Houston Astros Yordan Alvarez (44) reacts in the dugout after hitting a grand-slam to take a 6-3 lead during the fourth inning of an MLB baseball game in Houston, Tuesday, June 30, 2026.
Jason Fochtman/Houston Chronicle
Houston Astros designated hitter Yordan Alvarez (44) hits a solo home run during the fifth inning of an MLB baseball game in Houston, Thursday, Sept. 17, 2026. The home run was Alvarez’s 40th of the season.
Jason Fochtman/Houston Chronicle
Houston Astros designated hitter Yordan Alvarez’s equipment is seen before an MLB baseball game in Houston, Sunday, Sept. 20 2026.
Jason Fochtman/Houston Chronicle
Houston Astros designated hitter Yordan Alvarez (44) reacts after hitting his 40th home run of the season during the fifth inning of an MLB baseball game in Houston, Thursday, Sept. 17, 2026.
Jason Fochtman/Houston Chronicle
Houston Astros Yordan Alvarez (44) hit a single during the first inning of an MLB baseball game in Houston, Sunday, Sept. 20 2026.
Jason Fochtman/Houston Chronicle
Houston Astros Yordan Alvarez (44) hits a 3-run home run during the fifth inning of an MLB baseball game at Sutter Health Park in Sacramento, California, Saturday, Sept. 26, 2026.
Jason Fochtman/Houston Chronicle
At times, during a season certifying his prowess as a hitter, Yordan Alvarez sounded almost indifferent to the evidence.
“I’m not really the type of player that focuses on numbers,” Alvarez said through an interpreter, one July afternoon in the Houston Astros clubhouse. “I think the players here, they like to joke around with me in that sense, because they say that I act like I’m not hitting.”
Stoic and soft-spoken, Alvarez often betrays little by his demeanor. But rarely this year was there cause for confusion. Alvarez started hitting when the season began and continued at a pace that outstripped any other hitter in the majors, resulting in the distinction that arrived for him Thursday.
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Alvarez, the well-rounded slugger and anchor of the Astros lineup, was selected as the Most Valuable Player of the American League in a unanimous vote. Rays third baseman Junior Caminero finished as runner-up and Royals shortstop Bobby Witt Jr. placed third in his third career top-five finish.
Alvarez is the third Astros player to win an MVP award, joining teammate Jose Altuve, who won in 2017, and Hall of Famer Jeff Bagwell, who captured the NL award in 1994. He’s the second primary designated hitter to win MVP, after Shohei Ohtani, an indication of how outstanding his offensive performance was.
As the award was announced, Alvarez was live on MLB Network alongside his wife, Monica, and their two children and with his parents and brother standing nearby. Alvarez broke into a smile and shared hugs with his family.
“Incredible, incredible,” Alvarez said later on a conference call. “It seems like everybody else had a feeling that I was going to win this besides me, really. So when I heard the name, that’s when the emotion came out and the feeling was amazing.”
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In voting by members of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America, Alvarez received all 30 first-place votes for AL MVP. Caminero received 27 of 30 second-place votes, while Witt received two and Yankees pitcher Cam Schlittler, the AL Cy Young winner, received one second-place vote.
Yankees star Aaron Judge and Ohtani had combined to win the last five AL MVP awards. Judge played in 66 games this season due to injuries and Ohtani now plays in the National League. While that opened a door for a different winner, it should not diminish the season Alvarez produced.
“I know it’s not easy to win it as a DH,” Alvarez said. “But hopefully now with Ohtani (in recent years) and me this year, we can kind of start setting a precedent where people start looking at the numbers of DH’s and giving them the award when they deserve it.”
Alvarez, 29, led the majors in batting average (.316), on-base percentage (.432) and slugging percentage (.601). His OPS of 1.033 led the next-closest qualified AL player by 132 points. Alvarez set career highs in home runs (42) and runs batted in (106), one year after injuries limited him to 48 games in 2025.
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“A lot of people, I’m not going to say they forgot about him — but they kind of did,” Houston shortstop Jeremy Peña said after Alvarez hit his 40th home run in September.
“I know that he took it personal. He took it upon himself to take care of his body this year and stay on the field, stay healthy. And he knows that when he’s healthy, he can put up MVP numbers.”
