Petecrow and Shohei are great, but shouldn't the Brewers have an MVP candidate?
No. Of course not. Screw them.
There is a big national debate about who the MVP of the National League should be this year. Should it be Shohei Ohtani, who already has two American League MVPs with the Angels and two National League MVPs with the Dodgers, or should it be the Cubs' Petecrow Armstrong?
You can make strong arguments for and against both players.
For instance, did you know that Shohei is not only the Dodgers' designated hitter, but he also moonlights as a starting pitcher and has made nearly as many starts as Edward Cabrera? I feel like more people should talk about this.
After having a breakout first half last season at the tender young age of 23, Petecrow is having a breakout full season at 24. He's really good. But he wasn't good enough to make the Cubs 150th Anniversary team because he's clearly not as good as Ian Happ has ever been.
Of course Shohei isn't having an Edward Cabrera pitching season in any sense other than being somehow even less durable. In his 14 starts he went 8-2 with a 1.79 ERA, allowing just 55 hits in 86.2 innings and striking out 95. He was a 2.9 WAR pitcher in those 14 starts, which would lead the Cubs this year, with only Ben Brown's 2.2 remotely close to him. The next best Cubs' pitchers are Shōta Imanaga (1.6) and, get this, Javier Assad (1.2). Assad is the Cubs' second best healthy pitcher and he spends most of his time waiting for the Des Moines Flyer at the Greyhound station. Clay Holmes has been a Cub for two weeks' worth of starts and if he pitches well in his next one, he'll almost certainly jump to third on the team in pitcher's WAR for the entire season.
Petecrow doesn't pitch, but he does play defense and he's almost certainly the best defender at any position in either league.
He's also leading the NL in slugging (.567), OPS (.944) OPS+ (158) and total bases (296). He's also second in runs scored (97), eighth in hits (147), second in triples (seven—Corbin Carroll leads with 16!), second in homers (38), fifth in RBI (91, while hitting leadoff for most of the season), fifth in strikeouts (159), but 10th in walks! (71). And, he's second in stolen bases with 32 in 39 attempts. He leads in the NL in extra base hits (71) and times on base (230).
In other words, he's really fucking good.
