Pete Crow-Armstrong has overtaken Shohei Ohtani as the most valuable player in baseball this season by fWAR.
Nothing like just adding 40 points to batting average and nearly 100 points to OBP.
Why doesn’t every batter just hit better are they stupid?
https://preview.redd.it/y2vjev8iyreh1.jpeg?width=700&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1fb4cd11cb0f4600ac22193c59d6047097b8209d
He should have gone for 77
My autistic king.
Wow, the wisdom of Los Angeles.
Magic Johnson is probably thinking “Now that’s some top tier analysis!”
If you listen to the audio, it almost sounds like Churchill.
Clearly ours are.
If you saw last nights Dodgers-Phillies game, yes, they’re not the brightest.
3 walks yesterday. He’s just a completely different player right now
Swing shortened up this season, and while the beginning of the season he started slow and was adjusting, he’s seeing the ball much better now and his approach has been light years ahead of last season. Not trying to crush the ball every swing. Taking singles and doubles when that’s what the pitch deserves. Still stealing bases regularly and playing stellar defense. He’s a complete player this season.
Atp last season, PCA was missing and not swinging at stuff within the zone and heavily chasing at stuff outside. Now he’s so much more controlled inside the box, dude has become the best CF in the league
3 walks and 2 hits in 5 PAs. His OBP was “yes”.
At this rate, he’ll be breaking many historic numbers by September!
Reversion to the mean. Give him time to implode.
He went from bottom 5 in walk rate to top 30 and basically eliminated his only weakness, i never saw him making this jump let alone in one off season
He made the adjustment in-season, which is even more remarkable. His April was terrible
Yea I feel like this keeps getting missed but he was hitting poorly and getting shit on hard all of April this year unbelievable turnaround
To me it proves he is a world class athlete able to make insane adjustments while in the mix.
He shortened his stance and stands closer to the plate now and all of a sudden became an mvp player
The margin between success and failure is so slim in baseball. The difference between league average and top 10 batting average is roughly one extra hit per 20 AB’s. (5⁄20 vs 6⁄20)
Guys who can adjust to stay on that side of the margin are the most successfull.
thanks, Crash.
Dude was the best player in the world in June
I was gonna say, he did this in like a weekend. lol
It 100% goes back to our sub mocking him for missing a fly ball in a game we weren’t even playing in. He ended up walking it off for them that night and has basically been an MVP player ever since.
That was a pretty hilarious week where I feel like he had a terrible error almost every night and since then he just decided to play insane.
wasn’t that like right after the incident with the Sox fan too.
Right around the same time. Someone did a split of his numbers after that game and, at the time, he was at like a 20 WAR pace, lol
I remember my whole group chat (myself included) was calling him PCAss and PCAAA when someone sent that clip. He has a 216 WRC+ since…
Out of curiosity, is he now wearing contacts? I know Muncy and Kiké basically turned around their seasons in the past after getting eye exams and I’m curious if this is another case where a player is just straight up able to see the ball better now.
And he gave a ton of that credit to Bregman.
He was the perfect example of someone doomed by his success. In early 2024 he could take pitches way out of the zone and just crush them for dingers, but then pitchers realized he’d swing at anything inside or away and he was striking out in crazy numbers. Just a little patience and now pitchers have to throw strikes and he’s fuckin mashing again.
I honestly think a big part of the adjustment for a hitter like this is realizing that pitchers don’t want to pitch to you. If he goes up to the plate knowing he’s in a pitch around spot, he can be more patient.
His chase rate is still high but he picks his spots a lot more so it’s not as noticeable
Yeah, this is something we wanted to see Javy Baez do, but he was never able to make that change. You can pretty much pinpoint when PCA started to change.
Closest was 2018. He was like second in MVP I think
Even in that season he was in the 1 percentile in chase rate, struck out a ton and never walked. He just made up for it by barreling the hell out of everything he hit.
Yeah, he walked just 29 times that season, which is a little more than 1 walk per week.
Yup. Bounce it to home? He connected 🦗 style
Said elsewhere, but it was an overnight flip switch. Seemed like moving him to leadoff changed his entire mentality at the plate.
I thought he could get better at taking walk. I never expected how much better he’d get, I just kinda figured he’d get out of the basement on that stat
Not fair. He has three names.
PCA has 2.1 fWAR per name while Ohtani has 3 fWAR per name. checkmate Cubs
Yeah but his WPN (WAR per Name) is lower so obviously he’s just a filthy compiler
You’re not considering syllables that’s what really matters
Shohei Crow-Ohtani should fix him right up
Shohei Crowtani was right there, man.
