Cubs fans excuse for Pete Crow-Armstrong's early 2026 slump ignores a sobering reality

As the Chicago Cubs navigate an uneven start to the 2026 season, they're beginning to realize that they have a Pete Crow-Armstrong problem. After a 30-30 campaign that brought a Gold Glove along with it, expectations were high for the dynamic center fielder's follow-up. The hopes for him became even higher after the Cubs bet big on an extension for him, with the number coming in at $115 million over the next six seasons.

Through his first 21 games, Crow-Armstrong is hitting just .222/.276/.309. Normally, fans would just shrug off a slow start by a star and expect a rebound to career norms sooner rather than later. With PCA, though, there's a bit more than meets the eye.

With samples this small, it's important to contextualize things by examining the prior year's trends, and in that light, there's real reason to be concerned about the 24-year-old. Since July 1 of last year, Crow-Armstrong is slashing just .227/.274/.388 with a paltry 4.7% walk rate and a 25.1% strikeout rate. That's good for a wRC+ of 81, 19% worse than league average. That is a span of 386

Considering that the youngster has only played 314 career games, when you include the 123 contests he played in 2024 and posted an 86 wRC+, it starts to seem as if his hot first-half last season is the outlier and not his recent struggles.

Cubs need Pete Crow-Armstrong to make a much-needed adjustment

Some are ready to call Crow-Armstrong one of the MLB's most overrated stars. We're not there yet, and tagging him in such a way is an injustice to the tools that he has. With that said, without an adjustment, translating the tools to consistent production is very difficult.

Crow-Armstrong's increased bat speed, coming in at 73.9 miles per hour and ranking in the 76th percentile, sets the stage for him to do a lot of damage. That force regularly translates to the ball, as he's produced an average exit velocity of 92.1 miles per hour so far this season.

However, his approach at the plate is neutering the potency of his swing. Crow-Armstrong swings early and often, seeing just 3.53 pitches per plate appearance. That explains the 4.9% walk rate, but there's even more damage being done.

His chase rate is a mind-boggling 47.1%. That's up substantially from last year's astronomical 41.7% mark. Crow-Armstrong has very good bat-to-ball skills. Still, by chasing so often, it's worked against him, bringing his launch angle sweet spot percentage down to 18.2%, meaning even though he swings hard, hits the ball hard, and makes contact pretty regularly, he's impacting these hard-to-hit balls at angles that aren't conducive to getting hits, much less doing damage.

The result has been an explosion of ground balls. PCA posted a 31.3% grounder rate last season, but this year, it's ballooned to 39.6%. Most of that has come at the expense of his line drives, which fell from a 19% mark to 11.3% so far this year. It's hard to generate power when the ball is always on the ground.

Crow-Armstrong doesn't believe his struggles are mechanical. He's probably right that it's all in his head. It's hard to tell a guy who has made it this far on the basis of his aggressiveness to tone it down, but that's what has to happen. If not, he's going to continue to get exploited as pitchers will simply just throw him junk, knowing he'll go after it and be incapable of truly hurting them. If that happens, that big extension is going to age really poorly.

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