What does Shohei Ohtani still need to achieve? A look at his high school goal list

Shohei Ohtani added the one major achievement that had eluded his already illustrious career on Wednesday night.

The two-time superstar won his first World Series title, helping the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the New York Yankees in five games. Because Ohtani suffered a shoulder injury late in Game 2, he did not have his best outing at the plate in the Fall Classic. He went 2-for-19 (.105) at the plate and failed to register a home run or an RBI.

Ohtani, of course, was perhaps the biggest reason the Dodgers were in the World Series in the first place. He became the first player in MLB history to record 50 home runs and 50 stolen bases in a regular season, making him the likely NL MVP winner. He also hit .364 with two home runs in the Dodgers’ NLCS win over the New York Mets.

At 30 years old, Ohtani has already built a strong case as one of the best players in MLB history. He’ll obviously have plenty of time to add to his case, too, and he’ll return to the mound in 2025 after rehabbing from elbow surgery he underwent in late 2023.

While Ohtani looks to add to his legacy, the future Hall of Famer essentially mapped out his career while in high school in Japan. In the list, Ohtani wrote down every goal he would like to achieve at any age. The list included professional and personal goals, which could perhaps serve as a guideline for what Ohtani still wants to achieve in his career.

Here’s a complete breakdown of Ohtani’s goal list:

• Age 18: Join an MLB team
• Age 19: Master English and reach AAA
• Age 20: Called up to the Majors, earn 1.5 billion JPY (which translates to $13 million in the US)
• Age 21: Starting rotation, 16 wins
• Age 22: Win the Cy Young Award
• Age 23: Member of Japan’s WBC team
• Age 24: Throw a no-hitter and 25 wins
• Age 25: Throw the fastest throw in the world: 175 km/h (or 108 mph)
• Age 26: Win the World Series and get married
• Age 27: Member of Japan’s WBC team and MVP
• 28 years: first son is born
• Age 29: Throw the 2nd no-hitter
• Age 30: Have the most wins by a Japanese pitcher
• 31 years: 1st daughter is born
• Age 32: Win 2nd World Series
• 33 years: 2nd son is born
• Age 34: Win 3rd World Series
• Age 35: Member of the Japanese WBC team
• Age 36: Break the strikeout record?
• Age 37: 1st son starts playing baseball
• Age 38: Statistics are declining, start thinking about retirement
• Age 39: Decides to retire at the end of next season
• Age 40: Throw a no-hitter in my very last game
• Age 41: Return to Japan
• 42 years: introducing the American system to Japan?

So far, Ohtani has achieved six of these items on the list. He made his MLB debut in 2018 and scored another goal while earning $30 million in arbitration while with the Los Angeles Angels in 2023. He was part of Japan’s World Baseball Classic team in 2023 and won the MVP of the tournament with the two of them… a lot of skill to help his native country beat the US in the final.

Ohtani had a few years off when he was set to win his first World Series, and predicted he would win it in 2020 as a 26-year-old. However, he was right that he would win the World Series within a year of his marriage. , when he married Japanese basketball player Mamiko Tanaka prior to the 2024 offseason.

While most of the records Ohtani has set have been at the plate or on the base paths, many of his individual scoring tallies have focused on the mound. He gained fame in high school for his throwing ability, throwing the fastest pitch ever for a Japanese high school student at 100 miles per hour.

As Ohtani prepares to return to the mound in 2025, some of those pitching goals seem attainable, while some may be a bit out of reach. His highest number of career wins is 15, which he achieved in 2022. So 16+ wins in a season seems feasible. But 25 wins in a season is probably unlikely, as former track and field pitcher Bob Welch was the last pitcher to reach that number, in 1990.

Throwing a pitch at 105 miles per hour is also probably unlikely to happen. He threw a 100 mph pitch during the 2023 World Baseball Classic, the fastest pitch he has ever recorded. For perspective, the fastest pitch ever recorded in modern times is that of a 107.5 mph fastball by Aroldis Chapman in 2010. Ohtani’s former Angels teammate Ben Joyce is one of the few to even be in the came close, by firing off a 170.5 km/h roll in September.

Ohtani almost certainly won’t set the strikeout record either, especially if he plans to retire at age 40. He has recorded 608 career strikeouts, which is 5,000 shy of Nolan Ryan’s record (5,714). Ryan played for an MLB record 27 years.

A few of the other pitching goals seem plausible, though. If Ohtani were to average about nine wins per season over the next ten years, he would break Hideo Nomo’s record for most wins ever by a Japanese pitcher (123). He finished fourth in the 2022 AL Cy Young voting, showing he has the upside to potentially win the award. Ohtani has pitched just one complete game shutout in his career, but he allowed just one hit in that start. So he’s already within range of throwing a no-hitter.

The other professional goals Ohtani had on his list were, of course, winning a second and third World Series title. He appeared to change those goals after the Dodgers’ World Series victory Wednesday.

“In his first year (with the Dodgers), he won a championship,” Andrew Friedman, president of baseball operations for the Dodgers, told reporters at Ohtani. “He said, ‘This is easy. We’re just going to do it nine more times.'”

As Friedman means, Ohtani has nine seasons left on the 10-year, $700 million contract he signed with the Dodgers last offseason. If Ohtani miraculously wins a title in every season left on his contract, it won’t matter if he achieves the individual goals on his list. He would almost certainly be considered the greatest player in baseball history if he won ten straight titles.

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