Alvarez and Crow-Armstrong Win the 2026 MVP Awards by Unanimous Votes

Yordan Alvarez and Pete Crow-Armstrong have won the 2026 MVP Awards, and neither vote was close. The Houston Astros slugger and the Chicago Cubs center fielder each took all 30 first-place ballots from the Baseball Writers’ Association of America, closing out an awards week in which all four major honours went unanimously. It is the first season in which both MVPs and both Cy Young winners were all selected unanimously, and it ends a run in which Shohei Ohtani or Aaron Judge had taken at least one MVP every year since 2021.

How did the votes go?

There was nothing to argue about in either league. Alvarez received all 30 first-place votes in the American League, for 420 points, Reuters reports, with Tampa Bay’s Junior Caminero second on 27 of the 30 second-place votes and Kansas City’s Bobby Witt Jr. third. Crow-Armstrong swept all 30 first-place votes in the National League, also for 420 points, with Ohtani second on 26 of the 30 second-place votes and Milwaukee’s Brice Turang third. The BBWAA revealed both winners on Thursday, the last night of awards week, after Cam Schlittler and Jacob Misiorowski took the Cy Young Awards by unanimous votes on Wednesday.

What did Alvarez do to win it?

He had the best offensive season in baseball, and he did it after barely playing last year. Alvarez hit .316 with 42 home runs and 106 RBIs in 158 games, Reuters reports, after appearing in only 48 games in 2025 because of injury. He won the AL batting title and led the majors in batting average, on-base percentage (.432), slugging (.601) and walks (109), challenging for the Triple Crown while finishing second in the league in home runs and RBIs. His 181 wRC+ was 24 points better than any other player in the league, Bleacher Report notes, and he hit three grand slams in June alone, becoming the 11th player in MLB history to do that. He joins Jeff Bagwell and Jose Altuve as only the third Astro to win the award, and he is the 31st player in MLB history to win both Rookie of the Year and MVP. He is also only the second player whose primary position is designated hitter to win an MVP, after Ohtani in 2024.

What did Crow-Armstrong do to win it?

Everything, on both sides of the ball. Crow-Armstrong hit .280 with 45 home runs, 119 runs scored and 41 stolen bases, Reuters reports, becoming the seventh player in MLB history to post a 40-40 season. He led the National League in runs, home runs, slugging (.570) and OPS (.943), played all 162 games, and won the Gold Glove in center field. His 10.6 fWAR led both leagues, and it was the highest single-season mark since Aaron Judge’s 11.2 in 2024, Bleacher Report notes. He started the season batting ninth, moved to leadoff in mid-May, and hit .300 with a .398 on-base percentage in that role, and his walk total jumped from 29 in 2025 to 83. He is the first Cub to win the award since Kris Bryant in 2016.

How did Crow-Armstrong end Ohtani’s run?

By being the better player over the final two months, while Ohtani’s body gave out. Ohtani had won three straight MVP awards dating to his final year with the Angels in 2023, Bleacher Report notes, and through July 3 he was hitting .288 with a 1.79 ERA and 95 strikeouts in 85 2/3 innings on the mound, looking set to cruise to another one. Knee and biceps injuries then prevented him from pitching again, and his batting line fell to .232 from August 1 through the end of the season. Crow-Armstrong kept climbing, led the Cubs to a wild-card berth, and took the award by a unanimous vote. The full list of past winners shows how rare a changing of the guard like this is, with Ohtani and Judge having shared the honours between them for five straight years.

What does the unanimous sweep say about baseball?

That the guard has changed in one week, not gradually. Kevin McGonigle and Sal Stewart won the Rookie of the Year awards on Monday, Pat Murphy won Manager of the Year from a hospital bed on Tuesday, and the Cy Young and MVP votes have now both gone unanimously to players aged 24, 25 and 29. The two MVPs are 24 and 29, and neither was the favourite when the season started: Alvarez was coming off a 48-game year, and Crow-Armstrong was batting ninth. The voters did not hedge on either of them. Four unanimous winners in one awards week has never happened before, and it happened in a year when the two dominant players of the last half-decade both missed time hurt.

What happens next?

Both winners head into 2027 as the faces of their franchises, with unfinished business. Alvarez carried the Astros to the AL West title despite an 81-81 record, NBC Sports reports, and Crow-Armstrong led the Cubs into the postseason as a wild card. The awards week is closed, and the next questions are about what comes after it: whether Alvarez can stay healthy for a second straight full season, whether Crow-Armstrong can repeat a 10-win season, and whether Ohtani and Judge can take the awards back. For now, though, the 2026 season belongs to a 29-year-old who missed most of last year and a 24-year-old who started it batting ninth.