Pete Crow-Armstrong's NL MVP Award Is a Testament to His Rare Two-Way Dominance

Pete Crow-Armstrong wasn’t just baseball’s best player in 2026; he delivered a season unlike any the sport had ever seen. The Cubs center fielder was rewarded with the National League MVP Award on Thursday in a long-expected unanimous landslide.

The 24-year-old took a massive step forward at the plate this year after finishing ninth in voting last year. He slashed .280/.372/.570, tied for the MLB lead in home runs (45), led MLB in runs (119), total bases (357) and extra-base hits (84), and led the NL in wRC+ (157) and stolen bases (41). He was an offensive machine who bulldozed opposing pitchers and was the engine of the highest scoring offense of the league.

Chicago’s superstar led MLB in offensive WAR (8.3) and outs above average (26) while becoming the first player in MLB history to win an MVP and a Platinum Glove in the same season. Crow-Armstrong also joined the exclusive 40–40 club, becoming just the seventh player to hit 40 home runs and steal 40 bases in a season. He and Barry Bonds are the only members of that club to also win a Gold Glove during their 40–40 seasons, but Crow-Armstrong is the first to combine those achievements with an MVP.

PCA led MLB in both Baseball Reference WAR (9.8) and FanGraphs WAR (10.6), finishing 3.6 fWAR ahead of runner-up Bobby Witt Jr. (7.0). It was the largest gap between baseball’s top two players since Mickey Mantle finished 4.0 fWAR ahead of Duke Snider in 1956, long before the statistic was created. Only three other players in big league history have led MLB by at least 3.0 fWAR in a season: Mantle in ‘56, Babe Ruth in 1919, ‘20, ‘23, and ‘26, and Rogers Hornsby in 1925 and ‘29.

The extraordinary season Crow-Armstrong produced put him in elite company, as his incredible two-way play has rarely been matched in baseball history. In 1991, Cal Ripken Jr. won AL MVP while leading MLB in offensive and defensive WAR. Willie Mays led MLB in offensive WAR and the NL in defensive WAR in 1954, while Lou Boudreau led the AL in both offensive and defensive WAR during his 1948 MVP campaign. While Crow-Armstrong finished fourth in the NL in defensive WAR, FanGraphs rated Crow-Armstrong as the majors’ most valuable player on defense and the NL’s best player on offense, trailing only AL MVP Yordan Alvarez.

Baseball’s best hitters are rarely its best fielders. In his outstanding career, Mike Trout has never won a Gold Glove. Teams will often accept less production from their center fielders because of how demanding the position is defensively. The Cubs’ metronome changed that calculus and showed teams can have both. He wasn’t just a great hitter who could hold his own defensively; he was baseball’s best defensive player while being its most dangerous all-around threat on offense. Mays is among the few center fielders in baseball’s modern era to have produced a season comparable to Crow-Armstrong’s. Still fewer two-way players have ever displayed the power PCA did in 2026. Mays only topped 45 home runs three times in his 22-season career.

Chicago Cubs center fielder Pete Crow-Armstrong makes a catch — Crow-Armstrong was rated as the majors’ best defender by FanGraphs. | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

Crow-Armstrong’s transformation as a hitter has been incredible. From the time he was drafted by the Mets in the first round in 2020 through his first full big league season, he was regarded as an elite defender with speed whose power upside might be limited. Through his first 136 career games, he gave no one reason to question that scouting report as he tallied just 10 home runs. He’s followed that up with 76 over the past two seasons. That jump in power has sent his ceiling as a player soaring.

He made mechanical adjustments like altering his stance and reintegrating a higher leg kick, which helped him unlock power and get to pitches he was previously missing. Crow-Armstrong’s chase rate dropped from an astronomical 41.7% in 2025 to 34.2% this season, and his walk rate jumped from 4.5% to 11.4%. In the most dramatic change, his isolated power jumped from .148 in 2024 to .291 in ’26 and, crucially, he has not sacrificed speed or elite defense to improve his bat.

NL MVP Pete Crow-Armstrong pic.twitter.com/P5yFmkkdOW
— BBWAA (@officialBBWAA) November 13, 2026

Baseball has seen better hitters than Crow-Armstrong and it has seen better defenders. There have been guys with more power, and those with more speed. But it has almost never seen all of those abilities combined in one player who performed up to his talent for a full season.

What we witnessed from Crow-Armstrong this season stands among the most remarkable MVP campaigns in baseball history. It is rare to find a perfectly balanced player who can impact games at an elite level across the board. And while it’s hard to imagine someone could produce a better campaign than Crow-Armstrong just did, he may not be in his prime at age 24. Most players spend their entire careers chasing the kind of season he just put together.

Crow-Armstrong’s MVP campaign is likely just the beginning.

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