If you were to open our mixed league cheat sheet, you’ll find a number that pops off the page: Shohei Ohtani‘s salary-cap value is $83.

Eighty-three dollars?!?!

That’s no misprint. Ohtani is expected to return to the mound this season, having nearly fully recovered from his September 2023 elbow operation — not quite a Tommy John procedure, not quite an internal brace, but still a procedure that demands as lengthy a recovery time. He has resumed bullpen sessions early in spring training and appears on track to rejoin the Los Angeles Dodgers‘ rotation by May.

Add that to his established hitting excellence — he scored an MLB-leading 653 fantasy points last season — and Ohtani appears ready to reclaim his status as fantasy baseball’s clear-cut No. 1 overall player. At least, he will recapture that status in leagues like ESPN’s standard format, which affords near-maximum roster flexibility in starting him.

Still … an $83 valuation, meaning not only 32% of a fantasy team’s total budget, but also nearly $30 more than any other player?

It makes sense in a standard, ESPN 10-team league, which can roster 190 players (excluding the three IL spots per team). Ohtani’s potential production relative not only to the next-best player but to what’s readily available on the waiver wire during the season is immense.

How good has Ohtani been?

Consider that the last time Ohtani was healthy enough to pitch (2023), he scored a league-leading total of 831 fantasy points. That was 124 more than the next-best player, Ronald Acuna Jr. — and that was during Acuna’s historic 40/70 season.

Using ESPN’s 2025 projections, Ohtani is slated to score 806 fantasy points, 244 more than the second-highest total of Aaron Judge (560). That’s before getting into Ohtani’s value relative to the league’s replacement-level player, meaning roughly the 191st player in that league type.

How to optimize Ohtani’s value

Rostering Ohtani in your fantasy league demands that you know how best to utilize him. Reaping the full rewards of his contributions requires that you do some homework.

In ESPN leagues, which allow managers to change lineups daily, Ohtani can be used as either a hitter or pitcher (but not both). Therefore, the maximum number of points, or his “usable” total, he can earn will be lower than his overall total fantasy points. This truth will have an impact on your lineup planning.

Because starting pitchers provide significantly greater fantasy-point potential than hitters on any given day, the best strategy is to always start Ohtani as a pitcher when he’s the Dodgers’ scheduled starter. His statistics back this up. In 65 of his 74 starts across his past three healthy pitching seasons (2021 to 2023), he scored more fantasy points as a pitcher than a hitter, and in 40 of those 65 starts, he scored at least 15 more points as a pitcher than a hitter.

Once Ohtani completes his start — or even as early as once his game begins — be sure to slide him back into your DH spot for the next day.

Mind the frequent changing of big league rotations. Ohtani’s Dodgers have leaned heavily on six-man rotations in recent years, and have been open about closely monitoring his and their other young starters’ workloads. Keeping abreast of the latest rotational plans is paramount to maximizing his fantasy value.

Ohtani will almost assuredly be eased in initially as part of a six-man rotation, whether that’s in May or at a later point, working regularly on five or six days’ rest. He will most likely remain on that schedule all season. It’s also possible he’ll have a few outings pushed back or scratched on short notice, so it’s important to pay attention to the news as game times approach.

The good news is we will have regularly updated Daily Notes and Forecaster columns to help guide you and, with our Fantasy app, it’s easy to access and adjust your daily lineups.

Snake draft options

Ohtani is by far the consensus No. 1 pick in snake draft formats. For managers in serpentine drafts who are worried Ohtani’s presence grants the team with the No. 1 overall draft position an effective “cheat code,” consider a few possibilities.

First, you could switch your league to a salary cap-style draft, allowing every manager to roster him if they’re willing to pay the price.

Next, remember that injuries are fantasy baseball’s great equalizer and Ohtani has had his share of them while on the mound. For those who also play fantasy football, you might recall Christian McCaffrey in 2020. Fresh off the second-best point-scoring season in history, McCaffrey had one of the widest consensus No. 1 overall ADP (average draft position) margins over the next-selected player in 2020 (Saquon Barkley), but was limited to three games due to injury.

Though cross-sport parallels are imperfect, they remind us that injuries can strike without warning. In Ohtani’s case, he’s coming off November shoulder surgery in addition to his past pitching injuries, so another absence wouldn’t be unexpected.

Teams that miss out on the No. 1 draft slot, and an Ohtani pick, should invest as much time on the lineup homework required to narrow the gap between him and the rest of the field. Championships are often won by the most attentive manager, not the one who landed the draft’s top talent — and that’s whether said talent stays healthy or not.

Salary cap strategy

For those in the salary cap format, Ohtani should and will be nominated among the draft’s first few players, due to his projected, lofty contract and his prominent profile. If you land one of the first few nominations, this presents a strategic advantage: the freeze bid.

Freeze bids find the optimal median between a player’s value and the amount the rest of the league would pay. Using Ohtani’s example, there will be leagues where no manager will bid $83 — many making excuses such as “I can’t risk him getting hurt,” or, “I’ve never paid more than $50 for a player and I’m not going to start now” — making an $83 draft-opening bid a brilliant strategy.

Opening a player bid with a big number tends to throw the rest of the managers off-balance, increasing the chances of landing a bargain. If you’re not nominating, immediately throw out that big number once you hear his name. Don’t give the other managers a chance to talk themselves into “one dollar more” when you can instead make them ponder having to spend $20, $30 or even more than they’re comfortable using.

Now, if that hefty of an investment causes discomfort, worry not, as there are avenues to success even after spending $83 right off the bat. With $177 remaining, you’re still looking at an average of $11.8 per remaining lineup spot, and $1 apiece for your three bench players. That still provides the possibility of rostering a player at $30 (Gunnar Henderson?), $26 (Garrett Crochet?), $24 (Devin Williams?), $20 (Jackson Chourio or Jackson Merrill?) and $18 (catcher Will Smith?) just to use a few examples from our cheat sheet, while still having $59 for your remaining 13 roster spots.

A true “stars and scrubs” strategy isn’t outrageous, backfilling as much as half of your roster with $1 players, especially when the $0-1 valuation pool is likely to be filled with upside players such as Francisco Alvarez, Triston Casas, Jordan Westburg and Bryan Woo.

Or, you could spread your remaining budget, aiming for players as close to that $12 average as possible. That group likely includes Tanner Bibee, Hunter Greene, Michael Harris II, Bryce Miller and Cal Raleigh — all excellent players. This strategy can work, whether you agree with my $83 Ohtani valuation, or if you see him as more of a $75-max player, or maybe even one who is worth $90 or more.

At Ohtani’s production, his ultimate cost can change rapidly, depending on his pitching rehabilitation process, his spring performance or the depth of the player pool. What you need to answer is one simple question in advance of your draft: What is Ohtani truly worth to you?