Both Shohei Ohtani of the Angels and Ronald Acuna Jr.of the Braves win their league MVP awards unanimously.

Ohtani is the first player to win the award unanimously twice:

This election marks the 12th time the AL MVP Award winner was a unanimous choice, and the second time for Ohtani, who was also a unanimous MVP in 2021. He is the first player to win the MVP Award unanimously more than once.

Other unanimous winners of the AL award: Hank Greenberg (1935), Al Rosen (1953), Mickey Mantle (1956), Frank Robinson (1966), Denny McLain (1968), Reggie Jackson (1973), Jose Canseco (1988), Frank Thomas (1993), Ken Griffey Jr. (1997) and Mike Trout (2014). There have been eight unanimous winners in the National League: Orlando Cepeda (1967), Mike Schmidt (1980), Jeff Bagwell (1994), Ken Caminiti (1996), Barry Bonds (2002), Albert Pujols (2009), Bryce Harper (2015) and Ronald Acuña Jr. (2023).

BBWAA.com

Ohtani posted a four rWAR as a pitcher and a six rWAR as a batter. As batter he led the AL in home runs, slugging percentage, and on-base average. That’s a great MVP combination. He did not qualify for any pitching average leader boards, but Pi like ERA of 3.14 ranked eighth in the majors among pitchers with at least 132 innings.

Acuna’s 2023 batting line is covered with bolded numbers. He led the majors in runs, hits, stolen bases, and OBP. While he did not lead any of the long-hit categories, he did lead the majors in total bases. He also led the NL in plate appearances and at bats.

Congratulations to both players on great seasons and well deserved awards!

Corey Seager and Marcus Semien of the Rangers finished second and third respectively. There are a number of young up and coming players in the AL top ten.

The NL vote had Mookie Betts winning second place unanimously, with the interchangeable Freddie Freeman and Matt Olson finishing third and fourth respectively.

In the end, five of the six big player award finished in unanimous outcomes. Only Blake Snell‘s NL Cy Young showed any dissent. I’m not sure if this was just a bit of a freak year, or if more and more writers are looking at the same numbers an drawing the same conclusions.