Pete Crow-Armstrong Playing To Healthy Payday

There is only one player ahead of Pete Crow-Armstrong in wins above replacement through the first two months of the season, and it’s .400-hitter Aaron Judge. In a typical season, Crow-Armstrong’s WAR mark of 3 wins would probably be leading all of baseball. Even though he is getting upstaged by Judge just a bit, Crow-Armstrong is having a dynamic season for the Chicago Cubs; one that will probably earn him a healthy contract extension this offseason.

He reportedly turned down a $75 million offer before the start of this season, and wisely so. Based on his performance thus far in 2025, the 23-year-old centerfielder is in good position to get a much bigger offer.

Through 50 games played, Crow-Armstrong not only ranks right near the top of Major League Baseball in wins above replacement, but he is also among the leaders in home runs, RBI, and stolen bases. And he is doing this while putting up some seriously good defensive numbers, as well. Crow-Armstrong has the second-highest defensive WAR in baseball and ranks in the top ten in defensive runs saved.

Those are just the plain numbers. Crow-Armstrong regularly makes highlight-reel catches in center field, like the one against the White Sox that robbed Joshua Palacios of a sure extra-base hit. He has become the most exciting player to watch on the Cubs roster for his hitting, defense, and baserunning, if not the National League as a whole.

Though the Cubs have Crow-Armstrong under team control through 2030, it is becoming somewhat common practice for teams to sign young players to contract extensions early, both to secure them in the organization for as long as possible and to avoid paying hefty arbitration salaries when the time comes. Crow-Armstrong is getting $771,000 from the Cubs this year, and he will enter his first year of arbitration after the 2026 season. Given the trajectory he is on, Crow-Armstrong could command a high arbitration salary come the 2027 season.

Crow-Armstrong has not said much about the reported contract extension offer, until recently. In an interview with NBC Chicago, he told reporter Kacy Standohar that “It was a huge honor and compliment to have anything like that thrown your way, and a lot of those deals never get done. I’m here to play baseball and win ballgames.”

He elaborated that his focus has been on his performance, not contract offers.

“I just want to keep gaining my teammates’ trust, and Counsell’s, for that matter,” he said. “It (the contract offer) has any relevance to the daily grind that we kind of do.”

For his part, Cubs president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer recently shared on Chicago sports radio that he plans to revisit the contract conversation down the road.

“We think the world of him,” Hoyer said on 670 WSCR. “And there’s so many things to like, not only about the way he plays the game but how he is as a teammate, how he interacts as a young player. So, we’d love to sign him long-term. Obviously, those conversations in-season are delicate. It’s something that I’m sure at some point, we will revisit. But right now, we’re letting him focus on the season.”

Crow-Armstrong has been a bit of a surprise for the Cubs, who already had a roster built to compete for the division. Going into their weekend series against the Reds in Cincinnati, the Cubs are ten games above .500 and have a two-game lead in the the National League Central. They have suffered some key losses to the pitching staff, but thanks to an offense – a group spearheaded by Crow-Armstrong’s performance – that has outscored the rest of baseball, the Cubs have been able to weather not having Justin Steele and Shota Imanaga in their rotation.

On his own, Crow-Armstrong has an easy case for an extension. He is young and playing extremely well. The Cubs have a lot of incentive to secure him in the organization for the long term, and doing it now would probably be the most cost-effective option for them. But there is one major obstacle, and that’s right fielder Kyle Tucker. The Cubs traded three players to get him last winter even though Tucker is set to be an unrestricted free agent after this season. The Cubs have talked about extending Tucker, but doing so will be expensive.

The Cubs are well under the luxury tax threshold this year with a team payroll of just over $193 million, and according to Spotrac, their payroll is projected to drop to around $150 million in 2026. Based on that figure, the Cubs have room in the budget to sign Tucker and Crow-Armstrong to extensions, but past precedent would seem to indicate that they might balk at the possibility. Tucker is expected to command somewhere well north of $400 million in his next deal, and given that the Cubs offered $75 million that he turned down before this season, they could easily be looking at combined contract values of close to $600 million between the two players. And in both cases, they would be long contracts, so the Cubs would be committed for years to come.

There is a lot of season left, but based on how Pete Crow-Armstrong has played so far in 2025, he made the right decision to turn down the initial extension offer. If he continues to perform at this level, he is going to earn a whole lot more.