Talk:Shohei Ohtani/GA1

GA Review

Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch

Reviewer: Sanfranciscogiants17 (talk · contribs) 19:42, 16 September 2021 (UTC)

I will be reviewing this! By the way, in the future, I’d recommend that you don’t withdraw and renominate an article if you want it to get reviewed quicker. There doesn’t often seem to be any rhyme or reason to how fast things get reviewed—sometimes an article you don’t think anyone will care about gets reviewed the next day, while other times, one like this you’d expect to garner quicker attention takes forever to get reviewed. There does seem to be a preference for articles that have been waiting longer, however, so just letting it sit up there is the best way to get it reviewed the soonest.

@Sanfranciscogiants17: Thank you so much for taking the time to review this! As for the withdrawal, this is my first time nominating an article for GA status, so I didn't really take into consideration that the length and depth of the article would affect how many reviews it would get. I'll keep that in mind in the future. Troutfarm27 ^(Talk) 20:43, 16 September 2021 (UTC)

@Troutfarm27: No problem, and don't worry if an article is long. Some people take more words to write about than the others. The long ones are just as good as the short ones; it just takes them longer to get reviewed sometimes. Tommy John, one of the longest I've done, was up there for about six months, then abandoned by the first reviewer before it was done, so I know what it's like to wait! Sanfranciscogiants17 (talk) 20:50, 16 September 2021 (UTC)

Early career

• Anything on his childhood before high school? What got him to start playing baseball? (If you can’t find this, no big deal, but I just thought I’d ask since he’s so well-known.)

@Sanfranciscogiants17: yes, there is information but a lot of the sources are from Japanese documentaries on Ohtani. It's difficult to source Wikipedia articles if the information is coming from documentaries - Vera26 (talk) 19:27, 5 October 2021 (UTC)

I understand the difficulty, but considering the high profile of Ohtani, I'm sure there's at least some stuff available in English. Just because something's in one source doesn't mean it's not in another. Sanfranciscogiants17 (talk) 03:42, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

• ” He pitched a 160 km/h (99 mph) fastball as an 18-year-old high school pitcher. He threw the pitch in the Japanese national high school baseball championship tournament, commonly called Summer Koshien.” – change to “He threw a 160 km/h (99 mph) fastball as an 18-year-old in the Japanese High School Baseball Championship.” No need to refer to it by two names, so I’d refer to it by the title of the article. Alternatively, you could just call it Summer Koshien, but the article title probably makes more sense.
• Baseball statistics are supposed to be linked on first mention—so good job linking won-loss record, but strikeouts, walks, hits, runs, earned run average, and innings pitched should all be linked the first time.
• ” Ohtani expressed a desire to move directly to the major leagues after high school and received interest from numerous teams including the Texas Rangers, Boston Red Sox, New York Yankees and Los Angeles Dodgers. On October 21, 2012, he announced that he would pursue a career in Major League Baseball rather than turn professional in Japan.” – “Receiving interest from the Texas Rangers, Boston Red Sox, New York Yankees and Los Angeles Dodgers, Ohtani announced on October 21, 2012, that he would pursue a career in Major League Baseball (MLB) rather than turn professional in Japan.”
• Link Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters
• ”spend some years in Japan before a possible MLB move” – “spend some seasons playing in Japan.”

Rookie year (2013)

• Link Pacific League
• Link All-star game (I don’t think there’s an article about the NPB one, but you can just link to the generic article).
• Spell out and link run batted in (RBI) on first mention
• This first paragraph is poorly cited. The only reference cited seems only to cover one sentence. You don’t need to have a citation after every sentence, but you do need everything before each citation to be covered by that citation. This first paragraph needs more cites.
• First sentence of the paragraph should be merged with the sentence that talks about him getting selected to the All-Star Game. Also, be careful using terms like “high-profile” or “mediocre”, as these MAY present a neutrality issue. It’s fine to use them if the source uses them or an equivalent, but you shouldn’t say he had a mediocre year if the source just gives his statistics without elaboration. (source did not use the word mediocre, so instead the line was removed).
• ” he was 3–0 with a 4.23 ERA with 33 walks to 46 K in 61 2/3 IP.” – “he was 3—0 with a 4.23 ERA, 33 walks, and 46 strikeouts (K) in 61 2/3 IP.”
• The first time you use the slashes, put the name of the stat they represent after each number. It’s like spelling out an abbreviation—once you do it the first time, people will know what you mean later on.
• Make sure numbers under 10 are formatted consistently. Either 7 assists to 1 error or seven assists to one error, but don’t mix and match.
• ”He did get 4” – “Ohtani got 4”
• Sentences in the middle of the paragraph need to be cited.
• Plate appearance should be linked

