ORLANDO, Fla. — The question that continues to pop up at baseball’s general manager meetings, especially to the GMs but even to beat writers, is if a team would allow Shohei Otani, the Babe Ruth of Japan, to play both ways.

The general assumption among the Japanese media is that a team that allowed him to do so will have the inside track toward signing him. The general assumption among others is that letting Otani pitch and play outfield would be a foolish thing to do.

The No. 1 strike against letting Otani bat between starts, even if in only one or two games, would be injury.

Were he to be injured as a hitter or an outfielder, a team would be losing a starting pitcher and a bat from the lineup.

Otani is a right-hander who bats left-handed, which means his right arm would be exposed to every pitch thrown his way.

But expect most interested clubs to say they are open to letting Otani dabble in the batter’s box, and then conveniently find a way — perhaps a bad spring start — to tell him that to be able to be a great pitcher who works every fifth day, as opposed to every seventh day as he did in Japan, he needs to put his bat and helmet away.

He told reporters in Japan over the weekend that it is not his decision.

“I don’t know if I’ll be given the chance to be able to do it, so first of all, I’ll have to listen to what they say,” Otani said. “You can’t go after something like that unless you’re in the right circumstance. It’s not just about what I want to do.”

— Fort Worth (Texas) Star-Telegram