01:16Which at this point is absolutely adorable.
01:19He has no idea what's on deck.
01:23After another stolen base, his 28th in a row without getting caught, the next inning he
01:28goes opposite field for another double that finds its way to the wall to drive in two before
01:33his gambit for third comes up just short.
01:36Fast forward to the 6th inning when Otani blasts a moonshot that, 438 feet later, ties him atop
01:44the franchise single season record for dingers.
01:48Which stays tied for all of one inning.
01:51With 13 total bases, Otani's already got two more than anyone else has ever had in a
01:57multi-steal game.
01:59And wouldn't you know it, with two outs in the 9th, a Chris Taylor single means they can
02:03still get him one more crack at the dish.
02:07Take it away, Joe.
02:08Oh my gosh, Shohei Otani, the greatest day in baseball history!
02:22This is not real life, he is not human!
02:29After delivering that final TKO and the dust has settled, Otani emerges from this smackdown
02:34with 5 extra base hits, 17 total bases, 10 runs batted in, and 2 stolen bases.
02:42Let's give some context to those numbers, shall we?
02:4591924 Otani was one of just 17 all-time instances of a player driving in at least 10 runs in a game,
02:52and one of 7 all-time instances of a player racking up at least 17 total bases in a game.
02:58While 6-6-17's Scooter Jeanette does join him on both lists, he didn't steal any bases.
03:04In fact, no one else who ever produced 10 RBI or 17 total bases in a game supplemented
03:10him with a stolen base.
03:1291924 Otani stole not one, but two bases.
03:17Conversely, no one else who's ever stolen multiple bases in a game has driven in more
03:22than 7 runs, or, as mentioned earlier, topped 11 total bases.
03:28Those are massive gaps to the runner-up, and as for the 5 extra base hits, that's 2 more
03:33than anyone else had ever had in a multi-steal game across the previous 90 years.
03:38Which makes sense when you think about it logistically.
03:42Extra base hits and stolen bases do not go hand-in-hand when you first consider that generally
03:47about 35-40% of extra base hits carry zero chance of a subsequent steal because the batter
03:53gets to leisurely make the 360-foot trek around the base path.
03:58Then as to the remainder, consider most steals are of 2nd base, which by definition is impossible
04:03in the wake of an extra base hit, unlocking only 3rd and home as theoretical possibilities.
04:09So swiping a single bag in a game with 5 extra base hits means either stealing 3rd or home,
04:15or a 6th played appearance reaching base and then stealing 2nd.
04:19Otani, despite 60% of his extra base hits resulting in said leisurely no chance of a steal trot,
04:26ultimately stole a base via both methods.
04:30There might be a few other individual player games in his ballpark, but I think 91924 Otani
04:36possesses the most ammo to support it as the greatest in MLB history.
04:41And, as previously alluded to, that masterpiece was a tailor-made microcosm for his season
04:48at large.
04:50Before assessing the entirety of Shohei Otani's uniquely versatile dominance throughout the
04:552024 campaign, let's zero in for a bit on the 8-game stretch that was kicked off with
05:00that September 19th Classic in Miami and wrapped up on September 27th.
05:05In that 8-game period, Otani amassed 24 hits, half of which went for extra bases, that amounted
05:12to 48 total bases, while also stealing 8 bags.
05:18Going back over 90 years, only 2 other players had ever recorded 24 hits across an 8-game stretch.
05:24April 97, Kenny Lofton, who had only 5 go for extra bases, and June 19, Charlie Blackman,
05:31who did display comparable pop, but did so almost entirely within the extremely cozy confines
05:38of Coors Field while stealing zero bases.
05:41And in fact, while Blackman in that time does represent one of the 6 other players who's
05:45ever had as many as 48 total bases across an 8-game stretch, all but May 58 Willie Mays
05:52joined Blackman in not stealing even a single base, let alone 8.
05:57As for his peers over the same period of time, Otani recorded 78% more total bases than the
06:03runner-up, a disparity rarely seen throughout the annals of history across a comparable length
06:09of time.
06:10Not to mention that no one else with more than a third as many total bases here having stolen
06:15more than a quarter as many bases.
06:17As for those previously referenced consecutive successful stolen base attempts, dating back
06:22to July 23rd, he finished up the regular season 36 for his last 36.
06:29Not only was he just the fourth player to pull that off within a single season, but he did
06:33it in a compressed enough time frame here that he stole 33% more bases than anyone else, let
06:39alone not having gotten caught once.
06:43Ok, now let's zoom out for that full season evaluation, starting with the overall damage
06:48he inflicted with his bat.
06:50Otani had 411 total bases in 2024, which is 35 more than any other Dodgers had in a season
06:57since their 1958 move to LA.
07:00And taking it back 75 years, it's a number that's been topped only 3 times, all in the
07:06steroid era.
07:07That should concisely convey the levels he reached as a hitter, so now let's isolate the overall
07:12damage 24 Otani inflicted with his legs on the base path.
07:17He attempted 63 stolen bases, succeeding on 59 while getting caught on 4.
07:23We've gotta shine a light on how ruthless those levels of volume and efficiency truly
07:29are.
