What Do We Really Want from Cubs Rookie Pete Crow-Armstrong?

I have a finite number of approaches to writing. Generally, I’m heading down one of three routes: push an agenda in favor of or against a narrative; draw attention to a particular player; or explore the space of my own brain in pursuit of making something abstract more concrete. This is the latter. My brain doesn’t tend to handle abstract well, and I can't seem to get a concrete sense of the expectations for Pete Crow-Armstrong.

I’m not sure what the Chicago Cubs fan collective wants from Crow-Armstrong. Over the past handful of months, I’ve read plenty of columns and thinkpieces from various sources, expressing something about what they want to see from the defensive wizard. Whether it’s taking umbrage with his bunting habits or examining every single incremental offensive improvement, I’m struggling to grasp exactly what we want to see. It’s somehow become more abstract than “get better on offense.” 

Er. Well. Has it, though? 

Crow-Armstrong’s 2024 output is…quite bad. His slash includes a mere .210 average & paltry .254 on-base percentage while running at a wRC+ of 67. He’s cut the strikeout rate from even his minor league time, down to 21.9%, and is supplying at least occasional power (.141 ISO). But when it comes down to it, you’d like to see the guy with 100th-percentile sprint speed on base just a little bit more. We’d likely see more than his 23 steals to date. 

August, however, has seen a shift in offensive maturity. Through 57 plate appearances this month, he’s hitting .269 and reaching base at a .309 clip. He’s also slugging .500 and cut the strikeout rate all the way down to 8.8%. The walk rate, at 5.3%, exceeds his season mark. It all culminates in a wRC+ around 120 for the month.

It seems to represent a corner being turned. Sustainability is the next step. I assume the collective will agree on both counts. We could haggle over which components are sustainable. Maybe a little less power? For sure, a little more whiff is coming. In any case, the upside with the stick is being realized in a way that it previously wasn’t. But regardless of what the actual narrative is surrounding any given day’s iteration of Crow-Armstrong, I’m still left wondering what exactly we want to see before 2024 runs out--assuming that, you know, the last 50-ish plate appearances are not it.

I think that the actual reasoning behind such varied perspectives on what Crow-Armstrong is and is not doing is a much grander and, dare I say, more abstract idea than the performance of the player himself. The reality of our perception of Crow-Armstrong’s development – in my extremely humble opinion – runs deeper than the actual trajectory of his development. What I think we’re looking for from Crow-Armstrong is what my own brain craves: clarity.

Around the game, we see young players – especially on the outfield grass – immediately make an impact. Baseball is in a terrific place, with myriad rising stars contributing to their teams in meaningful ways. Crow-Armstrong, on the other hand, has been more of a project, at least on the offensive side. I think the inherent quality of human impatience is why we’ve seen such a range of thoughts around him. We not only want to know what he’ll develop into as a hitter, but we want to know now.

The Cubs have enough players with upside. We’ve seen them fail to realize it all over the major-league roster this year. We’ve also seen them start to scratch it in the upper levels of the system. It’s all tantalizing, for better and worse. But it’s hard to stomach so much abstraction, whether in my own brain or the rational reader’s.

That’s the conclusion with which I’m running. I don’t think that Crow-Armstrong has reached the point of being a polarizing player. Very few are questioning the upside itself; those who are appear to be outliers. But the remainder of the collective appears to be looking at different things. The improvement. The individual plate appearances. The bunting. It’s created a scattered idea of the player. Ultimately, I think within all of this, we’re just looking for the same thing: to know. Perhaps we will soon.