After Shohei Ohtani’s Game 4 performance in the 2025 National League Championship Series, in which he was named MVP after a historic and unprecedented showing at the plate and on the mound, many analysts have chimed in to crown the Japanese phenom as the greatest player the game has ever seen.
In front of a roaring Dodger Stadium crowd, the Los Angeles Dodgers superstar threw six innings of two-hit ball, striking out 10 Milwaukee Brewers and silencing the league’s best offense.
But that was only half of it.
At the plate, he was even more brilliant. He crushed three home runs, the first coming right after he retired the side in the game’s first inning, notched three RBIs and walked once. While he struck out 10 batters as a pitcher, he himself avoided that fate, despite struggling mightily to regularly get on base in the postseason prior to Game 4.
Unsurprisingly, no player in MLB history had ever struck out double digits as a pitcher and then hit three home runs as a batter in the same game, let alone in the postseason.
The reaction from across baseball was immediate and emphatic. ESPN’s Jeff Passan wrote that Ohtani “is the best player on the planet, and that’s that,” adding that “one of the greatest athletes in the world, and the most talented baseball player ever, is playing right now.”
MLB.com’s Anthony Castrovince was in agreement, posting on X: “Shohei Ohtani is the greatest baseball player ever. He had the greatest regular-season game ever. He had the greatest postseason game ever.”
FOX Sports reporter Deesha Thosar summed up the night with a simple line that reflected the overall sentiment across social media: “Full stop. End of discussion. Ohtani is the best to ever do it.”
The feeling across the baseball world was nearly unanimous: Ohtani is not just a generational talent, but perhaps the greatest the sport has ever known.
But not everyone was ready to etch his name above Ruth and Mays. MLB Hall-of-Famer Derek Jeter offered a more-measured perspective, highlighting the importance of longevity in a game that’s been played for more than 150 years.
“You can’t say he’s the greatest player ever, because he has to have a longer career; you have to do this for a long time,” Jeter said during Sunday’s pregame show on FOX. “We’ve had Hank Aaron, Willie Mays and a lot of players come through this game.”
Jeter played 20 seasons for the New York Yankees, so he knows a few things about longevity.
He did, however, offer high praise for Ohtani as a player, saying “he has the greatest toolset of any player that we’ve seen.”
In summation, he might be the best player ever, but greatest, according to Jeter, is a title Ohtani will have to wait a few years to claim. For Ohtani, it might just be a matter of time.
Regardless of where he ultimately ranks among baseball’s immortals, Shohei’s Game 4 performance in the NLCS stands as something never seen before, and likely never seen again.
He will have another chance to solidify his case as the game’s greatest ever when the Dodgers pursue their second consecutive World Series title. Game 1 of the Fall Classic will take place later this week, either in Los Angeles or Toronto, depending on who emerges from the American League.
The post Is Shohei Ohtani the greatest baseball player ever? What the experts say: appeared first on KTLA.
