Shohei Ohtani Wins MVP- Unanimous Vote

So, you’re going to say that an individual player is not valuable if his team as a whole does not make the playoffs ? You do understand that baseball is a team sport, correct? And that particularly in baseball it is very difficult to win only 2 or 3 or 4 good players… In the NBA one superstar can get you into the playoffs. Two are very likely getting you into the Finals and maybe winning it all.

Baseball is just very different. The ability of one player (even a transcendent one like Ohtani) to raise his team up by himself is very limited. It is the nature of the game. Unlike basketball where players play each possession and both offense and defense (thus they can indirectly or directly help their teammates and make them better) in baseball there is nothing that Mike Trout or Shohei Ohtani can do to help Brandon Marsh while he’s at the plate. Or Jose Iglesias or whoever. Your expectation that he somehow be able to do this is simply naive and unrealistic.

Finally, the fact that players typically (one exception would be the interplay and interchange between pitcher and catcher) don’t interact, especially on offense, means that an individual star like Ohtani is less able to raise the overall level of his team (relatively speaking) than athletes in other team sports. This does not however mean that his unique individual acheivements are not praiseworthy and noteworthy (despite the disappointing overall performance of the team).