Miller: Should Ohtani stay a two-way player? Red Sox faced same question with Babe Ruth
From Sam Miller at ESPN.com on April 3, 2018:
Now we’ve seen it for real: Shohei Ohtani got a hit in his first major league at-bat, and then he got a win in his major league pitching debut. He sat at 98 mph as a pitcher, after rapping grounders 95, 102 and 104 mph as a batter. The extraordinary experiment he and the Los Angeles Angels are embarking on this year — to make him the game’s first two-way superstar in a century — looks credible.
Which isn’t to say that it looks simple. Every decision the Angels make in how they use Ohtani will be difficult, just as it was difficult for the Boston Red Sox to decide how to use Babe Ruth 100 years ago — almost exactly 100 years ago, in fact. In April 1918, Babe Ruth was a full-time pitcher pleading to be allowed to play the field. His manager, Ed Barrow, was resistant, in part fearful that he’d be a laughingstock. The decision, which came to a head in early May of that season, looks obvious in retrospect. But what exactly was Barrow choosing between at the time? We invented an analytics department for the 1918 Red Sox to find out.
Read the full article here: http://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/22933770/should-shohei-ohtani-stay-two-way-player-exactly-100-years-ago-red-sox-faced-same-question-babe-ruth
Originally published: April 3, 2018. Last Updated: April 3, 2018.