Here's the root of Ohtani's slump. Is there time to fix it?

Are the Dodgers really going to bench Shohei Ohtani, of all people, when the NLCS returns to Los Angeles for Game 3 on Wednesday? For, likely, a rookie in Josue De Paula who has all of 11 games of regular-season experience, at that?

We don’t have the answer to that yet, but that it’s even a consideration – and it is indeed a consideration – tells you a whole lot about how badly things have gone lately for the four-time Most Valuable Player and reigning Greatest Player Who Ever Lived. It’s not just that he’s hit a mere .150/.261/.150 in six playoff games, because plenty of great hitters can have a rough few games against outstanding playoff pitching. Matt Olson and Ronald Acuña Jr. hit about the same for Atlanta, and, for what it’s worth, Ohtani isn’t even the biggest problem spot in the Dodger lineup right now -- it’s Will Smith.

It is, instead, about the prior knowledge that Ohtani likely isn’t fully healthy, and really it’s about how bad it’s all looked. Thanks to right biceps and left knee issues, Ohtani hasn’t pitched since July 3, started to slump as a hitter in late August, then spent two weeks on the injured list in September, returning in time to play just five regular-season games, which mostly cleared up nothing.

He hasn’t hit a homer since Aug. 18, though it’s somewhat worse than even that; given that his final three homers of the regular season all came in one series at Coors Field, it’s now been more than two months since his last homer at Dodger Stadium, that against the Royals back on Aug. 12.

“I mean, obviously, it hasn’t been good,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said to The Athletic. “He doesn’t feel great. I think for me, it’s having a conversation with him [Tuesday], kind of try to figure out what’s best for him, what’s best for us. He certainly has earned that conversation and deserves it.”

Indeed he has. But also, through Aug. 18, he was a top-5 hitter in baseball. Since then, including the playoffs, he’s been one of the 10 weakest, finding himself hitting fifth in the lineup in the NLDS, the first time in more than six years he’d hit that low. In September, he struck out 39% of the time, the second-highest month of his entire career, in part because he’s running one of the highest chase rates he’s ever had, and his squared-up rate is as low as it’s been in years, too. It’s all going wrong, at the moment.

It seems eminently clear that Ohtani is not anywhere near his full-strength self, and if it later comes out that he’s simply too physically compromised to succeed but is trying to play through it for the sake of the team, it would surprise absolutely no one.

But as the Dodgers weigh what would generally have been an unthinkable decision -- benching the biggest star in the game while down 2-0 in the playoffs -- it’s important to go a little deeper than just outcomes. (Not that what he’s done has been anywhere near good enough, but remember that the entire Majors are hitting .213/.295/.337 in the playoffs right now. It’s really, really hard to hit in October, when the best pitchers can be used more aggressively.)

What can we find under the hood that might explain the root cause of his lack of performance?

"The physical part, he’s kind of moving past that," hitting coach Aaron Bates said at the start of the playoffs. "Now it’s just getting the timing against different speeds, when he wants to get his move off, that sort of thing -- kind of the usual stuff hitters go through as opposed to him navigating trying to achieve the physical components."

It is, from an external view, about timing, and his total lack of it right now. Maybe that’s because physical limitations prevent Ohtani from achieving his usual timing, in which case continuing to play him helps no one. Maybe he just hasn’t found it yet since his return, and more time and work will help him get there. That is the entirety of the question the Dodgers have to answer -- if this is a thing that can be solved in the next few days, or not.

What we do know for sure is that the timing of his swing seems completely off. Just look at performance against 95 mph+ pitches, something at which, from 2024-25, Ohtani was third-best in baseball. Compare the before/after since the date of his most recent homer, and including the playoffs in the “after.”

Ohtani against 95 mph+ pitches

• Through Aug. 18: .280 AVG, .441 SLG
• Since Aug. 19: .036 AVG, .071 SLG

That’s one lone hit (an admittedly impressive one, a Sept. 24 double off Mason Miller, of all people) against velocity, and all of this coming at the worst possible time. Why do the Majors, as whole, find such a drop-off in October offense? In part because velocity skyrockets in the biggest moments; the average October fastball this year is 96.2 mph.

