The Chicago Cubs are locking in the new face of their franchise.<\/p>\n
The Cubs and All-Star center fielder Pete Crow-Armstrong are finalizing an agreement on a contract extension, pending medical exams, a source confirmed to the Tribune on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Crow-Armstrong, who turns 24 on Wednesday, last year became just the second player in Cubs history to record a 30-homer, 30-steal season, a feat previously accomplished only by Sammy Sosa twice.<\/p>\n
Despite a second-half slump, Crow-Armstrong produced a career year<\/a> in his second full season in the majors. In addition to his 31 home runs, 37 doubles, 35 stolen bases, 95 RBIs and a 118 OPS+, Crow-Armstrong provided elite defense in center field, winning his first Gold Glove Award<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is no consistency there really,\u201d Crow-Armstrong said at the beginning of spring training. \u201cIt\u2019s very sporadic, and I think we\u2019ve kind of ironed that out. Like, it\u2019s not the most perfect thing in the world, but the steps we\u2019ve taken with the swing over the last three-plus years has been incredible and I\u2019m very proud of that.<\/p>\n \u201cI had a lot more fun when I was playing well. And when I was playing well, I was keeping the ball in the middle of the plate and I was able to do damage there. So there\u2019s a bunch of things I need to do to make myself a more well-rounded offensive asset.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s fun figuring out how I\u2019m going to put together a more full body of work this year.\u201d<\/p>\n The Cubs and Crow-Armstrong initially had discussions early last season but couldn\u2019t find common ground on a deal. He was scheduled to reach his first year of arbitration before the 2027 season and would have been a free agent after 2030. He previously expressed a love of Chicago and a desire to be a longtime Cub.<\/p>\n Crow-Armstrong\u2019s decision to bet on himself last year paid off.<\/p>\n \u201cAs a player, I have a lot of belief in myself, and I don\u2019t think that\u2019d change no matter the amount of money that I was offered,\u201d Crow-Armstrong said in April 2024 after extension talks with the Cubs didn\u2019t pan out. \u201cOr if I don\u2019t ever get offered again, I don\u2019t think that\u2019ll ever change.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a great compliment and it\u2019s definitely a testament to the work I\u2019m putting in, but I think it\u2019s clear that I want to win baseball games here specifically. So I\u2019m glad that they see that and see that in me. It means a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Chicago Cubs are locking in the new face of their franchise. The Cubs and All-Star center fielder…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":640974,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2399],"tags":[5,138,24,4245,161,4,15381,81939,35],"class_list":["post-640973","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-chicago-cubs","tag-baseball","tag-chicago","tag-chicago-cubs","tag-chicagocubs","tag-cubs","tag-mlb","tag-pca","tag-pca-extension","tag-pete-crow-armstrong"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116285134830148221","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/640973","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=640973"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/640973\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/640974"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=640973"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=640973"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=640973"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}