By 
A player's development is rarely linear in baseball. After taking several steps forward, it's not unusual to see someone move one or two steps backward. Coming into the 2026 season, the Chicago Cubs were waiting to see which direction Pete Crow-Armstrong headed.
Nearly nine months later, the superstar center fielder showed the baseball world that his struggles were minor hurdles en route to becoming one of the best players in the sport.
Crow-Armstrong was named National League MVP on Thursday night, making him the youngest player to win the award (24) since Cody Bellinger (23) won the NL MVP in 2019. PCA received all 30 first-place votes, beating four-time MVP Shohei Ohtani, who had won the award in 2024 and '25, and Milwaukee Brewers star Brice Turang.
"I want to be better than I was the day before and really that's been all that I've needed to motivate myself with for as long as I can remember," PCA said on the MLB Network broadcast after winning the award. "I've had really important people that wake me up every day."
Being named the 2026 NL MVP is the cherry on top in a season full of deserved accolades for Crow-Armstrong. What made this season, in which he became the seventh player in MLB history to join the 40-40 club, even more special was that his dominance shined with his bat and glove. Crow-Armstrong won his second Gold Glove Award and was honored with the NL's Platinum Glove Award winner as the best defender in the league.
What makes PCA's 2026 season so remarkable is the turnaround it took to even make it happen.
Crow-Armstrong's second half in '25 in which he carried a .634 OPS was one to forget, but the 2026 NL MVP knew he had to come into the season with a new offensive plan and approach. And after signing a six-year, $116 million deal right before the season began, the pressure was on to show he could be the star the Cubs hoped he would be.
The first six weeks of the season, it looked like the player who ended 2025 had returned and it would be more of the same. But Crow-Armstrong quickly showed he was not only a different player, but the NL's best player. From May 1 until the end of the regular season, he became must-see TV as his highlight-reel defense in center field, tape-measure homers and electric speed captivated baseball.
Crow-Armstrong finished the season hitting .280 with an NL-leading 45 homers, 31 doubles, eight triples and 41 stolen bases. He also led the NL with a .942 OPS.
"Watching the consistency of the at-bats, that's been an amazing transformation," Cubs president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer said in September. "I think a lot of coaches deserve a lot of credit, and [Pete] deserves the lion's share of the credit for sticking with it. And just his decision-making in the box.
"I've never seen a player develop at this rate. This is a quantum leap in terms of his decision-making. I mean, the higher OPS against the lefties — he's had some at-bats against great lefty relievers. He's laying off pitches just a little bit outside. That was unimaginable one year ago."
He also became just the second left-handed hitter in franchise history to hit 40 or more homers and the first Cub to win MVP since Kris Bryant took home the award in 2016.
But to be the best, you have to beat the best, and when you play in the same league as Ohtani, that is no small feat. Yet Crow-Armstrong did something many believed was impossible. And after months throwing haymakers with Ohtani in the NL MVP race and jockeying for position, it was a scorching month of August that pushed Crow-Armstrong in the lead for good.
The Cubs' center fielder hit an eye-popping 14 homers in the month, carrying an incredible 1.069 OPS to pull away from the Dodgers' superstar, who also missed some time late in the season with various injuries. It's no surprise that PCA's MVP moment came on Aug. 29 as he slugged three homers against the Cincinnati Reds with another former Cubs MVP, Sammy Sosa, in attendance.
Crow-Armstrong's season isn't one that will be forgotten in Chicago and his turnaround is one the Cubs as an organization should be proud of. After years searching for their next superstar, PCA has shown he'll be the guy who carries the franchise for years to come with three letters …
MVP.
