Calmer, Gentler Pete Crow-Armstrong Seeking Spark as He Returns Home to LA
Pete Crow-Armstrong burst onto the scene last season, earning an All-Star nod and a Gold Glove before being rewarded with a $115 million extension that will keep him in Chicago through at least 2032. The mercurial star has yet to catch a heater this season, but maybe returning to his hometown will provide the same spark as last year. Raised by actors and educated at the famed Harvard-Westlake School not far from Beverly Hills and the Los Angeles Country Club, PCA was familiar with the limelight well before making his way to Chicago.
His time on center stage wasn’t always about five-star catches and curtain calls, however, as he could frequently be seen slamming his helmet or bat in disgust after an ugly swing on a strikeout. Those were outward signs of an inner fire that burns with more intensity than Joaquin Phoenix or Christian Bale, but he came to realize there might be more constructive ways to channel his frustration.
“That’s the stuff that keeps me up. It’s never because I went 0 for 4 that I can’t sleep. It’s always because I’m embarrassed. Pissed and embarrassed,” Crow-Armstrong told Wayne Drehs in an excellent Chicago Magazine profile. “I don’t throw my stuff all around and spaz out to show people I give a shit. What it shows is that it’s something I still need to work on.”
We learned during the Cubs’ pair of series against the Phillies that PCA and Kyle Schwarber became fast friends during WBC play, with the former Cub becoming the latest to take the 24-year-old under his wing. No stranger to having stardom thrust upon him in Chicago’s fishbowl, the prodigious slugger offered some advice about toning down the displays that many perceived as childish tantrums.
“Don’t give anyone a reason to feel like there’s any extra additive needed to show that you’re struggling,” Schwarber told Crow-Armstrong, as shared with Jesse Rogers. “Because once you show any sort of weakness, that’s when it kind of becomes blood in the water in some sort, that people could see that and think that, ‘I got this guy beat.'”
If there’s anything PCA loves more than buddying up with big-brother figures in the dugout, it’s being a big brother to all the young kids who look up to him. Whether it’s pulling up to a lemonade stand or serving as the main attraction at a youth baseball camp, he’s perfectly at home letting his inner child roam free among its peers. That’s probably why something he heard from a parent may have had a greater impact than anything he could get from another player.
“This offseason, a dad told me that he took his son off of his Little League team for throwing his bat and almost hitting a teammate,” Crow-Armstrong told ESPN. “And the kid said, ‘But Pete does it.’
“So that one hurt and still hurts.”
Talk about having a mirror held up to you. Removing the antics is all well and good, but a lot are wondering whether Crow-Armstrong has lost a little of that intensity along with them. Not that anyone should conflate the two, it’s just that a general lack of production through nearly a full month of the season has been disappointing. That’s where a return to LA could help, just as it did last year.
Through his first 73 plate appearances of 2025, PCA was slashing .197/.264/.258 with a 50 wRC+ and no home runs. Then, during the finale of the Cubs’ series win over the Dodgers, the center fielder started the scoring with his first homer and later tied it with his second. That game alone elevated his wRC+ to 93 and started a stretch in which he hit .331/.348/.750 with 14 homers and a 199 wRC+ over 143 PAs. Cue the MVP talk.
A second-half skid curbed what had looked like a possible 50-homer campaign, but it was still very clear that the young man’s potential was even greater than first imagined when the Cubs acquired him from the Mets. That latent breakout could be coming soon, especially with Michael Busch and Seiya Suzuki having recently rediscovered their footing at the plate. PCA has just three doubles and a triple to go with his lone homer, driving .326 slugging and .084 ISO marks that are well below expectations.
Among 181 qualified hitters this season, only 23 have lower ISO marks heading into Friday’s games. The list of those mired in that same territory may offer more optimism for an imminent surge than mere faith in PCA alone. Rather than list them off, which I was tempted to do, I’ll advise you to peruse the rankings below and make your own choice about which name is the most surprising. I count at least 15 that seem wildly out of place.
Whether it’s this weekend or at some point in the near future, Crow-Armstrong is going to shake off this early funk and get back to business. And while I don’t believe his less demonstrative approach is a factor in his slow start, I could be talked into believing it’ll help him to be a little less streaky moving forward. It’s so easy for a player to get in his own head — or domed up, as some are wont to say — that some of the histrionics might exacerbate rather than alleviate.
In a world where the Cubs have a team that may be able to compete with the Dodgers, the ultimate hero might just be a kid who was raised on North Side baseball while growing up in Hollywood. Makes for a pretty cool script, huh?
