Pete Crow-Armstrong didn’t need to wait till now to start clearing space on his mantle.
But as baseball’s award season gets underway in the wake of Crow-Armstrong’s spectacular campaign, the hardware is starting to roll in.
The Cubs’ center fielder was named Player of the Year and National League Outstanding Player when the players’ union announced the winners of its Players Choice Awards on Wednesday.
Written in the stars: a PCA for PCA. 🤩 Congratulations to Pete Crow-Armstrong on being voted the Player of the Year in the 2026 Players Choice Awards!@Cubs pic.twitter.com/YMS3zyRhSO
— MLBPA (@MLBPA) October 28, 2026
As the title indicates, the Players Choice Awards were voted on by Crow-Armstrong’s peers, a notable difference from other end-of-season awards.
Crow-Armstrong is expected to be announced as an award-winner plenty more this offseason. He was among the finalists for the Hank Aaron Award, given to each league’s best hitter, and a finalist for a Gold Glove. It is anticipated he’ll win the NL MVP.
But despite being well deserving of those honors – Crow-Armstrong led baseball with 10.8 fWAR, ranked first in the game in home runs (45) and runs scored (119), tied for third in stolen bases (41) and was fourth in RBIs (107) – he spent the season expressing little excitement over his many individual accomplishments as he posted the seventh 40-40 campaign ever and rewrote much of the franchise record book.
Instead, Crow-Armstrong kept his focus on team goals, and he was obviously a massive part of the Cubs reaching the postseason for the second straight year. But he also acknowledged his no-show in the team’s brief, disappointing two-game stay in the playoffs, going 0-for-7 with four strikeouts as the Cubs were swept out of the wild-card round by the Padres.
That, however, will not tarnish what was a remarkable, all-timer of a regular season that will earn him a lot more than just a couple Players Choice Awards by the time baseball’s awards season is over and done with.