The Cubs gave Pete Crow-Armstrong $115 million and he nonetheless cannot purchase his approach out of the worst droop in baseball.
Chicago’s heart fielder was an MVP candidate throughout the first half of the 2025 season. The 24-year-old has an enormous left-handed swing and performs elite protection, and he seemed like Chicago’s subsequent two-way star. By the finish, he’d been taking part in like the worst hitter in baseball for some time, and months later, he is nonetheless a large number at the plate.
In 67 video games since Aug. 2 of final season, Crow-Armstrong is slashing .195/.243/.290. The underlying metrics are even uglier.
Over that span, he’s posted a wRC+ of 47, the worst mark in baseball amongst the 149 hitters who qualify. Rockies outfielder Jordan Beck is subsequent at 55. His .270 xwOBA ranks 145th, whereas his precise wOBA (.234) can be useless final. His .095 remoted energy, a measure of uncooked energy output, ranks one hundred and thirty fifth in MLB, whereas his .246 BABIP is a hundred and thirtieth.
Crow-Armstrong’s strategy appears to be at the coronary heart of his decline. His 4.4% stroll fee ranks a hundred and fortieth, nicely beneath the common of roughly 9%. And he’s been value -15.9 runs above common in accordance with Fangraphs, by far the worst mark in baseball. That’s a outstanding reversal of fortune after he burst onto the scene final 12 months.
From Opening Day via Aug. 1, 2025, Crow-Armstrong performed in 107 video games and hit .273/309/.560 with 27 residence runs, 31 doubles, 4 triples, 78 RBIs and 29 stolen bases. His 137 wRC+ and 5.4 fWAR had been amongst the finest in baseball, all whereas taking part in elite protection in heart subject.
Then all the things fell aside.
In the ultimate 50 video games of the season, he slashed .185/.236/.289, with 4 residence runs, six doubles, 17 RBIs, 51 strikeouts and 9 walks. His wRC+ was 44, the worst in baseball.
The collapse did not occur immediately and reveals no indicators of stopping, aside from his three hits over the final two days. A mechanical challenge in his swing cannot totally clarify it as a result of the numbers level to one thing deeper.
Crow-Armstrong has all the time been a free swinger, however that tendency has now reached an excessive stage. In 2025, he chased 41.4% of pitches outdoors the strike zone. This season, that quantity has jumped to 49.2%, placing him in the first percentile of chase fee league-wide. The league common is usually round 30%, a niche that helps clarify his struggles. And that is solely a part of it.
Crow-Armstrong swung at 80.4% of pitches he noticed in the strike zone in 2025. This season, that has dropped to 70.9%. He is chasing extra pitches off the plate whereas being much less aggressive on the ones he needs to be attacking. His strikeout fee has risen from 23.1% in his first 107 video games of 2025 to 27.0% since then, and is as much as 30.1% this season.
Crow-Armstrong’s struggles in opposition to breaking pitches assist clarify the collapse. In 2025, he slugged .716 on curveballs with a 21.5% whiff fee. This season, he’s slugging .286 in opposition to them, and his whiff fee has ballooned to 38.5%. He’s additionally whiffing extra in opposition to sliders, at 42.9% this 12 months versus 34.4% in 2025. Until he turns issues round in opposition to breaking pitches, he can anticipate to see a heavy eating regimen of them.
The large query is whether or not the Cubs paid for a model of Crow-Armstrong that by no means actually existed. His rookie numbers from 2024 look nothing like the MVP candidate from early 2025. That 12 months, he slashed .237/.286/.384 and a wRC+ of 86. His xwOBA (.286), wOBA (.289), and ISO (.148) from that season align rather more intently with what he’s doing now than the heights he reached final spring and summer time. The first half of 2025 might have been the anomaly. This is likely to be who he’s.
Crow-Armstrong is barely 24, and gamers have definitely recovered from deeper holes than this. If he cleans up his strategy, that is theoretically fixable. But there’s an opportunity Chicago is paying for a participant whose finest two-thirds of a season had been a mirage.
The Cubs gave Crow-Armstrong $115 million and a robust vote of confidence. Right now, neither is paying off.
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