Michael Busch is Slumping Again, But This Time, It’s Different

[Sam Caulder]

Image courtesy of Patrick Gorski-Imagn Images

Michael Busch’s 2026 campaign has been far from consistent. It’s been a year of runs for the Cubs’ first baseman, and right now, he’s running cold. Since the All-Star break, Busch is slashing .250/.293/.364—an anemic showing for a bat-first player, and a rough change after a first half in which he had a 118 wRC+.

The surface-level numbers are troubling enough, but one thing immediately jumps off the page when you look under the hood. Busch's walk rate is down to just 5%, after sitting at 15% before the All-Star break. That’s a pretty significant development for a player whose ability to work quality at-bats and reach base via the free pass has been a big part of his game over multiple productive seasons. With that part of his game currently absent, it’s no surprise that he’s in a slump. In fact, it’s gotten to the point where his production lines up closely with his abysmal April showing.

In 132 plate appearances through the end of April, Busch hit just .193/.295/.281. He struck out 30 times while drawing 15 walks. That was, without question, the ugliest stretch of Busch’s 2026 season. But there’s an interesting distinction between what happened in April and what’s happening right now.

April Busch simply wasn't hitting. He still had the ability to draw walks, which kept his on-base percentage from completely bottoming out. The current version of Busch isn’t giving himself that same cushion. After he seemed not to be able to execute his swing in the frigidity of April and early May, Busch is swinging the bat better, even now. His approach, however, has gone sideways.

There’s also a power component to this slump that can’t be ignored, though. Busch hit 34 home runs and slugged .523 last year; it's a long way down from there to his sub-.390 slugging for this season. His hard-hit rate has fallen to just 33% since the All-Star break, well below his 38.3% mark for the season as a whole and an even more significant drop from the 47.3% mark he posted last year.

Hitting for power is made up of four essential skills:

1. Swing decisions: You have to work for a pitch you can drive; swinging at everything leads to too many balls in play that come on pitches unsuited to the slugger's purpose.
2. Elevating: There's no slug on the ground, no matter how hard you hit it. You have to create some plane and lift the ball.
3. Bat speed: This might seem the most obvious and elemental, but it's just one piece of the picture. That said, the faster you swing, the greater your margin for error in terms of hitting for power. The slower you swing, the more perfect you have to be, which brings us to
4. Squaring up the ball: This matters almost as much as bat speed, and is where Busch has thrived in the past. If you can line up the ball and hit it squarely enough, a slower-than-average swing can frequently produce a faster-than-average batted ball. Do that on the right plane, and it'll go a long way.

Busch's bat speed is down this year; that much is undeniable. It was especially low early, and has trended upward, but it's still lower than it was for much of last season—and even last season, he had below-average bat speed.

That's one problem that has led to less frequent hard contact and (therefore) less pop from Busch of late. The more important one, though, is that he's also not squaring the ball up—and that aspect of his game is still trending the wrong way, and shows a greater separation from what he did last year.

Busch still lifts the ball a lot. However, on that four-item power checklist, he's gone from having three of four boxes checked (lacking only plus bat speed) last season, down to just one. He's not making good swing decisions, and (partially because of that) he's not hitting the ball nearly as soundly when he does swing.

The saving grace, to the extent that there's been one, is Busch's feel for contact. He's not whiffing as much as he did last year or early this year, which has reduced his strikeout rate. It's also cost him chances to hit a ball better and deep counts wherein he might have drawn more walks, but given what he's showing (and not showing) lately, that's fine. He's not doing enough things well in the batter's box right now to make anyone wish he were trading more contact for power; he needs to keep putting the ball in play. Soon, though, he needs to start doing it with much more authority, and that might prove impossible.

In each season of his Cubs tenure, Busch has had at least one significant slump. That makes it easier to dream on him pulling out of this one. For now, though, he's mired deep. The lack of walks is certainly the biggest red flag, but the batted-ball data only exacerbates the concern. If Busch isn’t getting on base via the walk and isn’t consistently hitting the ball hard when he does make contact, there aren’t many paths to productive at-bats.

This may not be as ugly as Busch’s April stretch was, but there are enough similarities—and some new underlying concerns—to make it worth watching closely. For a Cubs lineup that needs Busch to provide both on-base ability and power from the middle of the order, getting him back to his first-half version is crucial. Failing that, some of his playing time might soon need to go to Matt Shaw, Carson Kelly or newcomer Gabriel Arias.

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