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Pete Crow-Armstrong is one of baseball's loudest talents: The quiet work behind the scenes
CHICAGO — Roughly five hours before first pitch at a Wrigley Field night game, Pete Crow-Armstrong will begin part of his pregame routine. Amid the quiet and stillness of an empty ballpark, the Chicago Cubs' budding superstar will hit balls off a tee and observe the flight patterns, taking mental notes on how things look and feel.
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Crow-Armstrong does not work alone. John Mallee and Dustin Kelly — two hitting coaches who helped implement last year's midseason overhaul of Crow-Armstrong's left-handed stance — remain a constant presence in the daily schedule. Teammates such as Michael Busch and Justin Turner also often join these early sessions. Before 40,000 fans stroll through the gates, this intimate setting offers a chance to connect and focus.
For a player with loud talents, a magnetic personality and a soaring public profile, Crow-Armstrong very much appreciates his craft and enjoys the grind.
'When you're working on a swing pattern or movement and the ball's stationary, you can think your way through the order,' Mallee said. 'The more that the ball starts moving, the more timing is involved. The more timing that's involved, the harder it is to work on certain swings, because then it becomes an athletic event.'
Within the sport, Crow-Armstrong's athleticism is almost unmatched. In the Statcast era, his arm strength and sprint speed are in the 94th and 96th percentiles, which allows him to play center field at a Gold Glove level. Still only 23 years old, he also has energy to burn.
After hitting off the tee, Crow-Armstrong will go through flip drills, then hit the type of breaking ball he's expected to see that night and finish with more swings against fastballs. Tracking spin and velocity against this outdoor backdrop creates a different perspective from hitting in a cage.
Establishing a consistent routine had been a priority for Cubs manager Craig Counsell and his coaching staff during Crow-Armstrong's rookie year. That process required time and patience.
'I've had a bunch of reality checks,' Crow-Armstrong said. 'The hand-holding that kind of went on the last year or two, I've had a lot of people just push me in the right direction.'
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Mallee, the lead hitting coach for the 2016 World Series team, was uniquely qualified for this job. He had worked closely with Anthony Rizzo, Kris Bryant and Javier Báez, the iconic player the Cubs traded for Crow-Armstrong at the 2021 deadline.
Surprisingly dismissed after the Cubs lost the 2017 National League Championship Series, Mallee moved on from that disappointment by landing major-league coaching positions with the Philadelphia Phillies and Los Angeles Angels. Mallee, who had grown up as the son of a Chicago police officer and graduated from Mount Carmel High on the South Side, also maintained solid relationships within the Cubs organization.
When the club rehired Mallee as a hitting coach for Triple-A Iowa in 2023, the big idea was to run the hitting program at that minor-league affiliate the same way the Cubs oversee their hitters at the major-league level. That season, Mallee overlapped with Crow-Armstrong, who was part of the next wave of young talent the Cubs soon expected to reach Wrigley Field.
'We had an advance meeting every day,' Mallee said. 'We spent a lot of time on game planning, how to read the data charts, how to understand their strengths and weaknesses in the zone, what they hit and what they can't hit. You try to build an approach and a plan according to their strengths and teach them how to do that according to the pitcher's strengths and how that matches up. So that when they came up here, they were used to the big-league environment.'
Crow-Armstrong still looked overmatched as a September call-up in 2023, and he carried a .203 batting average and a .582 OPS into last year's All-Star break. Around that time, Mallee, now the club's assistant hitting coach, worked with Kelly to successfully readjust Crow-Armstrong's positioning and preparation.
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Though that second-half momentum did not carry over into the start of this breakthrough season — Crow-Armstrong had a .197 batting average and zero home runs through the first 17 games — he also did not lose confidence.
Once viewed as a defense-first player and a plus base runner, Crow-Armstrong's role has evolved to the point where he's a cleanup hitter for a first-place team. The Cubs are 15 games over .500 after Saturday afternoon's 2-1 win over the Pittsburgh Pirates at the Friendly Confines, where you never know what might happen when Crow-Armstrong is at the plate.
'The biggest difference you see in the box is he's more spread out,' Counsell said. 'There's less of a leg kick. There's more rhythm. That's created an ability to be on time more. Frankly, that's mostly a function of a daily routine getting to a good place. You're kind of trying things, little things, all throughout that process. And then, from a hitting perspective, just don't forget the main thing, which is who you are as a hitter, what you're good at. It's kind of reinforcing that through the ups and downs … the results can whiplash you (a bit).'
The ability to hammer pitches above the strike zone and near the dirt cannot be taught. At a certain point, Crow-Armstrong's instincts and fast-twitch reflexes take over. The Cubs, though, have provided structure, positive reinforcement and the runway to make mistakes and figure out what works.
'His adjustability is crazy,' Mallee said. 'You got to notice his ability to not hit the ball on the ground. Because he can run. And usually, guys that can run, they say, 'Oh, he's got just enough power to get himself in trouble.' That's not true. He's a power hitter that can run.
'He's trying to hit the ball in the air. He's trying to take a short, direct swing to the ball. But his ability to get the barrel below a ball and lift it (equals) a very low ground-ball rate on balls down in the zone, which is hard to do.
'Pete can pull anybody's fastball in the air when he's right. And he can hit below the zone as well as anybody and not hit it on the ground. Those are two gifts.'
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The league will, of course, continue to adjust to Crow-Armstrong, who already has 18 homers, 23 stolen bases and 57 RBIs in the middle of June. At the same time, he is making his own adjustments, studying opponents and absorbing information. In a sense, he is only just getting started.
'The downs have been big, and great learning experiences, once I got out of my own way,' Crow-Armstrong said. 'You mix that in with a lot of good advice and being able to filter out the right things and the wrong things. That's hugely contributed to how I feel going to the park every day and stepping into the batter's box every day.'