07:30There's some years in the deadball era without caught-stealing data, but since the start of
07:34the liveball era in 1920, his ratio of nearly 15 to 1 clearly resides in his own stratosphere
07:41among the high-volume crew.
07:43And among those with his level of efficiency, no one in over a century had exceeded even
07:4850 attempts.
07:49Meanwhile, everyone else with at least 55 steals in a season was caught at least 7 times.
07:55Flipped around to look at those who'd been caught so rarely, no one in over 100 years
08:01except for 13 Jacoby Ellsbury successfully stole more than 47 bases, and he was still
08:06well shy of 24 Otani's mark.
08:09Alright, so we know he had one of the most special seasons ever with his bat, independent
08:14of also having one of the most special seasons ever with his legs.
08:18Man, what can't this guy do?
08:21It almost makes you wonder if there's somehow anything else on the baseball field Otani could
08:25possibly excel at.
08:27Anyway, with those two aspects of his game reaching the highest of highs even when each
08:32is taken a la carte, let's fuse them together and see just how gourmet the resulting meal
08:37is, starting with a snapshot of how he stacked up within the 2024 season.
08:42He had 19 more total bases than anyone else, with only a couple big leaguers surpassing 335,
08:49while his 59 steals were 18% more than anyone except Eli de la Cruz.
08:55Combine his 411 total bases with his 59 stolen bases, in essence pretending stolen bases count
09:02as total bases, and the resulting number of 470 is nothing short of mind-boggling.
09:09When 97 Larry Walker had 442, it seemed a Herculean feat, a number basically no one had even approached
09:16for decades, and that basically no one would come all that close to approaching for decades
09:21thereafter.
09:22Then in 2023, Ronald Acuna Jr. somehow comfortably topped 97 Walker, before the very next year,
09:29Shohei comfortably topped Acuna.
09:3224 Otani's output here isn't just significantly higher than anyone in over a century, but many
09:38years no big leaguer came within a hundred of his mark.
09:41And even including archaic days of yore, it's only been bested by 1921 Babe Ruth.
09:48If we also account for walks and hit-by-pitches to form a metric I've made up called Bases
09:52Conquered, 24 Otani's total of 557 hadn't been topped by anyone except 01 Barry Bonds since
09:59the 1920s.
10:01Or in other words, it's a higher total than anyone whose head didn't mysteriously triple
10:06in size from a few years earlier, since decades before Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier.
10:13We'll wrap it up with a look at his oft-sighted combination of homers and steals.
10:18We know all about how he stacks up with his thievery on the base paths, but also having
10:22finished up with 54 dingers, that was good for 23% more than anyone else in MLB except
10:28Aaron Judge.
10:3059 and 54 when even 43 and 43 has otherwise remained untouched.
10:37Which, speaking of such combos historically, there's stolen base data going back to 1886,
10:44so using that year as our starting point, here's said combo of every big leaguer in what is essentially
10:50every big league season.
10:52We're talking well over 100,000 player seasons represented here.
10:57It's pretty clear that by and large the top homerun hitters aren't demons on the base
11:01path, and that the top base stealers aren't crushing a ton of bombs.
11:06Up toward the northwest, you got the all-time single-season homerun leaders, your steroid-era
11:11staples comprised of some Bonds, Maguire, and Sosa campaigns.
11:15And down toward the southeast, you got the all-time single-season stolen base leaders, such
11:20as 1887 stalwarts like Hugh Nichol and Arlie Latham, you know, guys that get talked about
11:26at every party, as well as folks like 82 Ricky Henderson and 74 Lou Brock.
11:32But zooming out, I think this chart gives some idea of just how remarkable an outlier 24 Otani
11:38is as to the numbers he reached in both.
11:42Also as a brief aside, while constructing this bad boy, I noticed some peculiar omissions and
11:47gaps among seemingly ordinary potential combos.
11:51For example, there have been over 165 instances of a big leaguer hitting exactly 30 homers in
11:57a season, yet not one of them combine that with a stolen base total anywhere between 26 and 29.
12:04There have also been over 380 instances of a big leaguer hitting exactly 22 homers in a season,
12:10with not one of them occurring in conjunction with a stolen base total anywhere between 36 and 41.
12:17No one with exactly 39 homers finished with between 19 and 23 steals, and among those who
12:23mashed exactly 35 dingers, 98 Sean Green stole 35 bags, while the next year Pudge Rodriguez stole 25.
12:31We're still waiting for someone to occupy this massive gulf in between them, and, while not being visually
12:37obvious here, these are some other combos that caught me by surprise for having no precedent
12:42on record through 2024.
12:45But I digress.
12:47While Shohei Otani in 2024 made an indelible mark in baseball lore by dominating at historic
12:53levels multiple elements of the game, excellence that goes far beyond just raw homer and stolen
12:59base totals, this makes it real easy to see how his journey to 59 and 54 captured the public's
13:05fascination every step of the way.
13:09There's one reasonable analog, as 23 Acuna stole 14 more bases while hitting 13 fewer homers,
13:15but considering that no one else with a 50 homer season stole even 25 bases, Otani clobbering
13:2154 blasts while swiping nearly two and a half times as many bags as did anyone else who'd hit
13:27even 50 is a unique level of distinction, fitting for the ultimate one-of-a-kind player.
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