A Team-Wide Identity Crisis: Sloppy Glovework Still Plaguing Team Built Around Defense

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For the second time on what's only been a four-game homestand so far, the Chicago Cubs overcame a huge, multi-run defensive failure to win a game. It was exciting. Maybe it will be galvanizing. But it sure isn't what this team was supposed to be about.

Image courtesy of © David Banks-USA TODAY Sports

Identity is an interesting thing within the context of a major-league organization. You’re talking about those elements on which an organization hangs their hat. Last year’s Arizona Diamondbacks emphasized the collective: their roster, without many real standouts, performed in unison, demonstrating baserunning efficiency and excellent defense en route to a World Series appearance.

This year, you’ve got the young and powerful Baltimore Orioles. The old(er), powerful New York Yankees. The young upstarts in Cincinnati who are absolute demons on the basepaths. Milwaukee’s ability to put balls in play and to thrive with a patchwork pitching staff. And so on.

When the 2024 season began, one of the only sure things about the Chicago Cubs appeared to be their identity. With so few changes over the winter, they were again built around an efficient pitching staff that allowed balls in play, but soft contact overall. That was supported by an upper-tier defense, led by a legitimately elite middle infield. They had to excel on the margins, given a lack of offensive firepower, but it was believed that the pitching-and-defense formula they’d established could still allow them to succeed in one of the league’s weaker divisions. 

Of course, as we wade deeper into the month of June, the Cubs have undergone an identity crisis. The offense is essentially what could have been expected. Despite early plate discipline that might have led us to believe otherwise, the Cubs are 15th overall in runs and 20th in team wRC+ (97). May was worse, as they were 26th in the league in runs, 22nd in ISO (.131), and 23rd in wRC+ (88). Regression has come for some of their shiny early numbers. Other players have never gotten going. But without an impact bat, we can likely expect the team to continue scratching out runs in the most effort-intensive way possible. Again, not unexpected within the context of their identity.

Instead, the problematic elements reside on the mound and the field. Sitting in the bottom five in fastball velocity in 2023 (93.4 MPH average), the Cubs were able to allow hard contact at one of the league’s five lowest rates. Only both LA teams, the Phillies, and Padres were better in HardHit% against than the Cubs’ 37.9% rate. That came in conjunction with the sixth-highest GB% (44.1). Their walk rate was in the top half of the league, at 8.4%. Even in allowing contact at a 76.8% rate on swings (10th-highest), it’s a formula that works.

THat's true, at least, when you have a top-10 defensive unit. The Cubs were ninth in Fielding Run Value (14) to go along with a Defensive Runs Saved of 36 last year. They were above average in FRV at both middle infield spots, third base, center field, and behind the plate. Only the corner outfield spots and first base came up short. It was a unit that supplemented the type of pitching the Cubs had. While the Cubs did have some higher-velocity arms coming up through the pipeline, we still expected the identity to be very much the same, given the lack of turnover throughout much of the roster. However, that hasn’t materialized in the way that we expected. 

While the staff has managed to post the exact same average fastball velocity as ’23 so far, they haven’t been nearly as efficient. Despite giving up a touch less contact, they’re surrendering far more of the damaging variety of contact. Their 39.6 HardHit% against is the league’s ninth-highest. Their ground-ball rate has slipped to 42.7%, while their FB% has shot up from 34.9 last year (28th) to 39.0 this year (12th). Their walk rate sits as one of the league’s nine worst, at 8.6%. There have been individual successes within the staff, to be sure. But the collective isn’t proving nearly as efficient as they were in 2023.

That has likely been a factor in the decline of the defense. The Cubs’ team FRV is at -16, which ranks 27th. Their DRS, at -15, is in the same spot. First base and center field are the only spots where the team is getting above-average defensive production, with left field sitting right on the threshold. Everywhere has been markedly worse. To reiterate: when your offense has the shortcomings that the Cubs’ lineup does, you have to excel in the other facets. And the Cubs most certainly are not.

Much of this is something of an oversimplification, as we are painting the roster with a broad brush. At the same time, it very much underscores the implosion of the identity that the Cubs had planned to maintain for 2024. It’s not so much that they’re struggling to find one. It’s that they’re failing at maintaining the one they hoped was part of their very foundation.

As such, it’s left them looking like something else entirely--something the apparent mirage of April prevented us from imagining. They're not a team without an identity, but something worse: a baseball team that just is not very good. Now, that’s not to say it’s a permanent outlook. But given their offseason conservatism, their inability to protect what was a fragile identity might just undermine it altogether.

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