Mookie Betts’ Latest Shohei Ohtani Take Is Bad News For Barry Bonds
After winning the 2025 National League MVP award this week, Los Angeles Dodgers megastar Shohei Ohtani has four MVP awards total in his career, the second-most ever. Only Barry Bonds has more (seven), but based on new comments from Ohtani’s star teammate in LA, Mookie Betts, Bonds’s MVP record is far from safe.
Appearing as a guest on MLB Network, Betts declared that Ohtani is pretty much a lock for MVP on a year-by-year basis, as long as he’s still pitching.
“If he’s still pitching, man, we can just keep giving it to him (every year),” Betts said.
Betts knows a thing or two about winning an MVP trophy. He bagged the 2018 American League MVP award as a member of the Boston Red Sox, the same year he won a World Series with the club.
In response to Betts’s take on Ohtani, at least one X user pointed out that Shohei might even be the MVP shoe-in (health provided) each year, even if he isn’t pitching. “He stands a great chance to keep getting it even if he doesn’t pitch (see 2024 season),” user @Tmattern1 wrote.
Is the gap between Ohtani and the field as enormous as Betts and others are suggesting? Perhaps nothing speaks more to that gap than the fact that all four of Ohtani’s MVPs have come by unanimous vote.
Ohtani is 31 years old, and he’s under contract with the Dodgers for eight more seasons. Winning NL MVP in four of those eight seasons would place him ahead of Bonds.
That seems highly attainable for Shohei, barring major injuries or early retirement.