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Ranking Aaron Judge, Mike Trout, Matt Olson and Top 10 MLB MVP Candidates in AL and NL
Four-time MVP Shohei Ohtani and three-time MVPs Aaron Judge and Mike Trout are among the early favorites to add to mantles already sagging under the weight of all those trophies. But could Matt Olson, Yordan Alvarez or Kyle Schwarber become first-time recipients of one of the MLB's highest honors?
With the regular season nearly 30 percent complete, we've ranked the top 10 candidates for each league's most valuable player.
For each of the 20 players, current MVP odds (per FanDuel) have been included. However, our ranking is not based on those odds. They are simply there to provide some context for where that player is currently being valued in the grand scheme of things.
Statistics and odds are current through Monday morning.
AL Honorable Mentions: Wilyer Abreu, Byron Buxton, Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Gunnar Henderson, Nick Kurtz, Kevin McGonigle, Julio Rodríguez, Cam Schlittler
NL Honorable Mentions: Pete Crow-Armstrong, Bryce Harper, Jacob Misiorowski, Mickey Moniak, Andy Pages, Juan Soto, James Wood
No. 10: Riley Greene (AL) and Brice Turang (NL)
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No. 10 AL MVP Candidate: Riley Greene, Detroit Tigers (+10000)
Season to Date: .320/.410/.473, 4 HR, 23 RBI, 1.5 bWAR
After racking up 36 home runs and 111 RBI in 2025, Greene is nowhere near on pace for those marks in 2026. Nor are the Tigers anywhere near the AL Central leaders they were supposed to be.
But with a batting average that is better than his OBP from last season (.313) and a career-best walk rate, Greene presently has the best OPS and weighted runs created marks of his career in spite of that power outage.
He typically does his best slugging in June, too, so maybe a big surge in home runs is coming soon.
No. 10 NL MVP Candidate: Brice Turang, Milwaukee Brewers (+10000)
Season to Date: .288/.409/.484, 6 HR, 27 RBI, 9 SB, 2.0 bWAR
Is this the year Turang finally gets the attention he deserves?
A great base runner and an even better second baseman, he ranked eighth in the NL in bWAR in 2024 and was 10th in that department last year for a Brewers squad that led the majors with 97 wins. But Turang got no MVP votes in 2024 and only five percent of the vote share in 2025.
However, his steady, substantial climb in OPS—from .585 as a rookie in 2023 to .665 in 2024, .794 in 2025 and a current mark of .892—is all but certain to get him some love this year. Turang entered play on Monday leading the National League in OBP, on pace for around 22 home runs and 34 stolen bases for a Milwaukee team that just refuses to go away yet again.
No. 9: Munetaka Murakami (AL) and Oneil Cruz (NL)
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No. 9 AL MVP Candidate: Munetaka Murakami, Chicago White Sox (+8000)
Season to Date: .235/.372/.562, 17 HR, 32 RBI, 1.4 bWAR
Murakami has played in each of Chicago's 46 games, and is on pace for 60 home runs, 127 walks and 232 strikeouts.
That walk rate isn't exactly historic, but it would rank in the top 100 in single-season history. The home run total would put him into a tie with 2025 Cal Raleigh and 1927 Babe Ruth for ninth-best ever. And anything north of 224 strikeouts would be a new MLB record.
As long as he continues to homer and reach base at about a .370 clip, though, who cares, right? And if he hits 60 home runs while pacing the White Sox to an AL Central crown—fresh off three of the worst seasons in franchise history—it's going to be tough to argue with that case for AL MVP.
No. 9 NL MVP Candidate: Oneil Cruz, Pittsburgh Pirates (+8000)
Season to Date: .259/.324/.466, 10 HR, 32 RBI, 16 SB, 0.7 bWAR
Along with Tampa Bay's Junior Caminero, Cruz is one of two players who appear in our top 10s despite posting a sub-1.0 WAR amid some brutal defensive metrics.
