Will Shohei Ohtani Go 50-50? And If So, When?

There are plenty of nice baseball storylines to maintain tabs on this month. Aaron Choose is on one more historic tear. Bobby Witt Jr. and the Royals are crashing the playoff occasion. The Brewers and Guardians are displaying the league that you just overlook the Central divisions at your personal peril. However it all pales compared to Shohei Ohtani’s pursuit of fifty residence runs and 50 stolen bases, a minimum of for me.

The 50-50 membership doesn’t have any members. Ohtani is alone within the 44-44 membership, the very best present rung he’s attained, and it doesn’t appear to be anybody else shall be becoming a member of him anytime quickly. Ohtani himself most likely gained’t repeat this; this can be a profession excessive in steals by a mile, and I don’t assume it’s a coincidence that it’s occurring in a season when he isn’t pitching. Subsequent 12 months, I feel that he’ll rein himself in additional, however proper now, we’re seeing what it appears like when a quick participant decides that they actually do wish to steal all of the bases they will. After all, it helps that he’s additionally one of the highly effective hitters within the recreation – each to intention for the 50-50 goal and since opposing pitchers stroll him very often.

Will he make it? I’m undecided, however fortunately I’ve a way that lets me estimate the chances. When Choose hit 62 homers two years in the past, I constructed a little software to estimate the probability of him hitting that milestone, in addition to the possibilities of it occurring in any specific recreation. That technique works fairly effectively typically, so I redid it with just a few modifications to deal with the truth that we’re two counting statistics as an alternative of only one. I’ll begin by reviewing the methodology, although when you’re not into that, there are some tables down under that will provide you with an concept of when and the place Ohtani may hit (or run into) this momentous milestone.

I began with our Depth Charts projection for Ohtani’s residence run fee the remainder of the best way. That’s primarily based on impartial opposition, so I additionally took opposing pitching staffs into consideration, in addition to park components for lefty residence run fee. Lefties hit extra homers in Dodger Stadium (12 remaining video games) than in Truist Park (three remaining video games), and batters hit extra homers in opposition to the Rockies (six remaining video games) than the Padres (three remaining video games). I used park issue and opposition energy to change Ohtani’s baseline residence run fee and create a singular residence run fee for every remaining recreation. I then picked a random variety of plate appearances (4, 5, or six, with 5 probably the most frequent) for every recreation.

The Dodgers will seemingly give Ohtani a minimum of sooner or later off the remainder of the season, so I constructed that into my calculations. I don’t know which day will probably be particularly, so I had my simulation decide a random day in Los Angeles’ upcoming 10-games-in-10-days stretch. I additionally made a slight adjustment to raised mirror actuality: As a substitute of getting a static residence run fee, Ohtani’s true residence run expertise fluctuates randomly round his projected fee, which implies that generally he hits residence runs 8% of the time on this simulation, whereas generally it’s nearer to five%.

Projecting the possibilities of him hitting 50 homers is fairly simple that means. The distribution of attainable video games he’ll do it in appears like this:

That’s not the query we’re asking, although. Fifty homers is cool however hardly unprecedented. We’re trying to find 50-50 seasons. To try this, I added a second counter for stolen bases. I didn’t use park and staff components right here, I simply took a projected steal fee for Ohtani and utilized it to the remaining video games. I did make one modification, although. Clearly Ohtani can’t steal a base if he hits a homer, so I subtracted every recreation’s homer whole from its plate look whole for the stake of modeling stolen bases. In different phrases, if he batted 5 instances and hit two homers, I’d solely simulate an opportunity of a steal within the remaining three PAs.

From there, issues are fairly simple. When sim-Ohtani hits his fiftieth homer, the simulation checks to see if he already has 50 steals. If he does, that recreation is his 50-50 day. If he doesn’t, then the simulation for stolen bases for that day runs. On the day of his fiftieth steal, the identical factor occurs in reverse – if he already has 50 homers, then that’s the day he hits 50-50. If not, the simulation retains going. On this means, we are able to get the joint odds of the 2 issues occurring as an alternative of the unbiased odds of every one.

The sum likelihood of Ohtani hitting each totals is round 56%. That makes intuitive sense to me – we’re projecting him for 50 homers and 51 steals, and I feel the remaining parks and opponents bias the house run whole upward. The joint likelihood can’t be way more than 50%, however I don’t assume it needs to be a lot much less both, on condition that he’s fairly prone to hit the steals whole. I peg these odds at round 84%. That’s increased than you’d count on from our projections, however plenty of stolen base fee comes all the way down to intent, and I’m pretty certain that Ohtani intends to steal 50 bases this 12 months, so his go fee is probably going increased than our naive projections.

The distribution of days the place Ohtani may go 50-50 appears like this:

In different phrases, when you can solely go to at least one recreation and need the very best probability of seeing a record-setting occasion, it’s best to go to the primary recreation of the ultimate sequence of the 12 months in Colorado. Should you solely wish to go to at least one sequence, it needs to be that one. Ohtani might actually hit each totals earlier, however it’s tough on condition that doing extra of 1 occasion implies much less of the opposite.

That’s to not say there’s no probability of an early milestone. There’s a roughly 7% probability that Ohtani hits each plateaus earlier than the ultimate homestand of the 12 months begins on September 20, and an extra 30% probability of him hitting it throughout these six residence video games. If I have been trying to find a selected time to go see him, I’d decide that one: at residence, in opposition to first a nasty pitching employees after which a division rival.

One factor value noting is that these odds can change quick. If Ohtani hits a homer and steals a base tomorrow evening, the chances shoot up into the mid-70s instantly. The most definitely time to see the 50-50 recreation strikes as much as the final recreation of the house Colorado sequence, with the stretch in opposition to the Padres not far behind. If you’re coping with such uncommon occasions – nobody hits a homer each evening – a binge of a day or two can have a giant impact.

Is that this gospel? Clearly not – it’s a easy simulation meant to provide you a tough concept, not me predicting the long run with good readability. However that tough concept is fairly cool. Ohtani may do the beforehand unthinkable and publish the power-speed season that has been lengthy rumored however by no means achieved. I completely wish to know when that may be – and pinpointing it for enjoyable is true up my alley.