Now, you might think that given that fact, and the known questions about his physical state, that Ohtani’s bat is simply slower. Counterintuitively, that hasn’t happened. Ohtani’s bat speed in October is as fast as it’s been all season. But he’s still late, which we know sounds like a difficult-to-grasp combination. Think about it this way: The bat is still moving through space plenty fast. It’s just that he’s either slower to get it started, or just not quite getting to that speed at the right time.

You can see that through the Statcast bat tracking data, and there’s so much not-great here that we’re just going to info dump it on you all at once before explaining what some of this means. There are 24 months, including the playoffs, during which this data is available, dating back to the middle of 2023.

For Ohtani, of those 24 months, October 2026 features his least impressive metrics in … just so many things.

Postseason 2026 superlatives, or lack thereof

• Attack angle: 24th of 24. Tied-lowest, at 8°. In previous years, it’s been closer to 13°. The Major League average is 10°.

• Attack direction: 24th of 24. His most opposite-field oriented attack direction, at 6° oppo. In previous years, he’s been more like 2° pull.

• Intercept point: 24th of 24. This is his month where he’s letting the ball get deepest, where his intercept point is only 22 inches out front. He’s usually around 27 inches, and the Major League average is nearer 31.

• Late swing rate: 24th of 24. His 37% late swing rate on four-seamers and sinkers is the highest of any month of his career. MLB average is 25%.

That’s a lot of numbers, we understand, and it all points to “the swing is wildly out of tune right now.”

So, let’s show you what that means. It’s all related to timing, and it’s not about the speed or shape of his swing, because his swing path really hasn’t changed much; it’s not more flat or uppercut or anything like that. It’s all connected, in this way:

Late swings lead to: the ball getting too deep, which leads to: an opposite-field attack direction and a much lower attack angle. If you hit it at all in the first place.

For Ohtani, you could see it most clearly in the third inning of Game 2, when he grounded out weakly to third base on a Logan Henderson fastball that was “only” 94.9 mph, yet he essentially had to take it right out of the catcher’s mitt. It looked uncomfortable on the broadcast feed …

… and the data visualization underneath it really shows you how late he was.

Perhaps a more effective way is to find two very similar pitches this year, and show you how differently his swing timing was.

Take two fastballs from lefties, each playing for Milwaukee, each around 95 mph, each middle-in. On Aug. 13, Shane Drohan’s 95.2 mph sinker was laced by Ohtani at nearly 112 mph off the bat for a leadoff double. In Game 2, JoJo Romero’s slightly slower 94.1 mph sinker was fouled off in a way that almost looked painful to watch. He would later strike out on a low-and-away sweeper.

While we can’t account with certainty for what Ohtani may have been looking for on each pitch and therefore if he was fooled, there’s a big difference between being on time and being late.

Against Drohan, he caught the ball 26 inches out in front of his body. Against Romero, when he was so late that he barely tapped it at all, it was a mere 6 inches.

It all comes back to timing, where he’s been late, late, and later.

Which all leads back to the big decision the Dodgers must make: Can this be fixed by hard work over the next day or two? Or is there a limitation that simply can’t be resolved until the offseason?

If it’s the latter, then simply dropping him down in the lineup might not really be worth much. It would lead to the improbable decision that De Paula is better suited to helping the Dodgers win a must-have game, and that’s at least a little about how impressive he’s been in limited time, leading none other than Joey Votto to observe this kind of high praise after De Paula’s Game 1 walk.

More than 530 players this year saw at least 100 pitches outside the zone, playoffs included. Only one had a lower chase rate than De Paula, who is MLB Pipeline’s No. 4 prospect in baseball for a reason, with a scouting report that read that he drew comparisons to “a slightly smaller but more athletic version of Yordan Alvarez.”

No pressure, that.

It is, as it always seems to be, a math problem. You'd take 100% of Ohtani over 100% of De Paula, easily, but you don't have 100% of Ohtani right now. You don't have time to figure it out, either. For the first time in forever, the best Dodger lineup being one that doesn't include Ohtani is a real possibility.