Shohei Ohtani’s Records: The Complete List of His MLB and NPB Milestones
Shohei Ohtani has spent eight years in the majors turning things that were supposed to be impossible into line items on a stat sheet. Here is the full accounting — every significant record and award he has collected with the Los Angeles Dodgers and Los Angeles Angels, plus the ones he set in Japan before American fans had ever seen him play.
Table of Contents
Key Takeaways
- Ohtani is the only player in MLB history with a 50-homer, 50-steal season, finishing 2024 with 54 home runs and 59 stolen bases.
- He has won four MVP awards — 2021, 2023, 2024 and 2025 — and all four were unanimous, something no one else has done even once.
- In 2022 he qualified for both the ERA title and the batting title in the same season, the first time that happened in the modern era.
- Before MLB, he was the first player in Japanese pro baseball to win 10 games and hit 10 home runs in a season, and he threw the fastest pitch ever recorded by a Japanese pitcher: 165 km/h (102.5 mph).
- Still on the table: a Cy Young Award, a Triple Crown, and Barry Bonds’ record of seven MVPs.
Shohei Ohtani’s Major MLB Records
| Record | Year | Details |
|---|---|---|
| First 50-50 season in MLB history | 2024 | 54 home runs, 59 stolen bases |
| Most home runs in a season by a Japanese-born player | 2025 | 55 (broke his own mark; Hideki Matsui’s was 31) |
| Most home runs in a season by an Asian-born player | 2025 | 55 |
| Most career home runs by an Asian-born player | 2024 | Passed Shin-Soo Choo; 304 as of August 2026 |
| Most stolen bases in a season by an Asian-born player | 2024 | 59 |
| Most RBIs in a season by an Asian-born player | 2024 | 130 (Matsui’s was 116) |
| First AL home run title by an Asian-born player | 2023 | 44 |
| First RBI title by an Asian-born player | 2024 | 130 |
| First modern-era player to qualify in innings and plate appearances | 2022 | 166 innings, 666 plate appearances |
| First player with 10 starts, 20 homers and 10 steals | 2018 | 10 starts, 22 homers, 10 steals |
| 10 wins and 10 home runs in a season | 2022 | 15 wins, 34 homers — first since Babe Ruth, 104 years earlier |
| Four unanimous MVP awards | 2025 | 2021, 2023, 2024, 2025 |
| Most home runs by a Japanese-born rookie | 2018 | 22 (Kenji Johjima’s was 18) |
| First Japanese-born player to hit for the cycle | 2019 | June 13 vs. Tampa Bay |
| First player selected to an All-Star Game as both pitcher and hitter | 2021 | Started on the mound, batted leadoff as DH |
| Fastest Japanese-born player to 50 career home runs | 2021 | 997 plate appearances (Matsui needed 1,393) |
| Longest on-base streak by a Japanese-born player | 2026 | 53 games (Ichiro Suzuki’s was 43) |
The First 50-50 Season in MLB History
Nobody had done it. The ceiling had always been 40-40, a club whose membership — José Canseco, Barry Bonds, Alex Rodriguez, Alfonso Soriano — reads like a list of the most physically gifted players of their eras. Fifty and 50 was the kind of number people used as shorthand for “impossible.”
Ohtani got there on Sept. 19, 2024, against the Marlins, in one of the loudest single-game performances in modern baseball: 6-for-6, three home runs, 10 RBIs, two stolen bases. He finished the season at 54 and 59.
Qualifying as Both a Pitcher and a Hitter
In 2022 Ohtani threw 166 innings — enough to qualify for the ERA title — and took 666 plate appearances, enough to qualify for the batting title. No player in the modern era had ever cleared both bars in the same season.
The supporting numbers were not token efforts in either direction. On the mound: 15-9 with a 2.33 ERA and 219 strikeouts. At the plate: .273 with 34 home runs and 95 RBIs. The last player to do anything comparable was Babe Ruth in 1918, roughly a century earlier — and Ruth was a full-time pitcher for only part of that stretch.
Rewriting the Japanese-Born Home Run Record Book
Hideki Matsui’s 31 homers in 2004 stood as the standard for Japanese-born hitters for nearly two decades. Ohtani passed it in 2021 with 46, pushed it to 54 in 2024, then to 55 in 2025. His career total of 304 as of August 2026 is the most by any Asian-born player, a mark he took from Shin-Soo Choo in 2024.
