Luis Vazquez called up

[UMFan83]

I’m not necessarily pissed about PCA going down in the short term but damn, 2nd highest position player bWAR on the roster and he’s sent down to Iowa. 

[Rcal10]

31 minutes ago, chibears55 said:

PCA and Masterboner got sent back to Iowa..

Guess they still figure they need Madrigal for late inning defense at 3B 🤷‍♂️🙄

Pretty much what I suggested earlier today. Don’t like PCA not being in the major league roster, but I do get it. I was afraid this is what they would do. But he probably should get regular AB. 

[chibears55]

42 minutes ago, 1908_Cubs said:

It's not a bad strategy. PCA is more valuable developing versus just sitting. This gives the Cubs another infielder they can choose to give a chance over Madrigal, and Madrigal can take up 26th man duties which Mastrobuni was taking care of earlier this year...when he got like 13 PA's in the first 3 weeks or so (before injury-Armageddon). Someone has to take that role...might as well be him.

Not complaining,  PCA does need to go back down and work on things to get better and be more prepared when he does return. 

I'm just tired of Madrigal 

[Irrelevant Dude]

How far away is PCA from the Cubs getting another year of control?  I do think he could use consistent at bats in Iowa, but I'm sure buying an extra year of team control is also a secondary factor for his demotion.

[Stratos]

3 hours ago, WhyCantWeWin said:

Mastroboner was a given, disappointing to hear about PCA but at least he’ll be getting consistent reps in AAA. I think we’ll be seeing him again soon as Tauchmans numbers continue to fall back in line. 

Yeah PCA should be playing more or less regularly somewhere, he's still pretty green in most parts of his game.

I think these are all good moves.  Vazquez can't hit worse than Mastro.

[Andy]

10 hours ago, Irrelevant Dude said:

How far away is PCA from the Cubs getting another year of control?  I do think he could use consistent at bats in Iowa, but I'm sure buying an extra year of team control is also a secondary factor for his demotion.

That's a good question and I don't know the answer, but he's got something like 8 weeks or so of service time at this point and will likely be back again this season eventually. I doubt that was a huge factor.

[Rex Buckingham]

8 hours ago, Stratos said:

Yeah PCA should be playing more or less regularly somewhere, he's still pretty green in most parts of his game.

I think these are all good moves.  Vazquez can't hit worse than Mastro.

He can and he has in AAA

[mul21]

I'm kinda baffled by this move.  He's been terrible with the bat of late, in theory you have Nico and Dansby available starting today, and he's not going to see much playing time.  Unless Nico is going to DH for a few days until he really feels 100%, I just don't get bringing Vazquez up at all.  Even if it was for defense, thinking Mastro can't handle SS based on a bobbled exchange on a ball a lot of guys may not even get to and a bad throw seems like an overreaction.

[Bertz]

This is a weird choice, not necessarily a bad one but it is weird.  With Tauchman being essentially an everyday player now there are no lefties or dedicated outfielders on the bench.  Neither of those is a problem necessarily, but it feels weird to paint yourself in that corner for the sake of Nick Madrigal?

I wonder if this is temporary, give it a week or so to prove that Hoerner is truly healthy and then bring an outfielder (Brennen Davis?) up.

[mul21]

2 minutes ago, Bertz said:

This is a weird choice, not necessarily a bad one but it is weird.  With Tauchman being essentially an everyday player now there are no lefties or dedicated outfielders on the bench.  Neither of those is a problem necessarily, but it feels weird to paint yourself in that corner for the sake of Nick Madrigal?

I wonder if this is temporary, give it a week or so to prove that Hoerner is truly healthy and then bring an outfielder (Brennen Davis?) up.

Yeah, if he stays on the heater he's been on, seeing him in the OF and Belli at 1B with Busch getting some down time wouldn't surprise me at all.

[CubinNY]

I would love to know the thought process of these moves. 

[squally1313]

1 minute ago, CubinNY said:

I would love to know the thought process of these moves. 

I think they realized they didn't actually have any backup middle infielders nor a first baseman capable of bailing them out. Tauchmann is your fourth outfielder (call it a 4 man for 3 spot platoon if you want to trash Happ), Vasquez is your backup infielder, Wisdom is there if you need a dong and Madrigal is there if you need contact. The starters all just got healthy, there's no way they can get hurt again (right? right?!?). Think Counsell is going to lean on the every day line up pretty hard for the next few weeks here. 

[Transmogrified Tiger]

In a 4 man bench where one of the 4 is a catcher with a 32 wRC+, I find it hard to believe the best option is having both Vazquez and Madrigal on the same roster.  Avoiding a late inning K isn't such an important role that it's worth the duplication of other skill sets, and Madrigal is so out of whack offensively that he gives away a chunk of that with ineffective contact anyway.

