After winning the Hank Aaron Award with the Angels in 2023 as the best offensive player in the American League, Shohei Ohtani also won the National League Hank Aaron Award in 2024 in his first year with the Dodgers.
Ohtani is the first player to win the Aaron Award in both leagues. If he wins the NL MVP next week, he’ll be the second MVP winner in both leagues, joining Frank Robinson (1961 with the Reds, 1966 with the Orioles).
Ohtani and AL winner Aaron Judge are the 14th and 15th players to win multiple Aaron Awards, which has been given out since 1999, honoring the 25th anniversary of Aaron breaking MLB’s all-time home run record.
Determining the best offensive player in the National League was the easiest of assignments this year, as Ohtani spent all of his time as designated hitter yet still led the circuit in both FanGraphs and Baseball Reference versions of Wins Above Replacement.
Ohtani hit .310/.390/.646 and was the first 50-50 player in baseball history, finishing with 54 home runs and 59 stolen bases. He led the National League in home runs, RBI (130), runs scored (134), on-base percentage, slugging percentage, OPS (1.036), OPS+ (190), wRC+ (181), extra-base hits (99), and total bases (411), the latter the first major league player with 400 total bases since 2001.
Ohtani is just the second Dodger to win the Hank Aaron Award, along with Matt Kemp in 2011.
Dodgers first baseman Freddie Freeman was also one of 10 finalists for the Hank Aaron Award, which was announced on October 7.
The Aaron Award winners were announced as part of the All-MLB Awards show in Las Vegas. Ohtani also won the Edgar Martínez Award as the top designated hitter in baseball, the fourth year in a row he’s taken that award. And he was named the first-team All-MLB designated hitter, too.
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