Los Angeles Dodgers superstar Shohei Ohtani is seeking a fourth straight Most Valuable Player award, but online prediction markets show that someone else may already have the award in the bag.
Los Angeles native and Dodgers hater Pete Crow-Armstrong, center fielder for the Chicago Cubs, has taken a commanding lead according to Fanatics Markets, which require a $0.93 buy to get $1 if he wins MVP.
Ohtani, meanwhile, requires a $0.92 buy to get $1 if he does not win the MVP, as opposed to $0.08 for him to be named MVP.
Ohtani, who won the AL MVP award in 2023 and NL MVP in both 2024 and 2025, was the presumptive winner for much of the season, but a pair of factors have damaged his candidacy.
PCA has had a dominant August
Crow-Armstrong has had a stellar season, but his August exploits have made him the frontrunner.
This weekend alone, he hit five home runs, the latest in a string of huge moments like when he became the sixth player ever to hit a leadoff home run and a walk-off home run in the same game.
On the year, he’s slashing .283/.377/.577/.964 with 38 home runs and 91 RBIs.
That’s resulted in a bWAR of 8.5.
Ohtani is in the midst of a down year
Ohtani, while still arguably the greatest to ever play baseball, is lagging behind PCA in many of the most important metrics.
He’s slashing .280/.379/.529/.909, which isn’t far off of PCA’s numbers, but he only has 30 home runs and 80 RBIs.
In addition, while PCA is crushing in recent days, Ohtani is trending the opposite direction.
In his past 11 games, Ohtani is hitting .133/.250/.267/.517 with one homer, one triple, one double and a pair of RBIs.
He’s also struck out 16 times in that stretch.
It’s far below the expected performance of the MVP, though he still has an exceptional 6.5 bWAR.
As Baseball Reference notes, that’s good enough to be an All-Star, but it’s not MVP level.
And, given that he was shut down again as a pitcher recently, he doesn’t have a defensive impact to make up for the lost ground.
Now, Ohtani will likely need a stellar September — and a timely slump from PCA — to re-enter the MVP conversation for real.
That said, even if he falls short of his individual goal, the team’s goal of a third straight World Series remains in play.
