FOX Sports’ John Smoltz Breaks Down Shohei Ohtani’s NL Cy Young Chances

The National League Cy Young race is, in Rich's words, off the charts, and few people are better equipped to sort it out than John Smoltz. He did not pretend it was easy.

He started with the usual suspects. Paul Skenes will always be a front-runner, Smoltz said, a dynamic arm out of Pittsburgh. Cristopher Sánchez is doing something ridiculous in Philadelphia, closing in on Orel Hershiser's record for consecutive scoreless innings with a streak Rich pegged at 44 and two-thirds.

But the name Smoltz kept circling back to was Shohei Ohtani.

"I've been saying for years his greatest asset is his arm, and everyone thought I was crazy," Smoltz said. Now they do not. He called Ohtani the greatest generational pitcher and hitter to ever play the sport, a player whose mind is locked on winning the award.

The case for Ohtani, to Smoltz, is about more than stuff. He believes Ohtani wants to prove to the world that his work on the mound, not just at the plate, will be his greatest weapon come playoff time, because he is so tough to hit. The one thing that could cost him is a good problem: his team is so deep that it may rest him, leaving him short of the counting numbers his rivals will pile up.

Then there is the absurdity Rich raised. Ohtani has won three straight MVPs, one in the American League and two in the National. Now he might break his own streak by winning a Cy Young instead.

Smoltz traced the edge back to Ohtani's mind. "He speaks it into existence," Smoltz said, recalling that Ohtani wrote down everything he wanted to accomplish as a young man in Japan and has been living it out since. To Smoltz, if Ohtani wins the Cy Young, the MVP comes with it. It is basically his trophy to lose.

The tradeoff is real. When Ohtani had nothing to do but hit, he went 50-50 on home runs and steals. Now that he is pitching again, the stolen bases and the offense dip, and the production reappears on the mound. Managing it is a daily puzzle of when to rest him, when to hit him, whether he swings on days he pitches.

"He's got to go to hitters meetings, he's got to take BP, he's got to go to the mound, he's got to throw," Smoltz said. The man is carrying a million things in his head before every start.

Rich pressed on the sheer cognitive load: knowing every hitter's weakness on the mound, then knowing the pitcher trying to retire him when he grabs a bat. How does anyone do both?

Smoltz answered as a pitcher who once hit for himself. The mortals, he said, never worried much about the guy on the mound when it was their turn to bat. A bunt or the occasional homer was a bonus. Ohtani does it nightly, which is a question of rest as much as talent. Smoltz argued Ohtani's sleep schedule for pitching has to differ from his sleep for hitting, then offered himself as the cautionary opposite, a self-described loose cannon who slept until noon or one only on the days he pitched.

That, to Smoltz, is what separates Ohtani as the greatest ever.