The Best Version of Pete Crow-Armstrong We've Ever Seen is Producing a Comp for Him You Won't Believe

[Matthew Trueblood]

Image courtesy of © Jeff Le-Imagn Images

 

This site is, I hope, the epicenter of Pete Crow-Armstrong swing talk. If it isn't, it ought to be, and we're gonna work even harder to make it so. Crow-Armstrong is the most interesting thing happening in Chicago baseball, in ways both good and bad, and that doesn't just include his sensational but sometimes erratic fielding or his massive star power and the difficulty he's had in managing the attention and expectations. It also includes his swing.

We're going to take more about that swing today, but rather than get all wordy, I mostly want to talk this through visually. So, first, check out his rolling expected weighted on-base average (xwOBA) over 100-plate appearance samples, throughout his career.

I would guess it doesn't feel quite this way—not yet—but Crow-Armstrong has gone to a new level since the middle of May. I don't mean 'new' relative to his very slow start or his tough finish to last season, either. I mean he's never produced more expected value at the plate than he's currently yielding, even at the peak of his blazing hot streak in the first half of last year.

The first thing you need to know about his ascent toward what will (if this continues; more later on that) be full-shine superstardom is that he started swinging considerably less as May went on. We all knew that swinging less would be key to him getting more good pitches to hit, and thus to him becoming his best self. He finally found some ways to start doing it.

That's not the only important thing that has changed recently, though. Crow-Armstrong started making changes to his approach, and the results began to improve—but he was still exploitable. He was still off-balance a bit too often, mostly because his swing is a complicated thing. So, he (slightly) simplified it.

I'm going to show you four pictures, three times. These are four moments in the progress of a pitch to Crow-Armstrong, first from May 18; then from May 23; and then from Saturday. The four moments are labeled, but to clarify those labels, they are:

1. Setup: Crow-Armstrong's stance in the box, as the pitcher prepares to begin their delivery;
2. High Point: The moment at which, after executing his toe tap and lifting his foot a second time, Crow-Armstrong's front leg reaches the highest point of his leg kick, before the foot starts to head downward;
3. Pitch Release: Just what it sounds like; and
4. Foot Down: The moment when Crow-Armstrong's front foot lands, and his swing can begin in earnest.

Ok, here goes. May 18, against the Brewers' Shane Drohan:

May 23, against the Astros, after a day off between the two home series of that week:

And Saturday in St. Louis, the pitch that became the hardest-hit ball of Crow-Armstrong's career and a 444-foot homer:

In the setup, note how he gets more upright and less spread-out in the box. Note, too, the more relaxed placement of his bat on his shoulder, and the angle of it going from flat over his back shoulder to more like 40°. At the high point of his leg kick, notice how he's crunching more into a stable but explosive position with his core. At the release of the pitch, notice how he's more balanced and how his front foot is closer to landing. And when that foot does land, look at how much more work he's already doing with his upper half, and how much more open his front hip is, without the front shoulder following it too closely.

These changes all emanate from that change in setup, which is visible in the data, too. Here are Crow-Armstrong's average stance and stride positions for this year, broken down into pre- and post-May 21. 

He's moved closer to the plate. His feet start closer together, as a result of standing taller. He's striding a bit farther, but that stride is more of a controlled, violent forward flash of energy, and less of a lurch, because he started more upright and isn't leaking forward until he gets past that high point, now.

The changes in stance and mechanics have produced a different set of swing data for Crow-Armstrong over the last two weeks or so:

• Through May 20: 74.3 MPH bat speed, 35° tilt, 14° attack angle, 5° pull attack direction, intercept point 37.1 inches in front of his center of mass
• Since May 22: 75.4 MPH, 34° tilt, 18° attack angle, 9° pull attack direction, intercept point 39.4 inches in front of his center of mass

Already, the bat speed Crow-Armstrong had added since last year had given him a boost in power upside, if he could consistently access that pop. Now, he's positively thrumming with danger in the box. In fact, did that setup from the St. Louis pitch remind you of someone? Perhaps someone else who famously hits lasers to right field, in much the same way—albeit with a much more patient baseline approach?

Here's the Crow-Armstrong homer:

And here's a guy who could be a fascinating new comp for him:

Make no mistake about it: If Crow-Armstrong keeps swinging like this, he's going to strike out more than he has in the past. He might continue to improve his plate discipline, but he'll almost certainly never walk as much as Kyle Schwarber. He doesn't swing quite as hard (or get off that 'A' swing quite as consistently) as Schwarber does, either. At least, that's been true so far. But the version of Crow-Armstrong who hit the homer above, and who also hit a similar one the previous weekend against the Astros, is an honest-to-God threat to hit 40 homers a year.

Coming into this season, we talked a lot about the way Crow-Armstrong had engineered his swing to get high-level power outcomes out of merely average-plus bat speed. Suddenly, the latter no longer applies. This version of Crow-Armstrong—the specific version we've seen the last two weeks, who will still have to prove he can avoid being perpetually early and who has to manage to stay healthy while creating this much torque, so you never know how long we'll have him—swings as fast as Austin Riley and Matt Wallner, but with both a better plan to get the head out and catch the barrel with an elevated pitch to the pull field, and more sheer bat control.

Of Crow-Armstrong's last 50 batted balls, 23 have been in the launch angle sweet spot, according to Statcast. The lack of that concentration of batted balls in the sweet spot was precisely the problem we talked about him needing to solve in the middle of last month, and he seems to have solved it just days later. 

This will be terrifically hard to sustain. Crow-Armstrong is working with a contact point way out in front of his frame, and though the numbers exaggerate that circumstance slightly because of the changed pattern of his stride and balance of his body, it still spells some whiffs. Pitchers will start forcing him to prove he can stay back on non-fastballs, and his plate discipline—even more vulnerable to the entropy of the game than most players'—will have to hold. At this moment, though, Crow-Armstrong is the best he's ever been at bat, and one of the dozen best hitters in baseball. That's the new upside he's established, and when you pair that run production in the box with his speed and defense, you get the MVP candidate the Cubs so delighted in having for the first half of last year—only more so.

 

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