SAN DIEGO -- Fans are plenty familiar with the version of Pete Crow-Armstrong who took a seat in front of a microphone and the National League Wild Card backdrop on Monday at Petco Park. The Cubs star just authored one of the great individual seasons in baseball history and fielded questions as the presumptive NL MVP.
And the statistics compiled by Crow-Armstrong this season are overwhelming to the point that it might be hard to remember the version of the center fielder who walked into the same ballpark back in April. He was searching for his swing. He had not hit a home run in weeks.
“It could’ve been easy to let the year get away from me,” Crow-Armstrong said.
On the eve of Game 1 of the NL Wild Card Series, Crow-Armstrong has turned into baseball’s best all-round position player with his blend of elite defense, speed and power. The center fielder became only the seventh player in MLB history to post at least 40 homers and 40 steals in one campaign, and he thrived as Chicago’s leadoff-hitting catalyst.
Flash back to April 28 and you would have seen Crow-Armstrong popping pregame pitches into the top of the cage on Petco Park’s field, and throwing his gloves into a trash can in frustration as he retreated into the tunnel. It would have been hard to predict the type of historic turnaround that was about to unfold and generate “M-V-P” chants in stadiums around the country.
“It’s been great to see the season that he’s had,” Padres star Manny Machado said. “Forty-forty. Putting that team on his back. [You could] see it coming the last couple years, a little glimpse here and there of what he can do. Obviously, he took his game to the next level.”
There were multiple turning points throughout Crow-Armstrong’s year. That series in San Diego back in late April was one of the first dominos for having everything fall into place.
Crow-Armstrong came into that series batting just .238 with a .613 OPS and only one homer in the season’s first 28 games. His three-run shot off lefty Wandy Peralta on April 28 snapped a drought of 77 plate appearances without a homer. One game later, Crow-Armstrong went deep again, and later added a critical, run-scoring groundout off a 98.3 mph fastball from lefty Adrian Morejon.
While Crow-Armstrong’s overall numbers were lagging at that point in time, he was producing against lefties (.759 OPS through April 29). As the year went on, Crow-Armstrong moved closer to the plate against lefties -- a change that helped with his pitch recognition and plate discipline. It felt like Phase One for everything that followed.
“The ability to fight off pitches, take pitches, was so impressive,” Cubs president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer said. “I think that is ultimately what springboarded his season. Last year, it felt like there were real questions, when he was doing it, about sustainability. … But then this year, it felt very different. Once he started taking pitches and walking, doing those things, forcing the pitcher into the strike zone, it was like, ‘This is who he is right now.’”
Crow-Armstrong’s swing mechanics continued to evolve -- he lowered his hands in his setup, moved his feet closer together and began crunching into an athletic posture with his leg kick. The center fielder also had a conversation with Alex Bregman about hunting a particular pitch in each at-bat, turning it into a kind of game within the game.
Combine those elements with more experience in the league and with facing certain pitchers, and Crow-Armstrong was about to take flight.
From April 28 through the end of the season, Crow-Armstrong turned in a 1.009 OPS. On the season, he led qualified MLB hitters in the largest increase in walk rate (+6.9%) and biggest decrease in swing rate (-10.0%). Crow-Armstrong posted more fWAR from June 16 to the end of the year (7.1) than any other MLB player had for the entire season (Bobby Witt Jr. ended in second at 7.0 fWAR).
In 162 games, Crow-Armstrong finished batting .280/.372/.570, tied for the MLB lead in homers (45), and ended with 31 doubles, 41 steals, 107 RBIs, 119 runs scored and 10.6 fWAR.
“At times, he was a bad hitter. Let’s be honest. He’d tell you that,” Cubs manager Craig Counsell said. “That’s what makes it a little bit remarkable. … It’s taught me, like, don’t be surprised what can happen for guys like this. They almost need that challenge or want that challenge: ‘Tell me, as this gifted person, I can’t do something.’
“And I think Pete’s kind of shown us all what someone like that is capable of doing.”
The way Crow-Armstrong views it, the next challenge is which version of himself shows up at Petco Park for these next few games.
“I’m proud of the year that I had in the regular season,” he said. “And I’m proud that I get to just help us get to a position like this and be able to have new life in October.”