Ohtani to be treated as 2 different players in fantasy baseball

Shohei Ohtani is going to make being a fantasy baseball owner quite a bit more interesting next season.

Because of his ability to both hit and pitch, fantasy owners everywhere were wondering how the Japanese sensation would be classified in leagues next season.

It looks like Yahoo have reached a decision on how to handle the quandary.

In order to accrue Ohtani's hitting and pitching stats, he'll need to be drafted twice, Yahoo product manager Guy Lake recently told Josh Norris of Baseball America.

"We knew this was coming," Lake explained. "So we had to come to a position about it."

Yahoo apparently discussed multiple ideas including having one Ohtani available where users could toggle his position between pitcher and hitter and collect the appropriate stats.

Another option that was also considered included leaving him as a pitcher or hitter and discounting his other stats.

Ultimately, having two different versions of Ohtani available for drafting was Yahoo's conclusion. This model will also be used for other players with two-way ability such as Rays prospect Brendan McKay.

ESPN and CBS fantasy may follow a similar model to Yahoo, although CBS is considering a system whereby Ohtani would start as a pitcher and only gain hitter eligibility once he reached a certain number of games as a hitter, fantasy baseball developers told Awful Announcing.