{"id":178959,"date":"2026-02-15T10:09:23","date_gmt":"2026-02-15T10:09:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/178959\/"},"modified":"2026-02-15T10:09:23","modified_gmt":"2026-02-15T10:09:23","slug":"why-dave-roberts-expects-shohei-ohtani-to-be-in-the-cy-young-conversation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/178959\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Dave Roberts expects Shohei Ohtani to be ‘in the Cy Young conversation’"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

PHOENIX\u00a0\u2014\u00a0Dodgers<\/a> manager Dave Roberts<\/a> expects a lot from Shohei Ohtani<\/a> this season. But even with those high expectations, a topic of conversation Friday as pitchers and catchers went through their first official workouts at Camelback Ranch, the superstar two-way player already found a way to exceed them.<\/p>\n

\u201cI came into camp at the beginning of February,\u201d Ohtani said through interpreter Will Ireton following a bullpen session. \u201cThis is my third bullpen with pretty good intensity. \u2026 I\u2019m not really sure how I\u2019ll be able to practice in the WBC setting, so I\u2019m going to try to ramp up as much as I can to a point where I\u2019m throwing a live BP, which should be next week.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 2026 season will be Ohtani\u2019s third year with the Dodgers, and his first pitching without restrictions. Fully recovered from his second Tommy John surgery, Ohtani was able to enjoy a regular, albeit short, offseason. With Ohtani in full bloom, Roberts has even higher hopes for the four-time MVP in the coming season.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think there\u2019s certainly a lot more in there, and regardless of my expectations for him, his are going to exceed those,\u201d Roberts said Friday. \u201cI think it\u2019s fair to say, he expects to be in the Cy Young conversation, but we just want to be healthy and make starts and all the numbers and statistics will take care of themselves, but man, this guy is such a disciplined worker, and expects the most from himself.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ohtani\u2019s highest placement in Cy Young Award voting came in 2022, when, still a member of the Angels, he finished fourth after logging 15 wins, a 2.33 ERA and a 1.012 WHIP across 166 innings pitched. Ohtani suffered a torn ulnar collateral ligament the following season, requiring Tommy John surgery. <\/p>\n

\u201cIf the end result is getting a Cy Young, that\u2019s great,\u201d Ohtani said. \u201cGetting a Cy Young means being able to throw more innings and pitch throughout the whole season, so if that\u2019s the end result, that\u2019s a good sign for me. I\u2019m just focused on being healthy the whole year.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ohtani appeared in 14 games last season, logging 47 innings pitched. Roberts liked what he saw in the small sample size.<\/p>\n

\"\" <\/p>\n

Share via Close extra sharing options <\/p>\n

\u201cI think the thing that was most surprising from last year was his command,\u201d Roberts said. \u201cAnd I\u2019ll say that he still feels his command wasn\u2019t up to par, but given the Tommy John and what typically command looks like the year after, it was above that. So, I think that was impressive. Just his ability to command the couple different breaking balls, to change the shape of his breaking balls was pretty impressive, and everything he does is with a purpose. So, I\u2019m really excited to see with the full offseason and to just prepare and not rehab, what he can do this year.\u201d<\/p>\n

Physically, Roberts believes Ohtani is in the right place entering the ninth year of his career.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think he just looks strong,\u201d Roberts said. \u201cHe looks strong, but there\u2019s not too much mass. Just watching him throw, watching him run, his body\u2019s moving well. I think he\u2019s in a sweet spot. Just watching him, the muscle mass, it just seems that he\u2019s in a sweet spot.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ohtani and Roberts said that they don\u2019t yet know when Ohtani and some of his teammates will be departing for the World Baseball Classic, but Ohtani will continue to ramp up in the time leading up to next month\u2019s event. Last month at DodgerFest, Roberts announced Ohtani will not pitch in the WBC in order to focus on pitching in the regular season.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs much as people think that he\u2019s not human, he\u2019s still a human being who\u2019s had two surgeries,\u201d Roberts said Friday. \u201cHe\u2019s got a long career ahead of him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yoshinobu Yamamoto throws live BP<\/p>\n

Yoshinobu Yamamoto<\/a> threw a live batting practice Friday as the World Series MVP took the mound for the first time since he recorded the final out of last year\u2019s Fall Classic. Yamamoto threw 20 pitches to a pair of his teammates, with right-handed hitting catcher Will Smith and left-handed hitting infielder Hyeseong Kim alternated at-bats.<\/p>\n

Kim turned on a pair of fastballs from Yamamoto, ripping a pair of base hits into right field.<\/p>\n

A little over an hour before Yamamoto pitched, Roberts was asked by reporters about Yamamoto\u2019s durability, coming off a postseason where the 27-year-old totaled 526 pitches, capped off by a Herculean effort in Game 7 that powered the Dodgers to their second straight World Series championship.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just believe that he knows his limitations and he\u2019s prepared, so I\u2019m not too concerned about it,\u201d Roberts said.<\/p>\n

Yamamoto wasn\u2019t the only pitcher to see some run on the Dodgers\u2019 first day of camp. Among those to throw a bullpen session Friday: veteran Tyler Glasnow, promising sophomore Roki Sasaki, playoff hero Will Klein, newcomer Edwin D\u00edaz, and Ohtani.<\/p>\n

Staff writer Anthony Solorzano contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PHOENIX\u00a0\u2014\u00a0Dodgers manager Dave Roberts expects a lot from Shohei Ohtani this season. But even with those high expectations,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":178960,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[84922,84921,4396,426,23932,48,52,51,7036,47,50,49,20790,21949,4256,424,278,84923,422,84924,429],"class_list":{"0":"post-178959","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-conversation-friday","9":"tag-cy-young-conversation","10":"tag-dave-roberts","11":"tag-dodgers","12":"tag-innings","13":"tag-la","14":"tag-la-headlines","15":"tag-la-news","16":"tag-last-year","17":"tag-los-angeles","18":"tag-los-angeles-headlines","19":"tag-los-angeles-news","20":"tag-pair","21":"tag-pitch","22":"tag-pitcher","23":"tag-roberts","24":"tag-season","25":"tag-second-tommy-john-surgery","26":"tag-shohei-ohtani","27":"tag-third-year","28":"tag-yoshinobu-yamamoto"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178959","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=178959"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178959\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/178960"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=178959"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=178959"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=178959"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}