Jesse Walker
Jesse Walker writes about baseball through data. He played outfield in high school, found his real position behind a spreadsheet, and hasn't stopped building models since.
Pete Crow-Armstrong hit .272 in the first half and .188 in the final 200 PA. The projections say it gets worse. The Cubs aren't ready.
Scroll to explorePete Crow-Armstrong had a season that looked like a breakout, then looked like a breakdown. First half, he hit .272/.309/.559 with 27 HR and 29 SB in 131 wRC+ territory. He was a star. Then baseball remembered that he chases anything thrown at him.
Second half, .216/.262/.372. A 59-point drop in wRC+. In his final 200 plate appearances, he hit .188. The Cubs collectively are about to learn that one brilliant half doesn't erase a structural problem.
This essay is about the 2026 regression story nobody wants to tell. The projections are in. And they're brutal.
Crow-Armstrong finished 2025 with a 4.5% walk rate. That's 4th percentile in baseball. His OBP of .287 was 11th lowest among qualified hitters. He posted 6.0 WAR while maintaining one of the worst plate disciplines in the league. Only one other player in baseball history has done that.
A 41.7% chase rate on pitches outside the zone. 86% meatball swing rate. Zone swing rate 13 percentage points above league average. Crow-Armstrong swings at everything, especially when pitchers are throwing strikes.
The second half showed effort. Chase rate dropped to 37.4%. By September, 35.6%. But the problem is embedded. Crow-Armstrong doesn't walk. Walk rate determines OBP. OBP wins games.
The math: You can hit 31 home runs with a .287 OBP and still hurt your team's scoring. Crow-Armstrong proved it. Steamer projects him to regress significantly because this flaw doesn't fix in 18 months.
At home, Crow-Armstrong hit .279/.311/.505 with 15 HR in 324 PA. On the road, .213/.241/.433 with 16 HR in 293 PA. A 66-point gap in OPS between home and away. Wrigley Field masks his plate discipline problems.
The exit velo tells a cleaner story: 89.5 mph average, 41.6% hard-hit rate, 13% barrel rate. His xwOBA sits at .321. The underlying talent is real. The problem is the approach will throttle it.
.279/.311/.505
15 HR in 324 PA
.816 OPS
Park factor advantages. Shorter dimensions. Favorable wind patterns.
.213/.241/.433
16 HR in 293 PA
.674 OPS
Real performance without park benefit. Closer to true talent.
Steamer projects Crow-Armstrong to hit .751 OPS in 2026, down from his 1.021 OPS average for 2025. That's 20 HR and 26 SB instead of 31 HR and 35 SB. The projection: 3.3 fWAR versus 5.4 actual. A 2.1-WAR drop.
A 6.9-point defensive value decline is baked into those numbers. Steamer expects his defense to decline. The model knows what his bat will do when separated from a favorable home environment and lucky sequencing.
Bleacher Report named him one of 10 hitters most likely to regress in 2026. The consensus is building. The first half was real. The second half was realer.
Crow-Armstrong's regression is one problem in a larger pattern. Steamer projects every Cubs position player to perform worse in 2026 except Matt Shaw. The cumulative WAR loss: 6.6 fWAR. They're losing Kyle Tucker in free agency. They added Alex Bregman and Edward Cabrera. It's not enough.
In 2025, the Cubs hit 223 home runs, 6th in baseball. Steamer projects 181 HR in 2026. A 42-homer decline. Nico Hoerner is the other Cubs position player projected above 3.0 WAR, despite hitting just 7 HR in 2025.
They still project to win the NL Central. The division is that weak. But a 6.6-WAR decline is the difference between competing and struggling. And it starts with one player who learned too late that you can't hit your way out of a bad approach.
The Cubs aren't alone in their decline. Cleveland Guardians are projected to win 75-76 games after winning the division in 2025. They're hitting 81 wRC+ against lefties. The Milwaukee Brewers scored 806 runs last year, their most since 1999. That's hard to repeat. Cincinnati made the postseason and has 16% playoff odds in 2026.
This is a division-wide hangover. And the Cubs, despite their problems, might still finish first because everyone else is hungover too.
The Blue Jays added George Springer at age 35 after he hit .674 OPS, then .959 OPS in back-to-back years. Varsh hit 133 OPS points higher last year. Bichette left in free agency. How long before that lineup starts feeling thin?
The Dodgers offense has an average age of 30.7 years old, the oldest in baseball. Their runs scored have declined three straight years: 906 to 842 to 825. That's not random. That's age.
The regression class of 2026 is large, and it's starting in Chicago.