The Cubs gave Pete Crow-Armstrong $115 million for what looked like a centerpiece player, and the 24-year-old spent the first half of 2025 looking exactly like it. He was an MVP candidate, played elite defense in center field and, from Opening Day through Aug. 1, hit.273/.309/.560 with 27 home runs, 31 doubles, four triples, 78 RBIs and 29 stolen bases in 107 games.
Since Aug. 2, the picture has flipped. In 67 games, Crow-Armstrong has hit.195/.243/.290 with a 47 wRC+, the worst mark in baseball among 149 qualified hitters. Rockies outfielder Jordan Beck was next at 55. Crow-Armstrong’s.270 xwOBA ranked 145th, his.234 wOBA was dead last, his.095 isolated power ranked 135th, his.246 BABIP ranked 130th and his 4.4% walk rate ranked 140th. Fangraphs credited him with minus-15.9 runs above average.
The collapse did not happen all at once. In the final 50 games of the season, he hit.185/.236/.289 with four home runs, six doubles and 17 RBIs, but he also struck out 51 times and drew just nine walks. That stretch left him with a 44 wRC+, the worst in baseball. It is the kind of slide that turns one of the game’s most exciting young players into a reminder of how quickly a season can change.
What makes this tougher to explain is that the first half was not a mirage built on a small sample. Crow-Armstrong paired power, speed and center-field defense well enough to post a 137 wRC+ and 5.4 fWAR through Aug. 1. The question now is whether the version the Cubs paid for is the one they still have, or whether the problem that dragged him down after Aug. 2 is something deeper that has not yet been fixed.
