Four major awards, four unanimous winners. Pete Crow-Armstrong’s NL MVP and Yordan Alvarez’s AL MVP completed a 2026 sweep without precedent since the Cy Young Award began in 1956: both MVPs and both Cy Young winners took every first-place vote in their respective elections.
That makes the MVP cards the final chapter of a larger baseball story. Jacob Misiorowski and Cam Schlittler supplied the pitching half; Crow-Armstrong and Alvarez completed it on November 12. For a collector building a record of the season, the connection across all four awards is more distinctive than another pair of MVP portraits.
Topps offers three ways into the MVP side: Crow-Armstrong’s OS-7, Alvarez’s OS-8 and their shared OS-9. The first two combine individual award designs with relic and auto-relic chases. The third puts the winners together and offers dual autographs. One extra line in Crow-Armstrong’s configuration makes the individual releases meaningfully different, too.
The year all four elections agreed
The BBWAA’s NL MVP announcement states the historical first explicitly. Earlier seasons had produced unanimous MVP winners in both leagues, and earlier seasons had produced unanimous Cy Young winners in both leagues. In 2026, the two distinctions finally coincided.
The history table shows why the overlap matters. The paired Cy Young years are 1968, 2022 and 2026. The paired MVP years are 2023, 2024 and 2026. Only 2026 appears in both lists. This is a collecting theme with a precise boundary: four award winners from the same season, each chosen unanimously.
The paired MVP card covers two of those four players. It can anchor the hitting half of a display, with the Cy Young pair beside it. Collectors who prefer individual cards can instead give each winner a place of his own. Either arrangement preserves the all-four story; the choice changes how much space each player receives.
Two first MVPs, two different club histories
MLB’s announcement identifies both as first-time MVP winners. Crow-Armstrong also became the first Cubs player elected unanimously. His card marks an individual breakthrough and a club first, giving it a clear role in a Cubs award collection.
Alvarez’s BBWAA record places him alongside Jose Altuve as an Astros American League MVP, with Jeff Bagwell’s award belonging to Houston’s National League years. He received all 30 first-place votes. For an Astros collector, OS-8 adds another identifiable award milestone to that history.
The two individual card designs keep those affiliations prominent. Crow-Armstrong appears in Cubs pinstripes against a blue-toned composition; Alvarez’s orange Astros uniform gives OS-8 a different visual character. Both use large MVP lettering, so even an ordinary base-card pair communicates the award connection immediately.
OS-7’s extra Dynasty Black edition
Crow-Armstrong’s OS-7 listing advertises a /25 relic redemption and auto-relic redemptions at /10, /5 and /1. It also lists a separate one-of-one Dynasty Black auto-relic redemption. That final entry is additional to the ordinary /1 auto-relic line.
Alvarez’s OS-8 listing has the /25 relic and /10, /5, /1 auto-relic structure, but its retrieved configuration does not list the separate Dynasty Black edition. A collector comparing the two should therefore keep that distinction, rather than assume that paired award releases have identical special-card checklists.
Including the common foil ladder, the advertised numbered entries total 133 for OS-7 and 132 for OS-8 before conditional Chrome additions. The one-card difference comes from the separate Dynasty Black line. It is a checklist difference, not enough information to compare a buyer’s chances across the releases; each has its own order total.
For someone pursuing Crow-Armstrong’s award editions, the two one-of-one auto-relic descriptions deserve particular attention. Ask which one is being offered and match it to the listing. For someone who wants the MVP design itself, the base card remains a straightforward way to represent his place in the sweep.
OS-9 is the season display choice
The paired OS-9 uses a horizontal action composition with both winners. Its dual-autograph redemptions are numbered /10, /5 and /1. The advertised special editions focus on the two signatures together rather than the individual cards’ relic format.
OS-9 lists 91 numbered foils and 16 dual-autograph redemptions, for 107 numbered entries before conditional Chrome. That lower total does not make it a better version of OS-7 or OS-8. It reflects a different menu: the paired release has no separately listed /25 relic redemption or Dynasty Black entry in the terms checked here.
Choose the individual release when one player, one club or the relic format is the center of the collection. Choose the paired design when the joint award moment is the subject. In an all-four display, OS-9 works particularly well as the counterpart to the shared Cy Young card: two horizontal cards can represent the four winners.
The deadline has passed; results remain open questions
The tracked 7 p.m. CST November 13 deadline has passed for OS-7, OS-8 and OS-9. As of that evening, official final print runs remain unconfirmed for all three. Topps lists a November 12–14 date range, with current checkout availability unverified. The tracked ordering window has elapsed.
The unknown totals leave the historical story intact. Collectors can already decide whether to represent the sweep through four individuals, two paired cards or a favorite player’s award edition. When final print runs become available, each will describe its own release. The shared reason to collect them is already clear: in 2026, every first-place choice across these four elections went to the winners.
Source note
Historical sweep and voting results: BBWAA. First-time MVP reporting: MLB. Card configurations: Topps. Result and lifecycle checks completed November 13, 2026, after 8 p.m. CST. The precise deadline is PrintRun-tracked; Topps’ retrieved date-only pages do not establish a current checkout state.