A potential Triple Crown? Will he win MVP? Breaking down Yordan Alvarez's 2026 season

Baseball's Triple Crown -- when a player finishes the season leading their league in the three major statistical categories -- is one of the most difficult achievements in sports, with Miguel Cabrera in 2012 the only hitter to lead in batting average, home runs and RBIs since 1967. And for a majority of MLB's 2026 regular season, Houston Astros slugger Yordan Alvarez had been on a historic path to join Cabrera. On Aug. 2, he went 4-for-5 with three doubles and two RBIs, lifting his season average to .330 to lead the American League batting title race by an astounding 29 points over Tampa Bay's Yandy Diaz (the only other AL player even hitting .300) while also topping the circuit with 35 home runs (four more than New York's Ben Rice) and 84 RBIs (11 more than Rice). The 16th Triple Crown season since 1900 was not just in play for Alvarez -- it felt almost inevitable on that day. He not only towered over his fellow AL batsmen, but those from the National League as well: His 1.092 OPS was 145 points higher than Juan Soto's NL-leading mark. This was Alvarez, one of the major leagues' best hitters since his debut in 2019, at his most fearsome and his best, healthy and locked in. But from that high-water mark, Alvarez has slowed down: Since Aug. 2, he has hit .242/.380/.383 with only three home runs and 12 RBIs in 35 games. His lead in the batting race has dwindled to five points over Tampa Bay's Chandler Simpson, and he now trails Simpson's teammate, Junior Caminero, in home runs (40-38) and Baltimore's Pete Alonso in RBIs (100-96). Though there's still time for Alvarez to regain those leads, he'll have to heat up over these final two weeks. Nonetheless, it's still an astonishing season. His OPS remains over 1.000 at 1.016, while Willson Contreras ranks second in the AL hovering around the .900 mark. The last time a player led his league with an OPS over 1.000 and no other hitter was over .900 was 1946, when Stan Musial posted a 1.021 OPS to lead the NL with Whitey Kurowski second at .853. Let's dive into Alvarez's 2026 campaign by taking a look at his current positioning in the MVP race, as well as where his season would potentially rank among Triple Crown winners if he's able to finish strong in September and secure the honor. Where Alvarez stands in the AL MVP race Alvarez's fade over the past month has perhaps opened up the AL MVP race. But recent MVP votes have tended to go one way, with last year's Aaron Judge-Cal Raleigh debate the rare example of a reasonably close vote. All four of Shohei Ohtani's MVP selections have been unanimous, as was Judge's win in 2024 and Ronald Acuna Jr.'s in 2023 (even though Mookie Betts had a slight edge in Baseball-Reference WAR). Judge outscored Ohtani 28-2 in 2022, even though both had amazing seasons. The last time more than two players received a first-place vote was in the NL in 2022, when Paul Goldschmidt got 22 votes, Manny Machado seven and Nolan Arenado one. It's possible this year's AL vote ends up resembling the 2021 NL vote, when Bryce Harper won with 17 first-place votes while four different players -- each with a higher bWAR than Harper -- also received first-place votes. Harper led in OPS and Soto led in WAR, while the more well-rounded trio of Fernando Tatis Jr., Brandon Crawford and Trea Turner finished third, fourth and fifth, respectively. The MVP narrative in 2026 has certainly swung in Alvarez's direction since midsummer, but he currently ranks third in combo WAR (the average of Baseball-Reference and FanGraphs) entering Sunday. Let's consider the other top MVP candidates: 1. Bobby Witt Jr., Kansas City Royals: 6.4 (combo WAR) The problem with Witt's case: A lot of his value comes from his Gold Glove defense -- not to mention the MVP vote typically favors the best offensive players, as was the case with Harper -- plus the Royals are mired in last place. Though playing for a playoff-bound team is no longer a requirement as it once was (Harper's Phillies didn't reach the postseason in 2021), Witt doesn't even rank in the top 10 in the AL in OPS and has driven in only 54 runs. He might get a few first-place votes as the best all-around player in the league, but it's hard to envision a player on a last-place team who might barely get to 60 RBIs winning MVP honors. 