This isn’t going to go away Pete Crow Armstrong and his hair. A photo of that:
That’s a reason not to draft him, I admit, but no, that’s not why we’re here. It’s also fair to wonder if that hand on his back is the Addams Family thing with his nails done. It’s not, as far as I know. Not to be confused with Itt’s nails. Cousin Itt had no hands. It had hair. Speaking of which, PCA’s hair is awful. I don’t consider myself a boomer. If you want to do things with your hair, by all means go for it. What did PCA do there? Horrible. I’m not even kidding. Blue hair is like blue food. It should not exist unless it is natural. Blueberries? Good. Blue raspberry? What godforsaken thing did you do to the beautiful raspberry? Blue hair in old people? Good. Dyed blue hair? That shizz is not cute. So, what can we expect from Pete Crow-Armstrong for fantasy baseball in 2026 and what makes him overrated?
I had a debate with BDon about ours first outfielder podcast (Yes, we had two outfielder pods – four hours of outfielder talk!). The debate was about a point I made in my top 20 outfielder rankings. I said I felt better about James Wood than PCA this year because Wood struggled with Ks, a new problem that can correct itself, and PCA struggled with waste contact. Contact with waste is more difficult to solve, I argued. Check out the two side by side, Wood is first:
Contact with waste is more difficult to solve because if a man doesn’t swing hard and hit weak wrists, he will continue to do so. That’s his game. He won’t suddenly wake up and hit the ball hard. But can a man wake up and hit less if he has a good eye (look at Wood’s walks)? Yes, that would make more sense to me. BDon disagreed, but who has the bully pulpit? Wet!
It also doesn’t help that the number of Pete Crow-Armstrong chases is just plain awful. His Chase rate in 2024 was 41.4%, and things got even worse in 2025; it was 41.7. That’s what you call horrible. Going back to the weak contact, how hard is it to put this together: Guy swings at the ball in dirt outside the zone, where does that ball go when he makes contact? A dribbler to 2nd place. The chase rate isn’t the worst thing a hitter can do, but it’s close. This is the worst from last year:
Can a batter succeed like that? Well, there are some good names on that list, sure, but none of those names come close to the PCA in drafts. If PCA were to be drafted around 120 in total? Oh, I’d be interested. Where will he go at thirty? Woof, bye. In some competitions he is ahead of James Wood! That’s crazy. He stands for Machado, Ketel, Cristopher Sanchez, well, some apples and oranges, but you get the idea. PCA contains helium and it drives me crazy.
Look at his fellow Chase Rate chasers, then scan left for EV. PCA is worse than Sal Perez, Michael Harris II and Yainer. I’m not saying those guys are better than him in fantasy, because PCA does have speed, but those guys are better hitters. PCA has a real chance of a 12/16/.216 type season. Where did I get those statistics? Well, he went 6/8/.216 in the second half of last year, so I “just doubled his numbers.” That was with only 25.6 K%. Again, I don’t view that as a positive here. He doesn’t swing and miss, he swings and gives that shizz to the second baseman. With someone like Michael Harris II, as you see above, at least he swings and misses or hits the ball hard. I prefer that!
And you may not know it, but Pete Crow-Armstrong is left-handed. But no fear of a platoon, right? Tell me I’m right so I can zap you in the head with this bug zapper! Say I’m right! Right?! Bzzt, wrong! He hit .188 vs. lefties! I suggest he shouldn’t face them. So Matt Shaw learns to play outfield, otherwise Chas McCormick will get hot and PCA will suddenly be platooned. You’re paying top 30 total for someone who might be platooned in June and can’t make good contact when he’s hitting? Those are real bizzonkers. Label this guy schmohawk and have someone else draft him. Please.
#Pete #CrowArmstrong #Fantasy #Schmohawk