If Pete Crow-Armstrong ultimately wins the National League MVP award this season, one of the people Cubs fans can thank would be Anthony Rizzo.

That shouldn’t be a tough ask for Cubs fans, who hold Rizzo in a special place of high regard given he was the face of a team that ended the most epic championship drought in American sports history.

Another person that deserves some credit for Crow-Armstrong’s monster season may be on the opposite end of the spectrum from Rizzo in regards to Q rating with fans: Alex Bregman.

Yet both are central figures behind Crow-Armstrong’s run at Shohei Ohtani‘s seat atop the NL MVP throne.

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How?

Well, it starts with the drastic improvement in plate discipline.

Crow-Armstrong walked just 4.5% of the time last year, his first full season in the big leagues. That ranked 284th out of 299 qualified MLB hitters last year.

This year, Crow-Armstrong has increased his walk rate to 11.5% — which ranks 58th out of 271 qualified MLB hitters.

That is a massive jump we do not often see in baseball. Guys make little adjustments from one season to the next but for the most part, young players come to the big leagues as either patient hitters or free-swingers.

It is such a massive jump, in fact, that Crow-Armstrong is doing something we haven’t seen since Hall of Famer Al Kaline accomplished the feat in 1954-55.

“Well, when things haven’t happened since the ’50s, you have a little bit harder time explaining them,” Cubs manager Craig Counsell said last week. “I will tell you that.”

There are many things that have gone into Crow-Armstrong’s adjustments and improvements, but Counsell pointed out how perspective from Bregman and following in Rizzo’s footsteps in the batter’s box have made a major difference.

“I think it started against left-handed pitching,” Counsell said. “His plate discipline improved against left-handed pitching first this year. And one of the things he did is he moved up on the plate. I think there’s been some conversations with Alex that have helped him as well.

“But if you think about moving up on the plate — I kind of equate that to how Anthony Rizzo moved up on the plate and for most of his career, was just right on top of the plate — against left-handed pitching especially. So it helped him, I think, better define the strike zone.

“So we saw the improvement against left-handed pitching first. But the rate at which it’s improved — how fast it’s improved — I don’t have any comparisons for it. I don’t have a great explanation for it. I think it’s a great athlete coming into his own as a great player.”

Crow-Armstrong is certainly a great athlete. He was a 1st-round pick in 2020 (19th overall) out of high school and ranked as a consensus Top 20 MLB prospect as he came up the ranks of the Cubs system.

He leads baseball in WAR as arguably the game’s best defender (regardless of position) and one of the sport’s most dynamic offensive players with a rare blend of power, speed and — now — plate discipline.

“Pete’s been great,” Nico Hoerner said. “He’s a player that can impact winning in so many different ways. And I think that’s part of creating consistency too. He doesn’t have to hit a home run in order to be the best player on the field that day. But also, he can hit home runs and do that. He’s been amazing.”

It’s one thing to have elite physical tools and find success in the big leagues.

It’s quite another to blend those elite physical tools with mental adjustments and an ability to grow and learn at the rate in which Crow-Armstrong has.

“When you talk about an athlete like Pete, that’s where I think just the level of athlete that he is matters,” Counsell said. “There’s some traits [like hand-eye coordination] that he’s got.

“But this is a young, great athlete getting more experience. It’s that takeoff that you hope you see.”

And take off he has.

Crow-Armstrong was on fire in June — .381/.468/.781 (1.249 OPS).

And he has nearly kept that same pace in July — .319/.453/.681 (1.135 OPS).

He has more walks in the 45 games since the beginning of June (31) than he had in 157 games last year (29).

Whether it will result in an MVP award remains to be seen.

But Ohtani is still shut down from pitching and having a slightly lesser offensive season by his incredible standards. That could give Crow-Armstrong a legitimate opening to step in and take home the league’s top accolade.