Why Dave Roberts expects Shohei Ohtani to be in

PHOENIX — Dodgers supervisor Dave Roberts expects a lot from Shohei Ohtani this season. But even with those high expectations, a matter of dialog Friday as pitchers and catchers went through their first official exercises at Camelback Ranch, the celebrity two-way participant already discovered a method to exceed them.

“I came into camp at the beginning of February,” Ohtani said through interpreter Will Ireton following a bullpen session. “This is my third bullpen with pretty good intensity. … I’m not really sure how I’ll be able to practice in the WBC setting, so I’m going to try to ramp up as much as I can to a point where I’m throwing a live BP, which should be next week.”

The 2026 season will be Ohtani’s third 12 months with the Dodgers, and his first pitching without restrictions. Fully recovered from his second Tommy John surgical procedure, Ohtani was ready to get pleasure from a common, albeit short, offseason. With Ohtani in full bloom, Roberts has even increased hopes for the four-time MVP in the approaching season.

“I think there’s certainly a lot more in there, and regardless of my expectations for him, his are going to exceed those,” Roberts said Friday. “I think it’s 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.”

Ohtani’s highest placement in Cy Young Award voting got here in 2022, when, still a member of the Angels, he completed 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 next season, requiring Tommy John surgical procedure.

“If the end result is getting a Cy Young, that’s great,” Ohtani said. “Getting a Cy Young means being able to throw more innings and pitch throughout the whole season, so if that’s the end result, that’s a good sign for me. I’m just focused on being healthy the whole year.”

Ohtani appeared in 14 video games last season, logging 47 innings pitched. Roberts favored what he noticed in the small pattern dimension.

“I think the thing that was most surprising from last year was his command,” Roberts said. “And I’ll say that he still feels his command wasn’t 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’m really excited to see with the full offseason and to just prepare and not rehab, what he can do this year.”

Physically, Roberts believes Ohtani is in the fitting place coming into the ninth 12 months of his profession.

“I think he just looks strong,” Roberts said. “He looks strong, but there’s not too much mass. Just watching him throw, watching him run, his body’s moving well. I think he’s in a sweet spot. Just watching him, the muscle mass, it just seems that he’s in a sweet spot.”

Ohtani and Roberts said that they don’t 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 main up to next month’s event. Last month at DodgerFest, Roberts announced Ohtani is not going to pitch in the WBC in order to focus on pitching in the common season.

“As much as people think that he’s not human, he’s still a human being who’s had two surgeries,” Roberts said Friday. “He’s got a long career ahead of him.”

Yoshinobu Yamamoto throws live BP

Yoshinobu Yamamoto threw a live batting follow Friday as the World Series MVP took the mound for the first time since he recorded the ultimate out of last 12 months’s 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.

Kim turned on a pair of fastballs from Yamamoto, ripping a pair of base hits into proper discipline.

A little bit over an hour before Yamamoto pitched, Roberts was requested by reporters about Yamamoto’s sturdiness, 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.

“I just believe that he knows his limitations and he’s prepared, so I’m not too concerned about it,” Roberts said.

Yamamoto wasn’t the only pitcher to see some run on the Dodgers’ 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 Díaz, and Ohtani.

Staff author Anthony Solorzano contributed to this report.