Pete Crow-Armstrong has turned the 2026 NL MVP race into a runaway, at least in the eyes of ESPN’s Bradford Doolittle.
The Cubs may not have taken the NL Central, but they’re still headed for a Wild Card berth and are expected to lock up the top spot for home-field advantage. Through all the ups and downs of Chicago’s season, Crow-Armstrong has been the clear engine behind it, putting together the kind of year that has people talking about history, not just awards.
Doolittle made his stance plain: “The 2026 NL MVP race is over, and now PCA is racing against history,” he writes. In his view, Shohei Ohtani, Jacob Misiorowski, Elly De La Cruz, Cristopher Sanchez, and the rest of the National League’s stars are nowhere near Crow-Armstrong.
The numbers back up that kind of confidence. Using Doolittle’s AXE metric, Crow-Armstrong sits at 165.3, well ahead of Ohtani’s 145.9 in second place in the NL MVP race.
Doolittle goes even further, saying that even if Crow-Armstrong struck out in every at-bat the rest of the way, the award would still be his.
Crow-Armstrong’s season has been loaded with production. In 153 games, he has 9.6 bWAR, 115 runs scored, 167 hits, 29 doubles, eight triples, 44 home runs, 105 RBIs, 37 stolen bases, 78 walks, a .282 batting average, .581 slugging percentage, .956 OPS, and 159 OPS+.
Those offensive numbers would make a strong MVP case on their own. Add in what Doolittle calls his league-best defense in center field, and the argument gets even stronger.
Back in early August, this race still felt open. But with Ohtani not pitching or hitting because of injury, Crow-Armstrong has been left with no real challenger. For Doolittle, the verdict is already in: the MVP race is over.
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