Every Award Ohtani Has Won in MLB
| Award | Year(s) | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Rookie of the Year (Jackie Robinson Award) | 2018 | Fourth Japanese-born winner, after Hideo Nomo, Kazuhiro Sasaki and Ichiro Suzuki |
| Most Valuable Player | 2021, 2023, 2024, 2025 | Four total, all unanimous |
| Home run title | 2023, 2024 | Back-to-back; first by an Asian-born player |
| RBI title | 2024 | 130; first by an Asian-born player |
| Silver Slugger | 2021, 2023, 2024, 2025 | Four total |
| Edgar Martinez Award (top DH) | 2021–2025 | Five straight years |
| Hank Aaron Award | 2023, 2024, 2025 | Three straight; first player to win it in both leagues |
| All-Star selection | 2021–2025 | Five straight years |
| All-MLB First Team | 2021, 2023, 2024, 2025 | Four times |
| All-MLB Second Team | 2021, 2022 | As a pitcher |
| Player of the Week | Multiple | Seven times in the AL, four in the NL |
| Player of the Month | Multiple | Four times in the AL, twice in the NL |
| Rookie of the Month | 2018 | April and September |
| Commissioner’s Historic Achievement Award | 2021 | — |
| AP Male Athlete of the Year | 2021, 2023, 2024 | Three times |
| World Baseball Classic MVP | 2023 | Led Japan to the title |
| World Series champion | 2024, 2025 | Back-to-back with the Dodgers |
| NLCS MVP | 2025 | — |
Four MVPs, All Unanimous
Ohtani won his first MVP in 2021 and added three more in 2023, 2024 and 2025. Four puts him second all time by himself, behind only Barry Bonds’ seven — the next group down, a crowded tier that includes Stan Musial, Mickey Mantle, Joe DiMaggio, Albert Pujols and Mike Trout, sits at three.
The detail that separates him: every one of the four was unanimous. No other player in MLB history has more than one unanimous MVP.
The 2024 award was its own kind of milestone. Ohtani did not pitch a single inning that year while recovering from elbow surgery, which made him the first player ever to win MVP as a designated hitter alone. He simply hit and ran his way to it.
The First Asian-Born Player to Win a Batting Title
Ohtani led the American League with 44 home runs in 2023, the first Asian-born player to win a home run crown. He repeated in 2024 with 54, this time in the National League, and added the RBI title with 130 — again, a first for an Asian-born player.
For a generation, the scouting assumption about Japanese position players coming to MLB was that the bat control would translate and the power would not. Ichiro, Matsui and Seiya Suzuki were all read through that lens. Ohtani ended the conversation.
Back-to-Back World Series Titles
Ohtani signed with the Dodgers before the 2024 season and won a championship in his first year, carrying a heavy load through October as a hitter only. In 2025 he returned to the mound, won NLCS MVP, and the Dodgers repeated.
What Ohtani Did in Japan: His NPB Records
Before the majors, Ohtani spent five seasons (2013–2017) with the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters of the Pacific League, based in Sapporo on Japan’s northern island of Hokkaido. Nippon Professional Baseball plays a 143-game schedule, 19 fewer than MLB, which is worth holding in mind when reading the counting stats below.
| Record | Year | Details |
|---|---|---|
| First NPB player with 10 wins and 10 home runs in a season | 2014 | 11 wins, 10 home runs |
| First NPB player to do it twice | 2016 | 10 wins, 22 home runs |
| First NPB player with 10 wins, 100 hits and 20 home runs | 2016 | 10 wins, 104 hits, 22 home runs |
| Fastest pitch by a Japanese pitcher in an NPB game | 2016 | 165 km/h (102.5 mph) |
| First 160 km/h pitch in Japanese amateur baseball | 2012 | Iwate prefectural tournament semifinal, senior year of high school |
| Best Nine at two positions in one year | 2016 | Pitcher and designated hitter — an NPB first |
| 100 million yen salary in his third pro season | 2014 | Second player ever to get there that fast, after Daisuke Matsuzaka |
| Fastest pitch by a rookie in his debut | 2013 | 157 km/h (97.6 mph) |
| Multi-hit game on Opening Day as a high school draftee | 2013 | Second ever, 53 years after Kunimitsu Yanoura |
| First win and first home run as a high school draftee | 2013 | First since Yutaka Enatsu, 46 years earlier |
| Fourth NPB player with 40 career wins and 40 career home runs | 2017 | 42 wins, 48 home runs |
A High School Arm That Broke the Radar Gun
Ohtani was a national story before he was a professional. In the summer of 2012, pitching for Hanamaki Higashi High School in the Iwate prefectural semifinal, he hit 160 km/h (99.4 mph) — the first time a Japanese amateur had ever been clocked there. The Japanese professional record at the time was 161 km/h, held by Yoshinori Sato. A high schooler had come within one tick of it.
The Draft Fight and the Two-Way Experiment
Ohtani announced before the 2012 draft that he intended to skip NPB entirely and sign with an MLB club out of high school. The Fighters drafted him anyway, as the only team to use a first-round pick on him, and manager Hideki Kuriyama went to work.
