The Shohei Ohtani Story.
From a tiny school in Iwate to the largest contract in baseball history. This page updates automatically after every game — so the chapters keep being written before our eyes.
A small town in the north.
Shohei Ohtani was born on July 5, 1994 in Ōshū, Iwate Prefecture, in the rural Tōhoku region of northern Japan. His father Toru was a semi-pro baseball player and amateur coach; his mother Kayoko was a competitive badminton player. His older brother Ryūta also played baseball in Japan's industrial leagues. Athletic genes ran on both sides.
He picked up baseball at age 7 with the local Mizusawa Little League. Even as a child he was unusually tall, soft-handed, and ambidextrous in ways teammates would later remember as eerie.
The 99 mph teenager.
Ohtani enrolled at Hanamaki Higashi High School — the same school that had produced Yusei Kikuchi a few years earlier. Under coach Hiroshi Sasaki, he developed the now-famous "two-way" path, refusing to be slotted as just a pitcher or just a hitter.
In the summer of his senior year, Ohtani became the first Japanese high schooler ever to throw 160 km/h (99.4 mph). Scouts from MLB teams crisscrossed the Pacific to watch him. He was considering a direct jump to America — the first Japanese player to do so straight out of high school.
Drafted #1 by a team that made him a unicorn.
The Hokkaidō Nippon-Ham Fighters drafted Ohtani first overall in the 2012 NPB draft, even though he had announced his intention to go directly to MLB. The Fighters' front office, led by GM Hiroshi Yoshimura, pitched him on something no MLB team would offer: become a true two-way player at the professional level.
He signed. Over five seasons in Sapporo, he batted .286 with 48 home runs and went 42–15 with a 2.52 ERA on the mound. He won the Pacific League MVP in 2016 while leading the Fighters to the Japan Series championship.
His BBM rookie cards from this era are the holy grail of NPB collecting — and the predecessors to his MLB rookies a few years later.
Six years of "this isn't supposed to be possible."
Ohtani was posted in December 2017. Because he was under 25 he was bound by international bonus-pool rules — limiting his signing bonus to about $2.3M, a fraction of his true market value. He chose the Los Angeles Angels.
- 2018: AL Rookie of the Year — 22 home runs as a hitter, 4–2 with a 3.31 ERA as a pitcher.
- 2019-2020: Lost time to Tommy John surgery and a knee operation. Did not pitch in 2019 or most of 2020.
- 2021: Unanimous AL MVP — 46 HR, 100 RBI, 9 wins on the mound. The first player in MLB history to qualify as both a hitter and pitcher in the same season.
- 2022: 34 HR, 15 wins, 219 strikeouts. Finished 2nd in MVP voting behind Aaron Judge's 62-HR season.
- 2023: Second unanimous AL MVP. 44 HR despite missing September with a torn UCL. Hit free agency the most accomplished baseball player to ever do so.
— Mike Trout
$700 million, mostly deferred. And then the records started falling.
On December 9, 2023, Ohtani signed a 10-year, $700M contract with the Los Angeles Dodgers — the largest in professional sports history. He famously deferred $680M of it to give the Dodgers payroll room to keep building around him.
- 2024: The first 50/50 season in MLB history — 54 HR / 59 SB. Third MVP (first as an NL player). Won the 2024 World Series in five games over the Yankees. Did all of this rehabbing from a second elbow surgery — without pitching a single inning.
- 2025: Returned to the mound for the first time as a Dodger. Continued hitting at an MVP pace while ramping pitch counts.
- 2026: This chapter is being written right now. See the live section below.
The endorsement empire and the card market.
Ohtani's commercial portfolio is among the largest in sport. Key partners include New Balance (footwear/apparel, signature line), Hugo Boss (formalwear), Seiko (watches), Daiwa (fishing — his hobby of choice), Sony, Kosé, and a multi-year exclusive trading-card deal with Topps. Forbes estimated his 2024 off-field earnings at roughly $65 million — more than any other baseball player by a wide margin.
For collectors, the key inflection points are:
- 2013-2017 BBM Fighters — pre-rookie / Japanese League issues (high desirability in Japan).
- 2018 Topps / Bowman — true MLB rookie year. Browse our 2018 inventory →
- 2018 Topps Update HMT55 — flagship RC with the iconic All-Star Game image.
- 2024 Dodgers issue — first-year-in-blue parallels are emerging as the new modern chase.
📊 Career & current season at a glance
Live numbers from the MLB Stats API.
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What he has already done that no one had done before.
- First MLB player to qualify as a hitter AND pitcher in the same season since the Babe (1918) — and the only one to do it in the modern era.
- First and only 50/50 season in MLB history (2024).
- Two-time unanimous AL MVP, plus 2024 NL MVP (three total, second player ever with MVPs in both leagues).
- Highest single-season salary in pro sports (deferred-adjusted) — and the largest contract in MLB history.
- NPB MVP (2016) and World Series champion (2024).
Today's update
Pulling the latest from the diamond…