Dave Roberts just made a big insinuation about Shohei Ohtani's 2026 season with Dodgers

There are all kinds of crazy predictions that you can come up with for Shohei Ohtani's 2026 campaign. Except for him, they might just be par for the course. For example, if you picked the Los Angeles Dodgers star as the favorite to win the NL MVP, to lead the league in homers, or to win the Triple Crown, you'd probably have pretty good odds.

Ohtani is one of the absolute best hitters in the game. Feats like these are expected. But what about Ohtani, the pitcher? After undergoing Tommy John surgery in September of 2023, the Dodgers have been very careful with this version of the player. The unicorn didn't take the mound for LA until mid-June last season.

And upon his return, he looked very good. The two-way star made 14 "starts" but the Dodgers still handled him with kid gloves, only allowing him to pitch 47 innings. Still, you can't argue with a 2.87 ERA and a 33% strikeout rate, especially when the latter comes against just a 4.8% rate of free passes.

We saw Ohtani air it out a bit more in the playoffs, logging 20 1/3 innings across his four starts, and while the 4.43 ERA doesn't jump out, it's not an accurate reflection of how he's pitched.

As a starter, the superstar is still a bit of an enigma. He had some very good showings in Anaheim, but also only topped 132 innings once. The plan this year, though, seems for him to be a full-fledged member of the rotation, and with that comes a bold proclamation from Dave Roberts.

Dave Roberts put the entire league on notice with his bold assertion about Shohei Ohtani's 2026 season as a member of the Dodgers rotation

So if Ohtani is going to be a member of Los Angeles' rotation from Opening Day on, what is a reasonable expectation for how he'll perform? According to Roberts, it's a Cy Young Award entering his trophy case at season's end.

"I think it's fair to say he expects to be in the Cy Young conversation," Roberts offered up while speaking about how Ohtani's 2026 could unfold.

That's a tough ask. Not only because of the health issues that Ohtani has faced when given a heavy starter's workload, but also due to the presence of reigning Cy Young champ Paul Skenes, who has quickly established himself as the best right-handed starter in all of baseball.

The Dodgers are likely to use a six-man rotation for at least part of the season in order to keep Ohtani and their other horses healthy. That will help with the durability required to accomplish such a feat, but will it also hurt him if his raw counting numbers aren't quite as high as a result?

We've moved away from the days when wins were considered a valid way to evaluate a pitcher, but people still like big round numbers, so if Ohtani pitches less than Skenes and his top competitors, will it matter if he doesn't get to those big flashy counting numbers?

Of course, Ohtani can't be counted out for anything. He's the most unique player we've ever seen, and with his talent, the only true obstacle that can derail him is health. Could he wind up as both the 2026 NL MVP and NL Cy Young? You can't put it past him.