Since 1931, the
Baseball Writers' Association of America (BBWAA) has bestowed a
most valuable player award to a player in the
National League and a player in the
American League. Before 1931, two similar awards were issued: the League Award was issued during 1922–1928 in the American League and during 1924–1929 in the National League. During 1911–1914, the Chalmers Award was issued to a player in each league. Criteria and a list of winners for these two earlier awards are detailed in below sections. MVP voting takes place before the
postseason, but the results are not announced until after the
World Series. The BBWAA began by polling three writers in each league city in 1938, reducing that number to two per league city in 1961. The BBWAA does not offer a clear-cut definition of what "most valuable" means, instead leaving the judgment to the individual voters. In 1944, the award was named after
Kenesaw Mountain Landis, the first
Commissioner of Baseball, who served from 1920 until his death on November 25, 1944. Formally named the Kenesaw Mountain Landis Memorial Baseball Award, that naming appeared on a plaque given to winning players. Starting in 2020, Landis' name no longer appears on the MVP plaque, after the BBWAA received complaints from several former MVP winners about Landis' role against the
integration of MLB.
First basemen, with 35 winners, have won the most MVPs among
infielders, followed by
second basemen (16),
third basemen (15), and
shortstops (15). Of the 25
pitchers who have won the award, 15 are
right-handed while 10 are
left-handed.
Walter Johnson,
Carl Hubbell, and
Hal Newhouser are the only pitchers who have won multiple times, with Newhouser winning consecutively in 1944 and 1945.
Hank Greenberg,
Stan Musial,
Alex Rodriguez,
Robin Yount, and
Shohei Ohtani have won at different positions, Rodriguez and
Andre Dawson are the only players to win the award while on a last-place team, the
2003 Texas Rangers and
1987 Chicago Cubs, respectively.
Barry Bonds has won the most often (seven times) and the most consecutively (four from 2001 to 2004).
Jimmie Foxx was the first player to win multiple times. Ten players have won three times, and 19 have won twice.
Frank Robinson and
Shohei Ohtani are the only players to win the award in both the American and National Leagues, with Ohtani being the first to win in both leagues in consecutive seasons. The award's only tie occurred in the
National League in 1979, when
Keith Hernandez and
Willie Stargell received an equal number of points. There have been 23 unanimous winners, who received all the first-place votes. and in 2023, he became the first player in MLB history to win MVP by unanimous vote twice. Since the creation of the
Cy Young Award in 1956, he is the only pitcher to win an MVP award without winning a Cy Young in the same year (
Don Newcombe,
Sandy Koufax,
Bob Gibson,
Denny McLain,
Vida Blue,
Rollie Fingers,
Willie Hernández,
Roger Clemens,
Dennis Eckersley, Verlander, and Kershaw all won a Cy Young award in their MVP seasons). Ohtani is also the only MVP winner to have played most of his games as a
designated hitter (DH), a position that normally does not contribute on defense. In 2024, after winning his third career unanimous MVP award, Ohtani became the first MVP winner to have played exclusively as a DH in a season. To date, Ohtani is the only player to win both the MVP and the
Edgar Martínez Award, an award given to the most outstanding DH in a season. There was no award given by either league in 1930, which meant that one of the single greatest performances ever went unheralded when
Hack Wilson of the
Chicago Cubs set the current MLB record for RBI with 191. He also batted .356 and set the NL record with 56 HRs, a record which stood for 68 years until
Mark McGwire (70) and
Sammy Sosa (66) both eclipsed him. ==Key==