AL MVP Race, 2026 | Knuckleball News

Well, the season is coming down to the wire. While Pete Crow-Armstrong will almost certainly win MVP in the NL, the AL appears less certain than it did a few weeks ago.

Does Yordan Alvarez actually face competition in the race, or did the writers on the larger baseball sites just run out of things to write about? And if so, what does that say about me writing this article?

Putting existentialism aside for a moment, the two biggest threats Alvarez faces competition from are Cam Schlittler of the Yankees and Junior Caminero of the Rays.

Let's take a look at their stats. First, we'll compare the two hitters.

Batter	OPS+	G	PA	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	BB	K	RBI	BA	SLG	OBP	OPS
Junior Caminero	146	156	679	594	96	164	24	1	41	78	125	97	.276	.527	.362	.889
Yordan Alvarez	190	152	663	543	98	170	32	1	40	105	115	99	.313	.597	.430	1.027

While Junior is having a great season, Yordan is on another planet. I think it's pretty safe to say most of Junior's consideration is coming from him being on the Rays, who are far and away the best team by record in the AL, the only team in the league to have over 90 wins at the time of this writing (for reference, all the NL division leaders have 90+ wins).

The only thing that JC beats out YA in is HR and general appearances, and the homers are only by 1, which actually indicates that Alvarez homers more often than Junior on a rate basis. While you can look at the gaps in all the other stats, the most impressive one I think is simply batting average. Yordan has the highest OPS in the league (1.027) while also being tied for the highest average (.313).

That doesn't happen very often, in fact, only 10 times since 1980.

Batter	Year	BA	G	PA	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	BB	K	RBI	SLG	OBP	OPS	OPS+
Yordan Alvarez	2026	.313	152	663	543	98	170	32	1	40	105	115	99	.597	.430	1.027	190
Aaron Judge*	2025	.331	152	679	541	137	179	30	2	53	124	160	114	.688	.457	1.144	213
Miguel Cabrera*	2013	.348	148	652	555	103	193	26	1	44	90	94	137	.636	.442	1.078	189
Josh Hamilton*	2010	.359	133	571	518	95	186	40	3	32	43	95	100	.633	.411	1.044	171
Derrek Lee	2005	.335	158	691	594	120	199	50	3	46	85	109	107	.662	.418	1.080	174
Barry Bonds*	2002	.370	143	612	403	117	149	31	2	46	198	47	110	.799	.582	1.381	268
Todd Helton	2000	.372	160	697	580	138	216	59	2	42	103	61	147	.698	.463	1.162	164
Larry Walker	1999	.379	127	513	438	108	166	26	4	37	57	52	115	.710	.458	1.168	164
Wade Boggs	1988	.366	155	719	584	128	214	45	6	5	125	34	58	.490	.476	.965	167
George Brett*	1980	.390	117	515	449	87	175	33	9	24	58	22	118	.664	.454	1.118	203

Those early 2000s Bonds seasons were so insane. If you're wondering about the asterisks, those indicate if the guy won MVP that season as well. It surprised me, I figured it would be somewhere around 80-90%, but it's closer to 60% when you account for Alvarez's likely win this year.

Pitchers and hitters are a little harder to project. So let's take a look at how Schlittler compares to other pitcher MVPs in past years, not counting Ohtani. We'll also use 1980 as the cutoff, like we did above.

Here's Schlittler in 2026:

Pitcher	Year	G	GS	IP	HR	R	H	ER	K	BB	W	L	SV	ERA	ERA+	FIP	WHIP
Cam Schlittler	2026	32	32	190.2	16	50	126	41	234	47	14	6	0	1.94	216	2.57	0.907

And here are the MVPs:

Pitcher	Year	G	GS	IP	HR	R	H	ER	K	BB	W	L	SV	ERA	ERA+	FIP	WHIP
Clayton Kershaw	2014	27	27	198.1	9	42	139	39	239	31	21	3	0	1.77	197	1.81	0.857
Justin Verlander	2011	34	34	251.0	24	73	174	67	250	57	24	5	0	2.40	172	2.99	0.920
Dennis Eckersley	1992	69	0	80.0	5	17	62	17	93	11	7	1	51	1.91	195	1.72	0.912
Roger Clemens	1986	33	33	254.0	21	77	179	70	238	67	24	4	0	2.48	169	2.81	0.969
Willie Hernandez	1984	80	0	140.1	6	30	96	30	112	36	9	3	32	1.92	204	2.58	0.941
Rollie Fingers	1981	47	0	78.0	3	9	55	9	61	13	6	3	28	1.04	330	2.07	0.872

One of the main things this table tells me is how obsessed people were with relief pitchers in the 80s and early 90s, though it's interesting to note that in his MVP season, Willie Hernandez threw more innings in relief than Tyler Glasnow ever has as a starter.

I'm mostly in the camp that MVP exists for hitters and Cy Young exists for pitcher. I mean, MVP has player in the name, like for position player. When have you ever heard someone say pitcher player? As a pitcher player in 2026, Schlittler's stats actually match up pretty well with past starting pitcher winners, outside of actual Wins of course.

His IP is close to Kershaw, his strikeouts close to Kershaw and Clemens, he's walked fewer then Clemens and Verlander, while also giving up fewer home runs than them. His ERA is only bested by Kershaw, and his ERA+ is actually the best out of any SP, and is the only one over 200.

Cam is rocking it, and should likely win second, but I'd say the award likely still goes to Alvarez.

My prediction:

1. Alvarez
2. Schlittler
3. Caminero