Padres Press Clips Tuesday, March 7, 2017 Article Source Author Page Shohei Ohtani: The 'Best Baseball Player in the Bleacher Report Miller 2 World' Isn't in MLB...Yet Weaver strong; Cahill stakes rotation claim MLB.com Merkin/Cassavell 10 Flexibility now key to Weaver's delivery, longevity MLB.com Cassavell 11 Margot's knee swollen, but injury not serious MLB.com Cassavell 12 Padres option righty Vargas among 4 moves MLB.com Cassavell 14 Catcher-turned-reliever Jose Ruiz is a prospect to watch UT San Diego Lin 15 Jered Weaver feeling good after Padres debut UT San Diego Lin 17 Padres Make Roster Moves NBC 7 SD Togerson 19 1 Shohei Ohtani: The 'Best Baseball Player in the World' Isn't in MLB...Yet BY: SCOTT MILLER Bleacher Report March 6, 2017 TOKYO — New Year's night, a sparkling "2017" is brightly lit atop the Tokyo Tower, and the possibilities ringing in are endless. Proof? Inside apartments on the city's flat screens, a Japanese League champion and heartthrob is squatting behind a makeshift home plate in a studio attempting to receive his own pitches. "Best baseball player in the world," one high-ranking official with a major league club flatly has declared back in the United States. "He's…wow!" one veteran scout with a National League club exclaimed. "All the stories you hear are real as far as the batting practice power and his ability to throw 100 mph," the international scouting director of another major league club said. "All the stories." Shohei Ohtani is Babe Ruth come back to life a century later in Japan. In leading Hokkaido Nippon Ham to the Japan Series title last October as a starting pitcher and an outfielder/designated hitter, the Fighters won by virtue of both his power right-handed pitching and lethal left-handed swing. He also is on deck to become the next Japanese sensation to star in the major leagues. That's the reality. Virtual reality, though, is what's keeping folks here glued to their big screens on this New Year's night. The television show is called Arashi ni Shiyagare, and the host is popular Japanese singer and actor Kazunari Ninomiya. When Ninomiya takes his turn squatting behind the plate attempting to "catch" an Ohtani pitch using virtual reality technology, he not only fails miserably, but he's also visibly scared to death while doing so. To him, it looks like Ohtani's pitch is coming in at 200 mph. And yet, he knows there is no hardball zeroing in on him at all. It's nothing to hang his head about. Because soon Ohtani steps in to bat, facing himself. At the plate is the man who crushed 22 homers and hit .322 with 18 doubles, 67 RBI and seven steals in 323 at-bats last season. 2 On the mound is the man who went 10-4 with a 1.86 ERA and 174 strikeouts in 140 innings. In the studio, the man who was named MVP of Japan's Pacific League for both his hitting and pitching prowess swings and misses twice before he connects with a pitch. Even Ohtani has difficulty hitting Ohtani. "That was an eye-opening experience," he tells me later in the winter, when I finally catch up with him. "It's hard to find opportunities to actually face myself and, to be honest, my pitches felt much faster than I anticipated. "I actually think that whole experience broadened my visions as a baseball player." The rest of Nippon Professional Baseball shudders. The major leagues salivate. Ohtani is dressed sharply for the program in a black suit and light blue tie. He has a baby face and an easy smile. He laughs a lot. Next up is a Wii-like baseball game called Pawapuro between Ohtani and Ninomiya, and the show host suggests to the slugger/flamethrower that if Ohtani loses, Ninomiya takes half of his salary, which last year was $1.83 million. More laughter. They chat for a bit. Ohtani tells him that he feels more comfortable as a pitcher, because he is more in control. And he can focus more. But he's been hitting longer, so that comes more naturally. The Fighters have told him they will post him after the 2017 season if he wishes—and that's one reason he continues to both pitch and hit: It makes him more marketable. He praises the Fighters profusely for allowing him this leeway. Their thinking is flexible, he says, and that's why he signed with them back in 2012. He was surprised that a team would allow him to do both, and he moved quickly when the offer was made. The game of Pawapuro commences