After a season of shocking moments, it was no surprise that Dodgers starting pitcher and designated hitter Shohei Ohtani won his second straight NL Most Valuable Player award, his fourth overall including his 2021 and 2023 AL MVP seasons with the Los Angeles Angels.
All of Ohtani’s MVP awards have been unanimous and the Dodgers star trails only Barry Bonds, who has seven career MVP awards.
“It’s definitely special,” Ohtani, speaking through an interpreter, said on a conference call. “It makes it special because it was unanimous, and I would like to thank all the writers for voting for me.”
A year after setting the Dodgers franchise record for home runs in a single season, Ohtani bested his own record once more, hitting 55 home runs — the third-most in Major League Baseball this season. Ohtani’s OPS of 1.014 was second only to AL MVP Aaron Judge’s 1.144, and his 146 runs scored were the most in baseball.
These stats fail to record any of the miraculous moments Ohtani had in the postseason. While the MVP award reflects the individual’s regular season performance, Ohtani reaffirmed any possible doubts with eight home runs in the playoffs with a 1.096 OPS and 14 RBIs.
Those statistics alone would have secured Ohtani the award, without putting his impact as a pitcher into consideration.
Ohtani worked his way back from shoulder surgery that kept him off the mound for the entirety of the 2024 season, finally making his debut as a pitcher in mid-June. Across 14 starts and 47 innings, Ohtani held a 2.87 ERA in the regular season with a 6.9 strikeout-to-walk ratio.
In the postseason, Ohtani struggled in the World Series after promising starts against the Philadelphia Phillies and Milwaukee Brewers.
Ohtani broke a laundry list of records this season, as no player has ever had the amount of success he’s had as both a batter and a pitcher. Simply put, according to Mookie Betts, Ohtani can be penciled in for MVP for the foreseeable future.
“We pretty much can go ahead and give it to him until he’s done pitching,” Betts, who hosted the MLB Awards, told MLB Network. “Then, somebody may have a chance. But, if he’s still pitching, man, we can just keep giving it to him.”
