The Strangest Batting Title Race in Playing Out in the AL

As the 2026 MLB regular season comes to a close, it’s nearly time to crown the award winners in both the American and National Leagues. The MVP winners in each respective league will almost certainly be first-time winners, with Pete Crow-Armstrong notching a 40/40 season in the NL and Yordan Alvarez and Junior Caminero emerging as the frontrunners in the AL. However, there’s a different race that’s been hard to pick a winner in.

In the NL, Luis Arraez has pulled away from the rest of the league in the running for his fourth career batting title. The AL has a much tighter race for its batting title, however, and it’s one that couldn’t possibly be between two more opposite hitters.

The aforementioned Alvarez of the Houston Astros was primed for a Triple Crown win, leading the league in home runs, RBI, and batting average, until recently, when he’s lost his commanding lead in all three categories. Putting together one of the most complete offensive seasons in baseball, he looks to be the frontrunner for the AL MVP award.

His main competitor is Chandler Simpson of the Tampa Bay Rays, a hitter who has yet to hit a home run as a professional player. These two hitters couldn’t be more different in terms of their skill sets, but they’re competing with each other for the batting title in what has been an interesting race.

The Complete All-Around Hitter

Yordan Alvarez is essentially the best all-around hitter you could imagine in the game right now, aside from other obvious outliers like Aaron Judge or Shohei Ohtani. This year, with Judge hurt for a large portion of the season, Alvarez has secured the AL MVP award, and it’s only a matter of time.

Through September 26th, Alvarez leads all hitters in batting average (.315), on-base percentage (.432), slugging percentage (.600), OPS (1.032), walks (108), and wRC+ (181). He’s also tied with Junior Caminero and Ben Rice for the second-most home runs in the AL with 41. Playing in 150+ games for the first time in his career, Alvarez has finally put together a complete, injury-free season in which his talents can truly shine.

Alvarez ranks at least in the 95th percentile in xBA (.319), xSLG (.640), hard-hit rate (53.8%), barrel rate (16.1%), and average exit velocity (94.3 MPH). In every season of his career in which he’s played at least 100 games, he’s slugged at least 30 home runs. In 2026, he’s set new career highs in home runs, walks, hits, on-base percentage, and batting average. To sum it up, he’s having a career season in every way.

He could become the first qualified Astros hitter to hit at least .315 over a full season since Yuli Gurriel in 2019, and he’s already set the franchise record for intentional walks in a season (33). Alvarez has clearly been the best hitter in the American League this season, but he has some interesting competition for the batting title.

The Prototypical Speedster

Chandler Simpson is a completely different hitter than Alvarez, but this doesn’t mean he’s bad in any sense. Simpson boasts some of the best contact, speed, and fielding tools in all of baseball, and his wicked combination of baserunning prowess and scrappy at-bats makes him a nightmare for opposing pitchers in a similar way to Alvarez.

In his first full big-league season, Simpson is slashing .308/.335/.357 with 46 stolen bases, 24 extra-base hits, and 38 RBI. Usually, home run totals are mentioned in an overview of a player’s season, but in Simpson’s case, there’s none to look at. Across his entire professional career, Simpson has only ever hit one out-of-the-park home run, and it came in spring training earlier this year.

There’s no player with a more polarizing Baseball Savant page than Simpson, as he boasts equal amounts of 99th-percentile rankings as he does 1st-percentile rankings. Simpson intimidates opposing pitchers with his incredible sprint speed, and he creates chaos on the basepaths every time he gets on base. He may not be a complete hitter in all the ways Alvarez is, but he’s every bit in the race for the batting title.

The only way it appears these two hitters are alike is the fact that they play professional baseball. The beauty of the game is that players with completely different approaches and skill sets can compete on the same stage for awards and success, and it’s been incredible to watch these two duke it out this season.

Who Will Win the AL Batting Title?

While Alvarez’s hopes of taking home the AL Triple Crown will no longer come to fruition, it seems as though he’s got the edge over Simpson for the batting title this year. There are several different reasons for this conclusion, not the least of which is the current seven-point difference in their averages with very few games remaining in the regular season.

Alvarez sits at .315 while Simpson trails behind at .308, but both hitters are tied at 175 hits for the season. Batting average is calculated simply by dividing a player’s total hits by their total at-bats over any given span of games. The key reason why Alvarez sits higher in the rankings than Simpson, in spite of this, isn’t because he’s had more opportunities than Simpson, as he actually has had about 70 more plate appearances this season.

Simpson doesn’t walk at a very high rate at all, complementing his AL-best 7.7% strikeout rate and making him one of the best hitters in baseball at avoiding the “three true outcomes” of home runs, strikeouts, and walks. Alvarez, on the other hand, has one of the highest walk rates in baseball at 15.9%.

Walks count as plate appearances but not as at-bats, allowing Alvarez’s smaller sample of at-bats to produce a higher batting average than Simpson’s. He therefore benefits from his discipline at the plate not only in his on-base percentage but in his batting average as well.

Alvarez could become just the eighth hitter since 2000 to hit at least 40 home runs in a season in which he wins the batting title, and just the third AL hitter in that time to do so. While Simpson is having a similarly impressive season in his own right, Alvarez will most likely take home the award this year.

Closing Thoughts

The true question is whether the batting title determines the best hitter in the league. The answer is no, as the best hitter in any given season can certainly miss out on an award like the batting title. Is Yordan Alvarez the most well-rounded hitter in the game? He definitely was this season, but Simpson’s season is equally as impressive in certain areas.

Alvarez will very likely take home the batting title even though he doesn’t lead the American League in hits (Yandy Díaz, 177 hits), but this is indicative of the incredible and feared hitter he is at the plate. 33 times this season, opposing pitchers and managers have decided to offer first base to Alvarez in order to limit his ability to do damage with his electric bat.

Simpson is every bit deserving of being in the conversation for the batting title, but his minuscule walk rate and inability to hit home runs (which are guaranteed hits) make it difficult for him to compete with a hitter like Alvarez. Simpson will probably take home at least one batting title in his career and will certainly be in the conversation for the award in the coming years, but it just might not be in his cards this year.