Sammy Sosa put his weight behind Pete Crow-Armstrong in the National League MVP race on Thursday, saying the Cubs outfielder deserves the award more than Shohei Ohtani. Sosa made the call while walking the red carpet at the Harold & Carole Pump Foundation 26th Anniversary Celebrity Dinner.
The endorsement lands now because the race is close and the comparison is already public. The Post’s Jon Heyman gave Crow-Armstrong the slight edge Thursday morning, and Sosa followed by saying he believes the Chicago star is the one the MVP should be looking toward in Chi Town.
Crow-Armstrong’s case is built on numbers that are hard to ignore: 31 home runs, 31 stolen bases and a.279 batting average in 128 games. Ohtani finished with 30 home runs, seven stolen bases and a.291 batting average in 118 contests, a line that keeps him right in the fight but leaves Crow-Armstrong with the kind of all-around edge voters often reward.
Sosa did not diminish Ohtani, calling him one of the greatest and saying nobody can take that away from him. Even so, he said Crow-Armstrong has “a lot of opportunity” and “a lot of possibility” to be an MVP because of the way he has been carrying the team and the year he has been having.
That is the friction in this race: Ohtani remains one of baseball’s biggest stars and an All-Star-level pitcher, but the current argument is not only about star power. It is also about production, value and whether Crow-Armstrong’s mix of power, speed and defense has done enough to pass a player with a bigger name and a longer résumé. For now, the public backing from a Cubs legend only sharpens the case for Crow-Armstrong as the slight favorite.
The larger question is whether that support reflects where the vote is headed or just how tight this race has become. The winner has not been announced, and with Crow-Armstrong and Ohtani separated by so little, the final call will hinge on how voters balance the full season against the force of Ohtani’s profile.
