Back in June, I wrote about the early front-runners in the American League MVP conversation. I didn’t do the same for the National League because there wasn’t much conversation to be had. At the time, Shohei Ohtani was hitting .302 with 14 home runs and a league-leading .975 OPS. Even more impressive was his 1.06 ERA in 11 starts. His 5.0 FanGraphs WAR was easily the highest in the Senior Circuit. Jacob Misiorowski ranked second with 4.0. No position player came within a win and a half of the four-time unanimous MVP.
Two months later, it’s time to have the conversation I ignored before. Ohtani hasn’t pitched in six weeks. He’s still hoping to get back on the bump this season, but it’s not clear when that’s going to happen or what kind of workload he’ll take on. The Dodgers’ division odds are a rounding error away from 100%. They will exercise the utmost caution to make sure he’s healthy in October.
In most years, this little setback would hardly affect Ohtani’s status as the MVP favorite. He’s batting .292 with 27 home runs. He still leads the NL in OPS. As a hitter, he’s on pace for 4.9 fWAR. Add that to his 3.0 fWAR from the mound, and you get a higher total than the runner-up finished with in any of his four MVP seasons. Yet, this year is different. In 2026, Ohtani is up against the greatest threat he’s seen since Aaron Judge and his 62 home runs in 2022. He’s up against a player so multi-talented that even if Ohtani gets back on the rubber and dominates down the stretch, it might not be enough.
Pete Crow-Armstrong is on fire. On May 30, the center fielder went 4-for-5 with a home run – the hardest and farthest hit ball of his career. He also made an incredible sliding catch to record the final out of the game.
Since that day, Crow-Armstrong is batting .335/.440/.698 with a 205 wRC+. He’s hit 17 doubles, five triples, and 21 home runs to go with 18 stolen bases in 21 attempts. His running, leaping, and diving catches continue to populate highlight reels and Instagram reels. He’s slugging like Aaron Judge, running like Corbin Carroll, and fielding like, well, himself. According to FanGraphs, it has all added up to more than six wins above replacement in his last 63 games. Ohtani, the NL’s next best player, has produced about three wins of value in that same stretch.
Not so long ago, Ohtani’s MVP case was so strong that it wasn’t worth considering the other candidates. Now, the question isn’t whether anyone can take down Ohtani. It’s whether Ohtani can catch PCA.
Their batting stats are almost identical. Ohtani has a slight edge in batting average and OBP. Crow-Armstrong has scored more runs. They both have 27 homers and a .544 slugging percentage. Ohtani leads the Senior Circuit with a .937 OPS, but Crow-Armstrong has a four-point edge in the park-adjusted wRC+. Crow-Armstrong has also been the better situational hitter; he has substantially outperformed Ohtani in late-and-close and RISP situations. Context-dependent metrics like Win Probability Added and Leveraged Run Value suggest Crow-Armstrong has been the most productive hitter in the National League.
Then, there are all the other skills the 24-year-old brings to the table. Crow-Armstrong has already stolen 30 bases, putting a 40-40 season within reach. (His second straight 30-30 campaign is all but guaranteed.) The various baserunning metrics at FanGraphs, Baseball Savant, and Baseball Prospectus all agree his legs are among the top 10 in the sport.
Of course, the value those legs produce on the bases is nothing compared to what they provide in the field. Crow-Armstrong leads the majors in Statcast’s outfielder jump metric by a wide margin. His quick reactions, blistering speed, and reasonably efficient routes have helped him catch all sorts of balls that would be hits with anyone else in center field. He has converted 19 outs on batted balls with a catch probability of 50% or below. No one else has converted more than 12. Overall, his 96% catch rate isn’t just the best in baseball this year. If he keeps it up, it will be the highest success rate for a full-time outfielder in a full season in Statcast history.
As if that weren’t enough, Crow-Armstrong also boasts a strong and accurate arm. Add the value of his range and arm together, and you get the most productive season by an outfielder since Statcast started tracking Fielding Run Value in 2018 – and he still has 40 games left to play. At this pace, he’ll finish with the highest single-season FRV of any player at any position in the last nine years. And unlike the other names at the top of the FRV leaderboard, names like Patrick Bailey, Nick Ahmed, and Austin Hedges, PCA isn’t a defensive specialist. He currently leads the NL in both offensive runs above average and defensive runs above average, according to FanGraphs. Only one player in AL and NL history has ever led his league in both categories by the end of the year: Snuffy Stirnweiss in 1945.
A couple of months ago, I didn’t see how anyone could outperform a two-way player at the top of his game. What I didn’t consider was another type of two-way talent. A player so skilled on both sides of the ball that he rivals even the modern-day Babe Ruth.
The NL MVP race wasn’t over in June, and it isn’t over now. It’s hard to imagine anyone other than PCA or Ohtani claiming the prize. But a quarter of a season is plenty of time for the former to come down to earth and the latter to surge ahead. After all, Ohtani’s .937 OPS and 150 wRC+ make this a down year compared to his last three seasons. Meanwhile, Crow-Armstrong came into 2026 with a career .722 OPS and 98 wRC+ to his name. Before he got hot at the end of May, he had a .644 OPS and 79 wRC+ in his previous 100 games. His .396 wOBA leads the NL, but his .364 xwOBA only ranks 10th. That’s still excellent, but it’s 44 points behind Ohtani’s mark. The xwOBA gap between Ohtani and Crow-Armstrong is the same as the gap between Crow-Armstrong and guys like Spencer Torkelson, Royce Lewis, and Gavin Sheets.
Regression could come for PCA’s defense too. No one doubts his spectacular skills in center, but he’s on pace for some record-setting defensive metrics. The eye test says he can keep it up, but unprecedented numbers are unprecedented for a reason. It would only take a few more missed catches from PCA – and maybe another 15-20 innings pitched from Ohtani – to flip the MVP conversation on its head.
That’s enough from me. Now, I want to know what MLBTR readers think. Will Ohtani win MVP number five and laugh at anyone who ever doubted him? Will Crow-Armstrong dethrone the $700MM man? Or will a dark horse steal the prize from both of them? Have your say in the poll and the comments below.
Who will win the 2026 NL MVP?
Images courtesy of Geoff Burke, Charles LeClaire, and Patrick Gorski (Imagn Images).
