Shohei Otani's historic season of rewriting the record books and challenging conventional baseball wisdom reached its logical conclusion on Monday night.
In a result that came as a surprise to no one, the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters' two-way star was crowned Pacific League MVP, by a nearly unanimous selection, for the first time during the 2016 NPB Awards.
"This isn't an award you can win only because of your numbers," said Otani, who helped the Fighters win the Japan Series this year. "It's something people help you win. (Fighters infielder Brandon) Laird hit a lot of home runs and (Hirotoshi) Takanashi won rookie of the year and we had a lot of players who did well. So I didn't particularly stand out. I just happened to win it by being on the team that won the championship.