Following Shohei Ohtani’s performance in Game 4 of the 2025 National League Championship Series, where he was named Most Valuable Player after a historic and unprecedented showing at the plate and on the mound, many analysts weighed in crowning the Japanese phenom as the greatest player the game has ever seen.
In front of a raucous crowd at Dodger Stadium, the Los Angeles Dodgers star pitched six innings of two-hit ball, striking out 10 Milwaukee Brewers and silencing the league’s best offense.
But that was only half of it.
At the plate, he was even more brilliant. He crushed three home runs, the first of which came right after Side retired In the first inning of the game, he hit three RBIs and walked one. While he struck out 10 as a pitcher, he himself avoided that fate, despite his mighty struggles to regularly get on base in the postseason before Game 4.
Unsurprisingly, no player in MLB history has ever hit double figures as a pitcher and then hit three home runs as a hitter in the same game, let alone the postseason.
The reaction from around baseball was immediate and emphatic. ESPN Written by Jeff Passan Ohtani “is the best player on the planet, and that’s about it,” he added, adding that “one of the greatest athletes in the world, the most talented baseball player of all time, is playing right now.”
MLB.com Anthony Castrovense He agreed, posting on X: “Shohei Ohtani is the greatest baseball player of all time. He had the greatest regular season game of all time. He had the greatest postseason game of all time.”
Fox Sports reporter Disha Thosar He summed up the night with a simple line that reflected the general sentiment across social media: “Whoa. End of discussion. Ohtani is the best ever.”
The feeling throughout the baseball world was near unanimous: Ohtani is not just a generational talent, but perhaps the greatest the sport has ever known.
But not everyone was willing to etch his name above Ruth and Mays. MLB Hall-of-Famer Derek Jeter offered a more measured perspective, highlighting the importance of longevity in a game that has been played for more than 150 years.
“You can’t say he’s the greatest player of all time because he’s got to have a longer career, you’ve got to do it for a long time,” Jeter said during Sunday’s game. Pregame show on FOX. “We had Hank Aaron, Willie Mays and a lot of players that were in this game.”
Jeter played 20 seasons with the New York Yankees, so he knows a thing or two about longevity.
However, he praised Ohtani as a player, saying “he has the greatest toolkit we’ve seen from any player.”
In short, he may be the best player ever, but the greatest, according to Jeter, is a title that Ohtani will have to wait a few years to claim. For Ohtani, it may only be a matter of time.
Regardless of where he ultimately ranks among baseball’s immortals, Shohei’s Game 4 performance in the NLCS stands as something that has never been seen before, and likely will never be seen again.
He’ll have another chance to cement his case as the game’s greatest ever when the Dodgers seek their second straight World Series title. The first game of the Fall Classic will be played later this week, either in Los Angeles or Toronto, depending on who exits the MLS.