It does seem like Cruz is starting to figure out this whole center field business, though. At least a little bit. He has posted a positive Fielding Run Value over the past month after a horrific start to the season. At any rate, it's been a while since one of his fielding gaffes went viral.
And so long as he isn't a black hole on defense—and so long as Pittsburgh remains at least a fringe postseason contender—Cruz is going to get some love for NL MVP if he keeps up his full-season pace of around 35 home runs and 55 stolen bases with an OPS of nearly .800.
No. 8: Ben Rice (AL) and Drake Baldwin (NL)
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No. 8 AL MVP Candidate: Ben Rice, New York Yankees (+1900)
Season to Date: .301/.406/.671, 15 HR, 31 RBI, 1.6 bWAR
Were it not for Aaron Judge soaking up all of the Yankee-centric spotlight on an annual basis, Rice would be much more seriously in the mix for AL MVP.
After all, the first baseman is leading the majors in both slugging percentage and OPS (1.077) with RHP/LHP splits on par with what Cal Raleigh did during his 60-HR extravaganza in 2025.
However, Raleigh is a switch hitter, while Rice is a left-handed hitter with both a 1.105 OPS against righties and a 1.008 OPS against lefties. And if Rice continues to hit like that against southpaws, there's a good chance he eventually overtakes Judge in this race.
No. 8 NL MVP Candidate: Drake Baldwin, Atlanta Braves (+5000)
Season to Date: .301/385/.543, 13 HR, 38 RBI, 2.3 bWAR
Like Rice in the Bronx, Baldwin would probably rank a few spots higher if he didn't have a slightly more deserving teammate (Matt Olson in this case) as one of the MVP favorites.
All the same, Baldwin has been sensational for what has been the best team in baseball, leading the majors in runs scored while improving upon an NL Rookie of the Year campaign in 2025.
Similar to Rice, arguably the most impressive thing about this left-handed-hitting catcher is how well he is mashing against southpaws.
Baldwin didn't see a ton of lefties last season while platooning with Sean Murphy, but he did hit .299 in those 95 plate appearances. This year, as an everyday fixture in the lineup, he's batting .342 with seven home runs against southpaws.
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No. 7: José Ramírez (AL) and Jordan Walker (NL)
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No. 7 AL MVP Candidate: José Ramírez, Cleveland Guardians (+7000)
Season to Date: .229/.358/.400, 7 HR, 19 RBI, 20 SB, 1.8 bWAR
Death. Taxes. José Ramírez finishing in the top 10 for AL MVP.
The Guardians' hot corner patrolman has never won the honor, but he has finished top-10 in eight of the past nine seasons, including six top-five finishes. Dating back to the beginning of 2017, only Aaron Judge has been worth more wins above replacement than J-Ram, per FanGraphs.
And though both his batting average and slugging percentage are a far cry from what we're used to seeing, Ramírez is leading the majors in stolen bases, is averaging 1.2 walks per strikeout and is playing some of the best defense of his career at third base.
We're probably underselling him at No. 7 on this list. But what else is new? Ramírez has been underrated for his entire HOF-bound career.
No. 7 NL MVP Candidate: Jordan Walker, St. Louis Cardinals (+10000)
Season to Date: .301/.371/.584, 13 HR, 34 RBI, 7 SB, 3.0 bWAR
It has already been a tale of three seasons for Walker.
After putting up dreadful numbers in both 2024 and 2025, he came out on fire with eight home runs and a 1.161 OPS through his first 16 games. But in the second half of April, it sure looked like the magic carriage had turned back into a pumpkin, as Walker had a 13-game homerless drought in which his triple-slash looked an awful lot like the past two seasons.
On April 30, though, he homered off Paul Skenes, jump-starting a 14-game run with five dingers and a 1.202 OPS.
Maybe it'll be a season-long stretch of two-week-long surges and slumps for Walker, but that's a whole heck of a lot better than what he had shown through the first three seasons of his career.
