Guess Who’s 6th in WAR Over Last Month?

Aaron Judge and Bobby Witt Jr. have pretty much lapped the pack to the point that they should just award both MVPs to AL players. That’s also true for the last month, where Judge (2.6) leads Witt by 0.4 fWAR and Witt is a half-game ahead of Francisco Lindor (1.7). Jarren Duran and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. are just back of that at 1.6, but look who’s in the mix with three players at 1.5 fWAR: Pete Crow-Armstrong.

The dynamo is slashing .333/.398/.583 with a very nice 169 wRC+ and a .411 wOBA that would impress even Mary J. Blige. PCA has smacked four homers and swiped seven bags — that seems light, right? — in that time and has walked at an 8.4% clip that displays the kind of improved patience that could make him an incredibly dangerous hitter. He’s also striking out in less than 15% of his plate appearances in this recent stretch, which is on par with some of the game’s best contact hitters.

And we’re talking about 95 plate appearances, so it’s a large enough sample to be indicative of legitimate adjustments. While his full-season stat line doesn’t offer much evidence that he’s a cornerstone player, the changes he’s made since late July show that he can handle himself at the highest level. Based on what he’s done over the last few weeks, it’s not a stretch to say he could be a star. I’m talking the second coming of Javier Báez in terms of having every eyeball glued to him at all moments.

Pump the brakes? Nah, that’s no fun. Anyone who says this kid is full of himself or that his swagger is somehow a bad thing has no idea what the hell they’re talking about and must hate joy. I can’t wait to see what he does as his confidence continues to grow.