Ohtani and Judge maintain their duopoly on baseball’s MVP award
In an era of specialization, both are unique double-threats.
By Frederic J. Frommer
We are witnessing something truly transcendent in baseball’s dynamic duo of superstars, Shohei Ohtani and Aaron Judge, who this month both won the MVP for the second straight season.
In an era of specialization, both are unique double-threats. Ohtani, of course, is a two-way star, excelling as a hitter and pitcher in a way that no one has since Babe Ruth more than a century ago. This season, the Dodgers designated hitter/pitcher smashed 55 home runs while posting a 2.87 ERA to win the National League MVP—giving him two in each league—while helping lead Los Angeles to its second straight World Series title.
No one else in baseball has that kind of overall game, but Judge’s combination of power and ability to hit for average is also remarkable, especially in today’s game when players often sacrifice batting average for power. In 2025, while earning his third American League MVP, the Yankees star slugged 53 homers while hitting an MLB-best .331—20 points higher than anyone else (Bo Bichette of the Blue Jays and Jacob Wilson of the A’s finished tied for second at .311). Judge’s feat would have been excellent in any year, but especially so in a season when the sport’s overall average was just .245.
He was one of only seven players to bat over .300, which has become a lost art in modern baseball. Judge dominated MLB’s leaderboards, topping the sport in wins above replacement (9.7), on-base percentage (.457), slugging (.688) and OPS (1.144), in addition to batting average.
Ohtani, meanwhile, led baseball in runs scored (146), total bases (380), and extra base hits (89), while topping the NL in slugging (.622) and OPS (1.014). And after taking a year off from pitching following 2023 elbow surgery, he struck out 62 batters in 47 innings.
Excluding his 2020 season, when he tossed just 1 2/3 inning, Ohtani now has pitched five seasons—matching Babe Ruth’s five full seasons on the mound. Ruth, Ohtani’s only true comp in baseball history, pretty much gave up pitching after joining the Yankees in 1920, finishing with a lifetime 2.28 ERA. Ohtani’s is 3.00.
Back when they both played in the American League, Ohtani and Judge alternated MVP awards—with Ohtani winning in 2021 and 2023, and Judge taking the honors in 2022. The award, befitting its name, doesn’t necessarily recognize the best player in each league, and usually goes to a player on a team that at least makes the playoffs. But Ohtani was so great that he won it for a pair of Angels teams that finished in fourth place, eight games under .500 in 2021 and 16 games under in 2023.
After Ohtani signed with the Dodgers as a free agent ahead of the ’24 season, the two superstars didn’t have to share the award anymore. Over the past two years, they have imposed an MVP duopoly on the sport. Ohtani’s 2025 MVP was his third consecutive and fourth in five seasons – each one unanimously.
The two players have now won a combined seven MVPs—70 percent of the trophies in a sport that features a boatload of talented players, such as Mariners catcher Cal Raleigh, who finished second to Judge after hitting 60 home runs this season.
“The last time we’ve seen a pair dominate their sport like this is when Magic Johnson and Larry Bird won six out of seven NBA MVP Awards in the 1980s,” Tom Verducci observed in a recent Sports Illustrated story.
In the postseason, Ohtani had a pair of games that reinforced his status as the greatest player in baseball history. In Los Angeles’s pennant-winning Game 4 victory over the Brewers in the National League Championship Series, he dominated a game like no one before him. On the mound, Ohtani threw six scoreless innings and struck out 10 batters. Sixty-feet and six inches away, he smashed three home runs. And of course he won the NLCS MVP. Then in LA’s 18-inning Game 3 World Series victory over the Blue Jays, he went 4-for-4 with five walks, all but one intentional – reaching base an astounding nine times in nine trips to the plate.
As ESPN’s Jeff Passan wrote, Ohtani’s NLCS performance “was the sort of necessary reminder that one of the greatest athletes in the world, and the most talented baseball player ever, is playing right now, doing unfathomable things, redefining the game in real time.”
Frederic J. Frommer, a writer and sports and politics historian, has written for the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Atlantic, History.com and other national publications. A former Associated Press reporter, Frommer is the author of several books, including “You Gotta Have Heart: Washington Baseball from Walter Johnson to the 2019 World Series Champion Nationals.” Follow him on X.
Once somebody draws all the hype, I lose interest. I prefer the more classic baseball stars like Arizona's Corbin Carroll and San Diego's Fernando Tatis Jr. These guys sparked my imagination when I first saw them play, and I'm eager to follow their careers as far as they will take me. Sure hope they stay with the teams that are elevating them
Ohtani and Judge are making baseball much more interesting again. Unfortunately, the money being charged for tickets are making it unreachable for many lower income families. All this, so the billionaire owners can get even richer and pay more outlandish sums to even mediocre players (all with paying practically no taxes whatsoever).
I'm not saying Ohtani is not worth every penny he gets, but how can a player get so rich he doesn't even notice when his interpreter is ripping him off for untold tens of millions of dollars?