Pete Crow-Armstrong Has Entered Rare Cubs Company and Is Now Surpassing It

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The 2025 season gave Chicago Cubs fans a glimpse of what Pete Crow-Armstrong is capable of doing. After all, the center fielder became just the second player in franchise history to post a 30-home run, 30-stolen base season, joining Sammy Sosa in an exclusive club. For a 24-year-old still scratching the surface of his potential, it felt like the beginning of something special. Fast-forward, and we now know it was.

Crow-Armstrong hasn't simply built on last year's breakout campaign; he's taken another massive leap forward and established himself as one of the best players in all of baseball. Through 116 games in 2026, the man affectionately known as "PCA" is slashing .289/.386/.550 with 26 home runs and 29 stolen bases. Those numbers alone are impressive, but they're even more remarkable when compared to where he was just one year ago.

For some perspective, his .289 batting average this season is actually higher than his entire on-base percentage from 2025. His .936 OPS is also a staggering 170 points higher than last year's mark, illustrating just how dramatically he's elevated every aspect of his offensive game. And with 26 home runs and 29 stolen bases already in the books, it seems all but inevitable that he'll become one of the few players in baseball to record back-to-back 30-30 seasons.

His offensive growth has been incredible, and the defense has remained elite. Put the two together, and it's not surprising that Crow-Armstrong finds himself right in the middle of the National League MVP conversation alongside Shohei Ohtani. Of course, Ohtani is doing things that nobody in baseball history has ever done, making him a difficult player to compete with for any award. But if not for Ohtani's unicorn-like presence, Crow-Armstrong would have an awfully strong case to be the clear-cut MVP favorite.

His defense alone is enough to separate him from almost every player in the sport. Crow-Armstrong currently grades out in the 100th percentile in Outs Above Average, making him arguably the best defensive outfielder in baseball regardless of position. Pair that with a 97th-percentile arm value and elite speed that allows him to track down balls few others can reach, and the Cubs have a center fielder who impacts the game every single inning he's on the field.

The Cubs have seen MVP-caliber seasons before over the past decade. Kris Bryant took home the National League MVP award in 2016 while leading Chicago to its first World Series title in more than a century. Two years later, Javier Báez finished as the runner-up after putting together one of the most electric seasons of his career. So, how does Crow-Armstrong's 2026 stack up against those iconic campaigns?

Turns out, pretty favorably. Let's start with Bryant. At this point in the 2016 season, Bryant owned a .282/.381/.543 slash line with a .924 OPS. He had also launched 26 home runs while driving in 65 runs and scoring 85 himself. Those are MVP numbers, and they're also incredibly similar to what Crow-Armstrong has produced this season. In fact, PCA's .936 OPS is 12 points higher than Bryant's was at the same point during his MVP campaign. He hasn't scored quite as many runs, but he's reached base at an even better clip while producing nearly identical power numbers.

Then there's the speed. Bryant was an outstanding all-around player, but stolen bases were never a huge part of his game. With Crow-Armstrong already at 29 this season, giving him another dimension that Bryant simply didn't bring to the table. To put it bluntly, Pete Crow-Armstrong has been more productive at this point in the season than a literal MVP winner. That's pretty incredible.

The comparison with Javier Báez tells a similar story. Báez did own a higher batting average and had driven in more runs at this point during his runner-up campaign in 2018. Beyond that, though, Crow-Armstrong has the edge almost across the board. PCA's OPS is 41 points higher than Báez's was through the same point in the season. While Báez added value with his legs, his 19 stolen bases don't come particularly close to Crow-Armstrong's current total.

Báez was also widely viewed as one of baseball's premier defensive shortstops during his peak years, and deservedly so. But what Crow-Armstrong is doing in center field this season exists on another level. Elite defense at shortstop is enormously valuable. Historically elite defense in center field while producing MVP-level offense? That's a different conversation entirely.

When comparing Pete Crow-Armstrong's 2026 campaign to Kris Bryant's 2016 MVP season and Javier Báez's 2018 runner-up finish, the numbers paint a remarkably clear picture. Offensively, he's right there with both of them—and in several key areas, he's actually been better. Defensively, he separates himself from both. That's an astonishing statement considering the seasons Bryant and Báez put together.

Whether Crow-Armstrong ultimately wins the National League MVP Award may come down to whether anyone can overcome the historic standard Shohei Ohtani continues to set. But award or not, that shouldn't diminish what's unfolding on the North Side. At just 24 years old, Pete Crow-Armstrong isn't simply putting together another great Cubs season. He's putting together one of the greatest individual seasons the franchise has ever seen.