For just the third time in the history of Major League Baseball, there are a pair of unanimous winners of the Most Valuable Player awards. Yordan Alvarez of the Houston Astros claimed the AL MVP, while Pete Crow-Armstrong of the Chicago Cubs took home the NL award.
The duo running away with the votes indicates just how dominant their seasons were, albeit in far different ways. Alvarez was the best hitter in the sport and almost single-handedly carried an injury-plagued Astros team to an AL West crown and the MLB playoffs. As for Crow-Armstrong, he was the best all-around player in baseball and the catalyst to the Cubs making the postseason.
Alvarez had a little extra motivation entering the year, considering how last season played out. He missed over 100 games due to injuries in 2025 and was unproductive when he did play, posting the lowest OPS of his career. However, he rebounded in 2026 by leading the AL with his entire slash line of .316/.432/.601. He went from his career-worst OPS+ to a career best, as his 190 mark led all of MLB.
Additionally, the 29-year-old designated hitter led the AL with 341 total bases, which is almost unfathomable considering all of the free passes he was offered. Alvarez had limited opportunities to even swing the bat as he also topped MLB with 109 walks. For the season, the slugger hit 42 homers, drove in 106 runs, and scored 105 runs himself. He also came through when it mattered most, posting a .355 batting average with runners in scoring position.
Logging just 25 games in the field, Alvarez becomes the second primarily designated hitter to be named MVP, joining Shohei Ohtani when he won the award but didn’t pitch during the 2024 season. Alvarez is also the third Astro to take home the honor, alongside current teammate Jose Altuve (2017) as well as Hall of Famer Jeff Bagwell (1994). The Cuban-born Alvarez is the fourth from his country to become Most Valuable Player, joining Zoilo Versalles (1965), Jose Canseco (1988), and Jose Abreu (2020).
Alvarez received all 30 first-place votes, with Junior Caminero of the Tampa Bay Rays finishing as runner-up. Bobby Witt Jr. of the Kansas City Royals finished third, and AL Cy Young winner Cam Schlittler of the New York Yankees was fourth.
In the Senior Circuit, Crow-Armstrong also received all 30 first-place votes, with Ohtani the runner-up, which ended the latter’s three-year streak of winning MVP awards. Third in NL voting was Brice Turang of the World Series champion Milwaukee Brewers.
Crow-Armstrong, nicknamed PCA, became the seventh member of the 40/40 club by slugging an MLB-leading 45 home runs (tied with Kyle Schwarber) and also swiping 41 bases. Both his slugging (.570) and OPS (.943) topped the National League, and like Alvarez, PCA also led the league in total bases (357). However, his exploits at the plate and on the basepaths tell only part of the story.
He was also, per nearly every metric, the best defensive outfielder in baseball, and he wasn’t hiding out at a corner spot—he played center field. He led all NL outfielders in putouts as he played all 162 games, with 158 of them as a center fielder.
With his five-tool abilities, Crow-Armstrong ran away with the WAR title, and his margin of victory was one of the greatest in MLB history. His fWAR (FanGraphs WAR) was 10.6, while the player with the second most was Witt at 7.0. That difference of 3.6 fWAR between first and second marked the first time since 1954 that the top two players were separated by at least 3.0 fWAR.
Crow-Armstrong becomes the 11th Chicago Cub to notch an MVP award, for a total of 12 wins in franchise history, as Ernie Banks won twice. He’s the first since Kris Bryant (2016) to win for Chicago, and the franchise’s dozen MVP awards ties them for sixth most among all franchises.
The only previous years in which there were unanimous MVP winners in both leagues were 2023 and 2024. Alvarez and Crow-Armstrong getting all of the first-place votes comes just one day after unanimous Cy Young awards were also handed out in both leagues, with Schlittler winning in the AL and Jacob Misiorowski of the Milwaukee Brewers winning in the NL.
That makes the 2026 MLB season a historic one, as this marks the first season that both MVP winners and both Cy Young victors won unanimously, dating back to when the pitching awards were first handed out in 1956.
All of the major awards have now been handed out, save for the Silver Slugger awards, which will be announced on Nov. 17. Both Alvarez and Crow-Armstrong are locks to get recognized and add to their respective trophy cases.