[CubinNY]

5 minutes ago, Transmogrified Tiger said:

In a 4 man bench where one of the 4 is a catcher with a 32 wRC+, I find it hard to believe the best option is having both Vazquez and Madrigal on the same roster.  Avoiding a late inning K isn't such an important role that it's worth the duplication of other skill sets, and Madrigal is so out of whack offensively that he gives away a chunk of that with ineffective contact anyway.

For a team that is struggling offensively, it is a curious choice. 

[Rex Buckingham]

a weak groundball with runners on base late in the game is worse than a K if there are less than 2 outs... making Madrigal even less valuable

[squally1313]

Just now, Rex Buckingham said:

a weak groundball with runners on base late in the game is worse than a K if there are less than 2 outs... making Madrigal even less valuable

Depends on where the runners are, and yes, I know the Cubs anecdotally and also in reality love getting thrown out at home on going on contact plays, but in that even more hyper specific case a 6 hopper to SS is better than a rope right at a corner infielder. 

I will now, for an abundance of reasons, take myself off the Nick Madrigal hill. It's certainly not an optimal situation, but...I don't know, what else do we got? The best hitter in AAA is Mervis. Do you throw Caissie into the outfield blender and take away a bunch of PAs from him? Jake Slaughter can't really be a thing, can he? That's the list of AAA guys with wRCs over 100 (Vazquez barely qualifies but trending hard in the wrong direction). Realize the easy answer here is just PCA. But think they're kicking the can down the road a few weeks on him and whether he can just glove his way to a 3 WAR production while very much an unfinished offensive player. 

[Jason Ross]

7 minutes ago, squally1313 said:

Depends on where the runners are, and yes, I know the Cubs anecdotally and also in reality love getting thrown out at home on going on contact plays, but in that even more hyper specific case a 6 hopper to SS is better than a rope right at a corner infielder. 

I will now, for an abundance of reasons, take myself off the Nick Madrigal hill. It's certainly not an optimal situation, but...I don't know, what else do we got? The best hitter in AAA is Mervis. Do you throw Caissie into the outfield blender and take away a bunch of PAs from him? Jake Slaughter can't really be a thing, can he? That's the list of AAA guys with wRCs over 100 (Vazquez barely qualifies but trending hard in the wrong direction). Realize the easy answer here is just PCA. But think they're kicking the can down the road a few weeks on him and whether he can just glove his way to a 3 WAR production while very much an unfinished offensive player. 

Not trying to be the pedantic guy, but Slaughter was moved for Tyson Miller. 

Overall, I kind of agree. As of right now, it feels like the Cubs are in a weird spot. The Madrigal place on the team right now has been one that hasn't gotten much action over the course of the season when the Cubs have been healthy (which hasn't been a ton) as I think Madrigal is down to the old-Mastrobuni-spot from the start of the year. 

Caissie and Davis should be playing every day. PCA as a 3-start guy a week I'd be cool with, but I'm not sure that's possible with the 4 OF'er the Cubs have and like to play. Canario feels like a better fielding, more risky version of Wisdom, so I'm not sure he's a super fit...it feels like they're treading water here for a bit until they can either justify calling up a rookie to take the DH spot more easily, or, frankly, another injury.

[squally1313]

6 minutes ago, 1908_Cubs said:

Not trying to be the pedantic guy, but Slaughter was moved for Tyson Miller. 

Overall, I kind of agree. As of right now, it feels like the Cubs are in a weird spot. The Madrigal place on the team right now has been one that hasn't gotten much action over the course of the season when the Cubs have been healthy (which hasn't been a ton) as I think Madrigal is down to the old-Mastrobuni-spot from the start of the year. 

Caissie and Davis should be playing every day. PCA as a 3-start guy a week I'd be cool with, but I'm not sure that's possible with the 4 OF'er the Cubs have and like to play. Canario feels like a better fielding, more risky version of Wisdom, so I'm not sure he's a super fit...it feels like they're treading water here for a bit until they can either justify calling up a rookie to take the DH spot more easily, or, frankly, another injury.

Missed the Slaughter news and totally forgot about Davis. Other than that, I did great! 

But yeah, I just don't see tinkering on the edges of the roster to be a solution to the problems we've had in May (which, 8-10 is not a 'sky is falling' problem). Tauchman has the most PAs this month. Even with his incredible April, I can't imagine that was ever the plan here, and he's only put up a 78 wRC. Happ has been brutal given his normal level of production. The catchers have been brutal in like, a historical sense (64 PAs, 6 singles, 2 HRs, 2 walks). Seiya hasn't come around. I think it's too early to be making drastic decisions (the best 4 outfielders we have are the 4 outfielders on the roster, in my opinion, and a bad few weeks from one guy or a hot few weeks from another doesn't change that), burning options or 40 man spots or whatever to reallocate a fringe amount of PAs, often at the expense of consistent MILB PAs, doesn't seem like it's going to meaningful solve anything. 

