by Cary Osborne
All the greats who have won Player of the Week Awards the most times — Manny Ramirez and Miguel Cabrera who won it 16 times over their careers; Barry Bonds (15 times), Albert Pujols and Frank Thomas (14) and Nolan Ryan and Alex Rodriguez (13 times) — none of them won it four times in one season.
Not like Shohei Ohtani did in 2024.
Ohtani capped his historic season with a fourth National League Player of the Week Award. He won four of the 27 NL Player of the Week awards handed out this season. Going back to last season, Ohtani has received Player of the Week honors seven out of the last 44 MLB weeks (including three last year as a member of the Angels).
Ohtani wins the award for the second week in a row.
This period — Sept. 24-Sept. 29 — saw Ohtani go 13-for-25 with a home run, seven RBI, four stolen bases, four doubles, six runs and a .520/.571/.800/1.371 slash line.
Here are the stats from his other 2024 Player of the Week honors:
Sept. 16–22: .500/.543/1.125/1.668, 16-for-32 with six home runs, 17 RBI, 11 runs scored, seven stolen bases
June 17–23: .458/.567/1.083/1.650, 11-for-24 with four home runs, 11 RBI, eight runs scored and one stolen base
April 29-May 5: .524/.583/.952/1.536, 11-for-21 with three home runs, seven RBI, six runs scored and two stolen bases
Ohtani earned his 11th career honor, becoming one of 15 players with at least 11 career awards. Overall, it is the sixth award for the Dodgers this season after Ohtani won last week, marking the first time a player has won in consecutive weeks since Aaron Judge on July 25 and Aug. 1 in 2022 and the first time it has happened in the NL since Manny Machado won on Aug. 24 and 31 in 2020.
Ohtani is one of eight players since 1973 to claim at least three awards in both leagues, joining Carlos Beltrán (6 NL/4 AL); Adrián González (5 NL/3 AL); Hall of Famer Vladimir Guerrero (7 NL/3 AL); Manny Machado (4 AL/4 NL); Mark McGwire (5 AL/5 NL); Al Oliver (5 NL/3 AL); and Gary Sheffield (9 NL/3 AL).
Shohei Ohtani claims his fourth NL Player of the Week honor this season was originally published in Dodger Insider on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.