While it's going to be a surprise if anyone besides Aaron Judge or Shohei Ohtani wins an MVP Award in 2026, there's an obvious group of stars who are best positioned to challenge those two behemoths.
You know them well: Bobby Witt Jr. and Juan Soto, José Ramírez and Ronald Acuña Jr., Julio Rodríguez and Fernando Tatis Jr., to name a few of the most likely contenders.
However, we also can't rule out something truly shocking happening. After all, Cal Raleigh and Kyle Schwarber weren't viewed as marquee MVP candidates entering 2025, but both finished second in their respective leagues.
With that in mind, we decided to look a bit deeper and pinpoint six less obvious choices -- drafting three in the American League and three in the National League -- with the goods to surprise everyone and capture MVP honors this season.
AL CANDIDATES
1. Junior Caminero, 3B, Rays
Why he’s a dark horse: Caminero is only 22 years old, and he’s only played one full Major League season. He’s not an elite fielder or baserunner, and he plays for a Rays team that finished fourth in the AL East last season at 77-85.
Why he could win MVP: He’s a really, really good hitter, and he’s only getting better. In just his age-21 season, Caminero made some serious noise with 45 home runs, 110 RBIs and an .846 OPS. He reached the finals of the 2025 Home Run Derby, started the All-Star Game at third base and finished inside the top 10 in AL MVP voting.
MLB Pipeline’s No. 6 prospect at the time of his first callup, Caminero has serious talent at the plate, owning the Majors’ second-fastest bat speed and pulling the ball at a high level. He’s been showing off that talent during the 2026 World Baseball Classic, going 4-for-7 in his first two games for Team Dominican Republic with homers launched at 111.6 mph and 115.8 mph. Caminero should only get better as his career goes on, and it’s easy to picture an MVP-caliber 2026 if things go right.
-- Theo DeRosa
2. Nick Kurtz, 1B, Athletics
Why he’s a dark horse: Kurtz has played in 117 Major League games and doesn’t even turn 23 years old until later this month.
Why he could win MVP: Those 117 games were spectacular. Kurtz posted a 1.002 OPS with 36 home runs over 489 plate appearances in his first taste of the Majors last year, winning the AL Rookie of the Year Award. The only other batters to finish last season with an OPS of 1.000 or higher with at least that many plate appearances? The MVPs, Aaron Judge and Shohei Ohtani.
Kurtz made all kinds of history in 2025, particularly on July 25, when he became the first rookie and first A’s player to launch four homers in the same game. It was part of a 6-for-6, 8-RBI performance, and Kurtz’s 19 total bases tied a Major League record (also Shawn Green, 2002).
Kurtz also produced 5.4 bWAR -- over 162 games, that comes out to 7.5 bWAR. And that’s despite playing below-average defense at first base. His -6 Outs Above Average was tied for fifth-worst among qualified first basemen.
If Kurtz continues to rake the way he did as a rookie and improves even modestly on defense -- something he worked on this past offseason -- he could definitely find himself in the AL MVP conversation this year.
-- Manny Randhawa
3. Roman Anthony, LF/RF, Red Sox
Why he’s a dark horse: Anthony has 71 games of big league experience and won’t turn 22 until May 13. Only four players who were 22 at the end of that season have won AL or NL MVP honors: Stan Musial (1943), Johnny Bench ('70), Vida Blue ('71) and Bryce Harper (2015).
Anthony’s numbers speak for themselves: he hit .292 with eight homers, an .859 OPS, a 140 wRC+ and 3.1 bWAR over 71 games as a rookie. But it’s the underlying skill set that makes him so exciting. He swings fast. He doesn’t chase. And no hitter with at least 50 batted balls produced hard contact at a higher clip (60.3%) last season. It also looks like he’s going to be a good defender, whether it’s in left field or right.
The youngster just might be the all-around superstar Red Sox fans have been waiting for since the team traded Mookie Betts six years ago. If Anthony puts it all together and Boston can find a way to win the AL East, he should receive strong support in the AL MVP race.
