Final week, I modeled Shohei Ohtani’s chase for 50 house runs and 50 steals to foretell when he may attain that historic twin milestone. That prediction isn’t static, although. Each time Ohtani performs a sport, the chance of his attending to 50/50 adjustments. Excellent news, although: Updating the mannequin is as straightforward as hitting just a few keys and listening to my laptop hum for a bit.
This isn’t going to be a protracted article. It’s, nonetheless, an up to date set of chances, which is the entire level of this train. Ohtani hit two homers in his weekend collection in opposition to the Guardians, which leaves him solely 4 house runs and 4 steals in need of a half century in every statistic. His odds of reaching 50/50 are as much as 61.3% in my simulations – they have been 55.6% earlier than this collection.
As a fast refresher, I’m simulating the chance of his hitting 50 of every statistic with a Monte Carlo simulation that takes his expertise, his opponents, and the stadiums the place he performs into consideration. I additionally introduce a random fluctuation in his house run expertise: Typically he’s scorching, typically he’s not, and typically he’s in between. I then simulate the season 1,000,000 instances and notice whether or not he hits 50/50, and if that’s the case, during which sport he does it.
The 2 homers within the weekend collection have barely moved up the most certainly date for when he’ll attain the 50/50 threshold. Earlier than his collection in opposition to Cleveland, my simulation recommended that the one sport most certainly to see Ohtani both steal the bottom or hit the homer that pushes him over the road was the Dodgers’ September 27 sport in Colorado. That’s nonetheless the case – nevertheless it’s now lifeless even with the earlier sport, September 26 in Los Angeles in opposition to the Padres. Moreover, the Padres collection has overtaken the ultimate Rockies collection because the three-game set during which he’s most certainly to set the mark.
Right here’s the entire set of game-by-game chances:
Shohei Ohtani, 50/50 Odds by Sport
| Day | Opponent | House/Away | Odds of fifty/50 | Cumulative Odds |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 9/9 | Cubs | House | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 9/10 | Cubs | House | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 9/11 | Cubs | House | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 9/13 | Braves | Away | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 9/14 | Braves | Away | 0.1% | 0.2% |
| 9/15 | Braves | Away | 0.3% | 0.5% |
| 9/16 | Braves | Away | 0.7% | 1.2% |
| 9/17 | Marlins | Away | 1.3% | 2.4% |
| 9/18 | Marlins | Away | 2.0% | 4.4% |
| 9/19 | Marlins | Away | 2.9% | 7.3% |
| 9/20 | Rockies | House | 4.1% | 11.5% |
| 9/21 | Rockies | House | 5.1% | 16.5% |
| 9/22 | Rockies | House | 5.9% | 22.4% |
| 9/24 | Padres | House | 6.3% | 28.7% |
| 9/25 | Padres | House | 6.6% | 35.4% |
| 9/26 | Padres | House | 6.7% | 42.1% |
| 9/27 | Rockies | Away | 6.7% | 48.8% |
| 9/28 | Rockies | Away | 6.4% | 55.3% |
| 9/29 | Rockies | Away | 6.0% | 61.3% |
I feel these projections do an excellent job of dealing with a difficult drawback. However I do need to make one level about their limitations: Steals aren’t fairly as straightforward to mannequin as house runs. Just about each time that Ohtani involves the plate, his supreme final result is a house run. He swings to hit house runs, and pitchers do their finest to forestall them. The previous does an ideal job of predicting the longer term right here, as a result of intent doesn’t change from one plate look to the subsequent. Steals don’t work fairly like that. Certain, Ohtani’s pace is a constant and vital enter; the identical is true for his baserunning instincts, the opposing pitcher’s means to carry him on, the catcher’s throwing arm, and so forth. However how a lot he needs to steal can be crucially vital. He’s making an attempt to steal extra regularly within the second half of the season than he was within the first, and his want to run presumably will solely speed up if he’s sitting on, say, 50 house runs and 49 steals. I’m modeling a steady-state true-talent world, however I feel it will be affordable to tilt the distribution barely earlier if Ohtani hits the homer plateau earlier than the stolen base one, which seems to be extra probably right now than it did final week.
In any case, some takeaways: The final six video games of the season are the most certainly time to see historical past. The collection in opposition to the Padres is now the very best guess regardless of San Diego’s wonderful pitching workers. The final collection of the season, at elevation in opposition to a nasty pitching workers, is the subsequent most certainly. The chance of Ohtani’s attending to 50 throughout each collection is larger now than it was on Thursday, and I’d even be underestimating it on condition that he may determine to try extra steals as he nears the border of historical past.
