Pete Crow-Armstrong

Peter Henry Crow-Armstrong
(PCA)

Bats Left, Throws Left
Height 6' 0", Weight 184 lb.
High School Harvard-Westlake High School
Debut September 11, 2023

Born March 25, 2002 in Sherman Oaks, CA USA

Biographical Information[edit]

OF Pete Crow-Armstrong was the 19th player selected in the 2020 amateur draft, by the New York Mets out of Harvard-Westlake High School in Los Angeles, CA. He signed quickly, agreeing to a signing bonus of $3.359 million. He passed up an opportunity to attend Vanderbilt University in order to sign. He was considered the top defensive outfielder in that year's draft and a potential Gold Glove winner. Playing for the USA junior national team, he was one of three All-Star outfielders at the 2019 U-18 Baseball World Cup (alongside Darryl Collins and Robert Hassell), played in Busan, South Korea. The US won Silver.

He only played briefly in the Mets system, as the minor leagues were shut down by the Coronavirus pandemic in 2020, and he was limited to just 6 games with the St. Lucie Mets of the Low-A Southeast in 2021. He did hit .417 during that brief stint, before he tore the labrum on his non-throwing shoulder, ending his season prematurely. He was on the injured list when on July 30th he was traded to the Chicago Cubs in return for SS Javier Baez, P Trevor Williams and cash. He made his debut in the Cubs' system in 2022, first with the Myrtle Beach Pelicans of the Carolina League. He hit .354 in 38 games to earn a promotion to the South Bend Cubs of the Midwest League on May 31st. He was then named to play for the National League team in the 2022 Futures Game; one of his teammates was 2019 USA teammate Hassell. He then hit .287 in 63 games for the South Bend Cubs of the Midwest League to finish the season at .312/.376/.520 in 101 games, with 20 doubles, 10 triples and 16 homers. He scored 89 runs and drove in 61, and also picked up a minor league Gold Glove Award for his fielding work in center field.

He took part in the Cubs major league spring training in 2023 as a non-roster invitee. He was named to play in the 2023 Futures Game as well, having spent the season with the AA Tennessee Smokies and AAA Iowa Cubs. Between the two teams, he hit .283/.365/.511 in 107 games, with 27 doubles, 20 homers and 82 RBIs. On September 11th, he was called up to Chicago with the Cubs in the race for a postseason slot. He made his big league debut that day, coming in as a pinch-runner for Mike Tauchman in the 7th inning of a 5-4 win over the Colorado Rockies at Coors Field, then staying in the game to play centerfield. He started the next day's game and put on a defensive clinic in centerfield, making a couple of impressive catches, although he was unable to notch his first hit, going 0 for 4 in a 6-4 loss. Overall, he went 0 for 14 in 13 games, with 3 runs scored, 1 RBI, 2 stolen bases and as many times caught stealing.

He began the 2024 season in Iowa, hitting .203 in 19 games before getting called back to Chicago on April 24th when Cody Bellinger went on the injured list with cracked ribs. He finally recorded his first big league hit on April 25th with a 6th-inning two-run homer off Bryan Abreu of the Houston Astros that was key to a 3-1 Cubs win. On August 23rd, he raced around the bases in just 14.08 seconds in hitting an inside-the-park homer against the Miami Marlins; it was the fastest such time in the majors since 2017, when Byron Buxton had circled the bases faster. By then, he had managed to establish himself as the Cubs' starting centerfielder, but largely thanks to his defensive play, as he was batting just .208. His elite speed also reflected itself in the stolen base department, as he had been successful on 23 of his first 24 attempts. He finished the season at .237 in 123 games, with 46 runs, 10 homers and 47 RBIs. He was also successful on 27 of 30 stolen bases attempts. While his OPS+ was just 88, a study based on advanced metrics provided by Statcast pointed out that among all players that season, he was the one who contributed the most value through his defensive play and baserunning, two aspects of play not measured by OPS statistics.

