CC Sabathia Calls Shohei Ohtani 'Best Baseball Player I've Ever Seen in My Life'

With a short list of former teammates that includes Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez, Aaron Judge, Giancarlo Stanton, Robinson Cano, Omar Vizquel and Ichiro, CC Sabathia saw a lot over his 19 MLB seasons. 

According to him, though, none of them compared to Angels two-way star Shohei Ohtani. On his R2C2 is UNINTERRUPTED podcast, the 2007 Cy Young winner said Ohtani is the most talented player he's ever seen:

"I keep saying this, and people always laugh when I say it, he the best baseball player I've ever seen in my life," Sabathia said. "Are you kidding me? Motherf--ker can hit a ball 900 feet and throw 99 off the mound. Who else can do that? Who else is doing that, bro? There's nobody else doing that at the big league level."

Sabathia went on to say he's glad Ohtani picked the Angels organization because a team like the New York Yankees would have made him pick pitching or hitting. The Angels have allowed Ohtani to follow his two-way desires, though he missed all of the 2019 season on the mound because of Tommy John surgery.

It's hard to argue with Sabathia's logic in some sense. There aren't many players who are able to do both but, in many cases, that could be because they're not given the freedom to do so. Baseball turns high-level players into specialists starting in high school; there are probably several position players who can top 90 on the radar gun.