There was a rare and poetic duality to the 2026 Most Valuable Player Awards. Two first-time winners -- Astros slugger Yordan Alvarez in the American League and Cubs center fielder Pete Crow-Armstrong in the National League -- were both unanimously saluted by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America for extreme impact that came in distinctly different forms.
This is the third straight year the NL MVP has been awarded unanimously, but only the third time in history (2023, ’24) that voting for both the AL and NL MVP Awards was unanimous. And this is the first time that both MVP winners and both Cy Young winners were elected unanimously in the same season, dating back to when the pitching award was inaugurated in 1956.
On one side, in the results revealed Thursday night on MLB Network, was Alvarez’s masterclass in bat-to-ball ability and destructive power that left him within a whisker of the AL Triple Crown.
“I just wanted a chance,” Alvarez said through an interpreter about his baseball dreams while growing up. “I wanted a chance to play professional baseball years ago. Winning the MVP, winning the World Series, none of this was in my mind. So to be here now … look at me now.”
And on the other side was Crow-Armstrong’s dynamic, five-tool ubiquity that allowed him to alter the course of games in every facet imaginable, including just the seventh 40-homer, 40-steal output in history.
“You don't really know what it takes to be successful until you get into the season … but I think it's just the fact that I want to be better than I was the day before,” Crow-Armstrong said. “And really, that's been all that I've needed to motivate myself with for really as long as I can remember.”
Their list of accomplishments was so long that the references became short. “Yordan” is on a first-name basis to baseball fans, while “PCA” easily gets by with an acronym identity.
Now, they can both go by “MVP,” thank you very much.
On the AL side, Alvarez was followed in voting results by emerging Rays superstar Junior Caminero (267 total points) and perennial MVP candidate Bobby Witt Jr. (188). Shohei Ohtani, two-time reigning winner of the NL Award, finished behind Crow-Armstrong with 264 total points, followed by World Series winner Brice Turang of the Brewers (190).
In a sense, Ohtani hovered over these results. Two years ago, the Dodgers superstar broke the mold as the first full-time DH to win the MVP, breaking down the door that Yordan, who played only 25 games in the outfield, effortlessly walked through with his rare blend of power and patience. And with Ohtani’s two-way abilities halted and his offensive output limited by injury this year, PCA was able to crash the NL MVP party in convincing fashion.
With these results, the Astros have their third MVP (Jeff Bagwell in 1994, Jose Altuve in 2017) and the Cubs have their 10th (Gabby Hartnett in 1935, Phil Cavarretta in 1945, Hank Sauer in 1952, Ernie Banks in 1958 and ’59, Ryne Sandberg in 1984, Andre Dawson in 1987, Sammy Sosa in 1998 and Kris Bryant in 2016).
Alvarez powered the Astros back to the postseason via the Wild Card after their rare October absence in 2025, while Crow-Armstrong had an outsized role in making the Wild Card-winning Cubs the MLB leaders in both runs scored and defensive runs saved.
For PCA, this MVP honor is the result of a remarkable in-season turnaround. After breaking through with an All-Star campaign in 2025, he came out the gate slowly in 2026. At the season’s mathematical midpoint, there was little reason to believe he – or anyone – would unseat Ohtani as NL MVP.
But essentially from the start of June through season’s end, Crow-Armstrong was a human highlight reel, belting homers, stacking up steals and catching everything in sight (en route to his second career Gold Glove honor).
“I think my coaching staff was very patient with me throughout my struggles early in the year, and they definitely gave me a chance to turn it around,” Crow-Armstrong said. “… We were always just willing to make the necessary adjustment. And whether it was a little funky and scary or not, we kind of just kept working towards something that was repeatable and something that really accomplished everything, from power but also just getting on base a lot.”
While the MLB-lead-tying 45 homers and 41 steals that made him the first 40-40 club member since Ohtani in 2024 jump off the page, the 10.6 FanGraphs Wins Above Replacement is the best way to summarize Crow-Armstrong’s all-around exploits. Not only did that mark lead MLB, it was 3.6 wins higher than the next-closest competition (Witt, 7.0). It was the first time since 1954 (Mickey Mantle over Duke Snider) that a gap of at least 3.0 fWAR separated the No. 1 and No. 2 players in that category.
PCA’s was only the 57th 10-fWAR season in history. And to help illustrate the turnaround, his .673 OPS one-third of the way through the Cubs’ schedule was the lowest ever by a player who went on to a 10-WAR campaign. The next-closest in that realm was Eddie Collins’ .826 mark one-third of the way through the Philadelphia A’s 1909 season.
We just don’t see players transcend the way PCA did after that tough start. In the final two-thirds of the season, with a massive improvement in plate discipline, he slashed .305/.399/.663 to not only overtake Ohtani but put the conversation to bed well in advance of the season finale. He finished the season with the MLB lead in total bases (357), extra-base hits (84) and runs scored (119). And he joined Ohtani and Alfonso Soriano as the only 40-40 club members to also have at least 30 doubles.
As amazing as PCA’s offensive season was, Yordan’s was even better.
Alvarez was just the fourth player this century (Barry Bonds in 2002, Miguel Cabrera in 2013 and Aaron Judge in 2025) to lead MLB in each of the triple-slash categories with a .316 average, .432 on-base and .607 slug. By OPS+ (190), he had one of the top 100 league- and ballpark-adjusted offensive seasons in AL or NL history. With the MLB lead in expected wOBA (.442), Alvarez was such a dangerous threat at the plate that he drew an Astros-record 33 intentional walks, second-most in AL history behind only the 36 drawn by Judge last year.
With Judge held up by prolonged injury issues this season, Alvarez asserted himself as the game’s best pure hitter. The only place where his bat came up short was in the Triple Crown bid, which came apart in September when Alvarez fell behind in the home run (42) and RBI (106) races. He finished second behind the Orioles’ Pete Alonso in both categories, just one shy in homers and seven shy in RBIs.
But Yordan was only the third player since 1970 to win the AL batting title while hitting at least 40 homers, joining Cabrera (2012-13) and Judge (2025).
“I think, mainly, staying healthy all year was one of the main things that helped me out this year," Alvarez said. "At the plate, I tried this year to stay more patient. … It’s important for me to have a batting average as well as the home runs. Obviously, it’s not something I focus on, but it is something that I try to compete every day and make sure that the average stays up, as well.”
For decades, the DH role was largely given the cold shoulder in the voting for this award. Only eight times did a primary DH finish in the top three of the voting (including Alvarez’s third-place finish in the AL vote in 2022) until Ohtani’s epic 2024 came along.
Now, the 2026 season’s best bat and its best all-around player stand tall with the game’s highest individual honor.