Second NPB All-Star selection (2014)

• ”Throughout the entire season” – Remove entire, as it is redundant.
• The first paragraph needs to be cited. “Impressive batting skills” probably isn’t neutral.
• ” at Kyocera Dome to become the first Japanese player to reach” – “at Kyocera Dome, then became the first Japanese player that season to reach”
• Link shutout
• Was the 2013 All-Star Game sponsored? If so, should probably put that, or take out Mazda in 2014 and just not put the sponsor for either.
• ” setting a new record for the fastest official pitch thrown by a Japanese pitcher, beating the record set by the Yakult Swallows' Yoshinori Sato in 2010 (161 km/h (100 mph))” – “breaking Yoshinori Sato’s 2010 record of 161 km/h (100 mph) for the fastest pitch thrown by a Japanese pitcher.”
• I’d move the info about selling the jersey to the personal life section, as an example of charitable work he’s done.
• The October 5 paragraph, while interesting, is too detailed for an encyclopedia article, particularly one for someone like Ohtani who will probably play for many years. I would put simply “On October 5 against the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles, Ohtani tied Marc Kroon’s NPB record for fastest pitch in an official game with a 162 km/h (101 mph) fastball that shattered Akaminai Ginji's bat in half.”
• Link Suzuki All-Star Series
• Don’t use contractions in Wikipedia articles, unless it’s as part of a quote.
• Last sentence of All-Star Series paragraph could be condensed to “Starting game 5, he allowed two unearned runs in four innings, striking out seven in a 3—1 loss.”
• Spell out million on first mention, then put (100M) in parentheses to explain the abbreviation later on.

Pacific League Pitcher Best Nine and ERA leader (2015)

• Most of the material in this section is not cited—it needs to be cited.
• I’d condense the info about the All-Star Game to “Starting the first NPB All-Star Game of the year, Ohtani pitched two innings and struck out two while allowing one run, receiving a no-decision in the PL’s 8–6 defeat.
• Also, I’d avoid the word fanned—it’s more of a slang term than an encyclopedic one. Obviously, some “slang” terms (like bullpen) have been so commonly used that they are now appropriate, but I think “fanned” crosses the line.
• ” He rarely played the field but did see some action at DH” – “Though rarely used as a fielder, Ohtani did serve as the designated hitter on some days when he was not pitching,”
• ” He finished third in MVP voting again” – Should mention the first time. Also, spell out and link Most Valuable Player on first mention.
• Link Best Nine Award on first mention
• Link Sawamura Award
• Put what his winning percentage was (for people like me who aren’t great at math)
• ” Ohtani was dominant for the Japanese national team in the 2015 Premier 12. He hit 100 mph while blowing away eventual champion South Korea (10 K, 2 H, 2 BB, 0 R in 6 IP) before Norimoto relieved” – “Dominant” and “blowing away” are not neutral in tone. Of course, if someone refers to his performance as this, you could always put “X called his performance “dominant”” or something like that.
• Link Scott Diamond
• This whole paragraph needs to be cited better and rewritten to make it more neutral in tone.

Pacific League Most Valuable Player and first Japan Professional Sports Grand Prize (2016)

