Major League Baseball handed out two final pieces of equipment Thursday night when it announced this year’s Most Valuable Player Award winners. Free agent two-way player Shohei Ohtani, most recently with the Los Angeles Angels, won the American League over Texas Rangers infielders Corey Seager and Marcus Semien. Ohtani’s honor was unanimous for the second time, the first player to do so in MLB history.
For those unfamiliar with how the official MLB awards work, ballots are cast at the end of the regular season by the Baseball Writers Association of America. The playoffs are therefore not taken into account in the voting. Earlier this week, MLB and BBWAA announced the winners in these other categories:
The 29-year-old Ohtani is now a two-time MVP Award winner, having previously won the award in 2021. Ohtani also finished second in MVP voting in 2022, meaning he narrowly missed becoming the second player in MLB history to win three straight MVP awards. (The first/only one is Barry Bonds.)
The former Angel hit .304/.412/.654 (184 OPS+) with 44 home runs and 95 RBI in 599 trips to the plate this season. He made 23 starts as a pitcher and posted a 3.14 ERA (142 ERA+) and a 3.04 strikeout-to-walk ratio. His overall contributions were estimated by Baseball Reference at 10 wins above replacement.
Ohtani’s scoring stats would have been even more impressive had he stayed healthy all season. Instead, he suffered a torn cruciate ligament that required surgery. He will therefore not be able to be on the field in the 2024 season. He also suffered an oblique injury late in the season that ended his year as a hitter.
Here’s the full voting breakdown:
Shohei Ohtani | 30 | – | – | 420 |
Corey Seager | – | 24 | 6 | 264 |
Marcus Semien | – | 5 | 8th | 216 |
Julio Rodríguez | – | 1 | 8th | 197 |
Kyle Tucker | – | – | 4 | 178 |
Yandy Diaz | – | – | 4 | 137 |
Bobby Witt Jr. | – | – | – | 83 |
Gunnar Henderson | – | – | – | 77 |
Adleyrutschman | – | – | – | 50 |
Jose Ramirez | – | – | – | 40 |
Gerrit Cole | – | – | – | 30 |
Luis Robert | – | – | – | 21 |
Jordan Alvarez | – | – | – | 16 |
Adolis Garcia | – | – | – | 14 |
Aaron Richter | – | – | – | 7 |
Bo Bichette | – | – | – | 5 |
JP Crawford | – | – | – | 5 |
Cal Raleigh | – | – | – | 2 |
Rafael Devers | – | – | – | 2 |
Isaac Paredes | – | – | – | 2 |
Sonny Gray | – | – | – | 2 |
Alex Bregman | – | – | – | 1 |
Josh Naylor | – | – | – | 1 |
This is the seventh time an Angels player has won the MVP Award. Of course, Ohtani was already a member of a club that included Mike Trout (2014, 2016, 2019), Vladimir Guerrero (2004) and Don Baylor (1979).
Seager and Semien can both take comfort in knowing they won something this fall — a World Series championship. Seager, the World Series MVP, hit .327/.390/.623 (170 OPS+) with 33 homers and 96 RBI during the regular season. He was estimated to have 6.9 wins above replacement. Semien, meanwhile, hit .276/.348/.478 (122 OPS+) with 29 home runs and 100 RBI. He finished the race with 7.4 wins above replacement.
This marks the first time in BBWAA voting history (since 1931) that both MVP awards were won unanimously, as Ronald Acuña Jr. took home the honor in the National League.