Shohei Ohtani the only 2-time member of 50-HR/20-SB club

Only six times has a player in Major League Baseball hit at least 50 home runs and steal at least 20 bases in the same season. Shohei Ohtani has two of those seasons, the only two-time member of the club.

Ohtani stole his 20th base on Friday night in Seattle, one day after hitting his 54th home run in the Dodgers’ division-clinching win in Arizona. Ohtani is also the first player in 23 years to hit 50 homers in consecutive seasons.

Last season, Ohtani made history with the first 50/50 season in baseball history, hitting 54 home runs to go with his 59 stolen bases. Nobody else with 50 home runs has stolen more than 24 bases in that season.

Ohtani’s stolen bases are way down this season, but that’s been by design as he is now pitching again while also in the lineup essentially every day. He has 11 steals in 15 attempts through May 23, the Dodgers’ 51st game of the season, coinciding roughly with when Ohtani began facing hitters in simulated games, and three and a half weeks shy of his first game on the mound for the Dodgers.

But in the over four months since, covering 109 games, Ohtani has attempted only 11 steals, successful in nine of them. He’s been busy on the mound as well, with a 2.87 ERA in 47 innings, with 62 strikeouts against only nine walks.

Before Ohtani in 2024, the previous 50/20 season was by Alex Rodríguez in 2007 with the New York Yankees. The first such season was by Willie Mays in 1955 with the New York Giants, with a league-leading 51 homers and 24 steals. The other two seasons came in the 1990s, with Brady Anderson’s surprise 50-homer season in 1996 (his second-most homers in a season was 24) to go with 21 steals for the Baltimore Orioles, and Ken Griffey Jr. hitting an American League-best 56 home runs in 1998 while stealing 20 bases for the Seattle Mariners.

Rodríguez in 2007 and Ohtani in 2024 won MVP awards for their league in those 50/20 seasons. Mays and Griffey finished fourth in the voting, and Anderson was ninth.