Shohei Ohtani did not end up winning his fourth consecutive Most Valuable Player award Thursday night, losing for the first time as a member of the Los Angeles Dodgers to Chicago Cubs outfielder Pete Crow-Armstrong.
Ohtani had an up-and-down 2026 season, to say the least.
He made his return to the mound as a full-time starting pitcher while continuing to work as the team’s primary designated hitter.
As a pitcher, Ohtani’s stuff was elite and he showed glimpses of the generational pitching talent that made teams salivate when he was an international free agent a decade ago.
Ohtani went 8-2 with an ERA of 1.79 and 95 strikeouts in 14 appearances in 2026.
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Early in the season, he looked like a lock for his third straight National League MVP award (fourth overall).
But injuries to his left knee and his right arm ultimately resulted in him being pulled from pitching duty to allow his body to rest and to let him focus on his offense.
But those injuries proved to be the kind that lingered, and his power and efficiency cratered late in the summer, leading to a brief stint on the injured list prior to the beginning of the postseason.
He finished the 2026 season with a .275 batting average, 144 hits, 30 homers, 81 RBIs and 89 runs scored in 135 games.
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For a player named anything other than Ohtani, those batting and pitching stats combined would be a historic season worthy of an MVP. But fans of Ohtani and the Dodgers could see the obvious tells of a body breaking down and slipping mechanics.
In short, Ohtani was never himself after picking up the injuries that ended his pitching season.
Shohei Ohtani vs. Pete Crow-Armstrong
Meanwhile, Cubs star Pete Crow-Armstrong had the opposite problem, playing poorly in the early days but getting stronger as the season played out.
PCA struggled out of the gates, hitting .235 with only seven home runs and 24 RBIs in the first 55 games of the season. He was eventually dropped to as low as eighth in the Cubs lineup during a particularly brutal cold streak.
But as the calendar turned to June, he ignited and went on a nuclear tear. In June alone, he had a .318 batting average with 40 hits and 11 homers.
He ultimately finished the 2026 regular season with a .280 batting average, 175 hits, 45 home runs and 106 RBIs without missing a single game. All the while, he continued his streak of Gold Glove-quality defense, including winning his first Platinum Glove as the National League’s top defender.
That historic season ended with Crow-Armstrong becoming (alongside Houston Astros star Yordan Alvarez) the 26th unanimous MVP winner in MLB history.
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Ohtani finished as the runner-up for the National League MVP, ending a streak of three straight MVP awards (all of which were unanimous).
A second-place MVP finish isn’t something that most people would consider to be a letdown, but for Ohtani it is. It’s also all the more proof that even at 80% of the player he’s been historically, his greatness transcends anything we’ve seen in the sport.
Shohei’s trophy case is already bursting at the seams, and one can imagine that another World Series ring is much more important to his legacy.
When he returns to the playing field in 2027, that, surely, will be his primary focus.
But hats off to PCA on a truly incredible season. Not many Major Leaguers will ever get to say they outplayed the greatest of all time, and now the 24-year-old Los Angeles native has the trophy to prove it.
Did any Dodgers win awards for 2026?
Yoshinobu Yamamoto finished fourth in the National League Cy Young race. He was edged out by Atlanta Braves pitcher Chris Sale, Philadelphia Phillies ace Cristopher Sánchez and unanimous winner Jacob Misiorowski of the Milwaukee Brewers.
Yamamoto was also named to the All MLB Second Team, alongside fellow Dodger Tarik Skubal.
Dodgers manager Dave Roberts finished fifth in the National League Manager of the Year vote. Brewers manager Pat Murphy won again for the third consecutive season. Despite his Hall-of-Fame trajectory, Roberts has only won the award once, in 2016, his first season in L.A.
Left-handed reliever Tanner Scott shook off the stink from an awful 2025 season and rebounded to one of the top relievers in baseball in 2026. Scott finished in eighth place for the inaugural National League Reliever of the Year award, picking up one fourth-place vote and six fifth-place votes for the award.
That award went home with San Diego Padres closer Mason Miller, another unanimous winner.
Center fielder Andy Pages picked up a single sixth place vote for MVP, a testament to his growth over the 2026 season.
Despite coming off back-to-back World Series victories, as well as the team’s first 100-win season since 2023, not a single Dodger was honored with any hardware during MLB Awards season.
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