Jed Hoyer sat in the interview room just outside of the Chicago Cubs clubhouse at Wrigley Field at the end of the 2024 season and carved out a path to returning to the playoffs in 2025.

“There’s no question that when you’re looking to beat projections, when you’re looking to have that excellent season, having players outperform expectations is a big part of it,” the Cubs president of baseball operations said at the time. “I think when you look at our season, we had a lot of guys on the team that had good years. They kind of got back to their numbers, maybe on projection, a hair above, a hair below.”

Adding Kyle Tucker was a massive boost to ensuring the Cubs made the playoffs in 2025, but the emergence of Pete Crow-Armstrong was the type of performance Hoyer spoke about.

[MORE: Jed Hoyer reflects on Cubs’ offense, Wrigley Field park factor in 2025]

The Cubs center fielder posted a 5.4 fWAR, was a 30-30-30 player, collecting 31 home runs, 37 doubles and 35 stolen bases while being a finalist for the National League Gold Glove Award in center field and the Silver Slugger Award. He very well could receive down-ballot MVP votes next month and was a serious contender for the award through the first half of the season.

That’s after many public projections had him around a 3-WAR player.

But the end of his campaign will have left a sour taste in the mouths of fans and Crow-Armstrong himself. After serving as the starting center fielder for the NL at the All-Star Game, Crow-Armstrong hit just .216 with a .634 OPS and six home runs in the second half.

“He had, in totality, a great year — going 30-30 and driving in almost 100 runs. He was so good early on, and then he struggled,” Hoyer said at his end-of-season press conference earlier this month. “This is his first full season, and that’s something I talked to Pete a lot about during the course of the year. He plays really hard. He’s the backbone of our defense, so there could have been some fatigue there that set in.”

Watch Jed Hoyer’s full end-of-season press conference only on the Marquee Sports Network app.

Crow-Armstrong experienced the grind of a major-league season and played in 157 games this year, the most of any of his professional seasons. The Cubs called up Kevin Alcántara on Sept. 1, when rosters expanded, to find some rest for Crow-Armstrong ahead of the playoffs.

The biggest concern with Crow-Armstrong’s second-half struggles was his strikeouts. His strikeout rate jumped nearly 3 percentage points after the All-Star Break, and another aspect of his game – his speed – was neutralized by not being on base.

“Going forward, I think he’s going to have to shrink his strike zone and he’s gonna have to focus on those things — but I think he will,” Hoyer said. “He’s still 23 years old. He’s still learning, so I expect him to keep getting better and better. It may be gradual, or it may all come at once, but I have no question that he’ll continue to get better.”

The Cubs will hope he does, especially with some of the uncertainty surrounding their offseason.

Tucker’s future will be the biggest question mark over the winter, and if he does not return, the Cubs will need to make up his offensive contributions somehow. They were one of the game’s best offenses in the first half because of the exploits of Tucker and Crow-Armstrong. Having the center fielder contribute like he did in the first half of 2025 will be a welcome boon.

Crow-Armstrong was still a solid player in the second half because of his glove work. But his bat is what can make him one of the electrifying stars in the game – and can help the Cubs exceed expectations in 2026.

“The one thing with Pete that I always focus on is, when he’s struggling offensively, he’s a great player. And when he’s hitting, he’s a superstar — because what he does defensively night in, night out is unbelievable,” Hoyer said. “I think he’s the best defensive player in baseball. The number of catches he makes head high that other teams’ center fielders don’t get to is remarkable.

“Not only did he have a huge role on our team offensively, but when you think about our run prevention, he’s right there at the top.”