-- Thomas Harrigan
NL CANDIDATES
1. Pete Crow-Armstrong, CF, Cubs
Why he’s a dark horse: PCA was on track for an MVP-caliber season in 2025 before he cratered at the plate. Over the season’s final two months, he slashed .188/.237/.295 with 52 total bases over that 51-game closing stretch. Those kinds of slumps may just be a fact of life for an undisciplined hitter such as Crow-Armstrong, who has elevated strikeout and whiff rates and logged a 41.7% chase rate last season, fifth-highest among qualified players.
Why he could win MVP: Let’s not forget that entering August, PCA was viewed as the clear NL MVP runner-up. He was on pace for a 40-40 campaign at that point. Given his blazing speed and improved batted-ball metrics, Crow-Armstrong should be that kind of offensive threat for a good while; he’s still only 23 years old for a couple more weeks.
If you combine that dual-threat ability with Crow-Armstrong’s elite defense, which has already been recognized with a Gold Glove, you have the makings of a truly special player. We saw it for four months last year. Winning NL MVP while Ohtani resides in the league will be a difficult task, but Crow-Armstrong has the tools, the upside and the surroundings on a projected first-place team to pull it off.
-- Brian Murphy
2. Michael Harris II, CF, Braves
Why he’s a dark horse: Harris is among the more intriguing players in baseball, though he's been plagued by inconsistency since winning NL Rookie of the Year in 2022. While his defense remains stellar in center field, his offense is a conundrum. Thanks to chase and walk rates that are at or near the worst in the league, his OPS has declined significantly every season he's been in the Majors, despite considerable flashes of offensive greatness.
Why he could win MVP: Despite the above concerns, we've seen Harris perform like an MVP for long stretches, including last season -- again offering evidence that consistent elite play could be on the horizon. If this sounds familiar, it's because Harris was on this list last year, too.
He finished the second half strong in 2025, but two stretches in particular stood out. From July 22-Aug. 18, a span of 26 games and 110 plate appearances, he hit .426 with eight homers and a 1.214 OPS. Then in 48 plate appearances from Sept. 16 through the end of the season, Harris hit .370 with a 1.048 OPS. The late-season surge allowed him to crack 20 homers for the first time and made his .678 season OPS a bit deceiving.
In other words, the ingredients are still there for Harris to be one of baseball's more dangerous hitters on a permanent basis.
-- Jason Foster
3. Oneil Cruz, CF, Pirates
Why he’s a dark horse: Cruz isn't exactly out of time to make good on that five-tool potential, but he's getting older (he turned 27 in October) and largely moving in the wrong direction (his slugging percentage dropped 71 points to a bewildering low of .378 in 2025.) This will also be his sixth MLB season, a significant delay for a breakout even considering the extremely limited call-up in 2021 and the broken ankle that ended his 2023 season after nine games.
Why he could win MVP: What drew our attention to Cruz in the first place? He's 6-foot-7. He can swing a bat harder than anyone. He can throw a ball harder than anyone. He's a legitimate burner. He's not necessarily the most gifted center fielder, but that means his worst case scenario, defensively, is being moved to a corner, where he could make better use of his ridiculous arm. Baseball's current perennial MVPs are guys who play baseball on a totally different scale, and that's the future we could imagine for this similarly otherworldly athlete.
We have seen a little of that potential come through -- his 2024 wasn't exactly stellar (.259/.324/.449, 114 OPS+, 21 HR, 22 SB), but it did look like a precursor to something great. It wasn't; Cruz was literally the worst qualifying hitter in 2025. We're accustomed to the lightest-hitting men in MLB earning their keep by either a) hitting a bunch of home runs or b) stealing a bunch of bases; they usually can't do both while maintaining a terrible batting average. But hitting exactly .200 last year, and with an on-base percentage just under .300, Cruz nearly had a 20-40 season. He led the National League with 38 stolen bases. That's significant production he's getting just by pressing his natural advantage. He's still swinging hard in case something finds his bat; he's still running as much as any of his peers. It really makes you wonder how much of his maximum potential Cruz actually has to realize to become an elite position player; regardless, it's well under 100%, and that makes it seem so very possible.
-- Shanthi Sepe-Chepuru