He’s John Smoltz, a Hall of Fame pitcher and Emmy Award-winning analyst for Fox Sports and MLB Network. So, when he offers his opinion that Shohei Ohtani, if he were to focus only on pitching, could develop into another Jacob deGrom, it’s not to be taken lightly.
Smoltz is not advocating for Ohtani, the major-league home-run leader, to drop hitting — he is as fascinated as the rest of us by Ohtani’s two-way majesty. But the beauty of Ohtani is not just that he electrifies in the present, producing a jaw-dropping feat in seemingly every game, but that he also fires our imaginations for the future.
