CHICAGO — Pete Crow-Armstrong needed to experience failure. Success had come so fast for the young center fielder, and the Chicago Cubs did not tamp down the hype. At a certain point, only the relentlessness of Major League Baseball could truly challenge him, forcing him to grow and develop.
There’s a sense of accountability that comes from working with millionaires who have already been All-Stars. There’s a sense of obligation while performing in front of 40,000 fans. Crow-Armstrong, still only 22 years old, recognized that he needed to find a structured routine and become a better teammate than he was in the minors.
“I wasn’t near where I am today,” Crow-Armstrong said. “The one thing that I appreciate from everyone that I’ve been around in this organization is that each person has taken the time to kind of understand my intentions.”
The Cubs need more breakthroughs like the one they just witnessed with Crow-Armstrong, who has demonstrated the potential to be that 5-WAR player on a playoff team that outperforms projections and finishes with 90-plus wins. It’s obvious that the Cubs won’t carry a payroll at the level of the New York Yankees or Los Angeles Dodgers, so free agents won’t fix everything. It’s unclear when or if the Cubs will create the same pathways for other hitters who spent time at Triple-A Iowa this year, including Kevin Alcántara, Matt Shaw, Owen Caissie, Moises Ballesteros and James Triantos.
Young talent will have to be part of the solution for a team that finished with an 83-79 record in each of the last two seasons. This could take different forms, but the Cubs are expected to be active in the trade market this winter, though president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer signaled that he doesn’t plan to go all-in for one season.
Crow-Armstrong establishing himself at Wrigley Field after a rough September call-up last year is a massive development. It’s a realization of Hoyer’s sell-off at the 2021 trade deadline, when he moved Javier Báez, Anthony Rizzo and Kris Bryant for an unproven group that included Crow-Armstrong and Alcántara. It’s a measure of validation for a player development department that has undergone many changes in recent years. It’s a sign that manager Craig Counsell and his coaching staff can patiently work with rookies and make adjustments.
“Pete’s grown a lot,” Counsell said. “That’s what you expect to happen. I think he’s had, really, the season that we expected and hoped that he would have. It’s been a little drastic, right? But next year might be really consistent and you might be bored by that.”
Boring is not the word to describe Crow-Armstrong, whose fielding range, arm strength and sprint speed placed him in the 95th percentile or higher among all major-league players this season, according to Statcast. Baseball Reference rated him as a 2.4-WAR player, even though he started his season at Iowa and finished June with a .145 batting average and a .395 OPS.
From the last game before the All-Star break through the end of the season, Crow-Armstrong produced nine of his 10 home runs. He finished with six triples, 27 stolen bases and an OPS+ that was 12 points below the major-league average. He doesn’t want to be an average hitter, but that’s a great start for someone who graded out as an elite center fielder.
“The first thing for all great defenders is supreme confidence,” said Dansby Swanson, the Cubs’ Gold Glove shortstop. “You can see it in his body language. You can see it in his face. He’s supremely confident in his abilities.
“Naturally, through experience, through playing, the game does start to slow down. You start to understand what works. You start to understand what doesn’t work. You start to understand when to push the envelope, and when not to. When to take your chances, when not to, all that comes with experience.
“It’s just the confidence and clarity of: ‘Hey, man, go play center field every day. Get your at-bats, steal your bases. Just find your game up here. Whether you go 0-for-your-next-20 or 20-for-your-next-20, you’re playing, buddy. Lefty-on-lefty matchup, it doesn’t matter. Guess what? Your value’s not all wrapped up in what you do at the plate (because) there are so many ways to impact a game.’”
The Cubs will have to decide how to incorporate all these prospects into their plans, and correctly recognize which players can be trusted with those opportunities, and create the right environment for them to blossom. Crow-Armstrong was a regular for Team USA, a first-round pick out of high school and a consensus top-20 prospect heading into this season. And there were times when he looked lost.
“In Low A, I hit .350 and it was easy,” Crow-Armstrong recalled. “In High A, I faced some better arms and guys who knew how to pitch a little bit more. It was really hard. And then last year, Double A kind of felt like a breeze. And then Triple A was really hard. Obviously, this was really hard last year.
“It’s been a big fight just to get to that level playing field for yourself where you’re embracing the process and you’re embracing everything that’s f—ing really hard about this. I let people help me, eventually, and that really worked for me. I have come a long way.”
(Photo of Crow-Armstrong: Michael Reaves / Getty Images)
