ESPN did the thing sports media seems to do when it gets bored: it stared at the most famous player on earth and said, “Let’s make the story bigger.”
In its 2026 bold predictions package, ESPN’s Alden Gonzalez pegged Shohei Ohtani to win the NL Cy Young, leaning hard into the idea that a full, healthy return to two-way dominance finally lets him “assert his dominance as a pitcher” and flip the long-running perception that his pitching trails his hitting.
It’s not some kind of crazy take. If Ohtani is truly back as a regular rotation piece, he’s capable of turning every fifth day into a headline.