2008 Pacific League Most Valuable Player Award
From BR Bullpen
The 2008 Pacific League Most Valuable Player Award was unusual in that it went to a player from a 5th-place team; that was the only the third time in Nippon Pro Baseball that such an event had happened. Hiromitsu Ochiai and Hiromitsu Kadota had won MVP honors from 5th-place teams in 1982 and 1988 respectively. In 2008, the honor went to Hisashi Iwakuma, who had struggled his first three years with the Rakuten Golden Eagles after joining them in their first year of existance. Iwakuma dazzled, going 21-4 and leading the Pacific League in wins and ERA (1.87, .01 ahead of 2007 MVP Yu Darvish) and finishing third with 159 strikeouts.
Iwakuma got 73 first-place votes, 44 second-place votes and 24 third-place votes. His 521 points led Seibu Lions SS Hiroyuki Nakahima (460 points) and Seibu 3B and PL home run king Takeya Nakamura (322 points).
[edit] Voting Results
Name, Team, Position, First Place/Second Place/Third Place Votes Vote Points
- Hisashi Iwakuma, Rakuten Golden Eagles P 73/44/24 521
- Hiroyuki Nakahima, Seibu Lions SS 56/52/24 460
- Takeya Nakamura, Seibu Lions 3B 32/37/51 322
- Yu Darvish, Nippon Ham Fighters P 8/24/37 149
- Yasuyuki Kataoka, Seibu Lions 2B 1/2/6 17
- Alex Graman, Seibu Lions P 0/3/4 13
- Tuffy Rhodes, Orix Buffaloes DH 0/2/2 8
- Kazuyuki Hoashi, Seibu Lions P 0/1/4 7
- Toru Hosokawa, Seibu Lions C 0/0/1 1
