Alvarez and Crow-Armstrong Win MVP Awards in Unanimous Votes

Baseball has two new Most Valuable Players, and the writers left no room for argument. The Baseball Writers' Association of America announced on Thursday, November 12, 2026 that Houston Astros slugger Yordan Alvarez won the American League award and Chicago Cubs center fielder Pete Crow-Armstrong won the National League award. Both men took all 30 first place votes in their league and finished with 420 points. Both are first time winners.

Alvarez ran the American League

Alvarez, 29, hit .316 with 42 home runs and 106 runs batted in for Houston. He won the American League batting title and led the league in on-base percentage at .432, slugging percentage at .601 and OPS at 1.033. He also led the league with 341 total bases, 109 walks and 77 extra-base hits, and he scored 105 runs.

The season put him in rare company. Alvarez joined Aaron Judge in 2025 and Miguel Cabrera in 2012 as the only American League players since 1970 to win a batting title in a season with at least 40 home runs. He is the third Astros player to win the award, after Jeff Bagwell in 1994 and Jose Altuve in 2017, and the first American League winner not named Judge or Shohei Ohtani since 2020.

Tampa Bay Rays third baseman Junior Caminero finished second with 267 points, and Kansas City Royals shortstop Bobby Witt Jr. finished third. Alvarez, Caminero and Witt were the only players named on every ballot. Ballots are cast by two writers in each league city before the postseason starts.

The award caps a comeback. Alvarez played only 48 games in 2025 because of injuries. On Wednesday he collected the Hank Aaron Award, the Edgar Martinez Award for the best designated hitter and the American League Comeback Player of the Year award. He finished third in the MVP voting in 2022, the year Houston won the World Series.

Crow-Armstrong did everything for the Cubs

Crow-Armstrong, 24, hit .280 with a .372 on-base percentage and a .570 slugging percentage for Chicago. His 45 home runs tied Philadelphia Phillies slugger Kyle Schwarber for the major league lead, and he stole 41 bases in 48 attempts. That made him the seventh player in major league history with a 40 home run, 40 steal season, and the only one to do it in 2026.

He led the majors with 119 runs scored, 357 total bases and 84 extra-base hits, and drove in 107 runs. He also recorded 26 outs above average in center field, the best mark for any fielder at any position. Baseball-Reference credited him with 9.8 wins above replacement and FanGraphs with 10.6, the highest figures in the majors on both scales.

Los Angeles Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani, the National League winner in each of the past two seasons, finished second. Milwaukee Brewers second baseman Brice Turang finished third. Crow-Armstrong is the ninth Cubs player to win the award and the first since Kris Bryant in 2016. He finished ninth in the voting a year ago.

Two unanimous winners in one night is rare, and both seasons explain why the vote broke that way. Alvarez was the most complete hitter in his league from April to September. Crow-Armstrong paired that level of power with speed and the best center field defense in the game.