Cubs radio's insane Pete Crow-Armstrong take has Cardinals fans rolling their eyes

There are hot takes, and then there are just insane opinions. Cardinals fans are not immune to these, but apparently, Chicago sports radio decided to feed into the latter when it comes to Cubs center fielder Pete Crow-Armstrong, discussing how a local Cubs writer stated that Armstrong "will be the best non-pitching baseball player of our lives other than Barry Bonds".

Uh, what? Come again?

Apparently Reid Rooney of Bleacher Nation, a Cubs site, texted that opinion to one of the hosts on ESPN Chicago, and the show decided to discuss this absolutely insane take. They talked about how Crow-Armstrong is one of the best defenders we have ever seen, so while he may not have the same level of bat as some of the other greats, he'll make up for it with his glove.

Um, no.

Albert Pujols and other Cardinals legends run laps around Cubs Pete Crow-Armstrong

It's always fun to project out the future of a player, but come on man. Saying Crow-Armstrong will be better than Albert Pujols, Barry Bonds, Mike Trout, Ken Griffey Jr., and more is just a horrible take.

Crow-Armstrong is making a strong case for National League Most Valuable Player this year, already surpassing 7 fWAR on the year while being both one of the best bats and best defenders in baseball. Good for him, it's a historic season for sure. Trout has done that multiple times in his career, and we are already going to act like he'll be better than him when he's not even finished with this campaign? Remember when he fell off in the second half last year?

Or how about Pujols, who, through their age-24 seasons, Pujols was worth over double the bWAR as Armstrong and had an OPS that was .254 points higher than Armstrong's so far in his career.

And if we just want to talk about careers here, is Chicago already ready to anoint Armstrong and his one career Gold Glove the best defensive player they've seen? The Cardinals had their own number four who won nine Gold Gloves, four Platinum Gold Gloves, two World Series, 10 All-Star nods, and was historically good at guiding pitching staffs and holding base runners in check? Yeah, I think I'm still taking Yadier Molina at this moment.

I want to be fair - Armstrong has the potential to be a Hall of Famer. If he continues what he's doing this year for years to come, he for sure will be, and he'll start putting himself in conversations like that, but this is far, far too early to try and have GOAT conversations with a player who is having his first historically great year at age 24 and fell off hard last year after looking like he was going to have one in 2025.

After an incredible first half last season that had him firmly in the MVP conversation, Armstrong slashed just .216/.262/.372 in the second half, amounting to just a 72 wRC+ and sliding down to a ninth-place finish in MVP voting. Again, great season! But not anything worth putting him in GOAT conversations, and even with how incredible a year he is having so far, we need to see far more before we touch that topic. Especially when he is already a player who is notorious for multiple major blunders that have embarrassed the Cubs at various times.

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