Crow-Armstrong, Mervis manifesting longtime dreams by climbing through Cubs system

Jordan Shusterman

FOX Sports MLB Analyst

MESA, Ariz. — Like most baseball fans, Pete Crow-Armstrong remembers exactly where he was when Anthony Rizzo squeezed the final out of the 2016 World Series.

Years before he’d be traded to the Cubs for one of the players central in making that historic World Series possible, Crow-Armstrong — then a freshman in high school in California — watched his dad, a lifelong Cubs fan, celebrate the end of the 108-year drought like he himself had made the clinching throw to Rizzo.

“My mom wasn’t in town. It was just us two in the house. And I remember my dad jumping up and down, crying, all that stuff,” Crow-Armstrong recalls.

On the other side of the country, Matt Mervis was a freshman at Duke University. Mervis grew up a Nationals fan in the D.C. suburbs, but even he couldn’t resist supporting the Cubs in their quest to finally raise a World Series trophy once again.

“It was really cool watching that run,” Mervis says now.

Though they’ve never played together on the same minor-league team — Mervis was promoted to Double-A Tennessee last season, two weeks before Crow-Armstrong was called up to high-A — the two prospects have developed a strong friendship as potential centerpieces among the next wave of Cubs talent in search of another magical World Series moment for Chicago.

They kept up with their respective breakout years over social media. After the season, Crow-Armstrong recruited Mervis to join CAA, his agency. They appeared at CubsCon in January, and shortly after even got their own T-shirt:

As relative newbies to the Cubs organization, Crow-Armstrong and Mervis first connected a year ago when Mervis — a first baseman by trade — routinely wandered into the outfield (Crow-Armstrong’s preferred domain) to help field balls during bating practice. Despite a four-year age gap and having grown up on different sides of the country, it didn’t take long for them to realize they shared a similar passion for the game. Fast-forward a year, and here are Lightning (PCA) and Thunder (Mervis), each in their first big-league spring training, looking ahead to a bright future and the possibility of being integral parts of the next great Cubs team.

While manager David Ross’ presence remains a strong and valuable link to 2016, there is only one player left from the World Series winners on the Cubs roster (Kyle Hendricks). Still, the legacy of that team will be directly felt for years to come, thanks to the infusion of young talent enabled by trading away much of the club’s previous (and iconic) core. As painful as it may have been for fans to turn the page on such a memorable era of Cubs baseball, the overhaul has put the organization in position to return to contention sooner than your average rebuilding team — particularly when supplemented by significant free-agent investments in players like Dansby Swanson and Jameson Taillon.

These young players’ Cubs careers are still just getting off the ground, but early returns are favorable. Six of their top 13 prospects entering 2023 were acquired via trade, led by Crow-Armstrong, who demonstrated surprising power (.520 slugging) to go along with Gold Glove-caliber defense in center field in his first full-season as a pro.

Whereas Crow-Armstrong has been a top prospect for years, Mervis serves as the ultimate reminder of how hard it is to predict where that next breakout player might come from. Last spring training, Mervis was in minor-league camp getting ready to go back to high-A after posting a .677 OPS in 2021. In 2022, he hit 36 homers across three levels, tied for third among all MiLB hitters — and one of the two hitters to launch more was a fellow Cubs prospect, outfielder Alexander Canario. Beyond the boatload of dingers, Mervis remarkably improved his strikeout and walk rates as he climbed the minor-league ladder, finishing in Triple-A before a .914 OPS encore in the Arizona Fall League for good measure.

Now, the 24-year-old Mervis is on the cusp of the big leagues. It is these kinds of development stories that can drastically alter the trajectories of a team in a hurry. For Mervis and Crow-Armstrong, both of whom have each established themselves as legitimately valuable prospects across the industry, pursuing their big-league dreams with the Cubs in particular carries additional weight.

Crow-Armstrong was raised on the Cubs. His father, Matthew John Armstrong, grew up in Naperville and made clear to his son at an early age that he’d better follow suit.

“He was like, look, they’re about to start getting pretty good,” Crow-Armstrong recalled. “You have to jump on the bandwagon now, or I’m not letting you on later.”

By the time he was a top amateur prospect at the baseball factory known as Harvard-Westlake in Santa Monica, the idea of actually playing for the Cubs one day had already started to form. The Cubs held the 16th pick in the 2020 Draft, and Crow-Armstrong was projected to hear his name called somewhere in the middle of the first round. Instead, they took a high school shortstop named Ed Howard.

“I wanted to get drafted by the Cubs, but I was happy for them because I knew Ed from summer ball and I was excited for him,” PCA said.

Three picks later, the Mets called his name at No. 19. Fourteen months later, the Mets, in a playoff push, traded Crow-Armstrong to the Cubs for Javier Báez. Over the span of 48 hours, Báez, Rizzo and Kris Bryant were shipped off to new teams, their iconic Cubs tenures suddenly in the rearview mirror.

On the flip side, a delayed dream became a reality.

“I’ve always wanted to be a Cub deep down,” Crow-Armstrong explained. “When I was with the Mets, I wanted to be a Met. But once I got here, I was like, ‘Alright, now I got some different work to do, which was cool.”

