LOS ANGELES - Postseason surgery is "not on the table" for two-way star Shohei Ohtani, the Los Angeles Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman said Wednesday.
The four-time MVP enjoyed a strong start to the season by going 8-2 with a 1.79 ERA in 14 starts on the mound but was troubled by left knee soreness since June and left the mound with right biceps inflammation on July 3 in his last pitching outing of the year.
Ohtani returned from a 15-day injured list in September after dealing with the inflammation but only ended his home run drought dating back to Aug. 18 in the National League Championship Series Game 4 against the Milwaukee Brewers on Oct. 15, the Dodgers' last game of the season.
"It was just a little bit of an unfortunate game of whack-a-mole," Friedman told a press conference. "It was just a lot of different things he was trying to contend with at once."
While Friedman was relaxed about the prospect of Ohtani continuing his two-way endeavors next year, he claimed discussions will be held along the way to bring out the best in him while keeping the player healthy.
"I fully expect him to pitch next year," Friedman said. "This is unprecedented what he's doing, so obviously for us it's unprecedented, we don't have any experience to draw from. We can't go look at how other situations have played out to try to learn from the good and bad."
"I'm not only expecting him to pitch, we're excited about him pitching...I expect us to put our heads together and figure out both in the batter's box, on the mound, how we marry all that together to have him impact us as much as he can during the regular season, and then also be in a really good spot going into October."
Ohtani ended the season with 30 home runs, his lowest in six years, while his batting average dropped from .275 in the regular season to .192 in the postseason as the Dodgers missed out on the World Series three-peat.
"The injury started in early July. Through mid-August, he was still the consensus MVP," Friedman said. "(Next season) it's going to be 'here's our plan for as far as we can kind of see out, and let's keep assessing as we go.'"
"When we get to that point, let's evaluate and see where we are, and I think we're just going to have to be very deliberate about it on all sides because the value of it is incredible, and therefore it's incumbent upon all of us to figure out the best way to do it."