He wore #52 during his first two major league seasons, and had grown attached to it, but Cubs GM Jed Hoyer felt that it was a "lineman's number" and unfit for a budding star. Hoyer then made a bet with Pete, that if he could make a pre-determined shot during a pick-up basketball game in spring training also involving Cubs players Dansby Swanson and Nicky Lopez, he would have to change to a "fast guy" number. Crow-Armstrong agreed, although he said later, "I should have pushed him back another 12 feet" as Hoyer sank the basket, leading to Pete's number being changed to 4 for the 2025 season. He was the Cubs starting centerfielder when they opened their season with a two-game series against the Los Angeles Dodgers at the Tokyo Dome on March 17-18. He went 0 for 7 in the two games. On April 13th, he had the best game of his young career against these same Dodgers, although this time it was at Dodger Stadium and with his parents present. In the game, he homered twice and tripled to lead Chicago to a 4-2 win, consolidating their presence in first place in the NL Central at that early date of the season. That game turned out to be the start of a great hot streak, as he followed it immediately with a three-hit game, and went 17 for 36 (.472) over a nine-game streak starting with the two-homer one. That sequence included five doubles, five homers and 12 RBIs. On May 23rd, he had a six-RBI game, a personal best, in a 13-6 win over the Cincinnati Reds. His great start resulted in his being voted a starting outfielder for the National League in the 2025 All-Star Game. While he slowed down in the second half, on September 26th, he hit his 30th homer, which also allowed him to join the 30-30 club. There were already a record five players who had managed to top both 30 steals and 30 homers that year, and PCA took the record even further as he became the sixth. He was just the second Cubs player to achieve the relatively rare double, after Sammy Sosa, who had done so twice. His final numbers for the season were a .247 average in 157 games, 91 runs, 31 homers, 95 RBIs and 35 stolen bases. His OPS+ was 118 and he won a Gold Glove in centerfield and finished 9th in the voting for the 2025 National League Most Valuable Player Award. In the postseason, he went 5 for 27 (.185) in the two series the Cubs played (they were defeated by the Milwaukee Brewers in the Division Series, with no extra-base hits or runs scored and 3 RBIs.

He was named to Team USA for the 2026 World Baseball Classic. He had a good tournament while sharing center field duties with Byron Buxton, going 5 for 19 with a double and a pair of homers, scoring 4 runs and driving in 6 as the U.S. made it to the finals. On March 24, 2026, the Cubs announced that he agreed to a six-year, $115 million extension to stay with the team until 2032. On June 15th, he hit for the cycle for the first time in a 5-4 win over the Colorado Rockies, doing it in reverse order by getting a lead-off homer off Michael Lorenzen in the bottom of the 1st, then getting a triple in the 3rd, a double in the 5th and a single in the 7th, after which he was picked off first base. At that point, he was the only thing going well for the Cubs, who were trailing 4-2 in the middle of the 8th, when he added a sacrifice fly to his night's work to pull the team within one. His teammates finally picked him up in the bottom of the 9th, scoring two runs to walk off with the win. It was the first cycle in the majors that season, and just the 14th in franchise history, but the most recent one had been very recent, as C Carson Kelly had pulled off the feat the previous season. The cycle was part of an insanely hot stretch for him from June 13-23 during which he hit six homers in eight games while going 17-for-32 (.531) with 8 runs and 11 RBIs. He was named the National League Player of the Month for June when he batted .381 with 11 homers and an OPS of 1.249, and was announced as a reserve for the NL at the 2026 All-Star Game. A two-homer night on July 8th made him a 20/20 player for the second straight year, although he was looking for much more in the remaining months of the season. He was just the third player in Cubs history to boast back-to-back such seasons after Sammy Sosa and Ryne Sandberg, and was the fastest to reach the mark in one season, beating his own record set the previous year.

Both of his parents are accomplished actors including his mother Ashley Crow, who had a role as the mother of the main protagonist in the 1994 baseball film Little Big League.

Notable Achievements[edit]

2-time NL All-Star (2025 & 2026)
NL Gold Glove Winner (2025/CF)
20-Home Run Seasons: 1 (2025)
30-Home Run Seasons: 1 (2025)

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Pete Crow-Armstrong

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