Chicago Cubs outfielders on pace to make baseball history

PCA’s flashy run this year stands in stark contrast to Tucker’s reserved excellence, but personalities notwithstanding, they are two players cut from the same impact player cloth.

As of this writing, Tucker is hitting .284 with 12 home runs and 39 RBIs. Crow-Armstrong, meanwhile, is hitting .280 with 15 home runs and 51 RBIs. Both are also raking up stolen bases, with 16 and 19, respectively.

At this pace, both should make the 30 home runs/30 stolen bases club quite comfortably. There’s also the distinct possibility that both could make the 40/40 club, especially PCA, who’s on pace to be the first Cubs center fielder to hit 40 home runs since Hall of Famer Hack Wilson in 1930.

History In The Making?

The crazy thing about these projections is in how exceedingly rare it is for a team to have two 30/30 guys and how a team with two 40/40 guys is absolutely unheard of.

Pat Manser of Cubbies Crib recently talked about this feat and how crazy-impossible it’s been all throughout baseball history:

“Two. In approximately 2,630 MLB team seasons since 1900, that is the number of times teams have featured multiple players go 30/30 (if you’re wondering, it was the 1987 Mets with Daryl Strawberry and Howard Johnson and the 1996 Rockies with Ellis Burks and Dante Bichette). For those keeping score at home, that’s a microscopic 0.076 percent of teams in MLB history that have accomplished such a feat…

But wait, there’s more! Currently, PCA is on pace for 43 homers and 55 steals. Tucker is on a 34-homer and 45-steal pace. They are both looking like serious competitors for blowing past the 30/30 mark and into the rarefied air of 40/40 players. While a 30-homer and 30-steal season is held in high regard by prognosticators and fans, it’s happened, on average, two to three times a year for the last 100 years. 40/40 seasons? That list is far shorter: Jose Canseco, Barry Bonds, Alex Rodriguez, Alfonso Soriano, and Shohei Ohtani each accomplished it one time. It’s only been accomplished five times in MLB history, and the Cubs have two guys with legitimate shots this year!

As for teams with multiple 40/40 players in the same season? Zero.”

The Chicago Cubs Need To Step Up And Pay Up

The Cubs have something special going on this year and the nucleus of that could very well be the team’s center fielder and right fielder.

And if that “special” is to extend beyond this year, laying a foundation for franchise success for years to come, the Cubs need to open up their checkbook and cut deals proportionate to the size of their market and the revenue they generate.

They need to find a way to extend Tucker, who will be heavily courted by big-hitters like the Yankees and Dodgers if he hits free agency.

They also need to reach a deal to extend PCA and keep him from ever hitting a hungry free agent market.

All together, the two deals could cost the Cubs upwards of $700 million, total. That’s a hefty price to pay for two ballplayers, especially for the historically frugal Cubs ownership.

So, ultimately, this all boils down to how much the Cubs actually value winning and putting the best possible team on the field for years to come.

In the meantime, we can sit back and watch these star outfielders while enjoying possible history in the making.