Morning Distribution for Tuesday, July 12, 2022

A [FiveThirtyEight]( email [Morning Distribution]( Tuesday, July 12, 2022 Your daily briefing from FiveThirtyEight --------------------------------------------------------------- The Morning Story [White Sox vs. Angels]( [Shohei Ohtani Found A New Way To Shine As A Two-Way All Star]( By [Neil Paine]( As of [this week]( there are now [two]( [instances]( in MLB history of a player making the All-Star Game as both a pitcher and a batter — and both belong to Shohei Ohtani of the Los Angeles Angels. Ohtani became the first-ever double-duty All-Star last season, during a year that was [unlike anything we had seen]( in [modern baseball history](. Combining excellence at the plate (46 home runs, .965 OPS) and on the mound (9-2, 3.18 ERA), Ohtani [won unanimous MVP honors]( in the American League and was easily the best player in baseball according to [wins above replacement](. After all of that, it was [fair to wonder]( what he could possibly do for an encore — but Ohtani has been roughly as good overall in 2022 so far. And the way he’s done it proves that Ohtani still has plenty of unexpected tricks left up his sleeve. Looking [at his stats]( from the mound only, Ohtani had a very good 2021. He amassed 3.7 WAR in 21 starts, with an [ERA-minus]( of 73 and a [fielding independent pitching]( of 80. (ERA- and FIP- are metrics scaled to leaguewide performance levels, where average is 100 and lower is better.) But the larger driver of Ohtani’s MVP campaign was his performance at the plate, where he produced 5.0 WAR with a [weighted runs created plus]( (wRC+) of 152, which [ranked fifth]( among all batters. Overall, that meant batter WAR accounted for 58 percent of Ohtani’s total WAR last year, while pitching filled out the remaining 42 percent. [Read more]( --------------------------------------------------------------- Weekly Listen [Play]( [Politics Podcast: The Supreme Court Episode]( [FiveThirtyEight] [View in browser]( [ABC News]( [Unsubscribe]( Our mailing address: FiveThirtyEight, 47 West 66th Street, New York, NY 10023.