Alvarez this season became the third Astros player to win a batting title, joining Altuve and Yuli Gurriel. He became the third American League player since at least 1970 to win the batting title and hit at least 40 home runs, following Judge last year and Miguel Cabrera in 2012 and ’13.
No other Astros player has hit 40 home runs in a season in which he batted .316 or higher. Alvarez also led the majors in walks, including 33 intentional walks, tied for second-most in a season in AL history.
“Pure hitter, he’s the best I’ve ever seen,” Altuve, a three-time AL batting champion, said of Alvarez this summer. “Nobody better than him.”
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Alvarez attained his MVP a decade after the infamous trade that brought him to the Astros organization. The fourth MVP winner born in Cuba — following José Abreu, Jose Canseco and Zoilo Versalles — Alvarez defected as a teenager and journeyed through the Dominican Republic and Haiti before reaching the U.S.
Astros senior scouting advisor Charlie Gonzalez was the first person in the organization to see Alvarez, at workouts in south Florida. Alvarez was tall and skinny, with a “beautiful swing” and raw power, Gonzalez recalls. They developed a good rapport and talked often during the 2015-16 international signing period.
“Yordan would call me once a week, ‘Charlie, I’m ready,’” Gonzalez recalled. “He even said, ‘I have an apartment picked out near the Astros’ new (spring training) complex.’”
The Astros didn’t see room for Alvarez in their international budget, despite Gonzalez and former executive Oz Ocampo pushing for him, and the Dodgers signed him for a $2 million bonus in June 2016. But the Astros got another chance when the Dodgers sought to acquire reliever Josh Fields from them at that year’s trade deadline.
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“Jeff (Luhnow, then general manager) called me and said, ‘Hey, who do the Dodgers have that we want internationally? ’” Gonzalez said. “I said, ‘Who do they have? The guy that I’ve been calling you about for the last six months.’”
The Dodgers agreed to deal Alvarez, who never played a game in their minor-league system, for Fields, who went on to spend parts of three seasons in Los Angeles’ bullpen. Alvarez has since said he did not know what a trade was at the time. He has made that one among the more lopsided in recent history.
Alvarez won the AL Rookie of the Year award in 2019, placed third in MVP voting in 2022 and struck the decisive home run in the clincher of that year’s World Series as the Astros won their second title. In parts of eight major-league seasons, he is a career .300 hitter who has slugged at least 31 home runs in five of the last six years.
“He was a big, tall, lanky kid,” Gonzalez said of Alvarez, who now stands 6-foot-4 and 237 pounds. “But he had such a synced-up swing. He had power. And I would see him in games with live pitching and he would hit and he would dominate against guys.
“To project and see what he’s doing, what he did this year, I can’t say that. But he had as lofty and as high a ceiling as any hitter that I knew of, that I had seen in my time. And the rest is just all Yordan. … He’s a great kid, very passionate kid, works hard. Very, very happy for him.”
Alvarez’s evolution as a player continued this season. After his injury-marred 2025 campaign, Alvarez made durability a stated goal. He altered his diet and traveled with a personal trainer and played in a career-high 158 games, starting 134 of those at DH and the other 24 in left field.
Alvarez hit 31 home runs with a 1.059 OPS before the All-Star break, mounting a legitimate push for a Triple Crown. His power numbers ebbed after the break, but he still had a .992 OPS in the second half, helping carry the Astros to an AL West title despite an 81-81 record and cementing the MVP award.
“It’s incredible,” Alvarez said. “Coming from where I come from, basically I come from nothing. So to be able to win this and see that path that I’ve traveled, it’s just really emotional and really exciting.”
Opposing pitchers must grapple with Alvarez’s plate discipline and consistency. He batted .315 against fastballs this season, .299 on breaking pitches and .342 against off-speed pitches, per Baseball Savant. His .830 OPS with two strikes was highest of any hitter with at least 100 such plate appearances.
Alvarez often demurred when presented with his statistics. Peña struck a different note in September, saying of the season Alvarez compiled: “Numbers don’t lie.”
“At the end of the day,” Peña said, “what he’s doing, it’s above and beyond.”