2026 MLB MVP Race — Final AL & NL Rankings by NUT
The regular season is over, and these are the final numbers. Yordan Alvarez finished as the top hitter in the American League by NUT at +5.2, and Pete Crow-Armstrong led the National League at +4.7. They are the only two hitters in baseball above the S line.
The MVP award is an argument about value: who did the most to help their team win? That’s the question NUT Score measures — one number for a player’s production against league average, on the same scale for everyone. Voters weigh more than one number, so read these as where each player finished by NUT, not as a ballot. All values cover the full regular season.
NUT’s season scale for hitters tops out at S (Nutty) at +4.5 and above, then A (Great) from +2.75, B (Good) from +0.9, and down.
AL MVP Race by NUT
Yordan Alvarez finished at +5.2, 1.6 ahead of Ben Rice — the widest gap between first and second in either league. A .432 on-base with 42 home runs scores at the top of both halves of hitting: getting on base and doing damage.
Ben Rice climbed from fourth on September 7 to second, with 41 home runs. Junior Caminero hit 42, as many as Alvarez, and finished sixth at +3.0, because his .360 on-base is 72 points lower.
NL MVP Race by NUT
Pete Crow-Armstrong finished at +4.7 on the bat alone, the only National League hitter above the S line, with 45 home runs and 41 steals.
Shohei Ohtani is second only with both halves counted. His bat finished at +2.6, ninth among NL hitters on its own. His arm added +1.5 across 85.2 innings at a 1.79 ERA. Together that is +4.1, 0.6 behind Crow-Armstrong.
Kyle Schwarber hit 45 home runs, tied with Crow-Armstrong for the most on this board, and finished ninth at +2.8. A .232 average and a .354 on-base give back much of what the power earns.
What about the Cy Young?
Pitchers get their own value scale in NUT. Jacob Misiorowski (+4.0), Cam Schlittler (+3.6), and Chris Sale (+3.5) finished as the top three pitchers by NUT, with Ohtani’s +1.5 in a shortened workload of 85.2 innings — see the full arms race on the pitching leaderboard, sortable by last 7, last 30, or full season, and the Cy Young race ranked by NUT.
Want to settle an MVP debate head-to-head? Drop any two names into the stat comparison tool and see the full NUT breakdown side by side.
The regular-season numbers are final. Postseason NUT is tracked separately on the Stats page’s postseason board, and every position’s final ranking is on Best by Position.