• ” Ohtani hit 22 home runs. He also hit 18 doubles, 67 RBI, batted .322 with an OBP of .416, scored 65 runs and had 7 stolen bases” – “Ohtani batted .322 with 65 runs scored, 18 doubles, 22 home runs, 67 RBI, seven stolen bases, and an on base percentage of .416.” Make sure on base percentage is spelled out and linked on first mention.
• ” Ohtani was the same dominant pitcher on the mound.” – Take this out and just put his stats.
• ” He had a 10–4 record, struck out 174 batters in 140 innings with 4 complete games and one shutout” – “He had a 10—4 record, 174 strikeouts, four complete games, and one shutout in 140 innings.”
• You refer to the All-Star Game in the singular, but there are two. Put which one he was selected to what for, or say he was selected to both games.
• Condense the Game 2 summary to “Starting at DH and hitting 5th in Game 2, he hit a home run and had a game-tying RBI single in the eighth inning, earning game MVP honors in the 5—5 tie.”
• ”setting a new NPB record” – “breaking his own record”
• If you’re going to use the HR and PA abbreviations, put the terms in parentheses after the first mention of them in the article.
• ” but lost the opener to the Hiroshima Carp; he fanned 11 in 6 innings but allowed 3 runs, two on a homer by Brad Eldred and one on a steal of home by Seiya Suzuki” – “but lost the opener to the Hiroshima Carp, striking out 11 in 6 innings but allowing 3 runs in the [whatever the score was] defeat.”
• ” Down 2 games to 0, he came up big as the DH in game 3, getting 3 hits, a run and a RBI.” – “In Game 3, he recorded 3 hits, a run and a RBI.” (The down 2—0 part is explained later.)
• Take out the sentence about Laird—irrelevant to this article.
• ”doing more on offense than on the mound for the Series” – just take that part out.

2017

• ”while going 3–2, 3.20 with 29 strikeouts on the mound” – “while posting a 3—2 record, a 3.20 ERA, and 29 strikeouts as a pitcher.”
• The stats need to be cited.
• ”There was a question as to whether or not…” Since the sides ultimately did come to an agreement, I’d take this sentence out.
• Take out “at that time”
• ”That essentially meant all 30 teams could afford to go after Ohtani.” – Take that sentence out.
• ”It is speculated” – You have to put who speculated. Otherwise, this is just original research. (“Several reporters speculated” would be fine if there were more than one, but gotta list somebody!) removed
• ”Ohtani narrowed his finalists to the Angels, Dodgers, Giants, Padres, Mariners, Rangers and Cubs, signing with the Angels for a $2.315 million bonus” – “After considering offers from seven teams, Ohtani signed with the Los Angeles Angels for a $2.315 million bonus.”

Los Angeles Angels

• Take out the first two sentences of the section, as they’re already covered at the end of the Japan section. Make the third the start of the 2018 section.

2018: AL Rookie of the Year

• Have a sentence about the Angels planning to use him as both a pitcher and a designated hitter during the season, as this is very unusual for MLB teams.
• ”Ohtani made the 25-man roster and started as the designated hitter on Opening Day, March 29, against the Oakland Athletics. He singled in his first at-bat” – “Ohtani started as the designated hitter on Opening Day, March 29, against the Oakland Athletics, singling in his first at bat.”
• The sentence about his pitching debut needs a citation.
• ”The following day, he hit his second, becoming the first Angels player to homer in his first two career home games. He tied the franchise records of 12 total bases, and five RBI through his first three consecutive career games (both set by Bobby Clark in 1979).” – This is too in-depth—I’d take all this out. Besides, homering in the first two games is covered by mentioning (later) that he homered in his first three.
• ”he became the first major leaguer in nearly a century to hit 15 home runs and pitch 50 innings in a season, previously accomplished by Babe Ruth in 1919” – I’d actually take this out, because you cover it later on in the section.
• ”broke the home run record” – “broke the MLB home run record”
• Put “hit” instead of “blasted” – “blasted” is less neutral.
• ”Ohtani ended his first major league season with a batting average of .285, and a .361 on-base-percentage. He finished with 22 home runs, 10 stolen bases and 61 RBIs” – “Ohtani ended his first major league season with a batting average of .285, a .361 on-base-percentage, 22 home runs, 61 RBIs, and 10 stolen bases.”
• Spell out and link walks plus hits per inning pitched (WHIP) on first mention.
• ”to reach 20 home runs, and joined Babe Ruth as the only pair of MLB players with” – “to reach 20 home runs, and he joined Babe Ruth as the only MLB players with”
• ”which kept him off the mound until 2020” – “which would keep him off the mound until 2020.”
• Link general manager and Billy Eppler
• Link American League on first mention.

2019

• To date, this is Ohtani’s third-longest season in the MLB. In spite of that, hardly anything is mentioned about it. Considering how deeply you’ve covered his seasons in Japan, you’re going to need to expand this section to keep it in line with the rest of the article. Highlights, records, injury updates are all appropriate things to mention.
• The last two sentences need to be cited as well.

