Pete Crow-Armstrong Is Three Steals From 40-40 and the NL MVP Market Is Already Closed

Pete Crow-Armstrong went 3-for-4 with a triple, two home runs and three RBI in Chicago's 8-4 win over Atlanta on Wednesday, pushing him to career highs of 42 home runs, 102 RBI and 37 stolen bases across roughly 687 plate appearances. With just over a week left in the regular season, he needs three more steals to become the seventh player in major league history to record a 40-40 season and the first in Cubs franchise history.

The MVP part of this is already settled. Books pulled or effectively shut down the National League MVP market in early September, with Crow-Armstrong having traded at implied probabilities north of 99 percent before the action stopped. What remains live is the history, and the history is close enough to touch.

Where the 40-40 chase stands

Three steals in roughly a week is a reasonable ask for a player who has stolen 37, but it is not automatic. September steal rates fall for a specific and predictable reason: contending teams protect their stars, and the Cubs have a postseason seed to secure. A manager who has watched his MVP candidate carry the offense all summer is not eager to let him dive into second base in a meaningless late-season inning.

Crow-Armstrong is also facing pitching staffs with September rosters, which means more arms, more matchups, and more relievers whose only job is to hold runners. The stolen base environment tightens in the final weeks even as the games matter less.

The counterweight is that he has been the most aggressive version of himself all year. A player who has already run 37 times and reached base at the rate he has will get his opportunities. The realistic read: he is a favorite to get there, not a lock.

The season in context

The historical company here is what makes the chase worth following. Forty homers and thirty steals in the same season at age 24 or younger puts a player alongside Jose Canseco in 1988, Alex Rodriguez in 1998 and Ronald Acuna Jr. in 2023. Canseco and Acuna each won MVP in the year they did it.

Crow-Armstrong became the youngest player in Cubs history to reach 40 home runs, passing Ernie Banks, and the first Cub ever to pair 40 homers with 30 steals. For a franchise with the offensive history Chicago has, those are not small entries.

The underlying profile supports it rather than undercutting it. He has led the National League in slugging percentage and OPS for much of the second half, and the power came without sacrificing the defensive value or the baserunning that made him a prospect in the first place. This is not a player who traded contact for power and got lucky with a launch angle change. It is a genuine step forward.

The Verdexed model take

The model treats the MVP question as resolved and the interesting forward-looking question as October.

Chicago is positioned in the National League wild card field, with the projected bracket pointing toward a wild card series rather than a bye. That is the single most important fact about Crow-Armstrong's postseason value: a wild card team plays a best-of-three, and a best-of-three is the highest-variance format in the sport.

A player of Crow-Armstrong's profile, power plus speed plus elite center field defense, has an unusually high floor in a short series because two of his three skills do not depend on hitting. A center fielder who runs down extra-base hits and steals a base contributes in a game where he goes 0-for-4. That is worth more in a three-game series than it is over 162.

The betting translation: Crow-Armstrong is a better value in the NLCS MVP and World Series MVP markets than his MVP price would suggest, precisely because those markets require a team outcome the Cubs are not favored for. Market participants who have watched the regular season MVP race close will look elsewhere for October value, which is exactly when a fairly-priced player becomes underpriced.

Fantasy fallout

For anyone still alive in a head-to-head fantasy league, this is the week where Crow-Armstrong's category profile is at its most valuable and its most fragile at once.

The value is obvious. A player who can deliver home runs, RBI, runs and steals in the same week is the rare asset who moves four categories at once, and championship weeks are decided by category sweeps rather than by aggregate value.

The fragility is the rest risk. The Cubs have their postseason berth and are playing for seeding. Once seeding is settled, and it may be settled before the final weekend, Chicago has every incentive to give its MVP a few days off before a wild card series. Fantasy managers relying on Crow-Armstrong for a championship week should check the Cubs' magic number situation daily and have a bench plan.

The 40-40 chase cuts the other way and is the reason for optimism. A player three steals from history is a player who will be in the lineup, and a manager who sits him is a manager who takes the history away. That is a meaningful counterpressure on the rest-day risk.

What it means

The NL MVP race ended weeks ago. What is left is whether a 24-year-old center fielder in Chicago finishes a season that will be referenced for decades, and whether the team around him converts a strong regular season into a deep October.

Both questions resolve inside two weeks. The wild card round begins September 29, which means the Cubs have roughly a dozen games to sort out seeding and Crow-Armstrong has the same window to find three stolen bases.

For bettors, the actionable position is not on the MVP. It is on Chicago's October price relative to a roster that has the league's best position player and a bracket that funnels them into a series where one hot week decides everything. For fantasy managers, the actionable position is simpler: start him every day he is in the lineup, and watch the Cubs' seeding situation like it is an injury report.