Baseball’s finest resides in Los Angeles once again.
For the third consecutive season, Shohei Ohtani has been named Most Valuable Player – and he’s been named the National League MVP for the second consecutive campaign.
Ohtani beat out Philadelphia Phillies slugger Kyle Schwarber and New York Mets outfielder Jaun Soto for the award.
The Dodgers star was named MVP in his first season with the team a year ago, and also took home the honour in the American League while a member of the Los Angeles Angels two years ago.
Ohtani hit .282 this season, with a league-leading .622 slugging percentage and 1.014 on-base plus slugging percentage, as well as an MLB-leading 146 runs scored. He hit 55 home runs and drove in 102 in another historic season for the Japanese superstar.
The 30-year-old two-way player also returned to the mound for the first time since late in 2023 this year, where he pitched to a 2.87 earned-run average over 14 starts, with 62 strikeouts in 47 innings pitched.
This MVP marks the fourth in Ohtani’s career, and continues a string of now five consecutive seasons in which he has either won the award (2021, ’23, ’24 and ’25) or finished second in voting (2022).
Ohtani now moves into sole possession of the second most MVPs in MLB history, still well behind former Pittsburgh Pirates and San Francisco Giants titan Barry Bonds, who took home seven in his controversial career.
The award given to Ohtani marks the 16th time a Dodgers player has taken home MVP honours. Ohtani is the second player in franchise history to be named MVP more than once, after catcher Roy Campanella was named MVP three times as a member of the Brooklyn Dodgers (1951, ’53 and ’55).