What Kuriyama offered was the thing no one else would: a written development plan to let him pitch and hit at the same time, professionally, at the top level. It was widely criticized in Japan as a gimmick that would stunt him at both. Kuriyama never wavered, and Ohtani signed.
Year one, 2013, was modest — three wins on the mound, a .238 average with three home runs at the plate — but it was enough to make the NPB All-Star Game as a rookie.
NPB’s First 10-Win, 10-Homer Season
The plan paid off in 2014. Ohtani went 11-4 with a 2.61 ERA and hit .274 with 10 home runs, becoming the first player in the history of Japanese pro baseball to reach double figures in wins and home runs in the same season.
He went further in 2016: 10 wins, 22 home runs and 104 hits, a combination no NPB player had ever posted, on a Fighters team that won the Japan Series.
165 km/h: The Fastest Pitch Ever Thrown by a Japanese Pitcher
The fastball was always the loudest tool. Ohtani reached 162 km/h (100.7 mph) in 2014, then hit 165 km/h (102.5 mph) in the 2016 Climax Series — NPB’s playoff round — the hardest pitch a Japanese pitcher has ever thrown in a game. He has carried that velocity to MLB, still sitting in the high 90s and touching 100 mph a decade later.
Ohtani’s NPB Awards
| Award | Year | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Pacific League MVP | 2016 | 253 of 254 first-place votes |
| Wins leader | 2015 | 15, in his third pro season |
| ERA leader | 2015 | 2.24 |
| Winning percentage leader | 2015 | .750 |
| Best Nine (pitcher) | 2015, 2016 | — |
| Best Nine (designated hitter) | 2016 | First player selected at two positions in one year |
| Monthly MVP | June 2016 | 4-0 with a 0.29 ERA |
| All-Star selection | 2013–2017 | Five straight years; played in four (missed 2015 injured) |
| Japan Series champion | 2016 | Fighters beat Hiroshima 4-2 |
A Pitching Triple Crown in His Third Pro Season
In 2015, at 21, Ohtani led the Pacific League in wins (15), ERA (2.24) and winning percentage (.750) — Japan’s pitching Triple Crown. He made 22 starts, threw 160 2/3 innings and struck out 196.
The bat went quiet that year; he hit .202. It was the one season where the skeptics looked right, and it lasted exactly 12 months.
Best Nine at Two Positions in the Same Year
Best Nine is NPB’s annual all-league team, one player per position chosen by a media vote. In 2016 Ohtani was named to it twice — once as the league’s best pitcher, once as its best designated hitter. No player had ever been selected at two positions in the same season.
He also took the Pacific League MVP that year with 253 of 254 first-place votes, about as close to unanimous as a Japanese MVP ballot gets.
The Walk-Off That Turned the 2016 Japan Series
The Japan Series is NPB’s championship round. In 2016, with the Fighters facing the Hiroshima Toyo Carp, Ohtani delivered a walk-off hit in the bottom of the 10th inning of Game 3. Nippon-Ham won three straight after that and took the title 4-2.
Records Ohtani Could Still Break
He is 31 as of Opening Day 2026 and under contract with the Dodgers through 2033. That is a lot of runway for a player who has already rearranged most of the record book.
MVP and Cy Young in the Same Season
Ohtani has four MVPs and no Cy Young Awards. Winning both in one year is rare on its own — Clayton Kershaw did it in 2014, Justin Verlander in 2011 — and doing it as a two-way player would be a category of achievement that does not currently exist.
The case is not hypothetical. He finished fourth in Cy Young voting in 2022 behind a 15-win season, and in his 2025 return to the mound he posted a 2.87 ERA with 62 strikeouts in 14 games. A full, healthy starter’s workload is the only missing ingredient.
Most MVPs All Time
Four MVPs is second all time. Bonds has seven. A fifth would move Ohtani closer to untouched ground, and a seventh would tie the record outright — and every one of Ohtani’s has been unanimous, which no other player can claim even twice.
The Triple Crown
Leading the league in average, home runs and RBIs in the same season has happened 14 times in MLB history. The last was Miguel Cabrera in 2012.
Ohtani has come close. In 2024 he led the NL in home runs (54) and RBIs (130) but finished second in batting average at .310. In 2025 his 55 home runs were second in the league. The gap is contact: trimming the strikeouts is what stands between him and a Triple Crown that would be the first by an Asian-born player and the first by anyone in more than a decade.
500 Home Runs, 100 Wins, 1,000 Strikeouts
At 304 career home runs and still producing at an MVP level, Ohtani has a realistic path to becoming the first Asian-born member of the 500-home-run club. On the mound, he sits at 47 career wins and 765 strikeouts as of Aug. 4, 2026 — meaning 100 wins and 1,000 strikeouts are both in range.
No player has ever finished a career with 500 home runs and 100 pitching wins. Ruth came closest, and he stopped pitching.
