Shohei Ohtani is the Best of All Time. How Can He Become the Greatest of All Time?

Shohei Ohtani admitted in a recent interview with NBC that he doesn’t think about being compared to the likes of Tom Brady and Michael Jordan, but FOX Sports’ Chris Broussard thinks that the Los Angeles Dodgers’ superstar might join that echelon of great athletes soon.

Broussard proclaimed that it’s “indisputable” that Ohtani is the best baseball player of all time on Wednesday’s episode of “First Things First.” However, Broussard said that you can’t call Ohtani the greatest of all time quite yet. 

“He’s the best we’ve ever seen,” Broussard said of Ohtani. “Babe Ruth was obviously a great pitcher, as well as a hitter. But he didn’t do them at the same time at that level. The most home runs he ever hit when he pitched full-time was 29. But when he was hinting 40, 50, 60 [home runs], he wasn’t pitching. He only pitched four games in the rest of his career during that time. Barry Bonds was the best I’ve seen prior to Ohtani. … Bonds only had, for all his greatness, one season where he hit 50 or more homers. Ohtani’s already had two 50-plus home run seasons.

“Not to mention the pitching. He has the all-time high in strikeouts per nine innings at 11.4. He just isn’t eligible yet. I think he’s clearly the BOAT (Best of All Time).”

As Broussard mentioned, Ohtani has certainly accomplished enough to put himself on a trajectory to become the greatest of all time. His four MVPs are already the second-most ever, trailing only Bonds’ seven. In 2024, he became the first player in MLB history to log 50 home runs and 50 stolen bases in the same season. He’s also the only player to win multiple MVPs in a unanimous fashion, and last season, he became the first player to ever win multiple MVPs in both the American and National Leagues. 

However, Broussard believes that Ohtani doesn’t have the longevity yet to be considered baseball’s greatest player ever. 

“I’ve got to be honest, as much as I think he’ll get there, this will only be his eighth complete season,” Broussard said. “I don’t think that’s enough to say ‘GOAT.’ Even though he has four MVPs, which is second-most to Bonds already, baseball is a sport about magic numbers — 3,000 hits, 500 homers, 300 wins — and he can’t hit any of those in eight seasons.”

To Broussard’s point, Ohtani’s volume stats would pale in comparison to many all-time greats. Even though he already has four seasons with at least 40 home runs, Ohtani has only hit 280 home runs in his career. That’s tied for 202nd all-time as he still needs 73 homers to crack the top 100 list.

This season presents a unique opportunity for Ohtani to add to his greatness, though. This will mark the first time since 2023 that Ohtani will begin a season as a hitter and a starting pitcher. If all goes well, it’ll be the first time since 2022 that Ohtani has spent a full season playing both sides. In the last season that Ohtani was a dual star, he hit 34 home runs and had a 2.33 ERA on the mound. He finished second in AL MVP voting and fourth in AL Cy Young voting that season. 

Normally, Broussard said he would use “10 or 11 years as a threshold” before considering someone as an all-time great. But he thinks Ohtani could be considered the greatest of all-time this year if he helps the Dodgers three-peat and has some pretty high individual success. 

“If they win the World Series, and he’s World Series MVP, regular season MVP and Cy Young winner, or if they win the World Series and he’s Cy Young or MVP, [he’s the GOAT,]” Broussard said.