Crow-Armstrong and Alvarez win MVP awards unanimously, completing a historic sweep

Pete Crow-Armstrong of the Chicago Cubs and Yordan Alvarez of the Houston Astros were named unanimous Most Valuable Player winners Thursday night. Crow-Armstrong won in the National League and Alvarez won in the American League, and each received all 30 first-place votes.

The results finished an awards week without precedent. The Brewers' Jacob Misiorowski won the NL Cy Young unanimously, and the Yankees' Cam Schlittler swept the AL Cy Young vote on Wednesday. This is the first season in which both MVPs and both Cy Young winners were unanimous.

A clean sweep can mean voters followed one another, but these four cases look justified by the numbers. Neither MVP vote should have been close.

Crow-Armstrong's leap at the plate

Crow-Armstrong, 24, finished his fourth big-league season with a .280 average, 45 home runs and 41 stolen bases. He also won the Gold Glove and the Platinum Glove in center field and led both leagues with a 10.6 fWAR. Shohei Ohtani, a four-time MVP, finished second. Milwaukee second baseman Brice Turang was third.

He is the 13th Cubs player to win the award and the first since Bryant, whose 2016 MVP season ended with the franchise's long-awaited World Series title.

The defense and speed were expected. The change in his approach at the plate was not. Crow-Armstrong drew 83 walks in 2026 after drawing only 29 the year before. That jump turned a dangerous but streaky hitter into a real leadoff man. A center fielder with elite range and 40-steal speed already carries a lot of value. Once he started reaching base reliably, his ceiling went up sharply.

He did not start the season at the top of the order. Crow-Armstrong often hit ninth early on, and manager Craig Counsell moved him to leadoff by mid-May. Counsell said the offense was sputtering and needed a spark. Crow-Armstrong hit .300 with a .398 on-base percentage from the top spot and kept producing for most of the rest of the season.

That lineup change worked about as well as a manager could hope. Moving a struggling bottom-of-the-order bat into the most visible spot is a gamble. Counsell made it early enough that it shaped the whole season.

"I'm just blessed to have the ability that I do," Crow-Armstrong said after winning. He was pleased that former NL MVP Andrew McCutchen announced the award on MLB Network, and he called McCutchen a player he looked up to. Crow-Armstrong said he hopes to inspire young fans in the same way and get kids to "put their butts in the seats" as eagerly as he once did.

He was also blunt about what he has not done yet. He went 0-for-7 in this year's playoffs after going 5-for-27 the previous postseason.

"I'm capable but haven't gotten to the point of impacting games when it really matters," he said.

Alvarez makes up for a lost 2025

Alvarez, 29, won his first MVP after coming close to a triple crown. He won the AL batting title with a .316 average and finished second in both home runs (42) and RBIs (106). Tampa Bay third baseman Junior Caminero placed second in the voting and Kansas City shortstop Bobby Witt Jr. was third. Schlittler finished fourth, a strong showing for a pitcher.

His on-base numbers stood out even more. Alvarez led the majors with 109 walks and posted a .432 on-base percentage, 46 points higher than any other player. A gap that large is hard to find at the top of any leaderboard. It shows how often pitchers chose to work around him rather than challenge him.

The award also completes a comeback. Alvarez played only 48 games in 2025 because of a fractured wrist and a sprained ankle. This season he played 158 games for a playoff-bound Astros team. On Wednesday he was also named AL Comeback Player of the Year.

Asked what changed, Alvarez kept it short: "I was healthy." Speaking through an interpreter, he said the disappointing 2025 season had motivated him. He added that he was the last person to expect his name to be called.

"It seems like everyone else had a good feeling that I was going to win this besides me," he said.

Voters have long ranked him among the league's best hitters. Alvarez won AL Rookie of the Year in 2019, received MVP votes each year from 2022 to 2024 and finished third in 2022. He is the 31st player to win both Rookie of the Year and MVP. He is also the third Astro to win MVP, after Jeff Bagwell in 1994 and Jose Altuve in 2017.

For Alvarez, the remaining question is the same one he faced before the injuries: whether he can stay on the field. A healthy season produced his best year, which suggests his talent was never in doubt. For Crow-Armstrong, the regular-season case is settled. The open question is the one he raised himself about October.

"If I can take that version of myself and apply it to every aspect of the game, let's do that in October and November," he said.