As spring training progressed and its typical optimism prevailed, a preposterous thought began to gain traction:
What if Shohei Ohtani can actually be better?
In other words: What if arguably the most impressive season in baseball history -- one that included a .965 OPS, 46 home runs and 26 stolen bases as a hitter, and a 3.18 ERA, 156 strikeouts and 130 1/3 innings as a pitcher -- was only the beginning?
It's a consideration that might exist only amid the buoyancy that tends to permeate baseball facilities in March, when the season is new, nobody has lost and everybody reports to being in "the best shape of my life." But peel back the layers, and this wild premise might actually begin to make some sense.
Plenty of Ohtani's Los Angeles Angels teammates have thought about it.
"The ceiling is unbelievable," Angels center fielder Mike Trout said. "You never know what he's gonna do."
There have been only eight double-digit WAR seasons this century, based on FanGraphs' calculation: one each by Buster Posey and Randy Johnson, two by Trout and four by Barry Bonds, who got as high as 12.7 fWAR in 2002. Ohtani, 27, finished his unanimous 2021 MVP season with 8.1 fWAR. Many initially wondered about his ability to sustain such high levels of production, given the mental and physical demands of a two-way role in the major leagues. But what if there's actually even more upside?
It's an unfair expectation, of course, but not an unreasonable one, considering Ohtani's unprecedented ability to add significant value on the mound, in the batter's box and on the basepaths (Angels manager Joe Maddon said he has no plans to limit Ohtani's stolen base attempts this season). It's also easy to identify reasons he might be even more productive in 2022. Here are three of them: