PHILADELPHIA -- A conversation I had in Cincinnati early last season with Cubs center fielder Pete Crow-Armstrong has been on my mind a lot lately. We were discussing his approach when he leads off versus hitting elsewhere in the lineup (though he said the approach shouldn't change) and he said the following:
"I'm definitely looking forward to the day that I have a better grasp of the strike zone and don't swing at so many bad pitches."
At the time, it signaled to me his self-awareness. He pinpointed an area of weakness and wanted to fix it. That's a great place to start. Then comes the hard work and hopefully the execution. With the 2026 All-Star Game under his belt, the second straight for the 24-year-old, and the second half about to start, we're starting to see the fruits of his labor.
His walk rate last season was 4.5%; it's up to 11.2% this year. His chase percentage (swings on pitches outside the strike zone) has tumbled by more than six points. He's swinging less but making more contact when he does swing. And guess what? He's hitting it harder when he does swing: his hard hit percentage is up seven points.
"Yeah, absolutely," he said when asked if he's pleased with his progress. "You can't work on, like, walking, but I've had a lot of good conversations and good people to talk to about how to get on base better, as funny as that sounds."
He knows it's working, too.
"Shoot, a year later, the OBP is higher than it's ever been in my career, I think, minor league and the big leagues," he said. "I'm super proud of that and I'm really proud of getting on base as much as I have."
He's right. His career-best OBP before this season at any level with more than a tiny sample was .376, in 2022 between Class A and High-A. He's hitting the ball well, but the improvement has been buoyed by an increased walk rate as he's cut down on chasing bad pitches, even after he gets behind in the count.
Before this season, Crow-Armstrong had two career multi-walk games. In the first 96 games of this season, he has nine, including his first pair of three-walk games. Prior to this season, he had taken four walks after getting down 0-2 in the count. Already this season, he's walked seven times after an 0-2 count. He seems to be keeping track of that too; as I was walking away from our conversation, I casually threw in, "keep taking those 0-2 walks."
"Helll yeah!" he loudly replied.
Crow-Armstrong pointed to his three-walk game against the Astros on May 24 as the moment everything started to lock in for him. By the box score (he went 0 for 1), this game hardly looked like a major positive for him. But in taking the three walks, he felt like that set the tone for the streak to come. After that game, he was hitting .228/.316/.370 on the season.
Entering the All-Star break, PCA is hitting .291/.386/.531, good for a 155 OPS+. Yes, the man who rates out as one of the best defenders in baseball and is a terror on the basepaths has been 55% better than average at getting on base and hitting for power. Among National League players, he's 13th in batting average, fifth in OBP, ninth in slugging and fifth in OPS.
Add it all up and you get the player second in the majors in WAR behind the only two-way player in more than a century.
Again, this is a guy toward the top in all three major rate stats. He's on pace for 25 doubles, six triples, 36 home runs, 91 RBI, 108 runs and 41 steals. Only Julio Rodríguez and Bobby Witt Jr. have multiple 30-30 seasons before hitting age 25 and PCA is poised to join them this year.
PCA's turnaround
| Before May 24 | After May 24 | |
|---|---|---|
52 | Games | 44 |
.682 | OPS | 1.170 |
17 | Walks | 30 |
6 | Home runs | 15 |
Further, he's on pace for an all-time great Cubs season. With 5.9 WAR right now, he's on pace for roughly 9.8 for the season. Here are the only Cubs' 10-WAR seasons among position players:
- Rogers Hornsby, 10.6, 1929
- Sammy Sosa, 10.3, 2001
- Ernie Banks, 10.2, 1959
That's it. If PCA maintains his current pace, 9.8 would be a virtual tie with Ron Santo's 1967 season for the fourth-best in Cubs history.
The speed and defense have always been there. The power-speed combo showed up last season when he became the first Cub to go 30-30 since Sosa. The added plate discipline is really what has taken him from a good all-around player to a great one, capable of winning an MVP (he starts the second half with the second-best odds in the National League, behind only Shohei Ohtani, at +650, per Caesars).
Then again, we've been through this with Crow-Armstrong before. He hit .265/.302/.544 with 25 home runs in the first half of last season before collapsing down the stretch. The improvements made at the plate, though, should be sustainable and provide sound reasons for optimism in avoiding another second-half swoon. He recognized the problems and fixed them. Now he just has to keep it up.
