In one of the most ridiculous takes of the offseason, Philadelphia Phillies star Nick Castellanos believes Los Angeles Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani should not have been the unanimous National League Most Valuable Player in 2024.
In fact, he doesn’t even think Ohtani deserved to win the award.
Castellanos fully believes New York Mets second baseman Jose Iglesias should have won the award — not even Mets shortstop Francisco Lindor, who finished second. Ohtani earned 423 points in the MVP voting, while Lindor garnered 263.
“If you’re looking at the MVP as having the most weight on creating wins for your team, there’s no other player that has had that much weight as Jose Iglesias,” Castellanos said of his former Tigers teammate. “With him being able to come in and bring that Latin spark, knocked the ice off of [Francisco] Lindor, finally got [Mark] Vientos probably comfortable to be able to be an everyday third baseman.
“And now a bunch of guys that looked like they had no direction … in the beginning of the year — they made the playoffs [and] got to where they did while the whole Mets organization had the ‘OMG’ signs everywhere from in the city to [in] the stadium.
“The way I look at baseball, Jose Iglesias is [the] unanimous National League MVP.”
Nick Castellanos says Jose Iglesias should’ve won NL MVP pic.twitter.com/gxRVbSWoO7
— Chris Rose Sports (@ChrisRoseSports) January 13, 2025
Castellanos didn’t fully abandon Ohtani. He added that the two-way superstar is someone he would build his franchise around.
“Shohei Ohtani played a huge part in the Dodgers winning,” Castellanos said. “I don’t know if he’s the sole purpose of the Dodgers moving in one direction. That doesn’t mean that what Shohei did isn’t record-book worthy and he’s not an amazing baseball player. If I’m starting a team, I pick Shohei over Jose. There’s no doubt about it. I’m not stupid.
“But the way that I saw baseball last year, with my eyeballs, Jose Iglesias is the National League MVP.”
Signed to a minor league deal last offseason, veteran infielder Iglesias was called up by the Mets in late May and made an immediate impact, taking over the starting second base role and helping turn the team’s fortunes around.
In 85 regular season games, Iglesias posted an impressive .337/.381/.448 slash line, hitting four home runs, driving in 26 RBIs, and scoring 39 runs, all while playing elite defense.
Iglesias’ influence extended beyond his numbers, which is why Castellanos believes he should have been named MVP.