That’s still just the clearly inferior 2 names
Crowhei Crow-Crowtani
Pete Crowheih-Armstrani
Not to be confused with Cubs legend Miles Mastrobuoni
PCA currently has 6.3 fWAR to Ohtani’s 6.0 fWAR. Still within the margin of error, but cool to see nonetheless.
Considering there was a question if Ohtani was ever not going to win MVP again for a while, someone giving him a run for his money is unexpected at best.
Let’s be real theres still a 0% chance the voters give it to PCA unless Ohtani gets injured
Alternatively, the writers might very well give it to PCA if he ends with higher WAR just so they can be “objective” and to break the cycle legitimately.
if the voters desire to appear objective actually results in them being objective, i don’t have an issue with that
WAR isn’t actually objective at these margins. From fangraphs:
WAR is not meant to be a perfectly precise indicator of a player’s contribution, but rather an estimate of their value to date. Given the imperfections of some of the available data and the assumptions made to calculate other components, WAR works best as an approximation. A 6 WAR player might be worth between 5.0 and 7.0 WAR, but it is pretty safe to say they are at least an All-Star level player and potentially an MVP.
Right? I love Ohtani but if PCA is the better player, he deserves to be the MVP.
It doesn’t matter. If Ohtani stays healthy he’ll win it again given that PCA can’t pitch like Ohtani
Will Ohtani can’t currently pitch like Ohtani right now, either.
He’ll be back pitching in a couple of weeks assuming no setbacks with recovery from his left knee inflammation
With the way I saw him constantly grabbing at that knee during our series, I wouldn’t necessarily bet on no setbacks
Why didn’t you guys IL him for 10 days and let him rest? Not like you guys have to worry about missing the playoffs and you have a bunch of pitching coming back soon too. Ohtani did not look healthy in the series we played you guys and was wondering why you have him out there running bases and putting torque on his knee when swinging?
i wouldn’t be so dismissive. he didn’t win in 2022 despite hitting and pitching numbers that will probably end up being comparable to his numbers this year. i do think he’ll win, especially since defense is undervalued in mvp voting, but it’s not impossible
You didn’t just compare 2022 judge with Pete crow armstrong with a straight face, did you?
no, i didn’t compare them at all
They did that to Trout, they aren’t doin that to the golden child. If it’s close, Ohtani is going to get it.
He’s already injured. He hasn’t pitched since the beginning of July
He already is injured. And the less he pitches the farther away a .930 OPS DH gets from MVP conversations.
It would take some kind of knee injury that keeps him off the mound and relegates him strictly to DH duties. Could never happen.
Ohtani is literally shut down from pitching rn and had to get a knee injection last week.
I mean… Shohei is injured. He’s missing starts right now – lowering his WAR.
If he can get healthy, he will likely run away with it.
I mean, Ohtani the pitcher is hurt currently so there’s a world where he doesn’t pitch the rest of the year and doesn’t get it right?
Well the only question was health, and he’s not healthy, so it’s not that unexpected.
He’s not doing the other half of the thing that makes him the most valuable player
If ohtani cools off and doesnt pitch for extended time and pete has another june it could change the narrative a whole bunch
Pete gets to sit up front cuz he’s a good guy at sports
Here’s his turtle, alive and well.
Repeat after me. You are NOT in direct competition with eachother
Let’s get him a present!!
PCA is taking walks now and that should greatly reduce his volatility going forward. Kudos to him for making that adjustment. It also means he’ll probably age much better than I would have projected a year ago.
He came into the season with 50 career walks and already has 52 this year
He had 53 career before this year but the point stands
Yeah they’re referring to the broadcast showing his 24-25 combined walks, but he was up for a bit in 23 as well.
Yeah, I forgot he played a few games in 2023
He came up probably too early in 2023. I remember thinking his going hitless for the entire call-up was going to ruin him mentally.
Wow, that’s honestly kind of insane…
They showed it on the broadcast – 50 walks in >1000 PA for 2024-25, 50 walks to that point in the season with about 440 PA this season. Then he walked twice more that game.
Yeah, that’s what I’ve been seeing these last few months. Being willing to take walks massively raises his floor. He had a bit of a “cold streak” the last like 6ish games where he had strikeouts, no hits, but still walked several times. And it only lasted until yesterday (honestly even the day before yesterday he had a bunch of hard contact just with nothing to show).
