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The Los Angeles Dodgers have had an unpredictable season amid injuries, poor bullpen play, off-the-field struggles, and just about everything in between, but manager Dave Roberts believes superstar Shohei Ohtani winning his fourth MVP award should be one of the few anticipated events of 2025.
If his talent in the batter’s box wasn’t enough, Roberts also brought up Ohtani’s work as a starting pitcher significantly playing into earning his third-consecutive MVP honor and fourth in five years.
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“With what he’s done with the bat and now what he’s done on the mound, it’s a landslide,” said Roberts. “It’s a no brainer. The only thing is, I hope some of those voters [don’t] get, voter fatigue just because it’s the easiest option.”
Ohtani the slugger is proving to be just as lethal as he was last season. He is third in MLB with 54 home runs and leads the National League with a .616 slugging percentage and 1.006 OPS. He also leads MLB with 144 runs and 373 total bases.
The man with the unfortunate task to have had such a season on the same timeline as Ohtani is Philadelphia Phillies designated hitter Kyle Schwarber.
The three-time All-Star leads the NL with 56 long balls, leads the majors with 132 RBIs, and has a career-high 4.8 bWAR. Schwarber is also doing this while his Phillies have the second-best record in the majors at 95-65 as of Saturday.
Purely based on offensive metrics, Ohtani leads Schwarber in everything but RBIs (trailing him by 31) and home runs (trailing him by one). Something that perhaps no other MVP candidate will do while leading his league in a majority of offensive stats, is average a 98.1 mph fastball in the same season.
Ohtani the pitcher has proven to be a different animal, but the same beast on the diamond.
He is hurling a 2.87 ERA across 47 innings of work, striking out 62 batters and walking just nine. His fastball ranks in the 95th percentile across the majors and both his slider and curveball elicit just a .154 batting average against them this season.
Schwarber is having an undeniably dominant season in the batter’s box, and doing so for a team with one of the best records in baseball, but in terms of being the most valuable player, there is no universe where that honor isn’t given to Ohtani who does it at the plate and on the mound.
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Photo Credit: Jayne Kamin-Oncea-Imagn Images
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