All 60 first-place votes went to two men. Pete Crow-Armstrong of the Chicago Cubs swept the National League MVP ballot and Yordan Alvarez of the Houston Astros swept the American League, the Baseball Writers’ Association of America announced on November 12, 2026.
Each finished with the maximum 420 points from 30 voters, two writers per league city, and the ballots were cast before the postseason began.
A historic double sweep
Only twice before had both MVP races been unanimous in the same year: 2023, with Shohei Ohtani and Ronald Acuña Jr., and 2024, with Aaron Judge and Ohtani. This year goes one step further. The writers’ association says that, for the first time since the Cy Young Award began in 1956, both MVPs and both Cy Young winners were chosen unanimously in the same season, after Jacob Misiorowski and Cam Schlittler took every first-place Cy Young vote a day earlier. Our story on Misiorowski and Schlittler’s unanimous Cy Young wins has that vote.
The National League has now had a unanimous MVP four seasons running. Before 2023, it had never produced back-to-back unanimous winners at all.
Crow-Armstrong’s case
The 2026 numbers explain why nobody hesitated. Crow-Armstrong led the majors with 10.6 FanGraphs WAR, well clear of Bobby Witt Jr.’s 7.0. He tied Kyle Schwarber for the MLB lead with 45 home runs, stole 41 bases, and became the seventh player in history, and the first Cub, to reach 40 homers and 40 steals in one year.
His line was .280/.372/.570 with a .942 OPS. He scored 119 runs, drove in 107, and led MLB with 357 total bases and 84 extra-base hits. In center field his +26 fielding run value set a Statcast-era record for an outfielder.
The most striking change was at the plate. He drew 83 walks in 726 plate appearances in 2026, against 53 across 2023 to 2025 combined.
- First Cubs player elected unanimously
- Ninth Cubs MVP overall, and the first since Kris Bryant in 2016
- Seventh center fielder to win the NL award
Ohtani finished second with 264 points, his sixth straight top-two finish, a record. Brewers second baseman Brice Turang was third with 190.
Alvarez joins a short list
Alvarez is the second designated hitter ever named MVP; Ohtani, mostly a DH in all four of his winning seasons, is the other. He is the Astros’ second AL winner after Jose Altuve in 2017, and the franchise’s third MVP counting Jeff Bagwell’s 1994 NL award.
His sweep is the 14th unanimous result in AL history. Rays third baseman Junior Caminero placed second with 267 points, the best finish by a Tampa Bay player in the club’s 29 seasons; no Ray had previously climbed above sixth. Royals shortstop Bobby Witt Jr. came third with 188 points.
How the two runs compare
Both winners scored 420 points. The real gap was behind them: Caminero trailed Alvarez by 153 points, while Ohtani trailed Crow-Armstrong by 156, so the NL runner-up finished slightly further back despite being a four-time winner. Across MVP history the association now counts 25 unanimous winners, 11 in the NL and 14 in the AL.
More baseball and other results live in our Sports section. Individual ballots for both races have been published by the association.
Image: Minda Haas Kuhlmann, CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons
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