[Rcal10]

28 minutes ago, squally1313 said:

Missed the Slaughter news and totally forgot about Davis. Other than that, I did great! 

But yeah, I just don't see tinkering on the edges of the roster to be a solution to the problems we've had in May (which, 8-10 is not a 'sky is falling' problem). Tauchman has the most PAs this month. Even with his incredible April, I can't imagine that was ever the plan here, and he's only put up a 78 wRC. Happ has been brutal given his normal level of production. The catchers have been brutal in like, a historical sense (64 PAs, 6 singles, 2 HRs, 2 walks). Seiya hasn't come around. I think it's too early to be making drastic decisions (the best 4 outfielders we have are the 4 outfielders on the roster, in my opinion, and a bad few weeks from one guy or a hot few weeks from another doesn't change that), burning options or 40 man spots or whatever to reallocate a fringe amount of PAs, often at the expense of consistent MILB PAs, doesn't seem like it's going to meaningful solve anything. 

I’d they wanted to attempt to catch lightening in a bottle they could send down Madrigal and bring up Davis. Then play Bellinger, Tauchman, Happ, Suzuki, Busch and Davis interchangeably at 3 OF spots, the DH and 1st base. This would give them a better bench bat (the guy left out of those 6) than Madrigal and still leave them with Wisdom for a guy they use to maybe hit a homer(or, if need be, play first very occasionally)Vasquez as a back up infielder, and whoever isn’t catching on the bench. Each of those 6 guys gets at least 3 or 4 starts a week. I imagine, for now, Bellinger and Suzuki play pretty much everyday. 

[Bertz]

1 hour ago, 1908_Cubs said:

Caissie and Davis should be playing every day. PCA as a 3-start guy a week I'd be cool with, but I'm not sure that's possible with the 4 OF'er the Cubs have and like to play. Canario feels like a better fielding, more risky version of Wisdom, so I'm not sure he's a super fit...it feels like they're treading water here for a bit until they can either justify calling up a rookie to take the DH spot more easily, or, frankly, another injury.

I think this is a great point about how crappy the roster spot is from a development standpoint if we want to push one of the prospects into it.  The ideal roster fit would probably be Mervis if he didn't inexplicably shut down and start pissing his pants whenever he plays in a major league game.

I wonder if there's a Dom Smith style guy floating around on waivers right now that they're eying.

[squally1313]

Is this anything?

[Transmogrified Tiger]

Don't think so, if you were going to add Joey Wendle(owner of a 47 wRC+ in 355 PA since the start of last year) or some other external option but needed a stop gap for a day or so while the details were worked out, you would just...not demote Mastrobuoni.  

[chibears55]

This is why you don't take a bench for granted when putting a roster together. 

Injuries and slumps happen throughout the season and you need guys that are capable enough to fill in and contribute some.

Cubs bench have guys who couldn't hit out of a wet paper bag with a sword... 🤦‍♂️😅

[Rcal10]

27 minutes ago, chibears55 said:

This is why you don't take a bench for granted when putting a roster together. 

Injuries and slumps happen throughout the season and you need guys that are capable enough to fill in and contribute some.

Cubs bench have guys who couldn't hit out of a wet paper bag with a sword... 🤦‍♂️😅

How many teams have great benches, really. Baseball has become pay the main guys and fill in the rest with low paid guys. Sure, perfect world you have capable bench bats. But with the Cubs spending thru just didn’t have the money to add bench help. You can say all you want that you shouldn’t take the bench for granted, but most of the time teams do. Cubs had 3 guys signed to minor league deals (Cooper, Peralta, and Casili) all opt out to take bench spots elsewhere. Those are guys the Cubs didn’t even want on their bench that other teams gladly took. I am not sure, but Dom Smith might also be in a major league roster. If so, that is a 4th guy. You keep saying they need a better bench. Tell us who they should have signed for the middle infield back up. And even if you do name someone it comes with the benefit of hindsight. 

[Irrelevant Dude]

6 hours ago, Andy said:

That's a good question and I don't know the answer, but he's got something like 8 weeks or so of service time at this point and will likely be back again this season eventually. I doubt that was a huge factor.

I'm no expert on MLB service time, but doing some neophyte back of the napkin math on this...

PCA was called up 9/11/2023 and remained on the roster through the end of the season on 10/1, so he accumulated approximately 21 days of service time.

He was called up again on 4/24/2024 and remained on the roster through 5/21, accumulating another 27 days of service time.

He has currently accumulated 48 days out of the required 172 to gain a full year of service, leaving him short 124 days.  There are 130 days remaining in the season.  Unless I'm missing something in my math, another week in AAA (give or take a few days) would be enough to ensure that he doesn't reach a year of service in 2024.  If that is the case, it absolutely makes sense to send him back down to get regular at bats for at least a week or two and then reassess where the roster is at that time.