Is Shohei Ohtani having the best season in MLB history for the Los Angeles Angels?

Shohei Ohtani has taken over Major League Baseball this season.

After an injury-plagued 2020, the Los Angeles Angels designated hitter and pitcher has bounced back in a big way, both at the dish and on the mound.

At last month's All-Star Game, Ohtani's first of his career, he made history in all sorts of ways, including being the first player to make the team as both a hitter and a pitcher.

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In fact, the league made an exemption for the exhibition, allowing Ohtani to effectively be used as two players.

That exemption meant Ohtani could start the game on the mound and lead off the bottom of the inning, but the AL wouldn't lose the DH position when he exited the mound.

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His momentum from the All-Star Game ⁠— he was the winning pitcher in a 5-2 victory for the Junior Circuit ⁠— carried into the back half of the season, too.

On Wednesday night, Ohtani became the first player in the majors to hit 40 home runs for the season, sending a pitch from Detroit Tigers reliever José Cisnero out to deep right field.

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That homer put Ohtani among Angels royalty ⁠— though he arguably already had that distinction.

In hitting the milestone, Ohtani joined Albert Pujols, Troy Glaus and Mike Trout as the fourth player in franchise history to smack 40 homers in a season.

Furthermore, he's the only lefty in Angels history to accomplish the feat.

Oh, and he also snagged the 3-1 victory as the game's starting pitcher, throwing eight innings of one-run baseball and striking out eight Tigers in the process.

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The accolades and milestones for Ohtani this season run deep. For instance, he's the only player ever to make 10 starts as a pitcher, hit 10 home runs and steal 10 bases in a single season.

Coming into Thursday, he led the league with 7.9 Wins Above Replacement (WAR), 265 total bases, 40 homers and 70 extra-base hits.

In terms of pace, he's on a trajectory to his 53 homers, which would break the single-season Angels record of 47, set by Glaus in 2000.

In addition to breaking the 50-homer mark, Ohtani would have a .269 batting average for 116 RBI with a .363 OBP and .648 SLG, along with 24 stolen bases at his current pace.

For context, that would stack up quite well against Trout's MVP seasons, which were as follows:

2014: .287 batting average, 36 HR, 111 RBI, 16 SB, .377 OBP, .561 SLG
2016: .315 batting average, 29 HR, 100 RBI, 30 SB, .441 OBP, .550 SLG
2019: .291 batting average, 45 HR, 104 RBI, 11 SB, .438 OBP, .645 SLG

All of those wild achievements have some, like "Flippin' Bats with Ben Verlander" host Ben Verlander, asserting this is the greatest individual season we have ever seen.

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"I'm mind blown every day by what he does," Verlander said. "He's one of the top pitchers in the league, all while leading all of Major League Baseball in home runs. We have never and might never see this again in the history of the game. The durability, the speed, the power, the consistency, it's all there and it's all elite. We will be telling generations to come that we got to watch Shohei Ohtani play baseball."

The way Ohtani is going right now, he profiles as 2018 Giancarlo Stanton at the plate and 2021 Germán Márquez on the mound, in terms of velocity and movement of his pitches, according to MLB's Baseball Savant.

Jeff Passan of ESPN praised Ohtani's outstanding season but stopped short of agreeing with Verlander that it's the all-time best.

"Babe Ruth had some pretty amazing seasons, so I'm not going there yet." Passan said, "… I'm not going to say it's the best season that we've ever seen, but I do think it's the most incredible. … In my mind, the ‘best’ is production, and I think that some of Barry Bonds' seasons and some of Babe Ruth's seasons ⁠— just production-wise ⁠— were better."

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To Passan's point, Ruth's 1919 season is often regarded as the best two-way season in MLB history. Through 116 games, here's how Ohtani and "The Babe" stack up head-to-head:

Ohtani:

Hitting: .269 Batting Average, 40 HR, 87 RBI, .363 OBP, .648 SLG
Pitching: 8-1 Record, 2.79 ERA, 120 SO, 39 BB (100.0 innings pitched)

Ruth:

Hitting: .323 Batting Average, 26 HR, 100 RBI, .455 OBP, .656 SLG
Pitching: 9-5 Record, 3.23 ERA, 27 SO, 57 BB (128.0 innings pitched)

Of course, the two stars played in entirely different eras, so a direct comparison is difficult to make.

However, there's no denying that the discussion has merit. Up until Ohtani came around, that seemed like an impossibility.

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