2. Cam Schlittler, New York Yankees: 6.2 Schlittler leads the AL in bWAR and is 14-6 with a 1.95 ERA and 228 strikeouts following another dominant start Sunday (one hit in six scoreless innings). He has been the key player on a team that struggled to score runs with Judge sidelined for 100 days -- and Schlittler has been big down the stretch, with seven straight starts giving up one run or no runs. The problem: Pitchers don't win MVP awards. Well, not in the past decade anyway. Clayton Kershaw won in 2014, when he went 21-3 with a 1.77 ERA and 8.2 WAR, and Justin Verlander won in 2011, when he went 24-5 with a 2.40 ERA and 8.6 WAR, but Schlittler won't come close to 20 wins like those two. The only full-time pitchers this decade to finish in the top five of the voting were Shane Bieber (fourth in 2020) and Tarik Skubal (fifth in 2025). 3. Yordan Alvarez, Houston Astros: 5.8 Alvarez has played 23 games in the outfield, but he's primarily a DH. Ohtani became the first DH to win MVP in 2024 (the year he didn't pitch), so the DH stigma is no longer a barrier as it might have been for Edgar Martinez in 1995 or David Ortiz a couple of times (including his final season in 2016, when he was the best hitter in the AL but finished sixth in the MVP vote). Ohtani, however, posted 9.0 WAR in his 50/50 season, a total Alvarez won't come close to reaching. Still, Alvarez is the best hitter in a soft MVP race, and though his WAR would be one of the lowest ever for an MVP winner, he's the favorite -- especially if the Astros hold on to their AL West lead. 4. Dylan Cease, Toronto Blue Jays: 5.7 Fantastic season, but he's behind Schlittler as far as pitchers go. 5. Kevin McGonigle, Detroit Tigers: 5.6 Like Witt, McGonigle has had an excellent all-around season thanks to good defense and a high OBP, but he'll have to settle for Rookie of the Year. 6. Junior Caminero, Tampa Bay Rays: 5.2 He's sixth in combo WAR, but he's the player most likely to challenge Alvarez for MVP honors. Caminero is close in bWAR, 5.4 to Alvarez's 5.8, and could actually end up winning two of the three Triple Crown categories, since he leads in home runs and is third in RBIs, five behind Alonso and one behind Alvarez. Caminero's defensive metrics hold down his WAR, especially on FanGraphs, but if the Rays do win the AL East, he will get a lot of credit for that. His hopes might rest on two things: delivering a strong final two weeks and the Texas Rangers running down the Astros in the AL West, with Alvarez continuing to slump. If Alvarez does reclaim his Triple Crown leads, where would his season rank? The impact of his WAR on the MVP race will be moot if Alvarez reclaims his Triple Crown leads. That is what propelled Cabrera to the 2012 AL MVP Award over rookie Mike Trout, even though Trout had a huge edge in WAR, 10.5 to 7.1. Indeed, the vote wasn't even close, with Cabrera collecting 22 of the 28 first-place votes. He'd been the first Triple Crown winner in 45 years, since Carl Yastrzemski in 1967, and many voters were just learning about the WAR metric for the first time. In Cabrera's case, the Triple Crown narrative and old-school numbers beat out Trout's own rookie sensation narrative and new-school analytics. Cabrera's Triple Crown shows how difficult it is to line up all three categories in the same season. Judge has twice led in home runs and RBIs in seasons he hit .311 and .322 but didn't win batting titles. He won the AL batting title last year with a .331 mark, but Seattle's Raleigh topped him in home runs and RBIs with his own historic season. Cabrera himself had better seasons