00:00but pete crowe armstrong solidified a cycle for the cubs on monday against the rockies at wrigley
00:05and they were trailing four to two when he did it uh we can expand the pca conversation in a
00:11matter of moments but i'll tell you right now cubs have some issues man serious yeah i know i even
00:17i
00:17feel bad that that's where it starts also remind me next episode or within the next couple episodes
00:22we got to have peter spell on a monopoeia on the spot yes i want to see what i want
00:27to see what it's
00:29want to see peter try um back into the phone that's all i was thinking about when you were
00:35doing the intro um it's like does he know there's a t in there i again i think i would
00:41butcher it too
00:42though to be honest the fact that that game you know it could have come out to be one of
00:48the most
00:48frustrating games in a while for the cubs because you get this heroic like mvp level performance and
00:53peter actually did tweet this too and i agree and i think i saw addison or social guy say the
00:57same
00:57thing to share the same sentiment which is like if it weren't for show hey otani we'd be doing the
01:02pca mvp first half thing again now he's going to need to do it in the second half but it's
01:07a little
01:08bit different this year where he was slow out of the gate and now is really ramping up and we'll
01:12see
01:12if he can kind of maintain this i'm a little bit more encouraged that he can maintain this because he
01:16had his first big like majors like half slump in major league baseball last year and you hope that
01:23after that one he can learn to manage it a little bit naturally he's going to be one of the
01:26the streakiest players in the sport i think that just comes with the territory but if you could
01:30raise the floor a little little bit that ceiling's always going to be as high as it is and we're
01:34seeing it right now it was an incredible performance and when he's dialed in he goes from a guy that
01:39gives away at bats to a guy that you're you're almost afraid to pitch anywhere near the zone to
01:44because he's aggressive but he's also doing damage on everything and it felt like that's where he was at
01:50the fact that the cubs won this game was because the rockies gave it away though i want to be
01:54clear
01:54on that front and the fact that you can get a pca performance like that i don't know how many
01:59cycles we've seen where yeah you've got like two runs on the board at that point for your for your
02:03team it it's just a weird situation right now at the cubs but at least pca has given them you
02:08know
02:08something to be excited about and hearing the fans chant his name and everything was pretty special
02:11yeah and listen pca is the perfect embodiment of what the current construction of the cubs will look
02:18like now and moving forward and it's nice that they got the extension done with peter armstrong and
02:22you bought out a couple of years of free agency for him on the back end but having the faces
02:27of
02:27chicago sports be p crow armstrong and caleb williams like it's good because they're both like kind of
02:33fire starters in a good way like they're they're spunky energetic people and pete crow armstrong
02:38can guide the cubs through what could be a brutal summer because you have so many starting pitching
02:43injuries and we'll see how they want to attack the trade deadline but pca slowly but surely and peyton
02:50flash this graphic a little bit earlier like slowly but surely is coming out of this early funk that
02:54you were alluding to this guy played 31 games between march and april hit 241 with a 670 ops 29
03:01games in may hit 230 with a 760 ops through 13 games in the month of june he's got 24
03:08hits and 55 at
03:09bats that's a 436 clip he also has 12 extra base hits already he's got four bags and it's a
03:161367 ops
03:18yes right now he will spray the ball around the ballpark he's never gonna walk just never gonna
03:24do it but at the end of the day this guy could be that 30 30 threat also a crazy
03:29nugget that i saw
03:30yesterday there are literally zero players in major league baseball pacing for a 30 30 season
03:35o'neill cruz was doing it before he left with that hand issue um and he's on the il and
03:40he will be for
03:41quite some time because he's got two fractures in his hand but we had what six guys go 30 30
03:46last year
03:47and we could have zero guys go 30 30 this year if pca keeps on this heater we could be
03:52looking at a
03:5330 30 pca again 100 and i think there's more reason to believe and peyton alluded to this too and
03:59even with the graphic that we just saw that this pca is going to be a little bit more steady
04:04than we've
04:05seen in the past because he said the ball harder and that's always going to just yield more consistent
04:09results and the average exit velocity is up two miles per hour the hard hit rate is up nine percent
04:15and then the other part that i think is encouraging is he's just swinging less he still swings a lot
04:19he's still going to chase a lot as you mentioned jack he's he's not going to walk a ton but
04:24he's
04:24gone from like never walking to getting to a reasonable point with the free passes knowing
04:29that because he's hitting the ball harder because he can do so much damage pitchers are going to be a
04:34little bit more careful with him walk rates up three percent swing percentages down ten percent
04:38that shows me that this is a guy that's aware of his shortcomings and is is actively trying to
04:44you know make this a little bit better and that also like to make that adjustment you also have
04:48to swing a little bit less in the zone because pitches that look like they're in the zone often
04:53drop out of the zone so he's had to just kind of rein in this aggressive aspect that has made
04:57him so
04:58good to allow him to hedge the weakness that has made him bad at times which is the expansiveness and
05:04and sometimes just the general whiff in his profile i think you're seeing a 24 year old just
05:08continue to develop again we're still gonna have these crazy ebbs and flows but when pca is dialed in
05:13with the defense that he brings to the table with the speed yes there's some bonehead in the six
05:18he completes the cyclic it's picked off like there's there's things like that but i will say this is
05:23one of the most electrifying players in the sport and he's in it's perfect for baseball that he's in such
05:29a major market
Comments