Who Is Pete Crow-Armstrong as a Hitter?

Any conversation about Pete Crow-Armstrong has to begin with the glove.

His defense is not merely excellent. It is extraordinary even by the standards of the Statcast era.

Crow-Armstrong set a Statcast-era record with 19 five-star catches in 2025, routinely converting plays that are almost never turned into outs. His elite speed, instincts and jumps have made him the most dynamic defensive outfielder in baseball.

That skill alone gives him an unusually high floor. Even before accounting for his value on the bases or the possibility of further offensive growth, Crow-Armstrong is a valuable player and a sensible long-term investment for the Chicago Cubs.

The more complicated question is what he will become at the plate.

Crow-Armstrong emerged as one of the breakout stars of the 2025 season, finishing with 31 home runs and 35 stolen bases while playing historically valuable defense in center field. At his best, he looked like one of the most electric players in baseball and a legitimate MVP candidate. At his worst, the flaws in his aggressive approach became difficult to ignore.

Both versions of the player are real.

Crow-Armstrong’s bat offers a tantalizing combination of physical tools, meaningful risk and considerable room for growth. Nearly one year removed from the best stretch of his young career, it is worth asking a deceptively complicated question: Who is Pete Crow-Armstrong as a hitter?

Stats were taken prior to play on June 4.

The Good

Crow-Armstrong’s offensive profile showcases his tantalizing physical tools and an optimized swing path. He has added nearly two full ticks of bat speed this season, increasing his average from 72.7 mph to 74.6 mph, while maintaining the steep path that allows him to lift the ball to the pull side.

The results are showing up in his batted-ball profile.

Crow-Armstrong ranks in the 91st percentile in hard-hit rate and the 87th percentile in average exit velocity. He is hitting the ball harder than ever while retaining the core of the swing path that made him a 30-30 player in 2025. His ground-ball rate remains below 40%, and he is pulling the ball in the air at a 23% clip.

His elite defense and electric speed accelerated his path to the big leagues, making it easy to forget that he is still only 24 years old. At present, Crow-Armstrong is a wiry athlete in the box with enough twitch to generate well-above-average pop. He set a new career-high exit velocity at 114.6 mph on his 444-foot home run in St. Louis on May 30.

With his bat speed and batted-ball angles, he is already a credible 20-to-25-homer threat. There is room for more as he continues to mature physically, as he demonstrated by clearing the 30-homer threshold last season.

His offensive profile is bolstered further by 95th-percentile sprint speed. Crow-Armstrong can turn singles into doubles and make first-to-third advances seem routine. It is not simply that his speed adds value on the bases. It changes the pressure he places on opposing defenses whenever he puts the ball in play.

The good is really good with PCA, as he demonstrated during the first half of 2025.

The remaining question is how frequently the rest of his offensive profile will allow those tools to shine.

The Bad

As enticing as his physical tools are, Crow-Armstrong can be equally frustrating offensively.

He has been an ultra-aggressive hitter throughout his professional career. Outside of brief stretches in the lower minors, he has rarely displayed a patient approach. That tendency followed him to the majors, where he walked in only 4.5% of his plate appearances in 2025.

For stretches, Crow-Armstrong has been athletic and talented enough to overcome it. His bat speed, barrel accuracy and ability to elevate the ball to the pull side allow him to punish mistakes. He can also do damage on pitches that other hitters would be better served taking.

But an expansive approach creates a narrow margin for error, and the league found ways to expose it during the second half of 2025.

Crow-Armstrong finished the season with a 41.7% chase rate, placing him in the second percentile among MLB hitters. He also struggled against the pitches opponents were best positioned to use against him most frequently.

Four-seam fastballs and sliders were the two pitches he saw most often in 2025, accounting for 31.9% and 13.6% of his pitches faced, respectively. He produced a -4 run value against four-seamers and a -2 run value against sliders. Splitters gave him even more trouble: he posted a -4 run value against the pitch despite seeing it only 4% of the time.

The contrast with his performance against curveballs is notable.

Crow-Armstrong crushed the pitch in 2025, posting a +9 run value with a .736 slugging percentage. Curveballs accounted for 10.9% of the pitches he saw last season, but that figure has fallen to 8.6% in 2026.

Some of that decline may be a product of the pitchers he has faced through the first two months of the season. It is also a reminder of the challenge that awaits any young hitter once the league identifies the pitches he handles best and begins searching for alternatives.

The result was one of the more dramatic in-season collapses of the 2025 season.

Crow-Armstrong entered the All-Star break with an .847 OPS, 25 home runs and legitimate MVP buzz. He posted a .634 OPS in the second half, including a .452 OPS during a brutal August in which he hit .160/.216/.230.

His underlying process did not deteriorate in every respect. Crow-Armstrong actually chased less frequently as the season progressed, and he continued to lift the ball to his pull side. But his aggressive approach left him with few alternative paths to production once the home runs stopped coming. His homer-per-fly-ball rate fell from 17.6% in the first half to 7.8% in the second, and the rest of his offensive profile could not absorb the decline.

At times, his plate appearances looked like he was trying to hit a five-run homer. It was the profile of a young hitter pressing to fight his way out of a slump.

Because his defense is so valuable, removing him from the lineup was never a realistic solution. He had to search for answers while playing every day.

The Uncertain