Five years ago, the Chicago Cubs traded Javy Báez to the Mets at the deadline for a 19-year-old lottery ticket who had played all of 29 professional games. On Tuesday, that lottery ticket — Pete Crow-Armstrong — became the betting favorite to win the National League MVP, a race that has officially turned into a two-man war between the game's most exciting five-tool player and the greatest player who ever lived. And for the first time in years, the greatest player who ever lived is the underdog.
According to ESPN's awards tracker, Crow-Armstrong sits at -190 — his shortest odds of the entire season — while Shohei Ohtani has slipped to +155. Nobody else is even on the board. A player who opened the season at roughly 1% implied probability is now a 65% favorite to end the most dominant MVP run in a generation.
The Anti-Ohtani
Here's the uncomfortable truth the baseball world is dancing around: Ohtani's MVP case has been running on reputation since July 3. That was his last start. A lingering left knee issue and a biceps injury have shelved the two-way weapon's signature skill for nearly two months, with a return targeted for the Dodgers' Sept. 1-9 homestand. Through 14 starts, Ohtani was brilliant — 8-2, a pristine 1.79 ERA, 95 strikeouts in 85 2/3 innings. But those innings are a memory now, and the award is supposed to be about 2026, not a career retrospective.
Meanwhile, Crow-Armstrong has spent the last two months doing things that make scouts swear they've never seen anything like it. He's at 33 home runs and 31 stolen bases, locking up his second straight 30-30 season at age 24. He's hitting .281 with a .907 OPS. Since July 3, his wRC+ is 171 to Ohtani's 149, and he's out-homered him 14 to 12. He led MLB in bWAR earlier this month at 7.5. He has nine homers in August alone, in the middle of a Cubs surge that has produced a franchise-record 30 unanswered runs over a three-game stretch and a 76-57 record with a five-game cushion on the final wild-card spot.
The Glove Nobody Can Replicate
Then there's the defense — the part of the game that separates a great season from an MVP season. Crow-Armstrong set a Statcast-era record with his 33rd five-star catch, the kind of plays in center field that manager Craig Counsell can't even properly describe.
"They're just plays that nobody else is going to make," Counsell said. "Nobody else is making the plays. And you're going to have to watch baseball a long time to find someone who's going to make the plays. That's how good it is."
In a league that has spent a decade optimizing the bat, Crow-Armstrong has built an MVP case on the exact skills the analytics era supposedly devalued: range, instincts, and baserunning. He's also quietly transformed his plate discipline — he has 10 games this season with at least two walks, after managing just two such games in his first 293 career contests. The lottery ticket learned how to take a pitch.
Báez Trade, Revisited
Here's the twist that makes this race delicious: Crow-Armstrong is the exact player Báez never was. Báez gave Wrigley magic and highlight reels; Crow-Armstrong gives Wrigley results. And while the Cubs' 2016 championship core was dismantled piece by piece, the return on that final sell-off is now the front-runner to become the first Cub to win MVP since Kris Bryant in 2016.
Ohtani, for his part, is hardly a fraud. He's hitting .288 with 30 homers and an OPS near .922 while recovering from his second elbow reconstruction — a season that would win the award in 95% of years. He's chasing a fourth straight MVP, which would tie Barry Bonds' 2001-04 monopoly, and a fifth overall. The voters' default setting is to hand him the trophy and apologize for taking 30 seconds to do it.
The Case for Ending the Monopoly
That default is exactly why he shouldn't get it. Voter fatigue is real, and it's earned. The award is "Most Valuable," not "Most Accomplished Career." Ohtani has been a very good designated hitter for two months; Crow-Armstrong has been the most valuable player in baseball for six. When the season's defining question — who actually carried his team into October — gets asked, the answer is a 24-year-old center fielder in Chicago, not a 32-year-old DH in Los Angeles waiting on a rehab timetable.
The betting market has already made its call. The only path left for Ohtani: return in September, throw three or four dominant starts, and go on a 12-homer heater while the Cubs stumble. That's a lot of ifs stacked against a biceps and a knee that have already failed him once this season.
The Prediction
Here's our call: Crow-Armstrong closes this out. Give it roughly a 65-70% probability, matching the market. He'll finish with 40-plus homers, 35-plus steals, a Gold Glove, and a playoff berth — the full package the voters pretend they want. Ohtani will get his September curtain call, fire a few vintage starts, and finish second for the first time in his Dodgers tenure. The Báez trade won't just be the best deal the Cubs made in the 2020s — it will be the one that finally ended the most boring MVP streak in baseball history.
Tyler Harlan
Tyler Harlan covers sports with an eye for rotations, trends, scheduling spots, and the game context that often gets overlooked.