Now we just need Cedanne to make that same adjustment
As a fan of an AL East team I don’t watch the cubs too often but this sub had me under the impression that PCA was grossly overrated
Nah kids nasty lol
Beginning of the season was rough with SO’s and swinging at everything out the zone. And he had some poor fielding games and gave up a little league homerun.
Then April ended and he went nuclear.
His walk rate was trending up even early this season (based on his previous standards). It was the thing that made me think he was going to start breaking out
People do no realize how good he is on defense, because a lot of his range comes from the incredible jump he gets. He’s snagging 58% of 5* catches. Nobody else can do that, but he has so much range he makes a lot of those difficult catches look easy.
The problem with making it look easy is that people think it’s easy.
He is the anti Jeter.
That and you’ll see him only when he botches a play cause everything else is routine.
Yeah and he’s “botching” a play that other players wouldn’t even be in vicinity let alone getting a glove on it.
Also he makes prior ‘impossible’ catches look almost look as if he has done something wrong because he doesn’t quite get to it. He is an amazing athlete, but the reason why I defended him hard last year while he struggled or showed emotion is I think it cannot be overstated the insane work ethic it takes to be that good at getting jumps on fly balls. The countless hours spent shagging fly balls so that when you see a ball in flight there is no hesitation. It is to the point where if he makes a mistake on a route I assume the wind did fuckery (and it is Chicago, so the wind probably did fuckery)
People don’t realize how good his defense is because the average fan doesn’t care about defense as long as you don’t commit errors.
PCA could drop a ball with his elite range and give up a long single and people would think he’s bad compared to the average outfielder that just let that same ball get into the gap.
PCA is a no brainer but Seiya being third is a shocker to me
Can you imagine his numbers if he played in a larger center field like Comerica?
He also has an elite defender to his right in Ian Happ who has won 4 consecutive gold gloves. It isn’t even like he is running the entire outfield at Wrigley
I pray they can keep from colliding with one another. It’s one of the ugliest things in sports to me.
Usual cycle of player breaking out and starting to get a lot of hype then having some of their flaws exposed and there being a backlash to the hype
This sub religiously upvoted “PCAAA” comments. I’m just happy to see they know they were wrong
I got the chance to watch Miz a while back and seeing PCA foul off a 105.5 from Miz told me that PCA is legit.
There’s been a rise and fall and rise and fall and rise already in his very short career.
Throughout the minors he had very poor plate discipline. He came up go the majors and hit like gang busters and built a lot of hype, but haters/skeptics/reasonable fans figured that’s the kind of thing that swings the other way at some point. It absolutely did for a bit, but now he seemingly fixed his plate discipline and is a different animal.
He had a cold streak for sure. All of last year’s second half and much of April this year. He’ll probably continue to have cold streaks, but the new approach he has seems like they shouldn’t be nearly as bad anymore.
He’s definitely a player I wish wasn’t in the NL Central. I could like him a lot more if he was on the Mets still. He plays MLB baseball like a little leaguer who never grew up (I mean this in a positive way)
His big flaw is he seems to let people or bad plays get in his head a lot. So He’ll still get one or two bad plays and people will latch on to those rather than the routine plays we don’t see.
TV doesn’t do him justice, I went to the Reds game recently and this mofo is fast as hell.
I was at the brewer game where he scooped away the homerun from Yellich and seeing that in person was unbelievable
https://preview.redd.it/7gprpbna2seh1.jpeg?width=365&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7a96f7062c16d9f0231997ff635faabbbfe378ea
When I’m at a game I just watch PCA in the outfield as soon as I hear contact. His first step is a marvel to watch in person.
Yeah but what about Baez/s
God I hate this cursed franchise
Traded a future mvp and still ended that season with what was arguably one of the worst collapses ever (I’m pretty sure it was a record for the most days spent in first place by a team that ended up missing the playoffs. They didn’t even finish .500
I legit wish I could quit being a Mets fan and adopt another team to root for. They are just too stupid both historically and currently for me to really support. But I can’t find it in myself to root for another team, no matter how many Kazmir trades I see. So i just end up with seasons of disengagement. Thank god for the Knicks.
I adopted the Mets in the late 90s/early 00s; felt like kindred spirits a little. I can’t guarantee less pain but the Padres offer a West coast team with exciting moments and potential. Sound familiar?
P.S. I will still randomly say “Benny Agbayani” to myself for no reason. No one understands me.
P.P.S. Fuck John Rocker
I would never be able to actually leave a sports team I love, it’s just not a possibility. Best I can do is convince myself I don’t care that much for a while and hope they are less infuriating next year.
After seeing how many Mets fans were at Petco when Bartolo hit his homer, it feels like a good match
Imagine saying “thank god for the knicks” like a few years ago.
