Chicago Cubs Star Pete Crow-Armstrong Named ‘Luckiest’ Hitter In MLB

How is it even possible for an MLB player with 26 home runs, 22 doubles, and a 7.3 bWAR to be considered lucky??

The Chicago Cubs have a superstar in their hands with the emergence of Pete Crow-Armstrong (PCA) this season. Over the last five games, PCA has firmly entered his name into the NL MVP conversation, and there’s an argument to be made that with a strong finish to the season, he could overtake Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani for the most illustrious award in MLB.

Back to being lucky, though, recently, FanSided.com’s Christopher Kline named PCA as one of the ‘luckiest’ hitters in MLB.

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Over the past five games, Pete Crow-Armstrong has eight hits, including two home runs, a double, three stolen bases, and seven runs scored, which has propelled the Chicago Cubs to several victories since the All-Star break.

PCA would likely credit his surge at the plate to a change in his hitting approach, but it’s hard to ignore his strong offensive numbers since becoming the leadoff hitter for Chicago.

FanSided.com’s Kline use xWOBA to judge if a hitter is considered lucky or not, and the reasoning he uses for PCA is the fact he’s so fast that he’s able to extend hits, leg out singles, and earn triples, whereas some other players with less speed are unable to do:

“Even more so than Abrams, PCA generates a ton of hard contact and burns rubber out of the box. He’s one of the fastest and most aggressive base-runners in the sport. So many “doubles” according to conventional metrics are going to be triples for PCA. Same for singles becoming doubles, and so forth. So do not use this as an argument against Crow-Armstrong in the MVP race, as he’s very much the deserving frontrunner with his MLB-best 7.8 fWAR, or wins above replacement. Yordan Álvarez, the AL MVP frontrunner, has 5.7 fWAR by comparison.”

Here is the definition of xWOBA, as explained in the FanSided.com piece:

“In the same way that each batted ball is assigned an expected batting average, every batted ball is given a single, double, triple and home run probability based on the results of comparable batted balls since Statcast was implemented Major League wide in 2015. For the majority of batted balls, this is achieved using only exit velocity and launch angle. As of 2019, “topped” or “weakly hit” balls also incorporate a batter’s seasonal Sprint Speed.”

Pete Crow-Armstrong ranks 19th in MLB in xWOBA this season.

Among the top-20 players in xWOBA this season, the only ‘MVP’ candidate is PCA, and several other names on the list include players like Keibert Ruiz, TJ Rumfield, Luiz Arraez, Chandler Simpson, and Ceddane Rafaela.

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Looking at Pete Crow-Armstrong’s 2026 Season in Full

One thing that is not lost on Pete Crow-Armstrong and his superstar capabilities is the fact he’s the best defensive center fielder in the NL, and perhaps in all of MLB.

Oh, and he also has 29 stolen bases this season, which makes him a possible 40/40 candidate. No CF has ever recorded a 40/40 season in the history of MLB.

Here are PCA’s full stats so far this season: 436 at-bats, 80 runs, 126 hits, 22 doubles, seven triples, 26 HR, 69 RBI, 29 SB, OPS+ of 158.

Not so sure I would consider those stats to be “lucky”, personally, but if you’re either a huge xWOBA fan, or just a PCA hater, you might consider Crow-Armstrong’s 2026 season a fluke.

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