Dodgers Will Have to Rebuild Shohei Ohtani’s Two-Way Schedule for 2027

Shohei Ohtani’s health is not the issue. The Dodgers believe he will be ready for 2027 without offseason surgery, but the harder question is how to keep a two-way season from pulling him apart again.

That is the tension facing Los Angeles after a 2026 campaign in which Ohtani was still productive when he was on the field, then gradually lost the balance that makes him so valuable. President of baseball operations Andrew Friedman said the club expects Ohtani to pitch next season and expects him to be healthy by the start of spring, but he also said the Dodgers need to figure out what they can do differently to get him through a full year as both a hitter and a pitcher. The point is not whether Ohtani can do both. It is how the Dodgers can schedule both without asking the same body to absorb the same strain for six months straight.

That conversation is still in its early stages. Friedman said the club has not gotten into details yet, but will need to sort out how Ohtani is used in the batter’s box and on the mound so he can provide value during the regular season and still arrive in October in strong condition. That framing matters because it signals a shift from simple availability to targeted management. The Dodgers are not treating two-way usage as an all-or-nothing proposition. They are looking at the workload as something that can be staged, delayed or interrupted if that helps preserve his effectiveness later.

One possibility under consideration is especially telling: Ohtani might not open the season in the rotation even if he is healthy enough to pitch. That does not mean the Dodgers are abandoning his arm. It means they may decide that the first month is the safest place to buy time, then assess how his body responds before putting him back into the full cycle of pitching and hitting. If that happens, it could also create room for more days off as a hitter, a move the club is already willing to entertain after seeing how recovery days after his pitching starts helped in 2026.

That approach would fit the way the Dodgers have already tried to manage him, even if the results last year showed the limits of the plan. They used a six-man rotation and gave Ohtani extra rest as a pitcher when needed, but the injuries still mounted. A left knee problem took him off the mound in July, a right biceps issue worsened around the same time, and he eventually landed on the injured list in September. He did not pitch again after July 3, then returned as a diminished offensive presence when the postseason arrived. The club’s challenge now is to separate what was helpful from what was not enough.

Ohtani’s own comments suggest he is open to revisiting the structure of his preparation. After the season, he said he would go back to the drawing board on his treatment and training program for next year. The Dodgers appear ready to do the same, while still leaving some control with the player. General manager Brandon Gomes said the team will leave Ohtani’s normal offseason throwing program up to him, with the expectation that he will want to try to go wire to wire as a two-way player again.

That is the central contradiction in this offseason. Ohtani remains a rare force because he wants the full burden, not a reduced version of it. The Dodgers, meanwhile, are trying to decide whether the best way to maximize him is to let him chase the same workload again or to interrupt it before the damage accumulates. They do not need surgery to solve; they need a plan that protects the parts of his game that make the rest possible.

The next test will come in how deliberately they map his spring buildup, his early-season rotation slot and the rest days attached to each start. For now, the only firm answer is that the Dodgers expect Ohtani to be back in the mix in 2027, but they are no longer treating a normal two-way season as a given.