Over the weekend in Kauffman Stadium, the AL MVP race took the field. Bobby Witt Jr. and the Royals welcomed Yordan Alvarez and the Astros for a three-game series, and the two superstars put on a show. Alvarez went 7-for-14 with a pair of home runs, extending his on-base streak to 21 games. Witt smacked six hits of his own, including two doubles, to go along with a pair of stolen bases and his typical Gold Glove defense. What we saw from both of them this weekend was the AL MVP competition in a nutshell. Will Alvarez slug his way to victory, or will Witt sway the voters with his all-around game?
Witt earned his first MVP votes in 2023, ultimately finishing seventh. He was the runner-up to Aaron Judge in 2024, earning all 30 second-place votes. Last year, he came in fourth. Since Witt enjoyed his breakout in 2023, only Shohei Ohtani and Judge have produced more Wins Above Replacement, according to Baseball Reference. By the FanGraphs version of the metric, it’s just Ohtani.
Alvarez has his own history in the shadow of those two big names. He was the AL Rookie of the Year in 2019, two years after Judge’s record-setting rookie season and one year after Ohtani’s hotly anticipated debut. In 2022, he was the third wheel in Judge and Ohtani’s MVP clash. Either Judge or Ohtani has won the AL MVP every year since 2020, but this season, the door is wide open for a new king to climb to the top of the hill in the Junior Circuit. Ohtani is well on his way to his third straight NL MVP, while Judge is on the injured list with a stress fracture in his ribs.
As the halfway mark of the 2026 campaign approaches, Witt leads the AL in both fWAR and bWAR. His batting line is only 22% better than average, per wRC+, but he leads the majors with 26 stolen bases and 16 Outs Above Average. I’d call him a “five-tool player,” but that might actually undersell his abilities. In addition to his range, arm, speed, contact skills, and power, Witt is walking at an above-average clip for the first time in his career. What’s more, while his 122 wRC+ only ranks 24th among qualified AL batters, his .386 xwOBA puts him in the top 10. Only a handful of players can impact the ball like Witt, and no one else who hits that hard has anything close to his skills in the field and on the bases. No player this side of Ohtani can influence games in as many different ways as Bobby Witt Jr.
Alvarez brings all his value at the plate, but that doesn’t mean he’s a one-dimensional player. Indeed, it’s his rare combination of strength, bat-to-ball skills, and discipline that makes him so dangerous. The hulking lefty leads the AL with 24 home runs, 54 RBI, and a .326 batting average, putting him on pace to win the first triple crown for a hitter since Miguel Cabrera in 2012. Each of the last four batters to win a triple crown also took home MVP honors: Cabrera, Carl Yastrzemski (1967), Frank Robinson (1966), and Mickey Mantle (1956).
It’s a feat that not even Judge or Ohtani has pulled off, in part because they both swing and miss a fair bit, leading to higher strikeout rates that bring down their batting averages. Alvarez swings hard and tears the cover off the ball with the best of them, but he also makes significantly more contact than Judge or Ohtani. His 19.6% whiff rate and 17.1% strikeout rate in 2026 are both much better than average, which is unusual for a hitter with such elite bat speed. Add in the fact that Alvarez hits the ball in the air more often than almost anyone, and the result is a profile that’s truly unique – and truly terrifying for opposing pitchers.
With a 193 wRC+, Alvarez has been almost twice as productive as an average hitter. Ben Rice has the next-highest wRC+ at 172. In the last 20 years, only two players have finished a full season with a wRC+ higher than what Alvarez has right now: Bryce Harper in 2015 and Judge in 2022, ‘24, and ‘25. All four of those seasons were MVP campaigns. What’s more, Alvarez is somehow underperforming his expected statistics. His xwOBA currently stands as the highest ever in a qualified season of the Statcast era. Although his overall batting line hasn’t quite reached the level Judge was at when he won the MVP over Witt in 2024, the underlying data suggests it could get there.
There is still plenty of time for more names to enter the AL MVP race. Rice and Nick Kurtz are putting up eye-popping offensive numbers of their own, while a healthy Mike Trout and Byron Buxton are doing exactly what a healthy Trout and Buxton can do. Cy Young favorite Cam Schlittler shouldn’t be ignored, especially if he keeps his ERA under 2.00, nor should Rookie of the Year favorite Kevin McGonigle. Julio Rodríguez is a dark horse, but at his best, his all-around skill set could be on par with Witt’s, and he has historically played much better in the second half.
Yet, as things stand today, it’s hard to argue that anyone other than Alvarez or Witt is the front-runner. What’s harder is picking which of them it is. Dare to cast your vote?
Who is the front-runner for AL MVP?
Photographs courtesy of Jay Biggerstaff, Jeffrey Becker, and Raymond Carlin III – Imagn Images.
