CHICAGO — Pete Crow-Armstrong has taken the baseball world by storm this season, and as the final month of the regular season gets underway, he’s on the precipice of accomplishing something pretty remarkable.
In recent years, in whichever league Shohei Ohtani plays in, the MVP award has become a battle for second place behind the Los Angeles Dodgers superstar. Ohtani has taken home the award in four of the past five seasons, including two in a row since joining the Dodgers.
But over the past two months, Crow-Armstrong has done something that has rarely happened: He has become the clear frontrunner ahead of Ohtani in the race for the NL hardware. And not only has he taken the lead, but he’s now pulling away from the four-time MVP.
“I’d be crazy to say I don’t want to win an MVP,” Crow-Armstrong said last month. “But if we’re talking about priorities, I think I have mine pretty straight. It’s not even on the forefront of my mind. It’s fun to joke about, and it’s fun to acknowledge, and it’s absolutely OK to pay attention to, but it’s not, like, following me up to the plate.”
In his MLB career, Ohtani has set a ridiculous standard for himself, which makes his 2026 season feel like something of a down year. To be clear, most players would dream of having his “down” year, as he’s slashing .279/.381/.525 with 30 homers and 80 RBI entering play Friday. He has also made 14 starts on the mound and gone 8-2 with an incredible 1.79 ERA. But the two-way sensation has been unable to pitch since July 3.
The past couple of months, Ohtani has clearly been hampered by injury. His balky right knee has stopped him from pitching, with no return to the mound in sight. He had been continuing to hit even while sidelined from pitching, but this week, neck and right biceps issues forced him to miss Thursday’s game against St Louis. Ohtani has been baseball’s superman the past few seasons, but even he hasn’t been able to overcome these recurring injuries, leading to a dip in his numbers and opening the door for an MVP challenger.
Still, to take down Ohtani in an MVP race, it doesn’t just take a special season; it takes a downright historic one. Just look at the 2022 AL MVP race between Ohtani and eventual winner Aaron Judge. That year, Ohtani hit 34 home runs with a very respectable .875 OPS, and he had his best MLB season on the mound, pitching to a 2.33 ERA and striking out 219 batters. But Judge made history that season, hitting 62 homers to break Roger Maris’ AL record and recording a mind-blowing 1.111 OPS. Barring the historic season from Judge, Ohtani likely wins, which goes to show just what it takes to wrest the award from him.
“You see guys do [what Pete’s doing], and it doesn’t happen a lot, and they’re the seasons you remember,” Cubs manager Craig Counsell said this week. “He’s done some things this year that haven’t been done in a long time, and that’s why we’re talking about him a lot.”
Indeed, PCA is putting together a historic season for the Cubs. Arguably the best center fielder in the game, he has a .280/.375/.571 slash line entering Friday, with 39 homers, 27 doubles, 7 triples, 93 RBI and 32 stolen bases. He also leads the league with 103 runs scored and 9.4 fWAR.
“Watching the consistency of the at bats, that’s been an amazing transformation,” Cubs president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer said of the growth he’s seen from Crow-Armstrong, now in his third big-league season. “I think a lot of coaches deserve a lot of credit, and [Pete] deserves the lion’s share of the credit for sticking with it. And just his decision-making in the box.
“I’ve never seen a player develop at this rate. This is a quantum leap in terms of his decision-making. I mean, the higher OPS against the lefties — he’s had some at-bats against great lefty relievers. He’s laying off pitches just a little bit outside. That was unimaginable one year ago.”
With a little more than three weeks to play, Crow-Armstrong is knocking on the door of becoming just the seventh member ever of MLB’s 40/40 club. And he’s also the best defender at any position this season. The Cubs’ center fielder has been credited with 15 defensive runs saved and 24 outs above average, which is tied with Royals shortstop Bobby Witt Jr. for the most in baseball.
“I think you have to watch other really good players play center field, and then watch Pete play center field,” Counsell said. “Hopefully, it’s a long time before someone else really plays center field regularly here … it won’t be as good.”
“You see guys do [what Pete’s doing], and it doesn’t happen a lot, and they’re the seasons you remember,” Cubs manager Craig Counsell said this week.
Beyond the totality of the numbers tallied by PCA and Ohtani, the biggest advantage the Cubs’ superstar has going for him is that he has been light-years ahead of Ohtani in the second half. The Dodgers as a whole have been struggling the past two months, and lately, Ohtani has looked merely mortal. He has just an .809 OPS with eight homers in the season’s second half.
Meanwhile, Crow-Armstrong has taken control of the MVP race by surging in the second half. After logging an All-Star-worthy .917 OPS with 21 home runs across 96 games in the first half, the Cubs’ superstar has a 1.001 OPS with an MLB-leading 18 homers in 45 games since the break.
When it comes to naming an MVP, the momentum a player builds going into the final month matters, as do the big moments he delivers throughout the campaign. That’s another area where Crow-Armstrong has the advantage.
His multihomer game on Aug. 17 against the White Sox, featuring a lead-off homer and a walk-off blast, put the sport on notice and served as the appetizer from PCA. Less than two weeks later, he provided the entree, with his three-homer game on Aug. 29 against the Reds solidifying his place out in front in the MVP race. If he’s able to get to 40/40, it would be the cherry on top of a season to remember in Chicago.
Ohtani’s two-way greatness should never be taken for granted. Even in a down year, the fact that he can do something we’ve never seen before is a marvel. But Ohtani’s two-way feats don’t change the fact that he hasn’t pitched in two months, and his efforts to play through injury, while admirable, haven’t delivered the offensive production the Dodgers clearly need.
Crow-Armstrong’s season has been remarkable, especially considering that his first six weeks resembled his 2025 form. After what has been a summer-long heater, it’s no secret who the National League’s best player has been, and it’s no mystery who the MVP should be in 2026.
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