Looking at Mechanical Changes Behind Pete Crow-Armstrong’s Unprecedented Tear
Pete Crow-Armstrong has been MLB’s best player in June, and it’s not even close. His 2.4 fWAR is 0.7 higher than Detroit’s Dillon Dingler, who is one of only 11 players not named PCA to account for one or more wins on the month. Crow-Armstrong’s 281 wRC+ this month is 48 points higher than Shohei Ohtani in second place, and his 1.411 OPS is 165 points higher. Even taking the relatively brief sample into account, that’s impressive as hell.
As OptaSTATS pointed out on Friday evening, only once in five million 18-game stretches in MLB’s modern era has a player recorded 34 hits with five doubles, two triples, nine homers, and six stolen bases. You can probably guess the player in question. Then he went 2-for-5 with a homer on Saturday. More than just luck or timing, PCA’s mechanical changes have precipitated this offensive explosion.
There are surely some mental cues behind the improvement as well, but we can’t readily point to those. The differences in his stance and timing mechanism, however, are much easier to spot. I’m glad my old pal Brendan Miller did the heavy lifting here, as it saved me a whole lot of time. As he laid out in a thread on X, there is a very obvious difference in the way PCA is holding the bat and striding.
Earlier in the season, the hands were up at his shoulders and the bat was parallel to the ground, which tends to create a longer swing path. In June, he began setting his hands between his chest and belly button with the bat pointing upward. His torso is also more upright and he’s incorporated a bigger stride while maintaining the Miguel Cabrera-esque “heel peel” timing mechanism.
What swing changes has Pete Crow-Armstrong made? Let’s zoom in and slow down Pete’s swing.
– Left: April (hands higher, top of bat facing dugout pre-pitch, small stride)
– Right: June (hands lower, top of bat facing sky pre-pitch, bigger stride) pic.twitter.com/girxjyJDNB— Brendan Miller (@brendan_cubs) June 20, 2026
As odd as it sounds to say that he appears to be on his toes a little more in light of the upright posture, that’s what I’m seeing. His weight also looks to be better balanced. Crow-Armstrong had previously been jabbing that front foot out a little, which naturally forces the back side to bear more weight and keeps the center of gravity farther back. A narrower stance with a larger stride keeps the COG between the feet and allows for a more uniform shift forward rather than possibly rocking back.
A hitter being in their toes might strike some as being a bad thing, given that so many of us were taught that you need to create ground force. That is true of terrestrial movers, but aerials create power with their upper half. By freeing his feet up to be more nimble, PCA has been better able to leverage the whippy athleticism of his arms and torso.
He’s also been standing much closer to the plate since mid-May, something MLB.com’s Jordan Bastian pointed out. That has created a different look for opposing pitchers and has given the white-hot hitter a better viewing angle.
“It was just to give them less room to go,” Crow-Armstrong said. “The visual of seeing somebody standing right on top of the plate may change things. In turn, it’s helped me know where I need [pitches] to start. It’s helped me lay off stuff inside and cover the outer half of the plate.”
The new setup may also be allowing PCA to have a “yes, yes, no” mentality at the plate. There’s no time to be thinking up there, so a hitter who’s waiting to make a swing decision is going to have all kinds of trouble against MLB pitching. That old stance created situations in which he might not be able to hold up once he got started, hence more trepidation and too many chases. With better balance, those issues have resolved themselves.
“He’s in swing mode. It’s kind of his thing,” Craig Counsell explained. “And I think now it’s a little bit like he’s learned that he can be in swing mode and still not swing. And I think that’s how he should be. It’s still an aggressive mode. It doesn’t take anything away from his aggressiveness.”
This incredible output can’t be maintained, but we should see Crow-Armstrong’s floor and ceiling alike rise as a result of his changes. And if that’s the case, we’re talking megastar potential.
