Dodgers Depth on Display: Multiple Players Receive…
Shohei Ohtani on Thursday won the 15th National League MVP award in Dodgers history, and the first since Cody Bellinger in 2019. But he wasn’t the only player on the 2024 Dodgers to receive MVP votes this year.
Ohtani won unanimously, receiving all 30 first-place votes. All three of his MVP wins have been unanimous, with no other MVP winner in MLB history winning unanimously more than once.
In total, four Dodgers players received at least one vote on the NL MVP ballot which runs 10 deep. Fourteen points are given for a first-place vote, nine points for a second-place vote, eight points for third place, then down a point for every slot finishing with one point for a 10th-place vote.
Mookie Betts came in 13th place, the ninth time in the last 10 seasons he received MVP votes. After winning American League MVP with the Red Sox in 2018, Betts with the Dodgers finished second in both 2020 and 2023, and was fifth place in 2022.
This year Betts was named on 10 ballots, receiving a sixth-place vote (from Thomas Harding of MLB.com), two seventh-place votes, four votes for ninth place, and three 10th-place votes for 24 total points.
Freddie Freeman was in 17th place with three total votes. It’s the seventh straight year he’s received MVP votes. He got one vote each for eight place, ninth place, and 10th place.
Teoscar Hernández finished tied for 19th place, as he received only one eighth-place vote from Patrick Saunders of The Denver Post Hernández, who received $1 million for winning a Silver Slugger Award, also had bonuses built into his contract for his MVP finish. But the lowest tier would have been $500,000 for anywhere from 11th to 15th place.
Kyle Schwarber of the Phillies was in 15th place with 15 points, and appeared on six different ballots.
