Shohei Ohtani’s “down” year still pushed him into rare air.
When the National League MVP voting was finalized Thursday, Ohtani finished second, and that result was enough to send him climbing the all-time leaderboard in MVP award shares. He now sits at 5.30, good for 11th place overall.
That rise says plenty about how dominant Ohtani has been even when he doesn’t take home the trophy. He also finished second in American League MVP voting in 2022, losing out only to Aaron Judge after Judge set an AL record with 62 home runs. Surrounding that runner-up finish were MVP wins in 2021 and 2023 with the Angels, then more wins in 2024 and 2025 with the Dodgers.
No player has finished in the top two in MVP voting in six straight seasons. Ohtani has done exactly that. His four MVP awards are second-most in MLB history, trailing only Barry Bonds, who won seven.
The award-shares system gives a fuller picture than wins and losses alone. It counts every vote a player receives as a percentage of the total possible points.
First-place votes are worth 14 points, and with 30 voters, the maximum total is 420 points. Second-place votes are worth nine points, third-place votes eight, and the scale runs all the way down to one point for 10th.
That’s why even a single vote matters. Andy Pages picked up one sixth-place vote for NL MVP, which translated to five points, or 1.2 percent of the total. That comes out to 0.012 award shares.
Ohtani’s own total keeps stacking up because his support has been so overwhelming. All four of his MVP wins were unanimous, giving him a perfect 1.00 award share in 2021, 2023, 2024 and 2025.
In 2022, he collected two first-place votes and 28 second-place votes for 280 points, or 66.7 percent of the total, which equals 0.667 award shares. This year, he received 26 second-place votes, two third-place votes and two fourth-place votes for 264 points, or 62.9 percent of the total, adding 0.629 award shares.
That total moved him past a long list of inner-circle names. Ohtani jumped from 4.67 career award shares and 16th place to 5.30 and 11th, passing Miguel Cabrera, Frank Thomas, Frank Robinson, Mike Schmidt and Alex Rodríguez along the way.
The current award-shares leaderboard still has Barry Bonds on top at 9.30, followed by Stan Musial at 6.96, Albert Pujols at 6.91 and Mike Trout at 6.53. Ted Williams, Lou Gehrig, Willie Mays, Mickey Mantle, Henry Aaron, Joe DiMaggio and now Ohtani round out the top 11.
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