I’m a Sox fan. I did it. I refused to support our front office which had nothing but disdain for its fanbase. I went with the Dodgers because I wanted to regularly watch good baseball. And the most likeable guys (Shoei, Mookie, Freddie). I just wanted to feel good about baseball instead of just ire and resentment. Do it. As a tireless fan of the sport, don’t let shitty baseball ruin your spirit and enjoyment of the beautiful game. You can always come back. Just like me. Anybody calls you “fair weather” - ask them how they respect themselves for supporting such a shitty representation of our most historic game.
If it makes you feel better, Baez was actually extremely good down the stretch that year and wasn’t the reason for the collapse. So yall might’ve gotten only a half a year outta him, but you got the very best Javy Baez possible
World cup ending has made it really rough with no sports on TV right now
Slashed 299/371/515 with 9 homers and 22 RBI’s.
Didn’t realize he was that good damn
Ok yeah, I understand this critique, but he played 6 games in the Mets system and was coming off a shoulder injury.
Like, was he a 1st round pick? Yes.
Am I bummed that the Mets traded him? Yes.
But credit goes to the Cubs for acquiring him and helping him to develop into the HITTER he is today. There’s no guarantee he would have done this with the Mets, prospects aren’t a sure thing - look at he struggles the Mets have had developing the bats of Baty, Alvarez, Vientos, and Mauricio, and tell me you’re confident that PCA wouldn’t have been up-and-down from AAA and being told to “sell out and pull for more power” by the Mets coaching staff.
The Baez trade made sense at the time and he was REALLY good (he had a 141 WRC+)
I get that “lolMets” but I’m tired of this notion that the Mets traded Ken Griffey Jr in his prime for a bag of balls: PCA was a 50 grade prospect on fangraphs - there were significant questions about his approach. Give him and the Cubs credit for making improvements.
I was born with generational hate for the Mets, I legitimately enjoy seeing your franchise toil in the mud. That being said, y’all get way too much hate for that trade.
It is the risk of doing business at the deadline, sometimes prospects explode through their ceilings and most of the time you forget who they were three years later.
lol Ok wow, fuck you too, I guess, to be fair as a Mets fan I also have a generational hatred for the Mets…
But yes, I agree with you:
I’m sure the Giants didn’t love giving up Zack Wheeler for 2 months of Carlos Beltran
The Cano/Kelenic/Diaz trade had the “winner” shift about 100 times.
Prospects are kind of a crapshoot!
I love watching PCA - I wish he played for the Mets - I don’t hate the Cubs for that trade.
I may be misremembering, but I thought Baez played decently down the stretch for the Mets after a rough start? People act like he played the way he did his first few years in Detroit
Baez 2021 WRC+
Cubs: 104 Mets: 141
He was good, the Mets: less so
M-V-PCA
MV-PETE
His extension is going to go down as one of the best contracts in baseball history, just based on his defense.
He’s having a fantastic season. Higher walk rate, higher OBP, is electric on the bases and is probably the best defender in the game regardless of position.
He already has the most 0-25% catch probability catches in statcasts history, more than Kevin Keirmeir… and that’s in 2.5 seasons. 33 outs in 63 opportunities, Kevin with 32 in 116 opportunities.
He’s the best defender in baseball
I don’t see how he doesn’t end up being one of, or, the best of all time defensively. It’s unbelievable watching fly balls that is surely guaranteed a double or triple, where Pete just comes flying out of nowhere to easily make the catch.
Personally I love the quote from him back when he was drafted: “I was born to play center field”. Clearly that was the case. He just forgot that defensive specialists aren’t usually this great at hitting either.
He is already performing and making catches that no one has been able to make. He’s already 1 of 1. My money is he goes down as the best defensive outfielder ever.
Yep, the only question mark is how long this lasts. There have been a lot of players with what if questions that could have been hall of famers if not for injuries or whatnot.
Kris Bryant 🫡
Even he wasn’t at the level Pete is at, which is insane to think about.
I was thinking more along the lines of Grady Sizemore. KB’s career more followed the Troy Glaus route, which was tall powerful third baseman who had to move to OF with back injuries. KB was better defensively, but nowhere near this scale.
You jabronis can just take this wonderland circlejerk into your subreddit at this point lmao
Lol fair enough. Hope Julio figures it out. Not sure why his defense fell off so much.
The amazing catch last night for instance… A couple more feet and he is on the IL because of the brick wall he crashes into.
