Awards Week Ends Unanimous — and the Winter Starts in Atlanta

Awards week ran out of arguments on Thursday night. Pete Crow-Armstrong of the Chicago Cubs and Yordan Alvarez of the Houston Astros were named the National League and American League Most Valuable Players, and the Baseball Writers’ Association of America did not record a single dissenting ballot in either league — all 30 first-place votes in the NL went to Crow-Armstrong, and all 30 in the AL went to Alvarez, Reuters reported. Stack that on top of Wednesday’s Cy Young results, when Jacob Misiorowski and Cam Schlittler also swept their ballots, and 2026 becomes the first season in which both MVPs and both Cy Young winners were chosen unanimously in the same year. Four races, 120 first-place votes, four names.

Thursday was doing double duty in Las Vegas. While the MVP show closed the book on the season at one end of town, the General Managers’ Meetings were wrapping up at the Aria — and by the time the executives headed for the airport, the winter had already produced its first real contract — Atlanta’s — and its going rate for an ace. Awards week ends; the winter starts now.

Sixty ballots, two names

Crow-Armstrong’s line reads like a video game season played on the hardest setting: a .280 average, 45 home runs that shared the major league lead with Philadelphia’s Kyle Schwarber, 107 RBIs, an MLB-best 119 runs scored and 41 stolen bases — the seventh 40–40 season in baseball history, ESPN reported. He paired it with the Platinum Glove as the National League’s best defender and a major-league-best 10.6 fWAR, and he collected 420 points in the balloting.

Shohei Ohtani, the two-time defending NL winner, finished second with 26 of the 30 second-place votes; Milwaukee’s Brice Turang was third. Crow-Armstrong is the first Cub to win the award since Kris Bryant in 2016 — and Chicago locked him up before any of this, agreeing to a $115 million, six-year contract in March, according to the Associated Press. Our full story on his night is here.

Alvarez came within reach of a Triple Crown. He won the AL batting title at .316 and finished second in the league in home runs (42) and RBIs (106), while leading the American League in on-base percentage (.432), slugging (.601), OPS (1.033), total bases (341), walks (109) and extra-base hits (77), Reuters reported. Tampa Bay’s Junior Caminero took 27 of the 30 second-place votes to finish second, Kansas City’s Bobby Witt Jr. was third, and Schlittler — Wednesday’s unanimous Cy Young winner — placed fourth.

Alvarez is the first Astro to win the award since Jose Altuve in 2017, and he joined Aaron Judge in 2025 and Miguel Cabrera in 2012 as the only players since 1970 to win an AL batting title in a 40-homer season. His full case is in our AL MVP story, and the complete ballots and leaderboards from the week are on the Stats Hub.

The week’s only signature belongs to Atlanta

For three days at the Aria, the most powerful people in baseball talked to every other team and dozens of agents — and produced exactly one major move. The Atlanta Braves announced Thursday that they have signed right-hander Evan Phillips to a three-year, $35 million contract, TSN reported. The pay is spread almost evenly across the life of it — $11 million in 2027, another $11 million in 2028, and a bump to $13 million in the final year — and Phillips will donate 1% of his earnings to the Atlanta Braves Foundation. USA Today’s Bob Nightengale, tallying the week as the executives departed Thursday, called it the only major move of the meetings.

It is also a homecoming. Atlanta drafted Phillips and gave him his first four big-league appearances in 2018 before he became one of the National League’s most reliable late-inning arms with the Los Angeles Dodgers. His 2026 was a comeback inside a career: Tommy John surgery in June 2025 cost him a year, the Dodgers brought him back on a one-year deal to finish the rehab, and he debuted on July 7.

The rust was real — a 5.27 ERA across his first 17 appearances — and then it was gone: a 1.46 ERA with 19 strikeouts over his final 14 outings, a 3.46 ERA and 33 strikeouts in 26 innings overall, and five scoreless appearances in the postseason, according to DodgerBlue’s account of the signing. Dating back to 2022, his 2.31 ERA across 210⅔ innings is the lowest in the National League among pitchers with at least 200 appearances. With closer Raisel Iglesias a free agent, Atlanta was not buying a lottery ticket. It was buying the ninth inning, three years of it, before the market even opened.

The Braves’ other Thursday business was smaller: outfielder Tyler Freeman arrived on a minor-league contract, per theScore’s transaction tracker. Around the league, that passed for a busy day.

What the executives took home from the Aria

The meetings ended, as they usually do, with the real market still unsold — but this year it has a posted price. Tarik Skubal, the ace who headlined our Nov. 10 hot stove roundup, will not entertain a short-term deal, and teams have been told an offer needs to exceed $325 million to earn a seat at the table, USA Today reported. The Dodgers, Padres, Blue Jays and Mets all have meetings scheduled with Skubal and agent Scott Boras before Thanksgiving. The Mets are publicly downplaying their chances; their rivals, per Nightengale, believe New York could be the Dodgers’ stiffest competition anyway.

Just as useful was the list of players who are going nowhere. The champion Milwaukee Brewers told teams catcher William Contreras is staying put and that they would love to extend him. San Francisco will not trade Logan Webb, no matter how often teams ask. Atlanta president of baseball operations Alex Anthopoulos said there have been zero conversations about trading Ronald Acuña Jr. and there will be none. Minnesota told agents it plans to spend, starting with free-agent catcher Ryan Jeffers — who, per USA Today, plans to reject the Twins’ $23.15 million qualifying offer. Tampa Bay plans to keep Drew Rasmussen, and the Cubs, carrying five free-agent starters, would love to bring back Clay Holmes and David Peterson.

Two dates now run the winter

Everything said at the Aria came with a deadline attached. The collective bargaining agreement expires at 11:59 p.m. on December 1, and an expected lockout would freeze the market where it stands — which is why executives expect a flurry of signings to begin over Thanksgiving weekend and run right up to the deadline, USA Today reported. FanSided’s Robert Murray, working the same hallways, heard the real offers start arriving next week, while the owners are in town for their own meetings.

The first checkpoint lands Tuesday, November 17, twice over. That is decision day for the eight players who received $23.15 million qualifying offers on November 2 — Yankees closer David Bednar, Cubs outfielder Seiya Suzuki and Mariners outfielder Randy Arozarena among them, according to ESPN’s free agency tracker — with the decisions due November 17, per the Pitcher List tracker. The same evening, the Louisville Slugger Silver Slugger winners are announced from Louisville at 6 p.m. ET, the last hardware of the 2026 season, FanSided reported.

So the week ends the way it was always going to. Awards season produced four unanimous winners and not one argument. The winter, with a $325 million starting price and a lockout clock already ticking, will not be nearly so agreeable.