Pete Crow-Armstrong has ascended to superstardom during the 2026 MLB season. Not only is he MLB’s best defensive player, but he’s taken huge strides at the plate, becoming a far more complete hitter than he was in years past. As we approach the end of the season, Crow-Armstrong is on track to become the Cubs’ first MVP winner since Kris Bryant in 2016. A little over a week into September, Crow-Armstrong has racked up 41 home runs, 97 RBIs and 36 stolen bases, all of which are career highs. He has a .948 OPS (second in MLB), 322 total bases (most in MLB) and 108 runs scored (most in MLB).With less than a month remaining in the regular season, Crow-Armstrong has already generated the most bWAR (8.9) of any Cubs position player since 2001, when Sammy Sosa recorded 10.3 bWAR and finished as the runner-up for NL MVP. It’s undeniable that Crow-Armstrong is enjoying a fine campaign, but where does his ‘26 season rank among the greatest individual seasons in Cubs history? PlayerSeasonGames PlayedTotal bWARTotal fWARRogers Hornsby192915610.611.0Sammy Sosa200116010.39.9Ernie Banks195915510.29.7Ron Santo19671619.89.5Ernie Banks19581549.38.7Pete Crow-Armstrong*20261468.9*9.9*Ron Santo19661558.98.5Ron Santo19641618.98.7Ryne Sandberg19841568.58.0Entering Wednesday, Crow-Armstrong is tied with Ron Santo (both in 1964 and ‘66) for sixth all-time in terms of single-season bWAR in Cubs history among position players, but with 16 games left to play, he has a little bit of time to climb further up the list. In terms of fWAR, he’s already tied with Sammy Sosa’s 2001 campaign for the second-best individual season in franchise history. Sammy Sosa ripped 64 home runs with a 1.174 OPS in 2001. | John Zich/Getty ImagesDiving into Crow-Armstrong’s production this season, he’s been on an absolute tear throughout the summer. Since the All-Star break, Crow-Armstrong has 20 home runs and 44 RBIs in 50 games and owns a 1.003 OPS. He’s hitting for a lower average and has a lower OBP than he did in the first half of the year, but his surge in power at the plate has more than made up for that. Crow-Armstrong is just the second left-handed hitter in Cubs history to hit 40 home runs in a season, joining Billy Williams. Perhaps the biggest improvement Crow-Armstrong has made to his game is plate discipline. Entering this season, he had drawn a total of 53 walks in 293 career games. In ‘26 alone, he’s recorded 75 walks in 146 games. He has an 11.5% walk rate this year after never previously exceeding 5.1%. That ranks in the 77th percentile after being in the 11th and fourth percentile in walk rate in ‘24 and ‘25, respectively. Crow-Armstrong is a major base-stealing threat when he gets aboard, and he’s given himself many more opportunities to make use of his elite speed by being more patient in the batter’s box. The man known as PCA is the first Cubs player since Kiki Cuyler in 1930 to have more than 75 extra-base hits and 35 stolen bases in a single season.Crow-Armstrong’s strikeout rate remains high, and has actually increased slightly to 26% this season, but he’s chasing fewer pitches out of the zone, which was one of his biggest issues in years past. In both ’24 and ‘25, Crow-Armstrong ranked in the second percentile in chase percentage. He’s in the 25th percentile this season. He’s still chasing pitches at a high rate, but it’s a significant improvement year over year. Meanwhile, the 24-year-old has remained MLB’s best defensive player, regularly putting on a show out in center field. He leads MLB with 25 outs above average and 23 runs prevented, per Statcast, using his immense speed and outfield range to chase down hits that would be out of reach for most center fielders. What’s especially impressive about Crow-Armstrong’s 2026 season is that he was actually pretty lackluster throughout the first two months of the season. The 24-year-old had a .669 OPS at the end of April and a .713 OPS entering the month of June. Then, he flipped a switch. He batted .381 across 26 games in June, the best single month of his MLB career, and he’s continued playing at a high level since. In fact, since June 1, Crow-Armstrong has 34 home runs, 71 RBIs and 24 stolen bases in 86 games. Over a 162-game pace, that would equate to 64 home runs, 133 RBIs and 45 steals––simply mind-boggling numbers. Had Crow-Armstrong not started the season slow, he may well be running away with the best season in Cubs history. Even after that lackluster start, he’s still very much in that conversation. Let’s take a look at the three best seasons in franchise history that Crow-Armstrong will be competing with in the next few weeks––the three times a Cubs position player has recorded 10-plus bWAR. (Editor’s note: There have been seven instances of a Cubs pitcher exceeding 10.0 bWAR, but only two since 1920: Dick Ellsworth in 1963 with 10.2 and Fergie Jenkins in 1971 with 10.1.)Three best individual seasons in Cubs historyRogers Hornsby led the majors with 156 runs and 409 total bases to win the NL MVP award in his first season with the Cubs in 1929. | Getty ImagesRogers Hornsby, 1929Hall of Famer Rogers Hornsby has held the Cubs’ record for highest single-season bWAR by a position player for almost a full century now. In 1929, Hornsby enjoyed a spectacular campaign, his first as a Cub, during which he recorded 229 hits, a .380 batting average and an OPS of 1.139. He hit 39 home runs, logged 149 RBIs and scored 156 runs across 156 games, resulting in a spectacular 10.6 bWAR (11.0 fWAR). That season, Hornsby won the NL MVP for the second time in his career and helped lead the Cubs to the World Series, though they were defeated by the Philadelphia Athletics in five games. Sammy Sosa, 2001Sosa was one of the league’s premier sluggers during the steroid era, and he had his best-ever season in 2001. Sosa was the runner-up for NL MVP that year, finishing behind Barry Bonds, after recording 64 home runs along with career highs in RBIs (160), slugging percentage (.737), OPS (1.174), runs (147), total bases (425) and walks (116). He generated 10.3 bWAR during that prolific campaign. Whatever you may think of Sosa, who was never directly found guilty of using steroids, though he did test positive for performance-enhancing substances in ‘03 in an anonymous survey, his feats in the ‘01 season were astronomical. His 64 home runs were the second-most ever by a Cubs player in a single season (trailing only his 66-homer season in 1998) and his .737 slugging percentage was the highest in franchise history. Ernie Banks, 1959Banks won the NL MVP in 1958 and ‘59, the latter of which was his best-ever season. In ‘59, Banks clobbered 45 home runs and drove in a league-high 143 RBIs, 18 more than any other player. Then 28 years old, Banks logged a .970 OPS while recording 351 total bases and a 156 OPS+. The ‘59 season was the best defensive campaign of Banks’s career, too. He set the NL record for single-season fielding percentage by a shorstop (.985), helping bring his season bWAR to an elite 10.2 (9.7 fWAR). Despite the prolific campaign from Banks, the Cubs finished fifth in the National League and missed the postseason, though Banks became the first player in NL history to win back-to-back MVP awards.Add us as a preferred source on GoogleFollow