Shohei Ohtani Is Throwing Again but the Dodgers Still Have No Bullpen Date for Him

Shohei Ohtani restarted his throwing progression earlier this month, playing catch from roughly 90 feet, and the Dodgers have pointed to September as the window for his return to the mound. What they have not done is announce a bullpen session, a rehab schedule, or a date. As of mid-August, Ohtani remains out indefinitely as a pitcher while continuing to hit, and the organization has been careful not to commit to anything more specific than a general target.

The complication is that there are now two issues, not one. Ohtani has been managing left knee discomfort, for which he received a lubricating injection during the All-Star break, and has since disclosed a right biceps issue that emerged as his delivery compensated for the knee. The Dodgers have described the biceps as tightness and have not announced a structural diagnosis.

What is confirmed and what is not

Confirmed: Ohtani is not on a major league mound and has no announced date to be. He is throwing. The knee received treatment during the break. He has continued in the lineup as a designated hitter, which is the single most important fact for fantasy managers.

Not confirmed: any structural finding in the biceps, any bullpen date, and any commitment that he pitches at all in 2026. Early-to-mid September has been described as the ideal scenario by people around the team, and an ideal scenario in mid-August is not a plan.

The distinction matters because "expected back in September" and "on a rehab progression with a bullpen scheduled" are very different states. Ohtani is in the first one.

The fantasy read

For anyone rostering Ohtani in a two-way format, the damage is already priced in. He has been a bat-only asset for most of the season, and a bat-only Ohtani is still one of the most valuable hitters in fantasy baseball. The upside case is that he returns for a handful of September starts and adds strikeouts and a couple of wins in the fantasy playoffs, which is a genuine tiebreaker in a close head-to-head matchup.

The downside case is that he does not pitch at all, which changes nothing about your roster today.

The more actionable point is the knee. A designated hitter managing knee discomfort is a candidate for scheduled rest days down the stretch on a team that has a comfortable playoff position. The Dodgers project as one of the highest-win teams in the National League, and comfortable teams rest their stars in late September. Head-to-head managers should plan around the possibility of two or three missed games in the final weeks.

The Verdexed model take

The model treats Ohtani's pitching return as a low-probability, high-variance event for the remainder of the regular season. Under its current assumptions, the expected number of remaining regular-season starts is small enough that it does not move the Dodgers' projected win total in any meaningful way.

Where it does matter is October. A healthy Ohtani in a postseason rotation changes the Dodgers' series-level win probability more than almost any other single available lever in baseball, because it converts a bullpen game into a start from a front-line arm. The model's Dodgers championship projection carries a visible split between the branch where Ohtani pitches in the postseason and the branch where he does not.

That gap is where the betting value sits. Los Angeles World Series futures are priced with an implicit assumption about Ohtani's availability, and the market has been slow to move on the biceps disclosure. If the Dodgers announce a bullpen session in the next two weeks, the futures price should move and the current number becomes stale. If they do not, the current number is fair or slightly rich.

The bigger picture for the Dodgers

Los Angeles has been operating with an aggressive roster-churn approach in August, recalling Landon Knack from Triple-A Oklahoma City and optioning Seth Halvorsen earlier this week, which is the behavior of a team managing pitching depth day to day rather than one with a settled rotation. Freddie Freeman was listed as day to day after tumbling into the visitors dugout in a game this week.

None of those are crises. Together they describe a contender that is healthy enough to win the division comfortably and not healthy enough to be confident about a postseason rotation, which is the exact profile that makes futures pricing difficult.

What to do in your league

Hold Ohtani. There is no version of this news that makes him droppable.

Do not stash a bench spot waiting on his pitching return in a shallow league. The probability-weighted value of a handful of September starts is not worth an active roster spot in a 12-team format, and you can add him back to your pitching slots the moment a bullpen date is announced.

In deeper formats and in leagues where Ohtani occupies separate hitter and pitcher slots, the calculus flips: the pitcher slot is already sunk, and there is no cost to waiting.

What's next

The checkpoint to watch is a bullpen session. That is the first genuine milestone in a pitcher's return, and it is the point at which "targeting September" becomes a schedule. From a first bullpen, a starter typically needs two to three weeks of progression before facing hitters in a game, which means a bullpen in the next ten days is roughly the latest date that keeps a meaningful September return on the table.

If that date passes without one, the correct assumption is that Ohtani's next competitive pitch comes in October at the earliest, and possibly not until 2027.