By sharpening his plate discipline and grinding out marathon at-bats, the Cubs' young outfielder is silencing skeptics and transforming Chicago’s offense from the top.
Chicago Cubs manager Craig Counsell made a lineup switch last week.
The Cubs were in the midst of a rough offensive stretch and needed to make a change. That resulted in Counsell moving Pete-Crow Armstrong to the leadoff spot, a move that seemed puzzling at the time.
However, Crow-Armstrong has put together some quality at-bats at the top of the order. He’s actually been quite impressive in that leadoff spot with a .357 OBP and has seen his walk rate rise. The Cubs center fielder has drawn five walks in his last five contests.
Crow-Armstrong has done a fantastic job working opposing pitchers to start games. He worked a seven-pitch at-bat on Saturday. had a nine-pitch at-bat on Sunday, drew a 10-pitch walk on Wednesday, and worked Paul Skenes for six pitches on Thursday.
One common thing in these plate appearances is that Crow-Armstrong is swinging at fewer pitches outside of the zone. His opening at-bat against Bubba Chandler in Wednesday’s game shows just how much he has grown in this area.
After falling behind in the count (1-2), Crow-Armstrong battled back to eventually draw a walk. He fouled off four pitches with two strikes, which included a 98 mph four-seam fastball at the top of the zone. He also didn’t challenge two pitches below the zone with two strikes.
That’s massive growth for a hitter who has a bottom 10% chase rate (39.3%) and strikes out at an elite clip (26%). Crow-Armstrong then came around to score on an Ian Happ single four batters later.
Here’s a breakdown of that first inning plate appearance:
There’s no doubt that Crow-Armstrong needs to be more consistent offensively. He’s batting just .224 with six home runs on the season and ranks toward the bottom of the league in chase rate, strikeout rate, whiff rate (27.9%), and launch angle sweet-spot rate (28.8%).
His offensive numbers have also been extremely poor recently. He is batting only .150 with two home runs, seven RBI, and three stolen bases in his last 18 games and has nine hitless contests since May 9.
But Crow-Armstrong’s selectiveness at the plate this month has been encouraging. He has a .327 OBP across 26 games in May and has an above-average 14.5% walk rate since May 7. During this stretch, the Gold Glove outfielder has drawn 12 walks in 83 plate appearances.
While putting Crow-Armstrong in the leadoff spot looked questionable at first, the Cubs should continue to bat him there against right-handed pitching.
He’s doing a nice job working the count to start games, and he’s slowly becoming a more disciplined hitter at the plate. His .329 xwOBA now ranks in the upper half of the league.
