CC Sabathia Shuts Down the Shohei Ohtani GOAT Debate With a Simple Argument

The Shohei Ohtani greatest-of-all-time conversation? CC Sabathia is done debating.

The former Yankees ace and Hall of Fame-bound pitcher said what a lot of fans are thinking but maybe haven’t had the nerve to put so bluntly: Ohtani is the best baseball player who ever lived, period. And Sabathia didn’t just say it—he backed it up with a comparison that lands like a fastball inside.

“I said it the first day. He’s the greatest baseball player to ever play,” Sabathia told reporters. “And I’m a huge Barry Bonds fan. Barry’s the GOAT. But Barry can’t go out and throw seven fucking innings. This guy is basically Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds. That to me sets him apart. Barry is a close second for me, but it’s Ohtani for sure.”

That’s the argument in a nutshell. Ohtani isn’t just a great hitter or a great pitcher. He’s both, at an elite level, simultaneously. That hasn’t happened since Babe Ruth, and even Ruth didn’t do it for as long or against modern competition.

The numbers that make the case

Ohtani’s career numbers are absurd for someone who splits time between the batter’s box and the mound. He’s got a 2.81 ERA as a starter with 297 home runs and a .282 career batting average. There is no contemporary comp. There’s barely a historical one.

And here’s the scary part: he’s getting better. In 2026, through 13 starts, Ohtani’s ERA is a ludicrous 1.58. He was flirting with a sub-1.00 ERA early in the season before cooling off slightly. At the plate, he’s hitting .295 with 17 homers after a slow start at the beginning of the year. The guy is doing things that don’t make sense on paper, but they’re happening anyway.

The Dodgers are running away with it

The Dodgers hold the best record in the National League at 55-30, which is a comfortable lead nobody saw coming quite this early. Ohtani is the engine, but the whole machine is humming. With him in the lineup and on the mound every fifth day, L.A. is chasing a three-peat that feels less like a dream and more like an inevitability.

Sabathia’s take is going to annoy a lot of traditionalists who still put Bonds, Ruth, or Willie Mays at the top of the mountain. But the more Ohtani keeps doing what he’s doing—hitting bombs, striking out batters, making baseball history look routine—the harder it gets to argue against him.