No. 6: Junior Caminero (AL) and Corbin Carroll (NL)
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No. 6 AL MVP Candidate: Junior Caminero, Tampa Bay Rays (+3300)
Season to Date: .256/.342/.488, 12 HR, 23 RBI, 0.4 bWAR
To put it lightly, the sabermetrics don't agree with this ranking. That's largely because Caminero has been a complete disaster on defense, already committing nine errors and ranking dead last (by a wide margin) with an Outs Above Average rating of -13.
If the Rays manage to maintain the best record in the American League, though, isn't someone from that team bound to become at least a fringe candidate for AL MVP?
Maybe it ends up being Jonathan Aranda or Yandy Díaz, but Caminero finished top 10 in last year's vote while hitting 45 home runs for a 77-win team. Reaching a similar total for a 97-win team would be more noteworthy than his OAA to MVP voters—especially the ones who rationalize that Caminero would have the same OAA as Yordan Alvarez or Kyle Schwarber if he could get Díaz's DH reps.
No. 6 NL MVP Candidate: Corbin Carroll, Arizona Diamondbacks (+3000)
Season to Date: .278/.390/.543, 7 HR, 24 RBI, 6 SB, 2.2 bWAR
Ildemaro Vargas was the surprise early star for the Diamondbacks, named the NL Player of the Month for March/April before also going 4-for-4 on May 1. But he is already fading to the point where it is once again looking like the Carroll Show out in the desert.
The 25-year-old placed fifth in the NL MVP vote while winning Rookie of the Year in 2023, and he finished in sixth place last year with 31 home runs and 32 stolen bases.
He isn't quite operating at that pace this year, but he does currently have career-best marks in both OPS+ and wRC+, thanks to a considerable uptick in walk rate.
Carroll just needs to start hitting offspeed pitches again. It hadn't been a problem over the previous three years, but he is 1-for-24 thus far against changeups and splitters. Once that stabilizes, look out.
No. 5: Mike Trout (AL) and Elly De La Cruz (NL)
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No. 5 AL MVP Candidate: Mike Trout, Los Angeles Angels (+5000)
Season to Date: .238/.399/.482, 11 HR, 23 RBI, 5 SB, 1.9 bWAR
Without a doubt, Trout has cooled off over the past few weeks. After ending April with 10 home runs, five doubles, five stolen bases and a BB/K ratio of 1.07, he is sitting at one, two, zero and 0.39, respectively, through his first 12 games of May.
On the whole, though, his numbers still look solid, including the most important data point of all when it comes to Trout: he has been in the starting lineup for 46 of the Angels' 47 games.
Trout has played in at least 134 games in seven seasons in his career, finishing in the top two for AL MVP in all seven of those years. Granted, all seven of those seasons happened back before COVID entered our lexicon, back when Trout consistently hit north of .300. But far be it from us to argue with his production and his availability thus far.
No. 5 NL MVP Candidate: Elly De La Cruz, Cincinnati Reds (+2700)
Season to Date: .302/.364/.540, 11 HR, 31 RBI, 9 SB, 2.2 bWAR
Through the first three seasons of Elly De La Cruz's big league career, facing southpaws was a major problem.
The switch-hitting shortstop had an impressive .271/.351/.497 triple-slash in his LHH vs. RHP split, but a much more problematic .220/.278/.329 RHH vs. LHP split.
Among the 109 players who had at least 350 such plate appearances from 2023-25, not only was EDLC's .607 OPS the worst, but it was a full 60 points behind the second-worst mark of Kiké Hernández at .667.
This year, though? De La Cruz is De La Crushing lefties for five home runs and a .968 OPS. And while he just hit his first home run of May on Sunday, he is definitely seeing the ball well with a recent six-game streak of multi-hit performances. (He is also roughly on track for a 40/40 season and has bounced back in a huge way from a rough 2025 in the field, presently leading all NL SS in outs above average.)
