MVPete Crow-Armstrong Strengthens Case as MLB’s Best Player

Even if Shohei Ohtani wasn’t being indefinitely shut down from pitching due to lingering left knee inflammation, Pete Crow-Armstrong would have a strong case as the most valuable player in the National League. In all of Major League Baseball, for that matter, but they don’t award an overall MVP. Ohtani’s status as a two-way player who is elite as both a pitcher and a DH makes him an MVP frontrunner every season, and for good reason. His ability to impact his team’s performance is unmatched.

Then again, PCA has a similar ability as arguably the best hitter and defender in the game right now. He leads all MLB players with 6.2 bWAR and 6.6 fWAR — Ohtani is second with 5.7 bWAR and 6.0 fWAR — and the gap between him and the next-highest position player is more than a full win. Baseball Reference prefers Miami’s Otto López, while FanGraphs has Houston’s Yordan Álvarez at No. 2 in the rankings. Both are at 5.1 WAR, which is at least 18% behind PCA.

For context, the gap between Lopez and Junior Caminero at No. 10 on B-ref is only one game. Alvarez is 1.5 games ahead of 10th-place Luis Arráez according to FanGraphs. I find it fascinating that, despite the differences in their calculations, the disparity between Crow-Armstrong and the rest of the league is very similar on both outlets. And while the BBWAA members don’t vote based on WAR alone, the fact that PCA is so much better by nearly every measure means that he stands to further distance himself from the pack the longer Ohtani remains a one-way player who doesn’t man a position.

The brash center fielder drew a walk in addition to hitting a double and a game-tying homer on Friday night, raising his walk rate to 11.8% and giving him 53 free passes in 450 plate appearances. That’s the exact same number of walks he’d drawn in 1,076 plate appearances over the previous two-plus seasons of his career, and it’s the single biggest reason for his massive step forward. He no longer needs to hit to be dangerous, though it helps that his .285 batting average is almost 40 points higher than last season.

But that’s only part of a .385 on-base percentage that is exactly 100 points higher than his career mark heading into the season. For all the attention being paid to his 5-Star Catches, many of which simply can’t be made by other mortals, there’s still not enough talk about what he’s done at the plate. The adjustments he’s made at the highest level of the sport aren’t normal, and it’s the kind of thing even those who’ve been around the game for decades can’t fully grasp.

“The rate at which it’s improved and how fast it’s improved,” Craig Counsell said recently, “I don’t have any comparisons to it. I don’t have a great explanation for it. I think it’s just a great athlete coming into his own as a great player.”

Counsell stopped short of throwing shade at Ohtani — and maybe Jacob Misiorowski — when he called PCA the best position player on the planet, but we’re starting to run out of superlatives. The biggest threat to the Cubs’ undisputed A1 superstar might be The Miz making like Rick Ankiel and figuring out how to become an outfielder in short order. I almost feel bad for even putting that thought out into the world, because we all know how the Brewers can spin straw into gold.

Regardless of whether and by how big a margin PCA wins the NL MVP this season, he’s only just getting started on what looks like an incredible career. Consider that he won’t turn 25 until the scheduled Opening Day of the 2027 season, which will put him right at the start of the normal five-year window for a baseball player’s athletic peak. It’s pretty wild to think that he could keep getting better.