Michael Conforto's Regression to the Mean Is All the Cubs Really Need

[RavenCub30]

Image courtesy of © Matt Marton-Imagn Images

I hate cliches, except for when they're true. Especially in the sports world, one hears the phrase "all hands on deck" so often that it starts to lose its meaning. Phrases like this are deployed by their users almost like a blanket defense mechanism to explain the unexplainable. Even for a franchise like the Chicago Cubs, with a checkered history of curses, their current injury conundrum is truly astonishing. With Porter Hodge now out for the season with a UCL injury, the total numbers of pitchers injured on the North Siders' roster is nine, and that doesn't even include the injury recently sustained by top prospect Jaxon Wiggins in Iowa.

With that, the onus is on this club's offense, now more than ever, to give the team's battered pitching staff some leeway. The lineup has finally found a bit of consistency — they've scored 35 runs in their past four games — but the output for the whole season has been lacking. Few people have been reliable, but former Dodger Michael Conforto had looked particularly lost at the plate, until now. 

Conforto only got two pinch-hit plate appearances in the Phillies series (he struck out in both), but he's otherwise been excellent of late. Even when accounting for his slow start, Conforto wields a wRC+ of 137, and just last week, went 5-12 at the plate with two walks. Is his surge sustainable? Possibly, though his .500 BABIP mark is terrifying.

Prior to a weekend series against his old team (the New York Mets), Conforto carries with him a .273 batting average with six hits in 28 plate appearances. For his career, the Cubs' backup outfielder has a .245 batting average with an OBP of .343 and just a shade under 600 RBIs. The moral of the story is that Conforto has arrived in Chicago and produced something akin to what he's put out for his eleven years in the league and counting. Perhaps his consistency, however unremarkable the overall output may be, is the reason why Jed Hoyer and the Chicago Cubs braintrust brought him on in the first place. 

In the North Siders' previous three wins, they've scored seven or more runs in every game. To the untrained or even the trained eye, this club's hitting comes in waves. When Conforto was down, the rest of the club, outside of Nico Hoerner, was as well. This is not an excuse, nor a justification for the Cubs' sluggish and maddening start, but it describes a significant sign one can point to in analyzing their offensive woes. That Conforto has looked less the part of "PCA" and more like "DFA" doesn't really matter because he's not called upon to do nearly as much as this club's featured players. 

If you've followed my work here in recent years, you know I'm hesitant to write anyone off. It's my goal to find the positives with this ball club, unless there aren't any. Like everything else, however, this approach has its limits. If a guy just isn't any good, I'm the first to point it out. Michael Conforto is a player who exists outside of these confines. He isn't all that bad, nor is his presence in the lineup on any given night the glaring liability once feared. As the success of this baseball club hopefully grows into something worth remembering, so too will the prosperity and production of Conforto.

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