Sabathia praises Ohtani: 'Best baseball player I've ever seen'

Warning: Story contains coarse language

Former major-league pitcher CC Sabathia believes Los Angeles Angels two-way star Shohei Ohtani is special.

"He's the best baseball player I've ever seen in my life," Sabathia said Tuesday on the "R2C2 is Uninterrupted" podcast.

Sabathia, who retired this past offseason after 19 MLB campaigns, added that the 2018 AL Rookie of the Year is a one-of-a-kind player.

"Are you kidding me? Motherfucker can hit the ball 900 feet and throw the ball 99 miles per hour off the mound," Sabathia said. "Who else is doing that? Who else is doing that, bro? There's nobody else doing that at the big-league level."

Across two seasons with the Angels, Ohtani owns an .883 OPS with 40 home runs as a hitter and a 3.31 ERA with an 11 K/9 rate as a pitcher. The 25-year-old didn't take the mound in 2019 following Tommy John surgery, but he's expected to resume those duties in 2020 if the season is played.

Meanwhile, Sabathia became just the 17th hurler - and the third lefty - in baseball history to record 3,000 career strikeouts during his final MLB season the New York Yankees.