On Thursday night, Major League Baseball announced the winners of this year’s Most Valuable Player Award and gave out two final pieces of hardware. Corey Seager and Marcus Semien of the Texas Rangers lost to free-agent two-way player Shohei Ohtani in the American League. Ohtani was most recently with the Los Angeles Angels. For the second time, Ohtani received unanimous recognition, becoming the first player in MLB history to do so.
For those who are not familiar with MLB’s official award process, the Baseball Writers Association of America casts ballots at the end of the regular season. Therefore, voting takes the playoffs out of the equation. MLB and the BBWAA revealed the winners in these additional categories earlier this week:
Ohtani, 29, has now won the MVP Award twice, having first taken home the trophy in 2021. Ohtani also came up short in the MVP voting in 2022, missing the opportunity to become the second player in MLB history to win three MVP Awards in a row. (Barry Bonds being the first and only.)
In 599 at-bats this season, the former Angel batted.304/.412/.654 (184 OPS+) with 44 home runs and 95 RBI. As a pitcher, he recorded 23 starts, a 3.14 ERA (142 ERA+), and a 3.04 strikeout-to-walk ratio. Baseball-Reference estimated that his total contributions were worth 10 Wins Above Replacement.
Had Ohtani been healthy the whole season, his counting stats would have increased. Rather, he had a ripped UCL that required surgery. This will prevent him from pitching in the 2024 season. In addition, he sustained an oblique injury late in the season that ended his hitting career.
An Angels player has now won the MVP Award seven times. Naturally, Ohtani was already a part of a group that also included Don Baylor (1979), Vladimir Guerrero (2004), and Mike Trout (2014, 2016, 2019).
The World Series championship is something that both Semien and Seager can be happy about having won this fall. The MVP of the World Series, Kyle Seager, batted.327/.390/.623 (170 OPS+) in the regular season, with 33 home runs and 96 RBI. According to estimates, he achieved 6.9 Wins Above Replacement. In contrast, Semien batted.276/.348/.478 (122 OPS+) with 100 RBI and 29 home runs. With 7.4 Wins Above Replacement, he concluded.
Since 1931, the BBWAA has been holding voting, and this is the first time that both MVP awards have been decided upon unanimously. Ronald Acuña Jr. won in the National League.