There’s a bold takeaway you can’t ignore: Yoshinobu Yamamoto just claimed the Babe Ruth Award as the postseason MVP, a honor the New York chapter of the Baseball Writers Association of America has handed out annually since 1949. The announcement came through the Associated Press, and the award will be formally presented at a January 24 ceremony in New York.
Across six postseason appearances, Yamamoto compiled a 5-1 record with a sparkling 1.45 ERA. He pitched in five starts and totaled 33 strikeouts against six walks over 37 1/3 innings. Notably, his back-to-back complete games in the NLCS Game 2 and the World Series Game 2 mark him as the first major league pitcher in 24 years to achieve successive postseason complete games. He followed up his Game 6 victory in Toronto by recording the final eight outs in relief to clinch Game 7 on zero days’ rest, and he became the first pitcher to win three road games in a single World Series.
Yamamoto’s accomplishment adds him to a distinguished lineage of Dodgers winners of the Babe Ruth Award. He becomes the seventh Dodger to receive the honor, joining Johnny Podres (1955), Larry Sherry (1959), Sandy Koufax (1963, 1965), Ron Cey (1981), Orel Hershiser (1988), and Mookie Betts (2024).
Meanwhile, trade rumors about Tyler Glasnow continue to swirl. Recent chatter linked him to potential Dodgers moves, but MLB Network Radio’s Sunday Sliders featured Glasnow confirming, via host Dani Wexelman, that Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman has stated Glasnow is not being traded. This stance was conveyed during a discussion sparked by other trade-talk chatter.
With Yamamoto’s MVP performance and the ongoing personnel conversations around Glasnow, the Dodgers’ postseason narrative this year centers on standout pitching and strategic rosters as they plan for the next season.