2020

• You need a sentence about the season start getting postponed due to the Coronavirus, but you can just copy this from an article that already mentions it (like Sergio Romo)
• ”It did not go as well as planned, as…” – Obviously it didn’t; just take that part out.
• He didn’t really hit that well in 2020. Are there any articles about this? A quote from his manager or a sportswriter would be helpful.

@Sanfranciscogiants17: yes, there is a specific quote from Ohtani himself that lamented his performance in 2020. iirc, he specifically calls it "pathetic". I can provide the source if you'd like - Vera26 (talk) 19:27, 5 October 2021 (UTC)

2021

• I’d add a photo to this section.
• Link arbitration
• ”In his first pitching start against the Chicago White Sox on Sunday Night Baseball on April 4, 2021, he threw 4⅔ innings, allowing one earned run and two unearned runs. During that start, he struck out seven batters” – “In his first pitching start of the season, on April 4 against the Chicago White Sox in a game featured on Sunday Night Baseball, he allowed two runs (one earned) in 4 2/3 innings, striking out seven batters.”
• Cite his hitting performance in the game
• ”becoming both the first pitcher and the first Japanese player to do so” – “the first pitcher and Japanese player ever selected”
• ”for the fourth in his career” – “for the fourth time in his career”
• Mention the first two player of the week selections, and only link Player of the Week the first time it’s mentioned.
• ”On June 23, he made history yet again as he hit for himself as a pitcher and the second batter in the lineup against the Giants with designated hitter rules in place” – “On June 23, he hit for himself as a pitcher against the Giants even though designated hitter rules were in place”
• Also, spell out and link San Francisco Giants on first mention.
• ”breaking Hideki Matsui's 2004 record for the most home runs hit during an MLB season by a Japanese-born player.”
• Move the part about his home run derby proceeds to the personal life section and mention with that other charitable thing you’re moving down there.
• ”On July 13, Ohtani made All-Star Game history again as the starting pitcher and leadoff designated hitter for the American League” – “In the All-Star Game on July 13, Ohtani was allowed to serve both as the starting pitcher and the designated hitter for the American League.”
• ”Ohtani became the first pitcher in league history to register 100 strikeouts while holding a major-league-leading 35 home runs before the end of July, as no pitcher had ever recorded triple-digit strikeouts and added more than nine home runs in the same season” – “Ohtani recorded his 100th strikeout of the season, becoming the first MLB pitcher to reach the milestone while also hitting at least 10 home runs.”
• ” a scoreless top half and record a hit, a RBI, a stolen base and a scored run” – “a scoreless top half of an inning and record a hit, a RBI, a stolen base and a run scored in the bottom of the inning”
• ” And for the second straight month, Ohtani also earned his second American League Player of the Month Award, becoming the first back-to-back Player of the Month Award winner in either league since Chase Headley in August and September of 2012, and the first in the AL since Josh Hamilton in 2012” – “He was again named the AL Player of the Month, becoming the first back-to-back Player of the Month Award winner since Chase Headley in 2012.”
• Take out the sentence about Granderson—a little too much detail.

International career

• I’d take out the section headings, since the first and third sections are really short.
• Second section needs more cites.

Awards and achievements

• These seem to be frowned on in baseball articles, for some reason. Anyway, you cover all this in the text, so it’s probably not necessary.

It's probably necessary as other baseball players have this section - Vera26 (talk) 19:27, 5 October 2021 (UTC)

• • Other baseball players may have this section, but I've often been told to take out sections like this when preparing them for GA. So it's NOT necessary, though I don't have a major problem with leaving it in. In the future, though, other GA reviewers may not be as big a fan of a section like this. Sanfranciscogiants17 (talk) 03:44, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

Playing style

• “BB/9 (walks per 9 innings rate)” – “walks per 9 innings rate (BB/9)
• More detail on why he has been compared to Verlander

this can be added. The Ringer has a pretty good article recently on the Verlander comparisons - Vera26 (talk) 19:27, 5 October 2021 (UTC)

• The batting/fielding section seems short—maybe see if you can find more to mention in it? (Though, if you can’t, that’s alright—these sections are easier to write the more seasons a player has behind him.)

Personal life

• This section is really short. Any info on his family (if yes, parents or siblings probably should be mentioned in early life)? Where does he live in LA? Does he have any hobbies? Did he have a favorite MLB team in Japan? You might not be able to find all this out, but I’ll bet with someone as well-known as Ohtani, you can discover more.

