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The story
Shohei Ohtani’s August batting line — a .248 average, 7 home runs, 15 RBIs, an .830 OPS, and a .240 average with runners in scoring position — set a new season-low for the second straight month, following July, sparking discussion on 5channel’s “Nanmoi” (livegalileo) sports board. The thread split between defenders who argued that an .830 OPS and 7 homers are still solid numbers even in a slump, and critics who pointed to his monthly WAR dropping outside the top 100 and brought up past controversies over his training methods. The debate went beyond raw stats, touching on whether his production justifies his salary and whether his numbers should be discounted given they were padded by strong performances against the Rockies.
What people said
Looks like he's set a new monthly-worst batting average again, following July
Heard he's even started drinking energy drinks, which he used to hate so much
There was an August slump
What even was that all about
He just padded those against the Rockies
Shohei Ohtani — Monthly WAR: 0.6 (outside the top 100)
Poor guy just lost the unanimous MVP to PCA (Pete Crow-Armstrong)
This one's even more done for lol
Reminder that he's barely home anyway, always on road trips
He ignored the team's instructions, trained on his own, made his injury worse, and this is the result
Exact same thing as his Angels days
His fanboys blamed the Angels for it back then, but turns out it's the same wherever he goes
But according to them, "it's the manager's fault for not stopping Ohtani from ignoring the team"
Plenty of guys finish the whole season with that as their final average
There's no way it's 'plenty' of guys
Batting: .281, 30 HR, 80 RBI
And these losers on the board still find something to complain about… scary
At least mention it's only 80 innings pitched lol
His WAR is garbage though
Just looked it up roughly — apparently the MLB median batting average this season is .244
The median MLB salary is around ¥500 million (~$3.4M), so why is a guy making ¥10 billion (~$70M) putting up median numbers? 🤔
What do you mean 'just' those games lol
Take out the Rockies games and his OPS drops to the low .700s
If we lived in a world without Coors Field, your argument might have like a 0.1% chance of making sense lol
That's what happens when you try to do both and commit to neither
He can't be the top guy at just one, so the two-way thing makes sense for him
That's not really a problem lol
he's only made 14 starts
Long relief appearances lmao
His pitching WAR is like 2? Perfectly average, lol
"These numbers" (position-player WAR of 3.8, lower than Seiya Suzuki's)
lol
For real, pretending it doesn't hurt is such middle-schooler behavior
They're paying him ¥10 billion (~$70M) a year
Seems fair he'd get that kind of criticism
Then again, if he brings in ¥10 billion in sponsorships to offset the ¥10 billion salary, he's basically a free player, and a 6-WAR season for 'free' isn't bad at all
Though at this rate there's no guarantee he'll keep pulling in enough sponsors to stay 'free' for the next 6 years
He was still in his prime at the same age Ohtani is now
Though that's roughly when he moved to the Yankees and got mediocre too
Background and Key Points of the Discussion
Ohtani has repeatedly made headlines this season for monthly batting “slumps,” and this August’s line (.248 average, 7 home runs, 15 RBIs, .830 OPS) is described as a new personal season-low, following July’s mark. His contract is reportedly worth over $700 million over 10 years (most of it deferred), and this scale of deal is exactly why fans debate whether his output is ‘worth’ the money. The thread split mainly over two points: (1) how to judge the batting numbers themselves — some praised the .830 OPS and 7 home runs, while others focused on his low monthly WAR ranking; and (2) whether the slump stems from his personal life and conditioning, or from structural factors like injury and workload. Worth noting: the comment that he ‘just padded his stats against the Rockies’ isn’t pure speculation — it references the fact that the Rockies’ home ballpark, Coors Field, is well known as a hitter-friendly park. Also, since WAR and similar metrics can vary depending on calculation method, the rankings and figures cited in the comments should be read as rough approximations rather than exact numbers.
*This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5channel (Nanmoi/livegalileo) thread “[Sad News] Shohei Ohtani’s “August Slump” Stats WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW.”
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