— Bob Nightengale Filtered —
— Yahoo MLB Filter —
Cubs news: Cubs, Pete Crow-Armstrong agree to 6-year, $115 million extension
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by Yahoo
Tonight, ESPN’s Jeff Passan broke the news that Cubs fans have been waiting for.
We have no details as of yet on the length of the deal or how much money Pete Crow-Armstrong will get. Bob Nightengale reports that it will be more than $100 million, which is a safe report, honestly.
Most observers have used the extension that Corbin Carroll signed with the Diamondbacks before the 2023 season as a point of reference: eight years and $111 million. However, there has been three years of contract inflation since then and PCA has accomplished more at this point than Carroll had before 2023, so I’d expect whatever Crow-Armstrong signed to be north of that.
Crow-Armstrong has said before that he loves Chicago and that he wants to be a Cub long-term. The Cubs have indicated that they’d like him around for a while. It looks like both sides got their wish.
UPDATE: We now have the terms of the deal.
So this may not be as extensive as some of us may have hoped. It’s quite similar to what Ian Happ and Nico Hoerner signed back in 2023, although those were three-year deals. Basically, the Cubs get cost certainty over Crow-Armstrong’s arbitration years and they buy out two years of free agency. There are some escalators which complicate things from the Cubs point of view. Crow-Armstrong will be a Cub through the 2032 season. It also doesn’t put them on the hook for a ton of money after PCA turns 30, which, presumably, will be his decline years.
For Crow-Armstrong, he gets a guaranteed deal with life-changing money and can still hit free agency at age 31.
Of course, this deal also gives the Cubs and Crow-Armstrong six more years to come up with a second extension if they wish. It will also give more time for the Cubs and PCA to establish what those years past 2032 should be worth. We could be in a completely different economic framework by then.
But for Cubs fans, the good news is that Crow-Armstrong should be patrolling center field for the next six seasons.