For a fourth consecutive year, Japanese superstar Shohei Ohtani has won the ESPY Awards for the Best MLB Player of the Year. The Los Angeles Dodgers man bested Ronald Acuña of Atlanta Braves, Gerrit Cole of the New York Yankees, and Corey Seager of the Texas Rangers in order to win the coveted prize this year.
Shohei Ohtani is not pitching until next year, and yet, the kind of numbers he has produced and the performances he has contributed with bat suggest that Ohtani might be better than ever. Which is actually insane, considering the ridiculously high standards that have been set for him.
In the offseason, he made headlines by signing a historic 10-year, $700 million contract with the already star-studded Dodgers lineup. The expectations for the reigning AL MVP were high, with hopes that he would deepen the explosive Dodgers lineup and would be that pivotal missing key piece that would help elevate an underachieving Los Angeles squad in 2024 to the next level — all before returning to full capacity and pitching in 2025.
We are now more than halfway into the regular season, and Shohei Ohtani’s stats for the 2024 MLB season so far are nothing short of otherworldly. He has played 90 games with 353 at-bats, scoring an impressive 72 runs and hitting a staggering 28 home runs.
He currently leads the National League in Home Runs as well as Runs Scored. He ranks 3rd in the National League for RBIs, having accumulated 66. His batting average is an exceptional .317, with an on-base percentage (OBP) of .402 and a slugging percentage (SLG) of .635, culminating in a rather remarkable OPS of 1.037. And he is putting up all these numbers while nursing his arm back to full health. Ohtani is on and off the pitch, a complete global superstar in every sense of the word, and even a $700 million contract would fall short of defining just what he is worth.
The Dodgers superstar is currently in prime position to nab his third MVP title, and if he is able to do that, this one will be extra special, considering he is only playing as a designated hitter this year.