No. 4: Shea Langeliers (AL) and Paul Skenes (NL)
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No. 4 AL MVP Candidate: Shea Langeliers, Athletics (+8000)
Season to Date: .337/.396/.609, 12 HR, 27 RBI, 2.5 bWAR
At this time one year ago, Cal Raleigh had 15 home runs, and the consensus opinion on the matter seemed to be "Well, that's fun, but let's see how sustainable it is for a catcher over the course of the full season."
We now find ourselves in a similar boat with Langeliers, who is trying to become just the third catcher to win a batting title in eight decades.
When Buster Posey did it in 2012, he won NL MVP in near-unanimous fashion. The same goes for 2009 AL MVP Joe Mauer, who also finished fourth in the 2008 MVP vote and sixth in 2006, the other two times he won a batting title.
If Langeliers—who also hit .328 with a 1.018 OPS in the second half of last season, much more than just a 40-game surge at this point—wins the batting title while also leading the Athletics to an AL West crown, he's going to have quite the case for AL MVP.
No. 4 NL MVP Candidate: Paul Skenes, Pittsburgh Pirates (+6500)
Season to Date: 55.0 IP, 2.62 ERA, 0.71 WHIP, 10.3 K/9, 1.5 bWAR
We all know it's rare for a pitcher to be named MVP. Excluding Shohei Ohtani, the only pitchers to do so in the past 33 seasons were Clayton Kershaw in 2014 and Justin Verlander in 2011.
However, after a decade of MVP voters basically refusing to acknowledge great pitching seasons, there has been a shift in voting philosophy over the past two years. In each of 2024 and 2025, a starting pitcher placed in the top seven for MVP in each league, receiving at least 20 percent of possible points.
And after getting shelled for five "earned" runs in the first inning on Opening Day—Oneil Cruz made two disastrous plays in center that technically weren't errors—Skenes has been marvelous, allowing just six earned runs in his next eight starts to get his ERA all the way down to 1.98 (prior to getting roughed up a bit in his Sunday outing against the Phillies.)
Now that he actually has a supporting cast, could Skenes anchor a postseason run for a Pirates team seeking its first playoff game since 2015? And could he possibly finish worse than fifth for NL MVP if that happens?
No. 3: Yordan Alvarez (AL) and Kyle Schwarber (NL)
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No. 3 AL MVP Candidate: Yordan Alvarez, Houston Astros (+450)
Season to Date: .316/.423/.638, 15 HR, 31 RBI, 1.9 bWAR
The Astros have been a mess, flirting with the worst record in the majors.
But in what has been quite the 180-degree turnaround from his injury-plagued yesteryear, Alvarez has been doing everything in his power to keep this team afloat.
He was named the AL Player of the Month for March/April, entering May with 12 home runs and a 1.199 OPS.
Maybe most impressive is how well Alvarez is hitting even after falling behind in the count. None of his home runs have come in ABs that started with an 0-2 count, but he is batting .321 in those 29 plate appearances and has an absurd .907 OPS in "Pitcher Ahead" situations.
No. 3 NL MVP Candidate: Kyle Schwarber, Philadelphia Phillies (+1000)
Season to Date: .230/.357/.624, 20 HR, 36 RBI, 1.7 bWAR
It wasn't intentional, but it is intriguing that both of our early 'bronze medalists' are designated hitters who have been mashing taters for underachievers. (Although, the Phillies have clawed their way back to a winning record.)
But while Alvarez has cooled off after destroying baseballs in March and April, Schwarber has been on quite the heater as of late, leading the Phillies to six consecutive series wins, including a recent stretch of nine home runs in eight games.
That's a 162-game pace of 182 home runs, which would be some record.
He finished second in last year's NL MVP vote, leading the league in both home runs (56) and RBI (132). But if he can maintain his current full-season pace of 69 home runs, it would be just about impossible to deny him the trophy this time around.
No. 2: Bobby Witt Jr. (AL) and Matt Olson (NL)
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No. 2 AL MVP Candidate: Bobby Witt Jr., Kansas City Royals (+450)
Season to Date: .303/.376/.492, 7 HR, 23 RBI, 13 SB, 3.0 bWAR
Through one-sixth of the campaign, Witt was right there with Fernando Tatis Jr. atop the "When the heck is he going to start homering?" list of players. Witt was batting .288, had stolen nine bases and was providing great value on defense. But the complete lack of both home runs and triples through 27 games was bizarre.
