SHOHEI OHTANI: My First Dodgers Season “Exceeded My Expectations”

When Shohei Ohtani made it to the postseason for the first time in his career and won the World Series,

the Los Angeles Dodgers set the bar extremely high for his first season with the team.

Ohtani played for the Los Angeles Angels for the first six seasons of his career,

never ending with a record higher than.500 and missing the postseason each year.

Ohtani achieved a lot of personal achievements in his debut season with the Dodgers,

including becoming the first 50/50 player in MLB history and winning his third MVP award,

in addition to the team’s ultimate success of winning a World Series.
According to Bob Nightengale of USA TODAY Sports, Ohtani stated that, despite having nine years left on his original 10-year, $700 million contract with the Dodgers,

things have already gone better than he could have imagined:

Reflecting on his rookie season with the Dodgers, Ohtani told USA TODAY Sports, via translator Matt Hidaka,

“This exceeded my expectations.” “I obviously made the playoffs for the first time.

The World Series was won by us. What more is there to ask for?

In an effort to prepare themselves for another World Series victory,

the Dodgers have already made a number of offseason moves.

They extended Tommy Edman, acquired Michael Conforto, re-signed Blake Treinen, a key bullpen piece,

and inked Blake Snell to a multi-year contract in free agency.
They have also been linked to Tanner Scott and are still interested in reuniting with Teoscar Hernández.

This is the second consecutive offseason that the Dodgers have fulfilled their pledge to surround Ohtani with quality after he postponed $680 million of his deal to 2034, but they are still making moves.

After acquiring Ohtani, the Dodgers added Tyler Glasnow, Yoshinobu Yamamoto,

and Hernández during the previous offseason. Dodgers came together to support Shohei Ohtani after the Ippei Mizuhara affair.

On their path to winning a World Series, the Dodgers encountered many challenges,

but none were more distinctive than the gambling incident involving Ohtani’s former translator, Ippei Mizuhara,

in the first series of the 2024 season. According to Freddie Freeman, the Dodgers were “on the right course” to win the World Series because of the team’s quick support for Ohtani.