José Ramírez is one of the best players in baseball. There’s no question about that after the career he’s built. He’s a seven-time All-Star and six-time Silver Slugger Award winner.
There’s just one personal trophy missing from his mantle: an MVP Award.
To be clear: that fact is not his fault. Ramírez has been playing in an incredibly stacked American League for his entire career during an age of superstars. This isn’t meant to take anything away from what he’s done, but rather to amplify just how impressive he’s been — big award or not.
With such an accomplished career, Ramírez has a unique place in MVP voting history. Based on votes received thus far, there’s a very strong argument that he’s the best player to never win MVP among those to debut since the BBWAA began voting on the award in 1931. Please note that all stats below are in that span, as that’s when the official MVP Award began.
Let’s dig in, with some help from the Elias Sports Bureau.
Best to not win MVP
Ramírez came in third for MVP in 2025, behind strong campaigns from Aaron Judge and Cal Raleigh. This season was the sixth time in his career that Ramírez finished in the top five in MVP voting and the fourth time he was top three. If those totals sound high, it’s because they are.
Ramírez’s six top-five MVP voting finishes are tied with Eddie Murray for the most without a win. That’s also the second-most top-fives in MVP voting among active players, behind only Mike Trout’s nine — which includes three wins.
Ramírez finished top-three for the fourth time this season, giving him sole possession of the most such MVP voting finishes without winning the award. That’s right — since the honor was established in 1931, no player has gotten that close that often without taking home a win.
Another way to quantify that fact is his career MVP share. Ramírez is at 3.61 career share of the MVP vote. That’s the highest of any player to never win the award. As we said, the best player to never win, or, put another way — the most-voted-for player to not win one. That’s also within the top 25 highest MVP shares overall among players to debut since 1931.
Why this keeps happening
As we stated above, Ramírez is an outstanding player. Last year was his second season with at least 30 home runs and 40 stolen bases. The only other players in MLB history with multiple such seasons are Bobby Bonds (four), Barry Bonds and Alfonso Soriano. Only Bobby Bonds and Ramírez did so in consecutive seasons.
And that’s just one stat. He’s had six seasons with at least 5.5 wins above replacement (per Baseball Reference) since the start of 2017, second most in MLB. Only Judge has more such seasons in that span, with seven. And of course, Judge has three MVP Awards, which gets us to the answer to why this keeps happening.
As noted above, Ramírez has six top-five finishes — 2017-18, ’20, ’22 and ’24-’25. Let’s recap the efforts of the other vote-getting AL players in those seasons.
In 2017, he finished third behind two 8.1-WAR outputs, from Jose Altuve, who won, and a rookie Judge. In 2018, Mookie Betts won with a 10.7-WAR season, which was the highest at the time by a position player since 2002 Barry Bonds (11.7). Ramírez finished third behind Trout.
In 2020, Ramírez finished second to José Abreu, who led the AL in slugging and MLB in RBIs in the shortened season.
In 2022, Judge won after setting the AL single-season home run record and had 10.8 WAR. Shohei Ohtani also played a full season of hitting in games he pitched in for the second time in MLB. Ramírez finished fourth. In 2024, Judge put up 10.8 WAR again and won unanimously, with Ramírez finishing fifth. There have been three 10-WAR seasons since the start of 2017 — all in the AL, all in years Ramírez was top-five for MVP.
Then there was this year’s hotly contested vote between Judge and Raleigh.
Meanwhile, in his six top-five MVP seasons combined, Ramírez has:
Herculean efforts by the MVPs in those years — and by Ramírez, too.
What’s next
A key detail about those lists above on best players to never win MVP: Ramírez comes off the list the moment he finally wins one. And yet again in 2026, he figures to be a popular pick beyond Judge.
If Ramírez does win an MVP one day, he will set a record for both the most top-five and top-three finishes before a first win. Currently, the most top-five finishes in BBWAA MVP voting before winning one is five, by Miguel Cabrera and Lou Gehrig (again, this stat begins with 1931). Ramírez is already at six. And the current most for top three before winning is three, by Paul Goldschmidt, Albert Pujols, Alex Rodriguez and Willie Stargell. Ramírez is already at four.
Those records are meant to be broken.
