Snyder's Soapbox: Shohei Ohtani's run in the first 50-50 season in MLB history is as special as it gets

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Dodgers megastar Shohei Ohtani will likely become the first member of the 50-50 club this season. As you all know, that means hitting 50 home runs and 50 stolen bases in the same season. The only players to have previously made it into the 40-40 club were Jose Canseco, Barry Bonds, Alex Rodriguez, Alfonso Soriano and Ronald Acuña Jr. None of them have hit 45 home runs and steals, while Ohtani has already surpassed both marks.

Let's take a page from Mr. Acuña, who last season became the first player ever to hit 40 home runs and steal 70 bases. And now there's Ohtani's 50-50 streak this season. Instead of joy and admiration, we're inundated with complaints that steals are much easier to achieve today and therefore these records aren't much to celebrate. I've already started talking about asterisks and heard a lot of pushback about the historic nature of these two accomplishments.

Remember, there were rule changes before last season – making the bases bigger and restricting pickoff throws to first base – to increase the number of stolen bases. And they succeeded. In 2022, the last year before the changes, there were 0.51 stolen bases per team per game. This season, there are 0.74.

The theory of the haters – who are apparently tired of hearing about Ohtani over and over again instead of reveling in his best run yet – is that since it's so much easier to steal bases now, this doesn't count as much as if it had happened a few years ago.

The problem here in terms of actual stats is that the stolen base rate is not astronomical. It's simply reverted to the levels of the 1980s and 1990s. That's not to say it's easy to steal bases. If that were the case, why doesn't the leader have more than 62? Why have only three players broken 40? Only nine have more than 30. That's not an exaggeration.

Look at the 40-40 seasons before the rule change along with the stolen base rates.

• Canseco accomplished this in 1988, when there were 0.79 steals per game per team, meaning the climate for stolen bases was theoretically better than for Ohtani.
• In the bond year 1996, the rate was 0.71, which is quite negligible.
• A-Rod, 1998, 0.68 says he was very impressive there, but it wasn't much different than the 0.74 today.
• The most impressive player in 2006 was Soriano, who stole 0.57 bases per game in the league.

There is no indication that the number of stolen bases has exploded to the point where we should ignore these records or collectively yawn.

Moreover, the performance here is the combination of power and speed, and what Ohtani is doing deserves breathtaking admiration. I ask you not to become numb to the things he is doing. If he reaches the 50-50 club, he will not only be the first to ever do that in a season, but about my colleague Mike Axisa“He will be only the third player to have a 50-home run, 50-steal season at any point in his career. Only Bonds (73 home runs in 2001, 52 steals in 1990) and Brady Anderson (50 home runs in 1996, 53 steals in 1992) have accomplished that.”

This is worth a lot of admiration.

In addition, no other player who has hit 50 home runs in a season has come anywhere close to that level of base stealing.

There have been 49 50-home run seasons in MLB history. If Ohtani hits 50 home runs, it will be only the fifth time in history that a player has gone 50-20! No one has ever gone 50-25 before. Here are the best stolen base seasons among 50-home run hitters.

In those 49 seasons with 50 home runs each, the player only reached double digits in stolen bases 14 times.

Now let's go the other way. Let's look at players with at least 50 steals and how many home runs they hit. Many more players have reached 50 steals than 50 home runs, but we've only seen 22 players steal 50 bases and hit at least 20 home runs. Only three managed 30-50 (Acuña, Bonds and Eric Davis).

And we're talking about Shohei Ohtani hitting 50 home runs and stealing 50 bases. That's not cheap. He's second in the major leagues in both categories.

My conclusion that Ohtani is stealing so many more bases is not because of the rule changes (last season he only stole 20 bases) but because of his increased freshness by not pitching once every five or six days. But does that even matter? He's doing something we've never seen before. This is fantastic theater.

Ohtani's great crime is that he's already won two MVPs and is getting so much attention that some people are sick of hearing about him. That's always a problem these days between 24/7 news, the internet, social media, talk radio, etc. People get saturated with information about a particular player and the hatred – or even callous indifference – naturally follows. It's part of the cycle.

I generally agree with the whole thing: “I'm so sick of hearing about [insert anyone or anything, really]!” because, as I said, it's a natural feeling. It happens to me a lot in other sports where I'm just a fan. I understand that.

In doing so, you also miss out on enjoying the magnificence that is unfolding before us.

Ohtani is about to become the first DH ever to be voted MVP. He's already won two MVPs as a two-way player. He'll be the first player to ever hit 50 home runs and 50 stolen bases in a single season. It's OK to acknowledge how cool that is.

Why spoil the enjoyment with negativity? Snyder Soapbox's plea: Don't let it numb you. It's a historically amazing journey. Sit back and just enjoy witnessing the greatness.