and, predictably, Ohtani wins. So now Ninomiya must fulfill one of Ohtani's requests—that's the deal. Ohtani gleefully orders him to walk around the set imitating a film director. He does, and everybody laughs. Back in the States, the intrigue grows. When will Ohtani arrive? And who will sign him? "He's a rock star," a high-ranking official for yet another club says. "No doubt about it." ________________________________________ The bad news both for Ohtani and for this month's World Baseball Classic is that the man who many believe is the world's best baseball player is on the shelf with an ankle injury. It is a blow to the WBC, which would have benefited immensely from his participation, and it is a blow to Ohtani himself because so many major league scouts and executives are jockeying for position to evaluate him, get close to him, woo him. 3 Of course, that might require getting in a bathtub with him. It turns out Ohtani enjoys long baths. He also loves naps and likes to watch movies. At least that's what he tells the New Year's night TV audience in Japan. And while he's soaking in the tub, he's usually reading. "He stays to himself a lot, but at the same time when you talk with him he opens right up," pitcher Anthony Bass, in camp with Texas this spring and a teammate of Ohtani's last season in Japan, tells B/R. "He's not shy. I can only imagine what he's going through. Everywhere we traveled, he was bombarded with people. Photographers. People wanting his autograph. At the age of 22, Ohtani has achieved a level of fame that transcends baseball in Japan.Kenichi Iwamoto/Haikkado Nippon-Ham Fighters "It was like he was LeBron James walking through the airport there. I think that's another reason he wants to come over to America. He won't get noticed as much." Chris Martin, who pitched for Colorado in 2014 and the Yankees in 2015 before signing with the Fighters last year, chuckles. "In Japan, the fanbase is a little more toward women, and I think they have huge crushes on these guys," Martin tells B/R. "They get to giggling. It's pretty funny to watch. "I would just hear stories that he wasn't able to go out, that he'd have people surrounding him, asking for pictures, autographs, whatever. He kind of stuck to his room because of his status." Both Bass and Martin agree that if anyone could star in the major leagues either as a pitcher or hitter, or both, it is Ohtani. Martin has heard comparisons to Josh Hamilton, because when Hamilton was first coming up, many people thought he could do it all, too. Bass was a teammate of Hamilton's briefly in Texas in 2015 and says the sound the ball makes coming off Ohtani's bat is similar to that off Hamilton's. "I told him, 'You should come to the Cubs. They're a good team, they won the World Series, and you can hit,'" Bass says. "It's hard to get anything from him when it comes to his decision and baseball. He just laughs, jokes about how he wants to be able to hit. He likes when he's not pitching to be able to contribute in another way. He feels like he pitches better when he hits regularly. That's what he says." The young Japanese players live in dormitories in Sapporo during the season, while their foreign counterparts live outside the city in three-bedroom apartments. Bass says Ohtani is a great teammate and very approachable, even if they did need to converse through a translator. At one point last season, Bass acquired a remote-controlled drone from a vending machine in Japan. To break the boredom of the long season and to amuse his teammates, he would sometimes fly it in the clubhouse. That piqued Ohtani's interest. 4 "He'd like to play with it as well, try to land it on different teammates," Bass says. "On their heads, or on their hands. He did that a couple of times. "We were all kind of having fun messing around. It was a cheap little drone, but it was fun." The New Year's night television program is good fun as well, and Ohtani's sense of humor is easily evident. He is a good sport throughout. "I, too, found it hilarious," Ohtani tells me regarding the host Ninomiya's shaky turn as catcher during which he was visibly terrified while attempting to receive one of Ohtani's virtual reality pitches. "But I can totally understand how he feels because, to be honest, I was a little scared myself." Teammates and scouts say he handles the increasing pressure with grace and aplomb.