If we knew Shohei Ohtani was the every day DH he would be a borderline top 10 hitter. That’s how good his tools and offensive production are. For my projections I’m only valuing him as a hitter. If I draft him I’m never going to use him as a pitcher. The simple reason is in NFBC leagues pitchers a locked in for a full week while hitters can be benched and started twice a week.

His hitting is far more valuable than his pitching in 2020. I have no idea how many innings he will throw per game and I have no idea how good the stuff or the command will be. It’s very possible he only throws 70 innings and averages 3-4 innings per start. The reason why I’m not fretting about the pitching is because his offensive production is elite.

Below are my projections if he plays 120 games as a DH-only. My projection assumes he gets days off against lefties, for rehab starts and to still justify the Albert Pujols contract.

Based on those numbers he’s my 21^st rated hitter. Looking at the last two weeks of ADP data at NFBC, Ohtani’s average ADP is 116.6. That seems awfully late for the amount of talent he has. I think the Market is pricing in not a lot of playing time, his DH-only position, and the hassle/frustration it’s going to be every week from a roster management perspective.

I can definitely understand the latter. It’s going to be really frustrating to only have him play 3 out of 4 games during the Monday-Thursday period and only playing 1 game during the Friday-Sunday period.

However, let’s look at the numbers if we averaged out his numbers with another player. I choose Adam Eaton. He provides similar offensive production and has an average ADP of 208 so he’s easily available.

Below is my full year projection of Eaton:

Now let’s see what happens if we combine Eaton and Ohtani’s numbers. One projection assumes 400 at-bats (ABs) from Ohtani and 120 from Eaton. Another projection assumes 350 ABs from Ohtani and 170 from Eaton.

I personally think these numbers are reasonable. If you don’t feel that way create your own combined projection.

What happens when I put these numbers into my cheat sheet? This combined player becomes 27^th and 34^th ranked hitters. I admit it’s very possible I won’t get 520 at-bats if I combined the output of both players because there will still be days where Ohtani is in my starting lineup and he’s not playing.

However, the reason I did this exercise is I wanted to get an idea how much of a discount should I apply to the uncertainty the Market is pricing in. I believe the Market is too pessimistic on Ohtani. At his current ADP the Market is only assuming he gets 300 ABs. Maybe that happens but I doubt it. The Market is not pricing in enough of the upside he provides. If Ohtani gets 450 ABs or more he’s going to be a lot of winning NFBC leagues.