@Sanfranciscogiants17: yes, there is information but a lot of the sources are from Japanese documentaries on Ohtani. It's difficult to source Wikipedia articles if the information is coming from documentaries - Vera26 (talk) 19:27, 5 October 2021 (UTC)

References

• Date format should be consistent—either Month Day, Year; Day Month, Year, or Year-month-day, but use just one of these styles for all references.
• Authors should consistently be last name-first name (or first name-last name, but probably simpler to change it all to last name-first name).
• If a reference is titled “This page has been removed” or “Page not found”, it’s almost certainly a dead link that can’t be relied on for the article. You might be able to rescue them through the Web archiver. Copy and paste the URL into the link at the top of this page, then click “Go.” If an archived copy of the article comes up, then add the links in. (The Wikipedia article Ryan Rowland-Smith has several archived articles, so you can refer to it if you need help formatting archived refs.) If the archiver does not have a copy of the link, then you probably need to look for a new one.
• Make sure all the references have a date (if given) and an accessdate. You need to do this even if the date and accessdate are the same.
• Ref 8 needs author and publisher info.
• Ref 10 needs more info.
• Ref 13 needs more info.
• Ref 20 needs more info.
• Ref 37 needs more info.
• Be consistent with the ESPN refs. Some are italicized while others are not, and some have .com while others do not. Pick one way to do it—I don’t care which, but make it all the same.
• Same goes for the MLB refs.
• Refs 40 and 41 need more info.
• Ref 61 needs more info.
• On Ref 64, I’m pretty sure TODAY doesn’t need to be all caps.
• Ref 67—work should be Yahoo Sports, not AP
• Ref 88 and Ref 104—spell out Orange County Register, like you did earlier.
• Ref 96—Make Mo Castillo the author and Yahoo Sports the work.
• Ref 97 needs more info
• Ref 102 needs more info.
• Ref 110 should be “Los Angeles Times”, like other refs

Overall analysis

• A lot of work has gone into this article, and it shows! Its very informative, but it has a number of issues right now preventing it from being a good article. Looking at the good article criteria, the ones it doesn’t meet right now are:
• 2. Verifiable—Article contains a lot of uncited material. Also, current citations need to be formatted better.
• 3. Broad in its coverage
  • 3a. Certain portions of Otani’s career (such as 2019) are not covered enough, compared to the depth this article goes into.
  • 3b. Frequently, the article goes into unnecessary detail, providing info to a level more appropriate for a book than an encyclopedia article.

I’ve tried to mention all the specific instances of these flaws in my comments above. I don’t know how fast you work—these issues might take a while for you to fix, or they might not. I don’t think the article’s that far away from becoming a good article, so I’m going to put it ON HOLD right now. While “On Hold” generally lasts for seven days, I think a month’s more appropriate, given the length of the article. If you’ve made a lot of progress or finished by then, it’ll probably be close to (if not ready) to pass. Let me know if you have any questions! I’m not always that great about monitoring review pages, so if you have a question on the review page and don’t get a response, message me on my talk page and I’ll definitely see it. Good luck! Sanfranciscogiants17 (talk) 19:42, 16 September 2021 (UTC)

Status query

Sanfranciscogiants17, Troutfarm27, what is the status of this nomination? As far as I can see, it has been over two months since this page was edited, and most of the issues raised have not been checked off here by Troutfarm27, nor has Sanfranciscogiants17 returned, even after the specified month, to see whether progress while on hold was sufficient. Any chance that this can be completed before the end of the year? Thank you. BlueMoonset (talk) 16:05, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

@BlueMoonset: Hello! Sorry for the late response, been caught up with life stuff but if we can get multiple people working on the article, the end of the year / early to mid January seems pretty reasonable. So far there's only been 3 or so users who have made edits in regards to the issues Sanfranciscogiants17 pointed out. It's also worth noting that there may be issues that were addressed by other editors, but haven't been checked off here. Troutfarm27 ^(Talk) 06:40, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

Taking a look at the article again, and it still looks pretty far away from being completed. The 2019 section is still way too short, and 2021 is still too long. Many of the changes have not been made. I'm going to be failing it for now, but I think if the comments made in this review are all addressed, it'll have a better chance next time it comes up for GA. Sanfranciscogiants17 (talk) 03:46, 15 December 2021 (UTC)