Before spring training started, projection systems such as ZIPS pegged Pete Crow-Armstrong for 15 home runs throughout the entire 2025 season.

The Chicago Cubs center fielder — and baseball’s newest superstar — just hit his 15th home run Wednesday … before the calendar even flipped to June.

Crow-Armstrong is on pace for 43 longballs and showing no signs of slowing down. His latest home run was as impressive as it gets, as he went down to golf a ball well below the strike zone and sent it rocketing into the right-field bleachers.

The Cubs and their fans entered 2025 with big expectations for the 23-year-old, but nobody expected this. He hit 10 homers and drove in 47 runs in 123 MLB games last season, and he never hit more than 20 roundtrippers in a season in the minors.

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But his Cubs teammates aren’t surprised in the slightest.

“It’s always been there,” left fielder Ian Happ said on the latest episode of the “Cubs Weekly Podcast.” “I think people are surprised by it. But we saw it really early on. He had the ability to hit balls really hard to the backside and the juice.

“Maybe because he’s such a speed guy that he kind of got labeled as a defensive-first dude. But the bat’s had thump the whole time. I think we all knew that it was in there — 30-home run production is in there. And you’re seeing it now. He hits the ball really hard, and he’s found the ability to hit the ball in the air to the pull side, which is a special thing.”

Crow-Armstrong’s power explosion helped him reach the Memorial Day checkpoint as a legitimate NL MVP candidate — alongside players such as Cubs teammate Kyle Tucker and Los Angeles Dodgers superstar Shohei Ohtani.

There is a lot of season left, of course. But Crow-Armstrong’s elite defense and speed already have helped him notch a league-leading 3.2 WAR — far above his 2.3 WAR from 2024.

The sky is the limit for Crow-Armstrong, and he’ll spend his Saturday night as the special guest on Happ’s “The Compound” live show at the Music Box theater just a few blocks from Wrigley Field.

Leading up to the event, Happ was asked for one thing Cubs fans don’t know about Crow-Armstrong.

“I think what people don’t get to see is the work every day,” Happ said. “People don’t get to see the cage routine. He and [Cubs assistant hitting coach] John Mallee have a really special relationship, what he goes through on a daily basis with Males — I think those are the little things that you know about the person and how much work they put in that you can talk about and get someone to open up.

“For me, maybe it’s just ’cause I play, but that part of it’s really interesting. Why do you do this specific drill? How does that get you locked in? What does that feeling in your back leg — all those little things that he’s thinking about on a daily basis that I get to talk to him about, that the fans might not get to hear, I think people might find that interesting.”

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