Trout will go down as one of the best, but his “going for it” attitude in center has cost him the last couple years of his prime as well.
PCA is on pace to do the following compared to who I would argue are his all-time comps:
7.6 oWAR - this would be equal to Ken Griffey Jr.s MVP season
2.43 dWAR - Andruw Jones 5th best season ever.
He might eclipse both of these numbers too since this takes into account his April.
Both of them combined is just hard to imagine.
I’ll take Cedanne defensively
Wild to see that he’s now literally more than doubling Rafaela, Pages, Corbin Carroll, Buck, and Harris Jr on this after starting the season so slowly.
So happy we got rid of that schlub
We are too.
Kid’s a superstar. No question.
I remember lots of people crapping on him and the Cubs for giving him that contract extension during his awful first month of the season..
There’s a lot of season left. It’s really cool and I’m happy he’s finding another level, but he has to maintain this now.
OK but how much cat food does PCA sell ?
Tbh if Pete keeps performing like this til the end of season he is going to win NL MVP. Ohtani’s injury affects his performance not just pitching but batting has been decline since the injury announce. Anyway there’s a lot of season left, anything can happens.
Damn that’s crazy
That’s based on the FIP version of pitching WAR. Ohtani still has the edge with the RA9 version.
Doesn’t matter. Ohtani is a thing of the past now.
Who?
I don’t know. Some lady maybe?
We have Ben Simmons now. We’re good.
TIL old man Ohtani is still in the league
Didn’t he used to play for the Senators?
https://preview.redd.it/q9gdi8uw4seh1.jpeg?width=750&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=74dc78dbc55d876c782623d7f34307f7eea8e484
It’s amazing how Pete suddenly learned how to take pitches and take his walks. It’s something Javy Baez was never able to do after all this time.
Yeah but he’s a dork. You have to factor that in.
God damn Pete Wheeler looking mother fucker. Stop being so good.
Why is this downvoted! He’s Pete wheeler with an amazing glove. His name is even Pete!
Mets are the dumbest team in all of sports.
Those missed starts by ohtani definitely affecting things. Gotta come back to the mound to lock the mvp, now will the dodgers let him pitch ?
Roberts said either yesterday or this morning there is no time table for Ohtani to return to the mound.
But Busch Stadium told me he was overrated
6.3 fWar and it’s July
I will happily admit I was wrong about this guy. After last year and the start of this season I started thinking he might be in over his head. But my god what an adjustment. Absolutely raking not too mention the stellar defence that’s always been there.
I’ve seen enough. Give this man the MVP
Can you believe how much the Dodgers are paying for that Ohtani bum?
/s
Like 30$ today. Maybe 800MIL in 50 years
With Ohtani not pitching indefinitely, we have a real MVP race. Whether certain fans will admit it or not.
Amazing they were so neck and neck even with Ohtani pitching. What PCA’s doing this year is unreal.
And somehow PCA is still underrated
Is that allowed?
PCA can suck my dick, bitch.
lol, he’s a great baseball player tho.
It’s because his sister is a superhero cheerleader, duh.
It is a long season baby 💪
Yep! Still time for PCA to regress back to normal
So what? Ohtani is still the GOAT.
When does the NL MVP talk start? Everyone still says it’s Ohtani’s running away even though he is now missing pitching starts. PCA might be the best defensive CF in the history of the game and Ohtani only has like 25 points higher OPS which is a down year for him. Even Ohtani’s baserunning is down from his norms meanwhile PCA has 25 stolen bases.
Hole hyperbole Batman
What about Fwar2.0=mc2?
Pardon my harshness but didn’t he fucking suck at the beginning of the year?? What happened?
He decided to play better
Sorry but what are his pitching stats? Just wondering when and if that’s factored here because these 2 players aren’t even in the same discussion
Might be watching a future Hall of Famer in the making fellas
Ohtani still going to win MVP. lol
If Ohtani doesn’t pitch again this season and PCA keeps playing like this, then no he probably won’t.
Smfdb
What does this mean? My guess is:
So Much Fast Da Boi (is)
and I like it lol
From Fangraphs:
”Perhaps one of the most controversial aspects of sabermetrics is the way in which WAR is used. Given the nature of the calculation and potential measurement errors, WAR should be used as a guide for separating groups of players and not as a precise estimate. For example, a player that has been worth 6.4 WAR and a player that has been worth 6.1 WAR over the course of a season cannot be distinguished from one another using WAR. It is simply too close for this particular tool to tell them apart. WAR can tell you that these two players are likely about equal in value, but you need to dig deeper to separate them.”
You read my comment or nah?