Chicago Cubs: The great PCA vs. Ohtani debate

Chicago Cubs fans can whip out a laundry list of instances where the team has come out on the short end of a high-profile trade. Actually, everyone is crossing their fingers that the Owen Caissie-for-Edward Cabrera trade isn’t one of those cases as Chicago’s former no. 1 prospect is heating up in Miami as Cabrera is on the shelf.

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The great Cubs purge of 2021 may have been one of those instances where the team’s best laid plans didn’t quite work out, with one glaring exception—Pete Crow-Armstrong.

At the time, new Cubs president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer made the tough call to cut ties with many of the stars of the 2016 World Series team in return for a haul of prospects to restock an ailing farm system. But despite giving up Anthony Rizzo, Javier Baez, and Kris Bryant, among others, the team, as of right now, only has Crow-Armstrong and Kevin Alcantara to show for it.

But, well, Crow-Armstrong has been his own one-man army, so maybe that makes up for none of the other prospects of 2021 panning out.

“PCA” has been so dominant of late, by the way, that he’s starting to get some side-by-side, who’d you rather have comparisons with Los Angeles Dodgers superstar Shohei Ohtani.

PCA vs. Ohtani

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A casual look at the WAR stats—which are supposed to represent a player’s across-the-board value to their team—shows Crow-Armstrong atop the leaderboard when it comes to exclusive position players. Ohtani as a position player who’s also a pitcher, however, ranks slightly ahead of him with a 5.7 WAR to PCA’s 5.4.

Podcaster Jim Miloch posted a side-by-side comparison of Crow-Armstrong and Ohtani on Monday, via Baseball Refernce Stathead, to show just how closely the two All-Stars match up in terms of offensive stats.

Yes, Ohtani is pitching lights out this season.

And yes, PCA is very much in the MVP race this season. https://t.co/bFMN0csEBI pic.twitter.com/9UzOblsUgF

— Jim Miloch (@podoffame) July 6, 2026

As of this writing, the two are still right with each other. Ohtani is currently slashing .294/.409/.541 with 20 home runs, 56 RBIs, and 6 stolen bases. Crow-Arsmtrong is slashing .293/.383/.525 with 19 home runs, 50 RBIs, and 23 stolen bases. One important factor to note, though, is that the Cub is now doing his work from the leadoff spot, where he’s seeing fewer RBI opportunities.

Who’d you rather have?

But then, of course, one has to take into account the Japanese star’s status as an elite-level pitcher. On the season so far, he’s 8-2 with a 1.79 ERA over 14 games and 85.2 innings.

On the other hand, what about PCA’s ultra-elite defense in center field? Ohtani has a -.7 WAR on defense as a pitcher and hasn’t played outfield since 2021.

Working against conventional baseball wisdom, one could argue about the comparative worth of one quality start every fifth game versus the worth of every day elite defense on the field.

Ohtani is a superstar for a reason and, yeah, he’s a once-in-a-lifetime talent filling two high-end roles on one team. But Crow-Armstrong, as “only” an outfielder is not too far behind him as an asset. He’s also just 24 with lots of run for further growth.

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