Coming off an unprecedented season, Angels’ two-way phenom Shohei Ohtani was crowned the American League’s Most Valuable Player on Thursday. Ohtani showed glimpses of greatness in seasons prior, but his 2021 season was a spectacle that you just had to see to believe.
Entering the year, there was concern whether Ohtani could succeed at one position, let alone two. He was injury-prone in his first three seasons before putting the entire sports world on notice in 2021.
As a hitter, Ohtani set career-highs with 46 home runs, 100 RBIs, and 96 walks. The sneaky speedster also stole 26 bases and led the league with 8 triples. In 23 starts on the mound, Ohtani tossed 130 innings with 156 strikeouts and a 3.18 ERA. His 9.1 combined WAR was the best in baseball by a significant margin. He was named an All-Star, Silver Slugger, and now, MVP.
Ohtani joins Ichiro Suzuki as just the second Japanese-born player to win the MVP award. Blue Jays infielders Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Marcus Semien finished in second and third place, respectively.
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For Harper, he takes home his second career MVP award and first with the Philadelphia Phillies. He led the league with 42 doubles and a 1.044 OPS after an incredible second half. Harper claimed 17 out of 30 first-place votes, narrowly edging young superstars Juan Soto and Fernando Tatis Jr.
2021 marks the first year in major league history in which none of the MVP finalists made the playoffs. This represents a drastic change in voter ideology in a sport where individual success has never dictated team success. It appears the old school of thought demanding an MVP come from a playoff team is thankfully a thing of the past.
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