Los Angeles Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman shut down the possibility of Shohei Ohtani pitching for the club during the postseason on Thursday, telling the Orange County Register’s Bill Plunkett that Ohtani is “not really an option.”
Friedman explained to Plunkett that Ohtani continues to reach new milestones in his rehab, even throwing more than a handful of bullpen sessions. Yet Ohtani’s progress doesn’t mean that he’s in or nearing game-ready form. Rather, Friedman compared Ohtani’s status to that of a pitcher gearing up in January for a new season.
“We aren’t even thinking about that right now,” Friedman said. “Again, this is like January for him. He’s just barely a year out from Tommy John.”
Ohtani, of course, underwent elbow surgery in September 2023. Friedman’s description of it as Tommy John surgery is somewhat notable given that Ohtani had previously not confirmed as much. (Dr. Neal ElAttrache, who performed the operation, had told the Los Angeles Times that the procedure was indeed Tommy John surgery, the second of Ohtani’s career.) Teams these days tend to give their pitchers about 14 months to recover, meaning that Ohtani is indeed not yet at the tail end of his rehab based on that guideline.
The idea of Ohtani taking the mound for the Dodgers during a playoff run wasn’t borne from the ether or wishful fan speculation in response to Los Angeles’ plethora of rotation injuries. Manager Dave Roberts recently discussed the possibility and suggested that he was open minded about it.
“I think that you should always leave some margin, a crack in the door for any possibility,” Roberts said during an MLB Network Radio appearance earlier this month. “If things line up and there’s a need and the game, his body, everything is telling us that it makes sense in that situation, great. And it would be storybook. But I think to kind of count on that, bet on that, I think that’s an unfair way to go about it.”
Ohtani became the first player in recorded MLB history to record a 50-homer, 50-steal season on Thursday against the Miami Marlins.
