Kuriyama first saw Ohtani on a high school field in 2011. His promise was to let him pitch and hit

Hideki Kuriyama was not yet a manager when he first saw Shohei Ohtani. In June 2011 he was a broadcaster visiting school teams on the coast hit by that year's disaster, and he watched a practice game involving Hanamaki Higashi, Bungeishunju reported in 2021. That fall Nippon-Ham asked him to manage. Once the 2012 season started, the piece says, he kept bringing up Ohtani's name with the front office, which asked him the obvious question: pitcher or hitter?

Kuriyama's answer became the club's offer. In the negotiations after the draft, he told Ohtani that the Fighters would develop him as both a pitcher and a hitter, Number recorded in a 2018 collection of his remarks. Kuriyama described watching Ohtani's face when he heard it, and said he learned that this was how Ohtani reacted at important moments. The two-way plan answered one of the three wishes the scouting staff had written down for Ohtani: to be a pioneer.

The first season gave both sides something to argue about. In 2013 Ohtani pitched in 13 games, going 3-0 with a 4.23 ERA, 46 strikeouts and 61 2/3 innings, according to season lines compiled by Baseball Channel. As a hitter he played 77 games and batted .238 with 45 hits, 3 home runs and 20 RBIs. In Pacific League Rookie of the Year voting he received 4 of 233 votes, a distant second to Takahiro Norimoto, Baseball-Reference's Bullpen notes.

Neither line, on its own, suggested a future MVP. What the rookie year established was that the club would keep both roles open. The next two seasons, covered later in this series, are where the numbers started to make the case.