Moises Ballesteros's Slump and How He Can Get Out of It

With a team playing as poorly as the Chicago Cubs are right now, shining a light on one individual player's poor performance is akin to blaming a single cloud for a particularly heavy rain. As the club's losses have piled up, so have its frustrations, resulting in a team eager to deliver winning baseball, but laboring mightily to manifest the reality they and countless others desire. On better days, Moisés Ballesteros is a powerful and menacing bat. His impressive stature and skill set at the plate have the potential not only to catalyze his team's offense, but also the overall success of the club. 

The North Siders currently own a .245 batting average. That's not astonishingly low, but given where the squad was at the end of April and during their pair of 10-game winning streaks, it's more than enough to give one pause. Ballesteros, with his Prince Fielder-like frame, was a major factor in those halcyon days. The 22-year-old set the league ablaze in April with a .338/.392/.620 line. He even ranked in the top three in baseball in total hits through the first full month of the season. The surprising, wild ride made him an early candidate for NL Rookie of the Year.

From that point, as it has with so many of his colleagues sporting Cubbie blue, regression set in. Given Ballesteros's rookie status, there is a smaller sample size from which to draw compared to other top-of-the-order batters, such as Ian Happ. Occupying the designated hitter role, Ballesteros comes to the plate with a swing-first mindset. Thus, his approach is reliant on first-pitch swings, which he offers 50.4% of the time. Additionally, he's chasing balls out of the zone at a 37.6% clip. Ballesteros does his damage by putting the ball in play and getting it to either touch grass or fly out of the park. He has close to zero value as a baserunner in late-game situations, due to his lack of speed. He's currently holding a .253 BABIP, leading opposing pitchers to come after him, but not necessarily with the nastiest stuff. Ballesteros feasts on changeups and has seen far fewer of them as his struggles persist. 

Recently dethroned by the Milwaukee Brewers as the top team in the loaded NL Central, the North Siders' collective bats are quieter than an audience watching a performance of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Several trackable aspects are certainly leading to their shortcomings, though even to the casual observer, the team is pressing—pushing too hard to deliver "the hit" that snaps them out of this funk. Neither Ballesteros nor anyone else can deliver that breakthrough moment, at least not yet. 

The night is darkest before the dawn, so perhaps the best is yet to come. Facing incessant criticism regarding the lineup card, Craig Counsell must be the one to insert Ballesteros back into the everyday fold. Ballesteros is increasingly omitted from his club's batting order, a move that is not likely to increase his confidence or performance at the dish. When the team was thriving, he spurred on plenty of its success. A "back to basics" reset of this lineup warrants some thought—although, where would this team be without what it's gotten from Michael Conforto so far?

The best version of the Chicago Cubs can't be realized without a bopping Ballesteros. Knocked off their perch, the North Siders are now tasked with getting back in the fight. If they want to reclaim the top spot in the division, and maybe even stay there, they have to be the ones to throw the next punches. For the best outcomes, it's time for Ballesteros to step back into the ring and land a few decisive haymakers.