While Tatis is still searching, Witt has gone on a bit of a rampage with seven round-trippers dating back to April 26, all while continuing to do everything else he was doing up until that point. And now both FanGraphs and Baseball-Reference rate him as the most valuable position player in baseball.
After three straight top-seven finishes, maybe this is the year Witt wins an MVP.
No. 2 NL MVP Candidate: Matt Olson, Atlanta Braves (+1000)
Season to Date: .276/.354/.591, 14 HR, 38 RBI, 2.4 bWAR
The modern-day Iron Man, Olson recently moved into the top 10 on MLB's all-time list of consecutive games played. But good luck finding any signs of fatigue as he is playing better than ever before for what has been the best team in baseball.
Olson put up MVP-caliber numbers for the 104-win Braves in 2023 (54 HR, 139 RBI, .993 OPS), but he simply could not hold a candle to teammate Ronald Acuña Jr.'s historic combination of 41 home runs and 73 stolen bases. He had to settle for fourth place in that year's vote.
So far this season, though, Olson has been the driving force of an Atlanta team that is on pace for 110 wins. He only recently lost what had been the MLB lead in total bases (107) with 15 doubles and 14 homers.
AL MVP Favorite: Aaron Judge, New York Yankees
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No. 1 AL MVP Candidate: Aaron Judge, New York Yankees (-130)
Season to Date: .266/.401/.598, 16 HR, 30 RBI, 5 SB, 2.5 bWAR
Two weeks into the season, it looked like the door might be open for someone other than Judge or Ohtani to win AL MVP for the first time since 2020.
Ol' Arson had yet to catch fire, batting .212 with a .721 OPS through his first 14 games. Meanwhile, both Yordan Alvarez and Ben Rice were slugging north of .750.
Over the course of the subsequent 29 games, however, Judge did his inferno thing, clubbing 13 home runs, batting .307 and posting a 1.210 OPS.
In the span of less than a month, Judge went from "slow start" to "AL home run leader and clear favorite for MVP."
Of course, we've seen this story before.
Granted, not last year. He had four home runs and a 2.461 OPS during the season-opening series against the Brewers. But in 2024, Judge had a .663 OPS through 24 games before flipping a switch and darn near winning a Triple Crown. And even in his 62-HR campaign in 2022, Judge had just one home run and a .744 OPS through 13 games.
Once Judge locks in, it seems the only thing that can slow him down is an injury. So if he stays reasonably healthy, Judge is likely headed for a fourth MVP.
NL MVP Favorite: Shohei Ohtani, Los Angeles Dodgers
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No. 1 NL MVP Candidate: Shohei Ohtani, Los Angeles Dodgers (-360)
Season to Date: .258/.385/.454, 7 HR, 24 RBI, 6 SB; 44.0 IP, 0.82 ERA, 0.82 WHIP, 10.2 K/9, 3.1 bWAR
At the plate, Ohtani definitely has not been his usual dominant self—and has already been out of the lineup for more games than in either of the past two seasons.
Through 50 team games last year, he had 17 home runs, 11 stolen bases and a 1.053 OPS. Ohtani had similar marks of 13, 11 and 1.067, respectively, through 50 team games in 2024. But he entered this past weekend's series against his former team with a sub-.800 OPS.
However, while Ohtani hasn't been great at the dish, can we stop acting like he has been terrible? Seven home runs, six stolen bases and 24 RBIs put him in the same boat as Corbin Carroll across all three categories.
And at this point in both 2024 and 2025, Ohtani had zero innings pitched, compared to his current status as arguably the top candidate for NL Cy Young, shoving every time he takes the mound.
Olson has been great as the leader of the league's best team, and Schwarber is on quite the homer pace. But NL MVP is still Ohtani's to lose.
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