Shohei's Offseason Activities
Catching up on the updates from the Winter '22-'23 months
Let’s catch up on where we’re at with Shohei Ohtani since last season. For those who don’t know, he’s a pretty low-key person, so we’re not going to get tons of information about his personal life (although there are a few nuggets below). But there are a few career-related things to touch on, especially connected to the upcoming 2023 World Baseball Classic.
2022 Brief Summary
Ohtani had a strong year in 2022, both pitching and hitting at a high level. He was 2nd in AL MVP voting, only behind Aaron Judge’s historic and rare year. In addition, he also finished 4th in AL Cy Young voting. As a reminder: This is unheard of.
However, just like every season since 2014, the Angels did not make the playoffs. By the beginning of October, Ohtani was stuck watching from the sidelines as other teams competed for the championship he wants to chase and compete for. Right next to him, of course, is his fellow teammate and fellow top baseball player, Mike Trout.
Back Home 🇺🇸✈️🇯🇵
During the offseason, Ohtani always goes back home to Japan. At least for a little bit. "I only go back to Iwate (hometown) for a very short time every year,” he said. He spends time with his parents and some friends from school.
Rumors developed that a woman had been going in and out of Shohei's apartment in Japan – but it turned out to be his mom, bringing him food.
WBC Announcement
On Nov 17th, before losing the MVP to Judge later in the same day, Ohtani posted on Instagram. He thanked fans for the support and added, “Also, I have officially informed Team Japan Manager, Mr. Kuriyama, that I would like to participate in next year’s WBC. Looking forward for the opportunity to face the best players around the world and to be able to play in front of the Japanese fans for the first time in over 5 years!!”
January WBC Press Conference
To kick off the 2023 new year, during a Jan. 26 press conference in Japan, manager Hideki Kuriyama announced the first 12 players who would be on the WBC Team Japan roster. It, of course, included Ohtani – as well as two other big Major League Baseball (MLB) names. One was right-handed pitcher Yu Darvish, a now longtime MLB vet (San Diego Padres) who helped Japan win the 2009 WBC. The other was Seiya Suzuki, who just came over to MLB last season (Chicago Cubs) but is one of the better new players. That being said, we all know who’s the star of the show.
"We are going to have a great team, and we will participate in the World Baseball Classic to win it all… I couldn't make it in 2017, so I wanted to make this team real bad.”
“I remember watching the games with my heart pounding. Now I get to play.”
Our next email will be a full World Baseball Classic preview of what you need to know for the tournament and for Team Japan, so more to come. Make sure you’re subscribed for future updates, if you aren’t already :)
Ohtani Signs Deal With New Balance
Is January 31st becoming the day to announce partnerships with Ohtani?
Last year, it was the unveiling of his MLB The Show ‘22 video game cover.
This year, it was announced that Shohei was now a New Balance sponsored athlete.
Our bias towards Nike aside, at the very least we deserve a truly unique signature Shohei shoe, a la Air Jordan. Make it happen (and look good, not just a dad shoe).
He’s already been wearing plenty of NB outfits and clothes this Spring Training:
Final Notes 👋🏼
That covers the main topics of the offseason so far! 😅
Shoutout to the best Ohtani stan account, @shoheisaveus on Twitter, for finding and posting about the Japanese TV footage that we used to make these GIF’s. 🙏🏼
And a special thank you again to 冷し中華 (hiyachu) - @hiyashichuka17 for drawing our email banner design and sign-up page illustration. 🎨
Next newsletter will be the WBC preview before the first game happens. Stay tuned! 👀
Finally, we’ll leave you with one other moment from this winter:
