Pete Crow-Armstrong has exploded out of the gate for the Chicago Cubs. He's putting all the pieces together in real time, looking the part of not only an All-Star, but a potential MVP candidate in the National League. If the season ended today, he'd have a strong case for baseball's highest individual honor.
This is all incredibly exciting for Cubs fans (and baseball fans in general). PCA is 23 years old. He has one full season under his belt. For it all click this early is a minor miracle, and it puts the Cubs on a vastly different trajectory than folks predicted mere months ago. Kyle Tucker has sucked up a lot of oxygen when covering Chicago's early success, but PCA is equally, if not more responsible.
He was especially dominant in the month of April, slashing .326/.355/.640 with six home runs, 19 RBI and 11 stolen bases. He finished the month with a 2.0 fWAR, which ranks second in all of MLB.
Few players impact every area of the game like Crow-Armstrong. He's an elite defender at a premium position in centerfield, he's a menace on the base paths, and a legitimate source of slug in the heart of Chicago's lineup. And yet, his production this month was outpaced by one, very predictable superstar from the New York Yankees.
For more news and rumors, check out MLB Insider Robert Murray’s work on The Baseball Insiders podcast, subscribe to The Moonshot, our weekly MLB newsletter, and join the discord to get the inside scoop between now and the MLB offseason.
Only Aaron Judge outshined Pete Crow-Armstrong's dominant month with Cubs
For as great as PCA is and will continue to be, there isn't a single MLB star operating on Aaron Judge's level right now. The Yankees are a deeply flawed group, but New York sits comfortably atop baseball's toughest division — in large part due to Judge's Herculean efforts at the plate.
Judge isn't half the defense that PCA is, nor can he run the base paths so effectively. That doesn't matter when you're raking at Judge's level. In the month of April, he slashed .398/.492/.612 with five home runs and 18 RBI. He's up to nine home runs with a 1.235 OPS on the season. Patently absurd.
He also has the best fWAR in MLB over the last month (2.2), and while Judge did play four more games than PCA this month, it's impossible to deny his status as baseball's brightest star right now. We will get a classic Shohei Ohtani miracle stretch at some point this season. Corbin Carroll, Bobby Witt Jr. and others will mount their MVP campaigns. But right now, there's no mistaking who the best player in baseball is. It's Aaron Judge.
For Crow-Armstrong and the Cubs, there's still plenty to celebrate. He is on an MVP track in the National League, and so is Tucker. After years of stagnating behind an impotent offense, the Cubs are collectively hitting as well as anybody. Chicago has rotation questions in need of answering, but there isn't a team on their level in the NL Central, with all due respect to the upstart Reds.
Craig Counsell has a bonafide contender on his hands, and Crow-Armstrong is a huge reason why. Even if he's not Judge, that the margin is so thin is a huge credit to PCA's singular all-around impact.