PCA Is Baseball's No. 2 Hitter, Not No. 1 — Alvarez's Lead Is Real
Pete Crow-Armstrong's .933 OPS and 36-HR/32-SB season is elite, but Yordan Alvarez's 1.040 OPS and superior plate discipline keep him ahead. Here's what the numbers actually show.
Published: · Figures as of August 30, 2026
Asked: Is PCA the best hitter in baseball now?
PCA ranks second in MLB hitting, behind Yordan Alvarez
Pete Crow-Armstrong ("PCA") is having one of the best offensive seasons in baseball, but the data puts him second, not first: his .933 OPS trails only Yordan Alvarez's 1.040 among qualified hitters, and the same order holds on Runs Created (108.8 for PCA vs. 126.9 for Alvarez), a count-based measure of total offensive production.
| Player | OPS (OPS) |
|---|---|
| Alvarez | 1.04 |
| Crow-Armstrong | 0.933 |
| Wood | 0.923 |
| Ohtani | 0.914 |
| Caminero | 0.897 |
The case for him
- 136 games, .933 OPS, 36 home runs, 32 stolen bases, 147 hits - a power/speed profile Alvarez doesn't match (Alvarez has stolen 1 base all year).
- His extra-base pop (.285 isolated power) is close to Alvarez's .293, so the gap between them isn't really about power.
The case against ranking him #1
- Alvarez's OPS lead over him is real and not close by the standard of a rate stat this deep into a season: 1.040 to .933, with Alvarez doing it on far better plate discipline - 93 walks against 102 strikeouts, versus PCA's 71 walks against 159 strikeouts. PCA's strikeout total is over half again as large on almost the same number of plate appearances (608 vs. 588).
- Their balls-in-play luck (BABIP) is nearly identical this season - .339 for PCA, .342 for Alvarez - so the OPS gap isn't a batted-ball-luck artifact either; it traces mostly to Alvarez's much lower strikeout rate and higher walk rate.
What the process says about what's next
DataBaller's sustainability read (which checks whether a hitter's last-40-games BABIP is running hot or cold against his own two-year baseline) has both players flagged, but pointing opposite ways. PCA's recent window BABIP (.286) actually sits below his own established level (.318), which the model reads as a sign his results have been mildly unlucky lately, not inflated - if anything, room to add production. Alvarez's recent window BABIP (.396) sits well above his own baseline (.327), which the model reads as more likely to cool off. Both readings carry confidence around 0.61-0.63, under the 0.8 threshold I'd want before leaning on this for a real forecast, so treat it as a mild tailwind for PCA's case rather than a settled one.
Bottom line (medium-high confidence): on this season's data, PCA is the clear No. 2 hitter in baseball by both OPS and Runs Created, with a legitimate argument he's closing the gap given the diverging sustainability reads - but Alvarez's lead is grounded in a real plate-discipline edge, not batted-ball luck, so calling PCA "the best hitter in baseball" right now isn't what the numbers show.