NEWSLETTER
I got pretty annoyed this weekend when I saw a bit from Bob Nightengale’s latest: “MLB scouts have insisted all season that Chicago Cubs prospect Pete Crow-Armstrong may not be the impact bat that’s been hyped, and so far they’ve been proved correct. He’s hitting .200 with a .570 OPS.”
That quote is absolute nonsense for AT LEAST three reasons, all packed within one short blurb.
First, Pete Crow-Armstrong was never “hyped” as an “impact bat.” What are you even talking about? The bat was always the biggest question among his skills, and even the hoped-on upside was more “above-average” bat, rather than impact. No one anywhere was even projecting a 120 wRC+ at peak!
Second, it’s just really annoying to see his other elite skills – namely, defense and baserunning – treated as if they simply don’t matter at all. When you do those things at an impact level, you can be a very valuable player with something less than top-tier offense. Which, you know, is what thoughtful people have always said about PCA.
Third, it’s been 118 sporadic plate appearances this season at age 22. “Proved correct” that PCA will never have a good bat? Even if you qualify it as “so far,” again, what are you even talking about? It has barely been anything. So why even say it unless you’re suggesting this means his future numbers are going to be bad, too? There would be no point in making such a banal observation if there wasn’t an implicit prediction. (Also: Who is out there pushing this? Bitter Mets execs? Agents who want the Cubs deep in the outfield market this offseason?)
It’s just bizarre. And ignorant. And annoying.
None of which is to say Pete Crow-Armstrong’s offense has been good this year, or that he doesn’t have a whole lot of improving to do if he’s going to be a serviceable (much less good) offensive player in the big leagues. It is of course fair to point out that PCA has, so far, been quite bad. It isn’t just that he’s hit a miserable .206/.252/.290/54 wRC+, it’s that the under-the-hood stuff looks equally alarming.
Specifically, there are two things that stand out to me about PCA’s offensive performance so far that really, really need to improve longer-term: pitch recognition/swing decisions and contact quality.
The latter issue is pretty obvious. Since there is always going to be some swing-and-miss in PCA’s game, and probably not a lot of walks, he’s going to need to make really good contact quality to balance things out. So far, not so much: 86.7 mph average exit velo, 3.8% barrel, 26.6% hard contact rate. There’s a reason his expected wOBA (.240) more or less matches his actual wOBA (.242): he has not been driving the ball with any real authority. And if that’s what you have to do in order to keep the strikeout rate under 30% – just make bare minimum contact – that’s just not gonna play.
The other issue is probably a little more subtle, especially in how it interacts with the contact quality.
Here’s a section from Sahadev Sharma’s latest, which touches on the problem:
“It’s been well-documented that Pete Crow-Armstrong has had trouble with fastballs up and in and above the zone. That was on full display Sunday evening against the Mets. Crow-Armstrong chases too much in general. If he were eligible, his 38.7 percent chase rate would be ninth-highest in baseball.
While the fastballs continue to be an issue, breaking balls are a real problem for Crow-Armstrong as well. According to Statcast, he has a 51.2 percent chase rate on breaking balls. Javier Báez leads baseball at 53.1 percent. Crow-Armstrong has a 35 percent swing rate at pitches right down the middle and a 34 percent swing rate at pitches down and in, outside of the zone. And this was before Sunday’s game when these were the breaking balls Crow-Armstrong swung at.”
In other words, not only is PCA chasing too much out of the strike zone, it’s becoming especially pronounced against breaking balls, which could mean he’s not diagnosing those pitches well out of the hand. In other words, pitchers are doing exactly what they want: making a breaking ball look juicy, and taking it out of the strike zone where all you can do is whiff or make crappy contact.
Just as bad, Crow-Armstrong is hardly swinging at the kinds of middle-middle pitches where you really need to do a lot of your damage. Swinging just as often at pitches down and in (outside of the strike zone) as he is swinging at grooved pitches? There is definitely work to be done there.
BUT! That’s the thing. We’re talking about a 22-year-old player with very little pro experience above Double-A, who is being asked to sit, start, sit, come off the bench, sit, start, pinch hit, so on and so on. He is learning on the fly, getting exposure to the best pitchers he’s ever seen, and in a way where it’s pretty hard to get into a rhythm. Of course there’s work to be done!
Ultimately, Pete Crow-Armstrong’s offensive struggles so far should not be the least bit surprising. Concerning? Yeah, sure, a little. It’s pretty darn bad. But does it fundamentally change my thinking of what he could be offensively long-term? Nah. That’d be silly. The sample is tiny, he’s still learning, etc. Why would we make declarations at this point?
