MLB Awards 2024: Dodgers' Shohei Ohtani wins third straight MLB MVP award, first in NL.

One league was simply not big enough for Shohei Ohtani and Aaron Judge.

For three years, Major League Baseball’s two biggest stars traded off winning the American League Most Valuable Player award, with Ohtani’s two-way greatness on the mound and at the plate earning him the distinction in 2021 and ’23, while Judge had to hit an AL-record 62 home runs to take the crown in 2022.

Now, after Ohtani left the Los Angeles Angels for the National League and the Dodgers, there’s an award for each of them. And Thursday night, they took ’em home in unanimous fashion.

Ohtani won his first NL MVP and third overall on the strength of the first 50-homer, 50-steal season in major league history, while Judge’s greatest season ever resulted in his second AL MVP awarded by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America.

Ohtani, 30, joins Hall of Famer Frank Robinson as the only players to win MVPs in both leagues after his 54-homer, 59-steal season smashed almost all his career highs.

When a second Tommy John surgery sidelined Shohei Ohtani from pitching in 2024, it seemed he’d be hard-pressed to add a third MVP to his mantle, what with the novelty of two-way greatness on hold for the year. Yet after signing a $700 million contract and moving from the AL to the NL in joining the Los Angeles Dodgers, Ohtani proved there may be no ceiling in his universe.

Ohtani, 30, was named NL MVP Thursday night after his 54-homer, 59-steal season produced the first 50-50 campaign in major league history. He prevailed in unanimous fashion over New York Mets shortstop Francisco Lindor and Arizona Diamondbacks second baseman Ketel Marte.

In setting the tone as the leadoff man for a club that won 98 games and its first full-season World Series title since 1988, Ohtani became just the second Dodgers position player, along with Cody Bellinger, to win NL MVP since Kirk Gibson claimed the honor for those ’88 Dodgers.

Ohtani also becomes the 11th player in baseball history to win three MVPs, joining former Angels teammates Mike Trout and Albert Pujols. Come 2025, he’ll take aim at a fourth MVP that would place him behind only Barry Bonds’ seven, and who’s to bet against him?

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