In 2023, Shohei Ohtani did something no player had done since Babe Ruth dominate as both an elite pitcher and a .300/.400/.600 hitter in the same season. Then he signed the largest contract in North American sports history, $700 million over ten years, and moved to the Los Angeles Dodgers. The Dodgers won the 2025 World Series. Now, in 2026, he is about to attempt the unthinkable again this time as a full-time two-way player for the first time with the defending champions and that is only the opening act of what may be the most compelling baseball calendar in modern history.
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The Argument: Why 2026 Hits Different
The 2025 MLB season was genuinely great. Attendance ticked up for the third straight year. Postseason ratings climbed. But 2026 arrives with a structural advantage that 2025 never had: a World Baseball Classic leading directly into Opening Day. That means baseball fans won't wake up cold on March 25. They will already be six weeks deep into a tournament that has produced some of the most emotional sporting moments of the last decade and the transition from WBC fever to a full 162-game season has the potential to sustain engagement in a way the sport hasn't experienced since the late-1990s home run explosion.
This is the argument: the 2026 MLB season, beginning March 25, will surpass 2025 in competitive quality, star power, narrative depth, and fan engagement and the WBC prologue is the match that lights the fuse.
The Evidence
1. The WBC Ignition: March 5–17
Think back to March 2023. Japan versus the United States. Shohei Ohtani facing Mike Trout his own Angels teammate with the World Baseball Classic championship on the line. That at-bat was watched by an estimated 8.1 million viewers on Fox Sports, the highest-rated WBC game in U.S. television history at the time. Japan won. The global baseball conversation exploded.
The 2026 WBC runs March 5 through March 17. That is 13 days of international baseball at peak competitive intensity, with rosters fielding full-strength major leaguers, happening eight days before spring training ends and 20 days before Opening Day. The psychological impact on the average fan is significant: there is no cold-start. By March 25, audiences will already have opinions, storylines, and villains. That is priceless programming for a sport that has historically struggled to dominate the March sports conversation against March Madness.
2. The Ohtani Factor: The Full Two-Way Experiment Begins
In 2023, Ohtani posted a 3.14 ERA over 132 innings while also hitting .304/.412/.654. He won his second unanimous AL MVP. Then he had Tommy John surgery and did not pitch in 2024 or 2025 instead spending those years proving he was the most dangerous pure hitter on the planet for the Dodgers. He hit .310 with 47 home runs in 2025, won the NL MVP, and the Dodgers claimed the World Series.
In 2026, the arm is fully recovered. According to multiple reports from Dodgers camp, Ohtani is expected to return to the mound. If he achieves even 70% of his 2023 pitching output while maintaining 2025's offensive numbers, there is no historical comparison. Babe Ruth's best seasons as a two-way player came in 1918–19, before the live-ball era changed everything. The analytic tools, training science, and media saturation of 2026 mean that every Ohtani start will be a national event.
| Category | Ohtani 2023 (Angels) | Ohtani 2025 (Dodgers) | Projected 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|
| AVG / OBP / SLG | .304 / .412 / .654 | .310 / .419 / .671 | Elite (TBD) |
| Home Runs | 44 | 47 | 45–50 projected |
| ERA (as pitcher) | 3.14 | DNP (recovery) | 3.20–3.80 projected |
| Team Record | 73-89 (Angels) | 98-64 (Dodgers, WS Champs) | Contender |
| MVP Award | AL MVP | NL MVP | Front-runner both ways |
3. Deeper Competition Than 2025
The 2025 World Series featured the Dodgers defeating the New York Yankees in six games a marquee matchup that generated massive ratings. But critics noted it was a two-team race that felt predetermined from May onward. In 2026, the competitive landscape has reshuffled materially.
The Atlanta Braves, operating with Ronald Acuña Jr. returning to full health after his 2024 ACL tear (he played limited games in 2025), are widely projected as NL East favorites. The Yankees have retooled their rotation. The Baltimore Orioles with Jackson Holliday, Gunnar Henderson, and Adley Rutschman forming one of the youngest and most terrifying cores in baseball are the consensus AL East dark horses turning contender. In the AL West, the Texas Rangers are not done. And the San Diego Padres, with Fernando Tatis Jr. entering his prime at 27, are a genuine NL West threat to the Dodgers.
Five to seven legitimate World Series contenders entering Opening Day is the kind of parity that sustains fan engagement deep into September. In 2025, by early August, the picture was largely clear. In 2026, expect chaos — and chaos is good television.
