Pete Crow-Armstrong Adjusting to Pitchers' Approaches When He Falls Behind

[RandallPnkFloyd]

Image courtesy of © David Banks-Imagn Images

If you can count on Pete Crow-Armstrong to do one thing, it's this: he's going to swing. It was the prevailing concern coming into his first full season at the major-league level. Could he tamp down the aggressiveness, in order to realize his offensive upside? And if he couldn't, how long could he compensate with the other areas of his game before it started to become problematic? Those concerns were amplified when it was something he continued to demonstrate early on.

Even now, in what is increasingly looking like a genuine breakout campaign, the trend continues. Only Boston's Ceddanne Rafaela has a higher swing rate than Crow-Armstrong's 61.3%. It's not like he's zeroed in on the strike zone, either. In fact, his 43.8% chase rate is up from last year's mark. The overall swing and whiff rates remain virtually identical to last year. So, even if you were hoping for modest growth in the approach, the numbers aren't indicating that it's on its way to fruition. 

But what if it also is? Sure, Crow-Armstrong is still hacking in a way you'd prefer to see toned down at least a marginal amount. There's something to be said for contact, however, and he's finding ways to get the bat on the baseball. The contact rate is up about one percentage point, overall, but is especially up inside the zone; he's gone from a 73.2% zone contact rate in 2024 to an 81.6% rate in 2025. 

That's an encouraging concept on its own, but is especially so given that he's become slightly more aggressive depending on the situation. When he's behind in the count, Crow-Armstrong is more aware that soft stuff is coming—and doing a better job of laying lumber on it.

When a pitcher is ahead, the chance of a breaking or offspeed pitch goes up. Against an aggressive swinger like Crow-Armstrong, it represents a tremendous advantage. But it looks, so far, like he's keen on taking that advantage away. The whiff against fastballs has remained constant, but he's managed to cut each of the breaking & offspeed whiff rates by about 13 percentage points. That's massive.

It's not flawless, of course. The above is indicative of overall whiff, but he's also dropped the chase and whiff rate on those two pitch types. So far, however, he's just switched what he's sitting on. In pitcher's counts, he's looking for the soft stuff and trying to catch up to the fastball. That's led to more chase above the zone and less contact against the heat. But objective no. 1 in working your way from behind in a count is getting the offspeed and breaking pitches out of the way. Fight them off, and live to see another pitch. 

It's fairly conventional baseball wisdom, but Crow-Armstrong has embraced and weaponized it as he's worked to build up his contact ability in the face of still-questionable plate discipline. It's working, and serves as yet another thing that makes this man one of the most dangerous hitters on the planet when he's going well.

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