Nippon Professional Baseball Most Valuable Player Award

Sadaharu Oh standing wearing a Japan national baseball team uniform during the 2006 World Baseball Classic
Sadaharu Oh, nine-time winner—more wins than any other player

The Most Valuable Player (MVP) Award (最優秀選手, Saiyūshūsenshu) is an annual Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) award given to two outstanding players, one each for the Central League (CL) and Pacific League (PL).

Each league's award is voted on by national baseball writers.[1] Each voter selects three players: a first-place selection is given five points, a second-place selection three points, and a third-place selection one point. The award goes to the player who receives the most overall points.[2] The winners are announced every year in November during Nippon Professional Baseball's awards ceremony called NBP Awards.

The first recipient of the award was Eiji Sawamura.[3] The most recent winners, in 2023, are Shōki Murakami, from the Central League, and Yoshinobu Yamamoto, from the Pacific League.[4] In 1940, Victor Starffin became the first player to win the award consecutively and multiple times.[3] Eiji Sawamura and Kazuhisa Inao are the youngest players to receive the awards in 1937 and 1957, respectively, at the ages of 20.[5] In 1988, Hiromitsu Kadota became the oldest player to receive the award at the age of 40.[6]

A majority of the MVP awards were given to players who played on the pennant winning team. There are a few cases where the MVP was awarded to a player who was not on the pennant winning team, however. These include 2 of Oh's MVP seasons in 1964 and 1974, Wladimir Balentien in 2013, Hisashi Iwakuma in 2008, and Hiromitsu Kadota in 1988. Only twice was the award given to a foreigner in both leagues; in 1989 with Ralph Bryant in the Pacific League and Warren Cromartie in the Central League, and in 2001 with Tuffy Rhodes in the Pacific League and Roberto Petagine in the Central League.

  1. ^ Nagatsuka, Kaz (15 November 2006). "Ogasawara, Fukudome given MVP awards for 2006 season". The Japan Times. Retrieved 6 September 2009.
  2. ^ "2018年度 表彰選手 投票結果（最優秀選手）" [2018 Player Awards Voting Results (Most Valuable Player)]. Nippon Professional Baseball (in Japanese). Retrieved 1 November 2018.
  3. ^ a b １リーグ 最優秀選手 (in Japanese). Sports Hochi. Retrieved 6 September 2009.
  4. ^ "Japan baseball stars Munetaka Murakami and Yoshinobu Yamamoto earn MVP honors". japannews.yomiuri.co.jp. Retrieved 23 September 2023.
  5. ^ "Darvish, Ogasawara earn MVP honors". The Japan Times. 21 November 2007. Retrieved 6 September 2009.
  6. ^ "Kadota, Hiromitsu". The Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum. Retrieved 8 September 2009.