Akira Neo might follow in Shohei Ohtani’s footsteps.
At least that was among the prevailing narratives after the Chunichi Dragons outfielder made his pitching debut last week. Neo only pitched in mop-up duty in the eighth inning of a blowout, but that was enough to fan the flames of the two-way player conversation.
The conventional thinking in baseball has been that it is too hard and physically taxing to be a successful two-way player. Ohtani changed that with his dynamic campaign for the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters in 2016, when he finished one vote shy of being the unanimous selection for Pacific League MVP. Ohtani silenced the remaining doubters with a historic season for the Los Angeles Angels in the MLB last year and was the unanimous American League MVP.