than his 2012 campaign, but the stars aligned that year: He topped Curtis Granderson and Josh Hamilton by one home run, had an 11-RBI edge over Hamilton and beat out Trout by four points for the batting title. But among the 15 Triple Crown winners, Cabrera's 168 OPS+ ranks last and his .999 OPS beats out only dead-ball winners Heinie Zimmerman and Ty Cobb. Alvarez's current OPS+ of 185 would also rank near the bottom of Triple Crown winners: Ted Williams, 1942 AL: 216 Mickey Mantle, 1956 AL: 210 Rogers Hornsby, 1925 NL: 210 Lou Gehrig, 1934 AL: 207 Rogers Hornsby, 1922 NL: 207 Ted Williams, 1947 AL: 205 Jimmie Foxx, 1933 AL: 201 Frank Robinson, 1966 AL: 198 Nap Lajoie, 1901 AL: 198 Carl Yastrzemski, 1967 AL: 193 Ty Cobb, 1909 AL: 192 Yordan Alvarez, 2026 AL: 185 Joe Medwick, 1937 NL: 182 Chuck Klein, 1933 NL: 176 Heinie Zimmerman, 1912 NL: 170 Miguel Cabrera, 2012 AL: 168 Another way to measure dominance is the edge the Triple Crown winner had over the No. 2 players in each category. Mantle hit 52 home runs in 1956, a remarkable 20-homer margin over Vic Wertz, although his leads in the other two categories were smaller. Williams had significant margins in all three categories in 1942: nine home runs, 23 RBIs and 25 points in batting average. He finished second in the MVP voting that year to Joe Gordon of the Yankees, who won the pennant. When Williams won his second Triple Crown in 1947, he again finished second in the MVP voting, this time to Joe DiMaggio of the -- yes -- first-place Yankees. Williams hit .343-32-114 (with a .499 OBP) while DiMaggio hit .315-20-97 (with a .391 OBP). Don't even ask about the then-non-existent WAR: Williams led 9.5 to 4.7. In those days, the MVP winner almost always went to a pennant-winning player. Frank Robinson's Triple Crown in 1966 -- which came after the Reds traded him to the Orioles -- was impressive as well and flies under the radar among great offensive seasons. He hit 49 home runs, 10 more than Harmon Killebrew, and had leads of 12 RBIs and nine batting-average points. Robinson created an estimated 146 runs, in a league in which only four other players topped 100. He had a 118-point lead in OPS over Killebrew. The most impressive Triple Crown season, however, might belong to Hornsby -- it's just a matter of which one. Let's go with 1922. Check out his totals and lead over the No. 2 guy in each category: 42 HRs: 16 over Cy Williams (the only other player with more than 20) 152 RBIs: 20 over Irish Meusel (and the No. 3 guy was 40 behind) .401 AVG: 47 points over Ray Grimes 1.181 OPS: 167 points over Grimes (and 269 points over the No. 3 guy) 202 runs created: 75 over Max Carey (that might be the largest margin ever. Barry Bonds never had a lead that big, and Babe Ruth had a 70-run edge in his career-best season in 1921) Jimmie Foxx's 1933 Triple Crown campaign -- .356-48-163 -- is also in the discussion for best ever, with leads of 20 points in average, 14 in home runs and 23 in RBIs. His season is extra impressive since it came in a league with Lou Gehrig, Babe Ruth, Charlie Gehringer, Al Simmons and other Hall of Famers (eight of the top 10 players in batting average, for example, are Hall of Famers). Still, I'll go with Hornsby's 1922 as the best Triple Crown season, edging out Williams' 1942 and Foxx's 1933. Alvarez, if he finishes strong and makes history, won't be on that level, but it will go down as an offensive season to remember. The Triple Crown would speak for itself, but the context of baseball in 2026 must be considered: Nobody in the AL is close to Alvarez. Entering Sunday, he had created 138 runs -- 35 more than Caminero and Alonso. That would be the seventh-biggest differential over the No. 2 guy among Triple Crown winners. Pete Crow-Armstrong is close in the NL and he's second in the majors in OPS -- a distant 81 points behind Alvarez. In a season in which pitching has dominated and few hitters have put up monster numbers, Alvarez stands alone. Triple Crown or not.