Mervis may not have Cubs roots dating back to childhood like Crow-Armstrong, but his connection to the organization also runs deeper than just his time as a pro. As the top-rated high school player in the state of Maryland, Mervis competed in several summer showcases entering his senior year, including East Coast Pro. ECP features many of the best prep players in the country broken up into teams by region. Each team is managed by an MLB scout, and Mervis’ Mid-Atlantic squad just so happened to be the Cubs, managed by a Cubs scout. This is why there are photos of Mervis wearing a replica Cubs jersey long before he was wearing the real thing in MLB spring training.

Mervis had also connected with Cubs scout Billy Swoope during high school and stayed in touch as his collegiate career at Duke progressed. Undrafted following his junior year in 2019, Mervis went to the prestigious Cape Cod League and excelled for the Cotuit Kettleers, who were managed by legendary college coach Mike Roberts. Roberts was also a roving minor-league instructor for the Cubs at the time, and had a strong relationship with Swoope, who kept Mervis firmly on the Cubs’ radar heading into 2020.

After a strong start to his senior spring before the pandemic shut the season down, Mervis again connected with the Cubs in a pre-draft Zoom call with Justin Stone, the team’s director of hitting. Stone laid out a clear plan for his development should he end up in the Cubs organization. But with the 2020 draft shortened to just five rounds and 160 total picks, Mervis went unselected again.

In the days following, more than a dozen MLB teams offered to sign him as an undrafted free agent. But the connections Mervis had made with several members of the Cubs organization over the years made them the ideal entry point for his transition into pro ball. Two weeks after the draft, Mervis signed.

Though he wasn’t raised on the team like Crow-Armstrong, Mervis also always loved watching the Cubs when he was younger.

“Pete and I have talked about some of our favorite Cubs from growing up,” Mervis said. “Even when the teams weren’t great I would play with the Cubs in video games. Aramis Ramírez hit bombs. Derrek Lee hit bombs.”

“Alfonso Soriano!” Crow-Armstrong chimed in.

“Carlos Zambrano,” Mervis added. “I would make sure he was in the lineup, so I could hit bombs with him. He’d hit fourth.”

It’s clear Mervis’ affinity for the long ball stretches back long before he was launching his own homers in a Cubs uniform.

This affection for the Cubs of yesteryear now translates to Mervis’ and Crow-Armstrong’s admiration for their teammates. While it’s easy to hype up their fellow top prospects like Owen Caissie or Brennen Davis, each also offered effusive praise of lesser-known guys like former 18th-round pick Jake Slaughter. Slaughter grabbed their attention in a big way last year as one of just 12 minor-leaguers with at least 20 homers and 30 steals in 2022.

“Everybody would be like, ‘watch [Slaughter] get hot’. He gets hot and it’s like he’s the best player you’ve ever seen in your life,” Crow-Armstrong. said.

“But he got hot for three months,” Mervis added. “At that point, you’re just good.”

Slaughter is one of several lower-profile hitters, along with Luis Verdugo, BJ Murray, Jared Young, Yonathan Perlaza, Darius Hill and Levi Jordan (among many others) who you won’t find on MLB Pipeline’s “Top 30” Cubs prospect list, but each of whom have made strong impressions on Mervis and Crow-Armstrong as teammates.

“There are so many guys that fly under the radar,” Mervis said. “Because there’s so much talent in the organization.”

After soaking in his first month of big-league camp learning from veterans Eric Hosmer and Trey Mancini, Mervis recently left for Miami where he’s representing Team Israel in the loaded Pool D of the World Baseball Classic. Crow-Armstrong remains in Mesa where he’s been producing highlight plays in center just weeks before his 21st birthday.

With the ultimate carrot of calling Wrigley Field home, players at every level are intensely driven to actualize their talents and help make the Cubs a National League powerhouse once again.

“Everybody’s motivated,” Crow-Armstrong said. “Everybody here has brought their own confidence, brought whoever they are as a person and as a baseball player to this organization. I think this organization has done a good job of instilling another set of confidence because of the faith that they show in us.”

Last year, Mervis and Crow-Armstrong were part of a large contingent of Cubs prospects invited to the final home series of the regular season to get familiar with the Friendly Confines following the conclusion of their respective minor-league seasons.

“It’s easy to go to those games at Wrigley and be like ‘I want to f—— play here’,” Crow-Armstrong said.

Having finished 2022 at Triple-A, Mervis may be closer to having his own locker at Wrigley Field. But Crow-Armstrong isn’t far behind and is determined to join his friend in the majors sooner rather than later.

“Getting to the big leagues with the Cubs,” PCA said, “that’s gonna be something really cool.”

Jordan Shusterman is half of @CespedesBBQ and a baseball writer for FOX Sports. He has covered baseball for his entire adult life, most notably for MLB.com, DAZN and The Ringer. He’s a Mariners fan living in the Eastern Time Zone, which means he loves a good 10 p.m. first pitch. You can follow him on Twitter @j_shusterman_.

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