The Cubs' Offensive Efficiency Has Dissolved, Taking Their Run Production With It

[RandallPnkFloyd]

Image courtesy of © David Banks-Imagn Images

There's something fairly... agonizing about watching a team endure a stretch like the one in which the Chicago Cubs find themselves currently mired in. They've spent the 2025 campaign as one of the league's best offensive teams, yes. But. the days since the All-Star break have shown another, more intolerable side of what it looks like when offensive ineptitude strikes. 

The full-season leaderboard has the Cubs living among the elite. They're second in runs scored (581), third in wOBA (.330), and third in isolated power (.186). Their strikeout rate (20.3 percent), walk rate (8.8 percent), and baserunning acumen (7.6 BsR) all sit in the league's top 10. At 23.9 fWAR, no team has gotten more total value out of their position player group than the Cubs have this year. 

July 20 represented something of a shift for many of the team's regulars, however. That date, in itself, does not bear any special significance. But, it was as close as we could come to an inflection point for when this team started to struggle to score runs. 

Consider where the team stands over that two-ish week stretch. They're 21st in the league in runs scored (59 or 2.8 per game), 19th in on-base percentage (.311), and 24th in wOBA (.303). They've slipped to middle-of-the-road in each of their strikeout rate (23.0 percent) and walk rate (8.4 percent) while sitting 24th in ISO (.135). 

Where the team has made their hay for the whole season — at least when the offense is humming — is largely in the approach. They have one of the league's lowest chase rates (30.3 percent) against the fourth-highest in-zone swing rate (69.9 percent). Only five teams make contact at a higher rate than the Cubs (78.6 percent). They haven't made particularly hard contact, but they haven't had to. Instead, they traded bat speed for competitive swings and efficiency in squaring up contact. 

It was an idea we explored back at the beginning of June. At that point, you weren't going to find a Cub near the top of the bat speed leaderboard. But, the team was generating more squared-up contact than 26 of the teams in Major League Baseball. This is what that leaderboard looks like for the whole year to date, with the x-axis representing bat speed and the y-axis showcasing squared-up contact: 

This is just a visual of the same idea; slow (and short) swings that create quality contact courtesy of their ability to be selective at the plate. Since July 20, though, that ability to generate such contact with any regularity has disappeared: 

The Cubs' bats remain slow, but they've lost their way in squaring up the baseball. The source of why, however, is something of a mystery. 

The team has actually cut their chase rate (29.7) and bumped their zone swing rate ever-so-slightly (70.1). They're making slightly less contact (77.0), but it's a negligible difference. Where there's a stark contrast is in the quality of contact. Even the Cubs' modest 39.7 Hard-Hit% from the full year is down to 35.9; only Houston has a lower rate over this stretch than the Cubs. That's not nothing. 

All of that information does lend itself to a fairly simple explanation as to why these struggles are occurring. Roughly 80 percent of the team's contact has been a groundball or a fly ball. When you compound that with pretty soft contact overall, you're not going to find a lot of batted ball luck. The Cubs are at a .293 BABIP over this stretch. That part is clear-cut. 

How this is happening, however, represents a different question entirely. The approach hasn't really changed, but they've been stripped of any sort of efficiency in the type of contact they're making. This is the part where we break from the collective and start to look at the biggest culprits of the team's recent offensive woes. Here is where the Cubs sit as individuals in matters of bat speed and squared-up contact: 

The important thing isn't so much the individual numbers but the fact that almost everyone is at or above the average threshold in matters of squared-up contact. Dansby Swanson toeing the line and Ian Happ residing below it are not surprising considering the stretches we've seen each work through this year. Nor is Pete-Crow Armstrong given lack of contact against a high volume of swings. You kind of just have to take that for what it is at this point. For the most part, though, that's a number of Cubs faring well in creating efficient contact. It's also a stark contrast the the past couple of weeks: 

Note how much that horizontal red line shifted between the two visuals. Nico Hoerner continues to thrive in the efficient contact game. Kyle Tucker continues to generate something in the midst of struggles (though his inability to elevate is worthy of a separate discussion). Willi Castro has been in Chicago for five minutes. So, basically with the exception of Happ working his way to something respectable in efficiency, the party is really transpiring below that line, with mediocre outcomes for a number of different Cubs: Michael Busch, Carson Kelly, Seiya Suzuki, Crow-Armstrong, and Swanson.

That this is the particular group is hardly a surprise for anyone watching the Cubs over these last two weeks. Busch is at a 28 wRC+ since July 20. Suzuki is at 42. Kelly and Swanson check in at 82 and 64, respectively. Crow-Armstrong is generating positive outcomes when he does make contact (sort of an issue lately), though, so he won't factor too much in the discussion here. Let's talk about the rest of that group:

• Busch's full-season swing rate (46.9 percent) is up 50.3 percent in this more recent stretch. His contact has shrunk from 75.9 percent to 68.8 while the whiff rate has jumped from 11.3 percent to 15.7. 
• Suzuki has taken sort of the opposite approach. His swing rate over the last two weeks is down to just 36.1 (down from 41.6), and his contact rate is down about three percent, at 74.0. 
• Kelly looks mostly similar, but he's been swinging at off-speed pitches at a higher rate the last two weeks. That's the pitch type against which he generates the least amount of quality contact. 
• Swanson is a whole mess. His 35.4 chase rate is up nearly eight percent from his full-season rate, while his whiff rate has ballooned about five percent in its own right to 19.2 percent. There isn't a whole lot redeemable happening there. 

That all tells us that, above all, these approaches are a mess. Busch has expanded his zone at a higher rate and lost that sense of maturity as a hitter that we watched him develop since the start of last year. Suzuki has represented the inverse in becoming too patient. Kelly has a pitch type issue and Swanson has a *gestures broadly at everything* issue. 

The bad news is that juxtaposing this with the other problems manifesting within the Cubs lineup (Tucker's struggles with elevation, Crow-Armstrong swinging at just about everything even more than usual, etc.) is going to lead to the current stretch in which we see. The good news is that these problems appear to be entirely fixable. It's a reevaluation of the approach that's needed. Of course, the other bad news is that multiple hitters need to revamp their approaches effectively at the same time in order for the Cubs to rebound from this two-week period. 

Offenses ebb and flow over the course of a major league season. It's a natural part of the game. In this case, though, it's going to require the majority of the Cubs lineup to enhance their own individual situations in order to get back to the flow part of the adage.

View full article