3rd league Outstanding Player in 4 years for Ohtani in Players Choice Awards

LOS ANGELES — Dodgers designated hitter Shohei Ohtani was voted by his peers as the National League Outstanding Player, the MLB Players Association announced on Saturday.

This is one of two Players Choice Awards Ohtani was a top-three finisher for this year. He lost out in MLB Player of the Year voting to Yankees outfielder Aaron Judge, who led the majors in home runs (58), RBI (144), slugging percentage (.701), on-base percentage (.458), OPS (1.159), walks (133), wRC+ (218), fWAR (11.2), and rWAR (10.8).

Ohtani was great in his own right, leading the majors in total bases (416), extra-base hits (99), and runs scored (134), and leading the National League in home runs (54, a Dodgers record), RBI (130), on-base percentage (.390), slugging percentage (.646), OPS (1.036), wRC+ (181), rWAR (9.2), and fWAR (9.1). He also had the first 50-50 season in MLB history, and finished with 54 home runs and 59 stolen bases, the latter second in the major leagues.

The Dodgers signed Ohtani to a 10-year, $700 million deal in December, the largest sports contract in North American history, and also signed Japanese pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto — who starts Game 2 of the World Series on Saturday night — to a $325 million contract, the largest ever for a pitcher.

The team is not only currently playing for a championship, but bringing in plenty of sponsorships, and seeing huge ratings for their postseason games, both nationally and abroad. Game 1 of the NLCS, for instance, had 12.1 million watching in Japan.

“I think it’s 100th-percentile outcome. Obviously there’s a strategy as far as the s𝓀𝒾𝓁𝓁 set of the player and then the global impact it could have on the fan-based organization when you acquire two players like that,” manager Dave Roberts said Friday. “To see the way these two guys have performed, the way they’ve assimilated with our fan base, the clubhouse, all that stuff has been a perfect outcome.”

It’s the third Outstanding Player award for Ohtani, who captured American League honors in 2021 and 2023 with the Angels. He was MLB Player of the Year in 2021 in the Players Choice Awards.

Ohtani on Thursday was named MLB Player of the Year by The Sporting News, which polls major league players, managers, and executives for its various honors. These won’t be the last awards Ohtani wins this season.