Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani, speaking at a press conference on the 3rd with Game 1 of the postseason set for the next day, looked back on his season and called it “one of my less good years, personally,” adding that “having the WBC [World Baseball Classic — the international tournament held every few years] in there makes the season feel really long.” He explained that the travel and conditioning burden from playing in the WBC, combined with injury limiting his playing time late in the regular season, were behind that. On the 5ch (Japan’s largest anonymous message board) Geisupo Sokuhō+ board — a forum for entertainment and sports news — his comments sparked a sprawling thread mixing doubts about the value of WBC participation, claims that Ohtani is simply declining with age, and counter-arguments defending him.
On the 3rd, Japan time, Dodgers’ Shohei Ohtani faced the press with Game 1 of the Division Series set for the following day, and took a moment to look back on his season, which had kicked off with the WBC.
With his first postseason game coming up on the 4th, Ohtani spoke about his mindset and physical condition, and was asked what kind of season it had been so far. After thinking for a moment, he looked back and said, “Having the WBC in there makes it feel really long — it felt like a long season.” He went on: “My preparation started early, and there was a lot of travel going to Japan and coming back. When you have a tournament like that, you have to focus and get yourself ready specifically for it — I think it’s totally different from just another spring training game.”
He also touched on the end of the regular season, when he struggled with the effects of injury, saying, “I want to play every game, and getting myself on the field is the bare minimum of my job — those last several days when I couldn’t get myself ready, I think that’s part of why this became one of my less good years, personally.”
Don't go saying stuff that trashes the value of the WBC.
5AnonymousOct 4, 2026 17:33
Figured with less 'Ohtani-harassment' coverage this year [slang for the nonstop media blitz around him], his stats would've been better — guess not.
24AnonymousOct 4, 2026 17:37
Re: #5
And yet here you are, in the Ohtani thread anyway…
46AnonymousOct 4, 2026 17:40
Re: #5
On the flip side, 'soccer-harassment' coverage was so bad this year it made me hate soccer.
13AnonymousOct 4, 2026 17:35
Once you start making excuses, it's over.
17AnonymousOct 4, 2026 17:36
He seemed genuinely troubled in that interview. Something about not even knowing what treatment the injury needs, so he has to look into it carefully in the offseason… worst case, surgery again. The interviewer didn't press on whether it's his arm or his knee, so we don't even know which one's actually bad.
18AnonymousOct 4, 2026 17:36
Well, he's probably about at his limit. He'll likely skip the WBC going forward too.
20AnonymousOct 4, 2026 17:36
Even on the national team he was just DH-ing and strolling around out there. Didn't do anything impressive.
21AnonymousOct 4, 2026 17:36
This is why I kept saying it, Shohei — just sit out the WBC and let the young guys have the spot (´・ω・`)
22AnonymousOct 4, 2026 17:37
Everything Ohtani says turns into that 'sushi-kana' speech pattern, lol [a running joke about how he hedges nearly every sentence with '…kana,' Japanese for 'I guess/maybe']
23AnonymousOct 4, 2026 17:37
Japan got knocked out of the WBC fast, so it can't have felt that long — that excuse doesn't hold up.
25AnonymousOct 4, 2026 17:37
He's getting up there in age — the bad years are just going to keep coming from here.
29AnonymousOct 4, 2026 17:38
It's not like soccer, where there's a whole real off-season. This is just a quick thing squeezed into camp and exhibition games. In a sport with 160+ games a year, the WBC is at most 7 of them.
30AnonymousOct 4, 2026 17:38
This guy's on the decline now. Hurry up and come back to the [Hokkaido Nippon-Ham] Fighters already.
32AnonymousOct 4, 2026 17:38
He was already slacking off back in his lazy-Ohtani days [an old joking nickname mocking him for being laid-back/sleepy] — he's just going back to that.
40AnonymousOct 4, 2026 17:39
He's 32 now, so recovery — physical and mental both — is slowing down.
42AnonymousOct 4, 2026 17:39
Once you give up the two-way thing [pitching and hitting, 'nitōryū'], well — his swing speed is dropping. The arm he throws with is his right arm, and the arm that leads his bat swing is also his right arm. The strain on that one arm is just too much. When he was young, rest alone might've fixed it, but recovery capacity drops with age. His body just can't take being a two-way player anymore.
44AnonymousOct 4, 2026 17:40
Players still treat the WBC the same way, huh. I thought it'd turn into more of a dream stage the more times it was held.
77AnonymousOct 4, 2026 17:46
Re: #44
Seems like the only real winners are NPB [Japan's pro league] players trying to catch MLB scouts' attention.
45AnonymousOct 4, 2026 17:40
Didn't expect him to start venting like this ᥬ🥺ᩤ
47AnonymousOct 4, 2026 17:40
Blaming something hasn't changed since way back. Even in his Angels days, whenever he made an out he'd pat his lower back like it was hurting.
49AnonymousOct 4, 2026 17:40
He should quit stealing bases too, while he's at it (´・ω・`)
51AnonymousOct 4, 2026 17:41
This year?
Next year on won't be good either, I think.
He's past his peak.
Just the fate of an athlete.
53AnonymousOct 4, 2026 17:41
He's suddenly washed up, but Fujinami [fellow Japanese MLB pitcher] retired too — is this just an age thing?
54AnonymousOct 4, 2026 17:41
After this, MLB probably won't keep bending over backwards for Ohtani. They'll just find the next star candidate and push them hard instead.
75AnonymousOct 4, 2026 17:46
Sounds like that 10-year contract might get torn up.
94AnonymousOct 4, 2026 17:49
Re: #75
The team doesn't have that right. It's Ohtani's side that has an opt-out if certain front-office executives leave.
85AnonymousOct 4, 2026 17:47
Fine if Ohtani skips the WBC, but the Dodgers will probably stop letting Yamamoto [fellow Dodgers pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto] play in it too, and that's a problem.
91AnonymousOct 4, 2026 17:48
Re: #85
Japan can't even win the WBC anymore anyway — maybe Japan just shouldn't enter either, lol
96AnonymousOct 4, 2026 17:50
This is raising the odds he skips the LA Olympics too.
100AnonymousOct 4, 2026 17:50
Re: #96
There's doping testing there — he probably wasn't going to enter anyway.
Background and Key Points of Debate
The WBC is typically held every March, overlapping with MLB spring training, and there have long been complaints that it squeezes participating players’ conditioning schedules. Ohtani has continued splitting duties as a two-way player (pitching and hitting), and late this season his playing time was limited by injury. Opinion in the thread split two ways: posts tying his WBC participation to his personal decline or dismissing it as an excuse, versus posts questioning the value of the national-team tournament itself — a mix of personal judgment and institutional critique that the thread doesn’t cleanly separate. Some posters also raised the point that Ohtani’s contract has an opt-out clause, but it’s worth flagging as an easy point to get wrong: that clause belongs to Ohtani’s side, not a unilateral right for the team to void the deal.
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