Welcome to SB Nation Reacts, a survey of fans across MLB. Throughout the year we ask questions of the most plugged-in Cubs fans and fans across the country.
Earlier this week I asked you a Cubs-related question in the SB Nation Reacts survey, but we’re going to start this one with the national question asked of everyone, not just BCB readers:
So it looks like Pete Crow-Armstrong has the attention not only of all Cubs fans, but of baseball fans nationwide. This is a significant result — Shohei Ohtani
has won the last two NL MVP awards and four MVP’s overall in his career, but it appears that voters in this survey discounted Ohtani’s 2026 season for a couple of reasons.
First, obviously, is the fact that he’s not pitching at this time (although this article indicates he might return before the regular season is over). While Ohtani pitched very well in the 14 starts he did make — 1.79 ERA, 0.946 WHIP, 3.0 bWAR — that doesn’t appear enough for folks voting in this survey. Also, while Ohtani is having a good offensive season, batting .290/.390/.540 with 27 home runs in 113 games, it’s not quite as great as the two previous years, when he topped 50 home runs in both seasons. Ohtani isn’t stealing bases anymore either, with just seven this year.
Meanwhile, PCA enters Saturday’s action batting .279/.378/.534, pretty close to Ohtani’s slash line, and also has 27 home runs. He’s also recorded 30 steals and seems likely to have his second straight 30/30 season. Then there’s the defense, and as noted in this post in The Feed, is at the top of SABR rankings in fielding for the year to date. Overall PCA has 7.3 bWAR, leading all MLB players, and is also atop all MLB players in fWAR with 7.8.
PCA is in a bit of a hitting funk right now, 0-for-8 in his last two games, but we have seen him come out of these dry spells with good offensive stretches many times. Hopefully that starts today.
Now, here’s the question I asked you here at BCB earlier this week:
With the caveat that it’s still six weeks till the postseason begins, I think this is the correct answer. Matthew Boyd has been remarkably good since he returned from that freak knee injury. Over that span of nine starts: 2.43 ERA, 1.186 WHIP, and the Cubs won eight of the nine games. Overall this year the Cubs are 11-3 in the 14 games Boyd has started.
Maybe the Cubs don’t have an official “ace,” but that is certainly ace-type pitching.
Boyd takes the mound Saturday afternoon against the Cardinals. Let’s hope that continues.
This edition of SB Nation Reacts is sponsored by FanDuel.
