Shohei Ohtani’s latest season was defined long before Thursday night, the night the Los Angeles Dodgers superstar won his third Most Valuable Player Award in unanimous fashion and became just the second player — along with Eddie Murray — to earn the honor in both leagues.
Ohtani authored one of the finest individual performances in baseball history, slugging 54 home runs and swiping 59 bases to become the first-ever member of baseball’s 50-50 club while hitting .310 with a National League-leading 1.036 OPS. Despite exclusively appearing as a designated hitter and not playing the field, the 30-year-old won out against New York Mets shortstop Francisco Lindor, who had an .844 OPS while hitting 33 home runs and stealing 29 bases. Ohtani outproduced him by both Baseball-Reference (9.2 to 7.0) and FanGraphs’ (9.1 to 7.8) formulas for wins above replacement. Arizona Diamondbacks second baseman Ketel Marte was as an MVP finalist for the first time, with 36 home runs and a .932 OPS in 136 games.
Ohtani earned all 30 first-place votes from the Baseball Writers’ Association of America on his way to 420 points. Lindor finished second with 23 second-place votes and 263 points, while Marte finished third with five second-place votes and 229 points.
Ohtani’s first season as a Dodger was full of upheaval. He had to endure a recovery from a second elbow ligament reconstruction, which limited him only to hitting. A flood of life circumstances — from joining his new club on a record contract to his marriage to the theft of tens of millions of dollars by his longtime interpreter — colored a year still defined by his brilliance. Things ended, fittingly, with what Ohtani sought most when deferring so much of that record contract to allow his new team to build around him: a World Series title.
Shohei Ohtani celebrates at the Dodgers’ World Series parade with his dog, Decoy. (David Crane / MediaNews Group / Los Angeles Daily News via Getty Images)
“He committed to us, and he wanted to play for a championship,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said in the celebration. “For it to kind of come to fruition in his first year is pretty remarkable.
“What Shohei’s done to our ballclub, the Dodger fan base domestically, globally, I just don’t think you can quantify.”
The Dodgers have already centered the next decade around Ohtani, from global business partnerships to how they will add stars to their already talent-laden roster. It took one year for the fruits of that vision to come to pass. Dodger Stadium was flooded with jerseys wearing Ohtani’s name. A club whittled down by injuries still managed to romp through October.
Thursday cemented more rare history. No player not named Ohtani had ever won a unanimous MVP so much as twice. He and Barry Bonds are the only MVPs to ever win the award, switch teams and then win it again in their first season with a new club.
He and his former Los Angeles Angels teammate, Mike Trout, are the only active players to have won the award at least three times, with only Bryce Harper and Aaron Judge joining them among active players to win the award more than once.
For Ohtani, however, this one resonates for a different reason. He swapped out Angels red for Dodgers blue. And while it was his two-way excellence in the batter’s box and on the mound (and the novelty that brought) that led him to his first two MVPs and nearly won him a third while with the Angels, this year’s achievement came in a season where he didn’t throw a single pitch.
His quest for a fourth already has its prologue: Ohtani is expected to return to the mound at some point in 2025, but he will do so while recovering from shoulder surgery to repair his left (non-throwing) labrum that he tore while attempting to steal a base against the New York Yankees in the World Series.
(Photo of Shohei Ohtani: Elsa / Getty Images)
