Cubs shock fans with Pete Crow Armstrong contract extension before Opening Day

It was around this time last season that the Chicago Cubs and Pete Crow-Armstrong tabled contract extension talks, not wanting to take away from a 2025 season that was going to serve as Pete Crow-Armstrong's first full season as the team's starting center field. A year later, after a 30-30 season, Crow-Armstrong and the Cubs have agreed to a contract extension.

Pete Crow-Armstrong's new contract with the Cubs may be the richest in team history

Terms of the deal were not immediately disclosed, though it's certainly going to be more than the $75 million the Cubs offered last spring. With potential option years and escalators, the total value of the Cubs' previous offer would have maxed out around $90 million.

Chances are that once the details of the contract are revealed, Crow-Armstrong will have signed one of the richest deals in team history. Adding some context, USA Today's Bob Nightengale reports that Crow-Armstrong's new contract will make him the second-highest-paid Cubs player on the roster.

The assumption is that Nightengale is referring to PCA's AAV. Currently, Bregman's $175 million is the third largest in the history of the organization. Crow-Armstrong's contract will likely join that conversation.

When spring training started, the hope was that the Cubs could get at least one contract extension done before Opening Day. Of the group of players the Cubs have becoming free agents at the end of the season, there was some importance to getting Crow-Armstrong's deal done first.

No, Crow-Armstrong still had years of control, but after playing at an MVP pace during the first half of the 2025 season, the cost of a potential contract extension was only going to go up if he got even close to the numbers he posted last season. Despite the struggles during the second half of the season, Crow-Armstrong finished the year with a wRC+ of 109 to go along with 31 home runs and 35 stolen bases.

After an offseason where Jed Hoyer previously stepped out of his comfort zone to sign Bregman ot a contract that included deferrals, it's certainly encouraging that with Opening Day just days away, Hoyer didn't take his foot off the gas pedal.

Outside of Bregman and Dansby Swanson being signed beyond the 2026 season, the Cubs now have their most important player in Crow-Armstrong locked into a long-term contract. Cementing his status at the center of the current (and next) Cubs' contending core.