A flourish on Yordan Alvarez‘s fantastic season could arrive Thursday, when the winners of this year’s Most Valuable Player awards are announced.
Alvarez, the Houston Astros slugger, is widely seen as the favorite to capture the American League MVP after a prolific 2026 campaign. Fellow finalists are Junior Caminero, the Rays’ star third baseman, and Bobby Witt Jr., the dynamic Royals shortstop. The finalists are the top three vote-getters in balloting by Baseball Writers’ Association of America members that was conducted before the postseason.
Advertisement
Alvarez’s case is evident. He led all qualified major-league hitters in batting average (.316), on-base percentage (.432) and slugging percentage (.601) this season and finished second in the American League in home runs (42) and runs batted in (106). His peers voted Alvarez the AL’s Most Outstanding Player in the Players Choice Awards, as announced last month by the MLB Players Association.
Jose Altuve and Jeff Bagwell are the only Astros who have won a Most Valuable Player award. Shohei Ohtani, meanwhile, is the only MLB player to win an MVP award as a primary designated hitter.
That role may have given some voters pause regarding Alvarez’s candidacy. (Full voting results will be revealed Thursday). Alvarez made 134 of 158 starts this season at designated hitter, the others in left field. Ohtani busted a longtime barrier for designated hitters to the MVP award in 2024, but he did so while becoming the first player in MLB history with a 50-home run, 50-steal season.
Caminero played in all 162 games this season, starting all but one at third base for a Rays team that led the AL in wins, tied Alvarez for second in the league with 42 home runs and ranked fourth in OPS (.885). Witt started 140 games at shortstop for Kansas City, hit 18 home runs, stole 45 bases and ranked in the top 10 in the AL in both offensive and defensive wins above replacement, per Baseball Reference.
Advertisement
Of the three MVP finalists, Alvarez accrued the highest overall bWAR, at 6.8. Two AL players recorded a higher one – Tigers rookie shortstop Kevin McGonigle (7.1) and Yankees starting pitcher Cam Schlittler (7.0), the favorites for Rookie of the Year and Cy Young, respectively. Witt ranked fourth in the league in bWAR (6.7) and Caminero ranked seventh (5.7).
Alvarez’s impact, certainly, was essentially all from his offense. Should he win the MVP award, however, it will be for an offensive season that by some measures puts him in select company.
Other hitters have produced gaudier numbers recently. Since 2000, there are 66 instances of a qualified hitter posting a higher OPS than Alvarez had this year. Bagwell, in his strike-shortened MVP season in 1994, had a 1.201 OPS. Alvarez’s home-run total this season ranked fifth in Houston’s franchise history, while his RBI total ranked a mere 25th.
But in terms of one hitter separating himself from all of the others in his league? There, Alvarez’s season becomes rarer. (The following is compiled using data from Baseball Reference).
Advertisement
Alvarez finished with an on-base-plus-slugging (OPS) of 1.033. That was 132 points ahead of the next-closest qualified AL hitter, Boston’s Willson Contreras, a chasm that only a handful of hitters have maintained in a full season. Since at least 1901, here are the hitters who led their respective leagues in OPS by at least that wide a margin in a season:
AL: Alvarez (2026), Aaron Judge (2025, ’24), Mickey Mantle (1962), Ted Williams (1949, ’47, ’46, ’42, ’41), Babe Ruth (1926, ’24, ’23, ’21, ’20, ’19) and Nap Lajoie (1901).
NL: Barry Bonds (2004, ’03, ’02, ’01), Mark McGwire (1998), Mike Schmidt (1981), Stan Musial (1948, ’46), Arky Vaughn (1935), Rogers Hornsby (1925, ’24, ’22, ’21) and Honus Wagner (1908).
Advertisement
Aside from Wagner, Vaughn, McGwire and Judge in 2025, all the others led their leagues in OPS by at least 150 points. Ruth led his league by at least 200 points in four different seasons, while Bonds and Williams each did so thrice, so there are levels to the dominance. Still, a couple other metrics further illustrate Alvarez’s separation this year.
Alvarez led the AL by 37 points in OPS-plus, which adjusts OPS for ballpark and league factors, and by a mark of 38 in runs created, which (as the name suggests) estimates a player’s offensive impact in terms of runs. Here are the players since 1901 who led their league in all three categories – OPS, OPS-plus and runs created – by as wide a margin as Alvarez did this season:
AL: Judge (2025), Williams (1949, ’47, ’46, ’42), Ruth (1926, ’24, ’23, ’21), Lajoie (1901).
Advertisement
NL: Bonds (2002), McGwire (1998), Musial (1948, ’46), Hornsby (1924, ’22, ’21).
Granted, Bonds led the NL by merely 35 runs created in 2004 and 37 runs created in 2001 – with a far wider lead in OPS-plus than Alvarez had this year – so both of those seasons just missed the semi-arbitrary cutoff. Still, in 2003, Bonds led the NL by garish margins in both OPS (172 points) and OPS-plus (44) but finished 10 runs behind league leader Albert Pujols in runs created.
A last benchmark whittles the group further. Win probability added tries to quantify a player’s impact on his team’s chances of winning, factoring in the leverage of plate appearances or other events. Alvarez’s win probability added this season was 2.8 higher than the next-closest AL position player, Pete Alonso, who led the league in home runs and RBIs.
Advertisement
Here is the list of players, since at least 1901, who led their league by at least 132 points in OPS, 37 in OPS-plus, 38 in runs created and 2.8 in offensive win probability added. (Win probability added is not available for 1901, when Lajoie led the AL in the other three categories):
AL: Alvarez (2026), Williams (1946, ’42), Ruth (1926, ’24, ’23, ’21).
NL: Bonds (2002), Hornsby (1922).
Certainly, there are many criteria by which to measure an MVP season. Alvarez will learn Thursday if the BBWAA voters deemed his 2026 campaign worthy. Either way, he is ensured his second career top-three MVP finish. His lack of defensive workload and his club’s 81-81 record – albeit one that yielded a division title and would have been worse without Alvarez – could have weighed against him. If the measure were simply the most dominant player in his league, though, Alvarez made a strong case.
Advertisement
There’s more to Houston with the Chronicle. Subscribe today for just 25¢.
This article originally published at The case for Yordan Alvarez as MVP: Three stats that separate Astros designated hitter from the rest.
