Shohei Ohtani on Thursday finished second in voting for National League MVP, adding proper perspective to what a “down” season looks like for the two-way superstar.
Ohtani also finished second in American League MVP voting in 2022, felled only by New York Yankees star Aaron Judge setting an AL record for 62 home runs. That was sandwiched with MVP wins in 2021 and 2023 with the Angels, followed by MVP wins in 2024 and 2025 with the Dodgers.
He’s the only player ever to finish in the top two in MVP voting
in six straight years. Ohtani’s four MVP wins are second in MLB history, behind only the seven awards won by Barry Bonds.
But award shares captures every time a player garners any votes, as a percentage of the total possible points. First-place votes are worth 14 points, and with 30 voters for the award that’s 420 possible points. Second-place votes are worth nine points, third-place worth eight, all the way down to one point for a 10th-place vote.
Andy Pages got a single sixth-place vote for NL MVP, giving him five points, or 1.2 percent of the total. That’s 0.012 award shares for Pages.
All four MVP wins for Ohtani have been unanimous, giving him a full 1.00 award share for 2021, 2023, 2024, and 2025. In 2022, he got two first-place votes and 28 second-place votes for 280 points, 66.7 percent of the total, or 0.667 award shares. This year, Ohtani got 26 second-place votes, two third-place votes, and two fourth-place votes for 264 points, 62.9 percent of the total for 0.629 award shares.
Ohtani moved up from 4.67 career MVP award shares for 16th all-time to 5.30 award shares for 11th place, passing Miguel Cabrera (4.68 award shares, two MVP wins), Frank Thomas (4.79, 2 wins), Frank Robinson (4.84, 2 wins), Mike Schmidt (4.96, 3 wins), and Alex Rodríguez (5.23, 3 wins).
