Japan Series Most Valuable Player Award
The Japan Series Most Valuable Player Award is given to the player deemed to have the most impact on his team's performance in the Japan Series, which is the final round of the Nippon Professional Baseball postseason. The award was first presented in 1950.
The series follows a best-of-seven playoff format and occurs after the two-stage Climax Series. It is played by the winners of the Final Stage round of the Central League and the Pacific League.
Kaoru Betto won the inaugural award in 1950 with the Mainichi Orions. Depending upon definitions, the first non-Japanese to win the award was either Andy Miyamoto in 1961 or Joe Stanka in 1964. Fifteen Japan Series MVPs were inducted into the Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame; Osamu Higashio was the first pitcher to appear solely as a reliever to win the Japan Series MVP, with only Dennis Sarfate joining him since. Of the first fifteen winners of the award since 2000, only three are still active in professional baseball as a player. Hideki Matsui and Norihiro Nakamura are they only two Japan Series MVPs to play in Major League Baseball. While Nakamura's MLB career lasted less than one season, Matsui's lasted ten seasons. He became the first player to be named both a Japan Series and a World Series [Most Valuable Player Award|World Series MVP] after winning the latter award in 2009. The reigning Japan Series MVP is Hotaka Yamakawa of the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks.
Numerous players of the 76 Japan Series MVPs have also won the Nippon [Professional Baseball Most Valuable Player Award|NPB MVP] or the Eiji Sawamura Award in the same season. Five players won the Eiji Sawamura Award and the Japan Series MVP in the same season: Shigeru Sugishita, Takehiko Bessho, Tsuneo Horiuchi, Takashi Nishimoto, Takehiro Ishii ; Sugishita, Horiuchi, and Ishii are the only players to have won all three awards in the same season. Twelve players have won the Japan Series MVP in the same season in which they won the NPB MVP: Betto, Bessho, Kazuhisa Inao, Tadashi Sugiura, Shigeo Nagashima, Stanka, Hisashi Yamada, Randy Bass, Tom O'Malley, Furuta, Matsui, Dennis Sarfate.
Six players have won the award multiple times. Nagashima has won the most Japan Series MVP awards with four wins. The remaining five players all won the award twice: Bessho, Horiuchi, Kimiyasu Kudoh, Koji Akiyama, Atsuya Furuta, and Toshiaki Imae ; Akiyama is the only player to have won the award with different teams. There has been one occasion on which multiple winners were awarded in the same Japan Series: Masayuki Dobashi and Masayuki Tanemo in 1962.
Pitchers have been named Series MVP 21 times, 13 of which appeared in both starting and relief roles in the Series.