Pete Crow-Armstrong is going toe to toe with the game’s biggest, baddest sluggers -- and he’s winning. PCA is hardly a giant -- listed at 6 feet tall and 184 pounds -- but he might be a giant-slayer.
Last week, he vaulted over back-to-back-to-back MVP Award winner Shohei Ohtani in our latest MVP poll. And now he’s done it again, vaulting over AL MVP frontrunner and Triple Crown contender Yordan Alvarez in the Hitter Power Rankings. That’s the same Alvarez who had led each of our previous five editions, going back to June. The last hitter who took the top spot over Alvarez was the D-backs’ Corbin Carroll back on May 28 -- at a time when PCA was only just starting to shake off a slow start that has turned into a historic season.
But PCA’s ascent is hardly the only change this time around, with half of our top 10 turning over from our previous poll, two weeks ago. Here are the latest Hitter Power Rankings, as decided by a panel of MLB.com experts. (All stats are through Tuesday unless otherwise noted.)
1) Pete Crow-Armstrong, Cubs (Previous poll: 2)
Since the date of that aforementioned May 28 poll, Crow-Armstrong has hit .313/.408/.693 (195 wRC+) with 32 home runs (eight more than any other player), 71 runs scored (ditto), 67 RBIs (second in MLB) and 20 stolen bases. In that time alone -- essentially three months -- he’s been worth nearly 8 WAR, per FanGraphs. It’s been an extraordinary hot streak. Between June, July and August, PCA’s worst month was July, when he had a 1.011 OPS.
2) Yordan Alvarez, Astros (1)
The bar is so high here that it qualified as disappointing when Alvarez hit “only” .287/.415/.457 with two homers and 12 RBIs in August. That relatively quiet stretch likely put the MLB Triple Crown out of reach, but the AL version is still right there for the taking. Alvarez entered Wednesday first in average (.316), tied for first in homers (37) and first in RBIs (94). A strong finish will also be critical for the Astros, who are clinging to first place in the AL West.
3) Pete Alonso, Orioles (4)
Speaking of a slugger carrying an AL team hanging on to playoff hopes, we have Alonso. It took a while for the Polar Bear to tap into his trademark power after coming to Baltimore, but in the end, he’s going to put up a typical Polar Bear-type season. A strong finish could get Alonso to 40 homers for the fourth time in his career, and 100 RBIs looks like a lock. As per usual, he’s playing every day, in line for his third consecutive season of 162 games.
4) Junior Caminero, Rays (not ranked)
Caminero reached as high as No. 2 in our rankings in July, and after briefly falling out of the top 10 last time around, he’s back in a big way. He’s now tied with Alvarez for the AL lead in home runs, just three away from reaching the 40 mark for the second time in as many full big league seasons after swatting 45 in 2025. If Caminero gets there, he would join Hall of Famer Eddie Mathews (1953-54) as the only players with multiple 40-homer seasons at age 22 or younger.
5) Bryce Harper, Phillies (not ranked)
Harper is 33 years old and in the 15th season of a career that likely will land him in Cooperstown, so when even now he’s setting new career highs, it’s an impressive accomplishment. That's the case with the 35-game on-base streak Harper is riding, which was highlighted by a four-hit, one-walk performance in a big win over the Diamondbacks on Tuesday night. (It’s also the longest active streak in the Majors.) Harper slashed .333/.496/.573 in August, looking every bit like the player who has won two NL MVP Awards and four Silver Sluggers.
6) Fernando Tatis Jr., Padres (not ranked)
In late May, we were talking about Tatis’ lack of a single home run in 2026, a perplexing power outage that had his OPS down well below .600. Yet over the past few months, Tatis has been able to not only dig out of that hole but also climb all the way up to sixth in our rankings. Since May 30, when he finally went deep for the first time, Tatis is at .290/.352/.536 with 19 homers (tied for 10th most in MLB), 52 RBIs and 17 steals. His resurgence has helped boost the Padres, who are battling the Diamondbacks for the final NL Wild Card spot.
7) Jac Caglianone, Royals (10)
For all that’s gone wrong in Kansas City this season, the Royals still have some enviable building blocks in their lineup, between 26-year-old MVP candidate Bobby Witt Jr., 23-year-old slugging catcher Carter Jensen and another 23-year-old with a booming bat, Caglianone. A year after he was completely overmatched against Major League pitching (.532 OPS in 232 plate appearances), Cags has made the necessary adjustments, to say the least. Just one example: Decimated by sliders a year ago, he’s turned the tables in 2026, racking up the best run value against them of any hitter.
8) Shohei Ohtani, Dodgers (3)
Ohtani not only seems to have fallen behind PCA in the NL MVP race, but he also took a tumble in the Hitter Power Rankings. In an 11-game stretch from Aug. 19 through Tuesday, he went 6-for-42 (.143) with no homers and 15 strikeouts. The question here is whether that’s a blip -- even all-time greats have two-week slumps -- or a sign that the “overall body” soreness that is keeping Ohtani off the mound is also affecting him at the plate in a way that could hinder him the rest of the way.
9) Rafael Devers, Giants (not ranked)
On one hand, the Devers Era has not gone well in San Francisco. The Giants, who started last season 41-31, are 35 games under .500 since Devers made his team debut on June 17, 2025. On the other hand, adjusting for park factors (Oracle Park is certainly no Fenway), Devers has been much the same hitter with the Giants (131 career OPS+) as he was with the Red Sox (129). It didn’t help that Devers got off to a rough start this year as the Giants quickly fell out of contention, but since May 1, he’s been the hitting machine this team so desperately wanted to acquire in the first place (.911 OPS, 29 HR in 108 games).
10) Sal Stewart, Reds (not ranked)
With JJ Wetherholt going on the injured list (following a recent slump), it looks like the NL Rookie of the Year Award race is Stewart’s to lose. He’s showing no signs of doing that, having hit .292/.339/.520 with 12 homers and 40 RBIs in 44 games since the All-Star break. Stewart’s run production puts him in position for two rare feats as well. He could become only the eighth rookie with a 120-RBI season since RBIs became an official stat in 1920, as well as just the third to finish a season leading the Majors in that category. The most recent example of the latter? Walt Dropo, way back in 1950.
Others receiving votes: Seiya Suzuki (Cubs), Willson Contreras (Red Sox), Alex Bregman (Cubs), Miguel Vargas (White Sox), Jackson Merrill (Padres), Luis García Jr., (Yankees), Kyle Schwarber (Phillies), Randy Arozarena (Mariners), Jordan Walker (Cardinals), Jake Bauers (Brewers), Tristan Peters (White Sox), Jackson Chourio (Brewers)
Voters: Theo DeRosa, Jared Greenspan, Brent Maguire, Max Ralph, Manny Randhawa, Shanthi Sepe-Chepuru, Andrew Simon