Ohtani is fighting for a first in MLB history: 50 home runs and 50 stolen bases in a single season

Throughout the season the CBS Sports MLB experts will bring you a weekly Batting Around roundtable breaking down pretty much anything. The latest news, a historical question, thoughts about the future of baseball, all sorts of stuff. Last week we discussed Aaron Judge’s home run pace. This week we’re going to tackle Shohei Ohtani’s pursuit of baseball’s first 50-50 season.

How many home runs and stolen bases with Ohtani finish with?

R.J. Anderson: I think the spirit of the question here is really “will Ohtani create the 50-50 club?” I believe he will, and so the exact numbers beyond that threshold don’t matter — at least not as much. For the sake of posterity, I’ll guess that he’ll end up with something like 52 home runs and 55 stolen bases.

Dayn Perry: Every roundtable needs a hater, and I’m here to help. I’ll say he gets to 54 stolen bases and 49 home runs — i.e., one homer shy of becoming the first 50-50 player in MLB history. Furthermore, I’ll say Ohtani never again approaches 50 steals in a season as he ages and as his return to pitching eats into his available “bandwidth” while on the bases. Oh well.

Matt Snyder: I was overzealous in my Aaron Judge home run prediction roundtable answer a few weeks ago, so I’ve learned my lesson and I’ll play it a bit more conservatively. I will also be rooting for the 50-50 club threshold to be reached, so I’m going to go with the bare minimum. Ohtani ends with exactly 50 homers and 50 stolen bases.

Mike Axisa: At this point 50-50 feels like a lock. I’ll say … 51 home runs and 50 stolen bases. Stolen bases are physically demanding and come with injury risk, so I think Ohtani gets the red light as soon as he reaches 50. The 51 home runs, I dunno, that’s just a guess. The Dodgers have 22 games remaining and Ohtani is sitting on 44 home runs. Seven home runs in 22 games is doable. (Ohtani has nine home runs in his last 22 games, for reference.)