4. The New CBA, Bigger Payrolls, and International Market Growth
The 2023 Collective Bargaining Agreement introduced the international draft, an expanded 12-team playoff format, and new revenue-sharing mechanisms. Two full seasons under these rules have now allowed teams to build strategically around them. The result in 2026 is that mid-market teams Cleveland Guardians, Milwaukee Brewers, Kansas City Royals have more structural tools to retain young stars before arbitration costs price them out. The Royals, who shocked baseball with their 2024 playoff run, return with a full season of Bobby Witt Jr. locked up long-term.
Internationally, MLB's deals in South Korea, Japan, and across Latin America have pushed global viewership numbers consistently upward year-over-year since 2022. The WBC further accelerates this: every country that fields a competitive team creates a new pipeline of emotionally invested international fans who then follow their players into the regular season.
The Counter-Argument And Why It Doesn't Hold
The reasonable skeptic says this: the WBC disrupts spring training preparation, raises injury risk for stars, and historically has not translated into sustained regular-season viewership gains. They point to 2017 the last WBC year before the current format expanded when overall MLB attendance actually declined slightly the following season. They'll note that Ohtani's two-way return is unconfirmed and speculative, and that a re-injury setback could deflate the entire 2026 narrative.
Fair points. But consider the counterweight. The 2023 WBC coincided with the highest single-season MLB attendance figure since 2017, with the league drawing approximately 70.7 million fans across all 30 ballparks. The correlation isn't proof of causation, but it demolishes the idea that the WBC hurts regular-season interest. As for Ohtani's health every Dodgers camp report through February 2026 has been positive, and the organization would not risk a $700 million asset without medical certainty. And even if he pitches only 100 innings, that is still unprecedented at the MLB level in the current era.
The critics are playing defense. The 2026 season is playing offense.
The Bigger Picture: Baseball Is Finding Its Next Era
American sports culture has a habit of declaring baseball dead every decade and then being embarrassed when it resurges. It happened after the 1994 strike, when Cal Ripken's consecutive games streak and the McGwire-Sosa home run race pulled the sport back from the edge. It happened after the steroid era imploded, when a generation of genuinely clean athletic freaks — Trout, Kershaw, Buster Posey rebuilt trust.
What 2026 represents is something more structural: the first season where the post-shift rule changes (banning the defensive shift, implementing the pitch clock) have been fully absorbed into the sport's identity. Batting averages league-wide climbed back toward .260 in 2025 after the rules kicked in. Games averaged under 2 hours and 40 minutes the fastest since 1984. Younger fans, raised on instant gratification, are getting a tighter, more dynamic product. The WBC adds international prestige. Ohtani provides a singular human story. And a competitive NL and AL field guarantees that the pennant races will matter in September.
Baseball in 2026 is not nostalgic. It is not trying to recreate 1998. It is building something genuinely new, with one foot in tradition and one foot in a global sporting market that America's pastime is only beginning to properly exploit.
The Verdict
The 2026 MLB season starts March 25. Before it even begins, the World Baseball Classic will have delivered two weeks of high-stakes international baseball that primes audiences in ways Opening Day alone never could. Shohei Ohtani will attempt to do something no player in 100 years has done. The competitive field is deeper than 2025's effectively decided-early race. The game itself is faster, cleaner, and more accessible than it has been in 40 years.
This is not a prediction. It is a structural analysis. Every condition required for a historic baseball season is present in 2026. The question is not whether this year surpasses 2025 it is by how much.
Watch the WBC. Clear your calendar for March 25. And tell whoever told you baseball was dying that they owe you an apology.
People Also Ask
When does MLB 2026 Opening Day start?
MLB 2026 Opening Day is scheduled for March 25, 2026, following the conclusion of the World Baseball Classic (March 5–17). All 30 teams begin the 162-game regular season on that date.
Will Shohei Ohtani pitch in the 2026 MLB season?
Yes, according to all available reports from the Los Angeles Dodgers spring camp, Shohei Ohtani is expected to return to pitching duties in 2026 after missing the 2024 and 2025 seasons on the mound due to Tommy John surgery recovery. He is projected to serve as a two-way player — pitcher and designated hitter for the first time as a Dodger.
Who are the favorites to win the 2026 World Series?
The defending champion Los Angeles Dodgers enter 2026 as favorites, with Ohtani's two-way return as the central storyline. Serious contenders include the Atlanta Braves (with a healthy Ronald Acuña Jr.), the Baltimore Orioles (Henderson, Holliday, Rutschman core), the New York Yankees (rebuilt rotation), and the San Diego Padres (Tatis Jr. in his prime). The 2026 AL and NL races are projected to be more competitive than 2025 across the board.