There's a new king of the National League, and his name is Pete Crow-Armstrong.
The Chicago Cubs center fielder was named National League MVP on Thursday following his breakout 40-40 season, denying Shohei Ohtani his fifth career MVP and third straight in the Senior Circuit. He received all 30 first-place votes to become the 11th NL unanimous winner.
Ohtani, the runner-up, passed Barry Bonds and Mike Trout to become the first player with six straight top-two MVP finishes. Milwaukee Brewers second baseman Brice Turang was a distant third.
It's the 10th time a Cubs player has won NL MVP since the modern BBWAA award was established in 1931, and the first time a Cub has been the unanimous choice. Crow-Armstrong is the first NL center fielder to win it since Andrew McCutchen in 2013, and the first Cubs outfielder since Sammy Sosa's 66-homer campaign in 1998.
The 24-year-old Crow-Armstrong produced the seventh 40-40 season in MLB history (and his second straight 30-30 campaign) while leading the majors with 45 homers, 119 runs scored, 357 total bases, 84 extra-base hits, and 10.6 fWAR over 162 games.
He slashed .280/.372/.570 and was atop the NL leaderboard in slugging, OPS (.943), OPS+ (156), and wOBA (.400). Crow-Armstrong's 41 steals placed second in the NL; he also ranked top-10 in hits, triples, and walks, while increasing his walk percentage to 11.4% - nearly six full points higher than last year.
Crow-Armstrong's dominance extended to his Gold and Platinum Glove-winning defense in center field. His 25 outs above average were the most among all qualified outfielders regardless of position, and he also accrued 16 defensive runs saved and five outfield assists while making only six errors in 404 chances.
Originally drafted 19th overall by the New York Mets in 2020, Crow-Armstrong was traded to the Cubs at the 2021 deadline for Javier Báez and Trevor Williams. He made his MLB debut two years later.
Crow-Armstrong and AL MVP Yordan Alvarez are the third pair of unanimous MVP winners in the same year, joining Ohtani and Ronald Acuña Jr. in 2023 and Ohtani and Aaron Judge in 2024. It's also the first time ever that all four MVP and Cy Young winners were unanimous choices.
Gabriel Moreno, Fernando Tatis Jr., Cristopher Sánchez, Alex Bregman, and Matt Olson rounded out the top 10 of this year's NL MVP vote.
