This story was excerpted from Jordan Bastian’s Cubs Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.
CHICAGO -- As Pete Crow-Armstrong scanned the room during the press conference for his new extension with the Cubs on Friday, the center fielder spotted assistant general manager Jared Banner standing in the back. Banner has been connected to Crow-Armstrong since the beginning of his professional path.
“J.B., we go way back,” Crow-Armstrong said. “I don’t know if I’d be in a Cubs uniform if it wasn’t for you. I appreciate the tough love the very first day that I showed up late to Mets camp.”
Crow-Armstrong smirked and laughter broke out in the room.
“It wasn’t 10-15 minutes late,” said Banner, smiling at the memory on Sunday at Wrigley Field. “He was a couple hours late.”
During the 2020 season, Banner worked in the Mets’ player development system, and Crow-Armstrong was due to report for instructional league that fall. On the first day, players were scheduled to go through testing amid the COVID-19 pandemic protocols. Banner and his staff went over the roster to make sure everyone checked in.
The 18-year-old kid picked by the Mets 19th overall in the 2020 Draft was missing.
“There was one name left on the list: Pete Crow-Armstrong,” Banner said. “We’re looking around like, ‘Where’s Pete?’ No one could find him. We tried calling him. Eventually, it was like, ‘Let’s send somebody to the hotel. We don’t know what’s going on. There could be trouble here.’
“We sent someone over there and they’re banging on the door and finally he wakes up. He was just asleep. Remember when you were younger and you could sleep all day? Pete was in that mode.”
Banner said the “tough love” he gave Crow-Armstrong was not anything more than a quick pep talk.
“I just told him, ‘Hey, Pete, you’re a pro now. This can’t happen,’” Banner said. “It wasn’t anything crazy, but it’s a funny moment now looking back.”
Crow-Armstrong appreciated how Banner handled that moment six years ago.
“That’s where our relationship started,” he said to Banner during the press conference. “I gained a lot of respect and admiration for you that day, just because you didn’t care that I was a first-round pick and this guy that’s walking in with his hair all bleached and an earring in. With the tough love, you still encouraged me to be myself.”
As fate would have it, both Banner and Crow-Armstrong were eventually reunited with the Cubs.
At the 2021 Trade Deadline, Cubs president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer took on an aggressive rebuild, trading core players Kris Bryant, Anthony Rizzo and Javier Báez, among others. In Báez talks, Hoyer found a potential fit in the Mets, and Banner -- now in the Cubs’ front office -- advocated for Crow-Armstrong to be in the deal.
“If anyone was pounding the table to get Pete, it was Jared,” Hoyer said. “He knew the kind of person he was and the kind of talent he had.”
Maybe if it were not for COVID shortening Crow-Armstrong’s final season at Harvard-Westlake High School, he would not have fallen to the Mets in the Draft. Maybe if Crow-Armstrong had not sustained a right shoulder injury that limited him to six games in 2021, he would not have been available in a trade. Maybe if Banner does not move to Chicago, Crow-Armstrong would not be roaming center now for the North Siders.
Maybe the Cubs consider themselves fortunate, but they now have a cornerstone player and budding star locked in for years to come.
“After acquiring Pete,” Banner said, “he’s had such a growth mindset. He wanted to get better every day and he’s so hard-working. You add those things in with his talent and that’s how we ended up where we are now.”