Nick Madrigal Survives Cubs Roster Shakeup, But Might Have Short-Lived Reprieve

Luis Vázquez was not called up to deliver an injection of offense for the Cubs. He's a glove-first shortstop, and he's unlikely to make many starts for the team. He got the call, even as the team reinstated Dansby Swanson from the injured list, because the last few days were a maddening affirmation of the frustratingly persistent reality of the Cubs' infield defense: it hasn't been good enough.

With both Swanson and Nico Hoerner sidelined by leg injuries for the last week, Craig Counsell was forced to use both Miles Mastrobuoni and Nick Madrigal as starting middle infielders, and they weren't equal to the challenge that posed to their admirable but limited talent. It's not just a Mastrobuoni and Madrigal problem, though. Even when Swanson and/or Hoerner have been on the field this year, the club's infield has been too porous. Christopher Morel and Michael Busch each have good athleticism for corner infielders, but they're inexperienced, mistake-prone, and ultimately just barely playable at their respective positions. Swanson and Hoerner were the best middle infield in baseball for most of last season, but they haven't looked like themselves this year, either.

Add it all up, and the Cubs are 29th in MLB in Defensive Efficiency (DER, which is just outs divided by batted balls) on batted balls with a launch angle under 7 degrees this year. Within that broad and telling stat sit Morel's many mistakes, Mastrobuoni being too slow and too weak-armed for shortstop, and the team being the worst in baseball at converting ground balls in double play situations into actual double plays. They're not cutting it, and the team can't win unless they start getting much better glovework all the way around the horn.

Getting Swanson (and, hopefully, Hoerner) back should help matters, and swapping Mastrobuoni out for Vázquez will, too. It's telling that the Cubs kept Madrigal, while demoting Mastrobuoni, because it hints at the possibility that they'll make more use of the diminutive defensive whiz at third base in the near future, with their starting middle infield restored and no further need for Madrigal at second base. He's a zero offensively, but he's hung onto a roster spot by doing sensational work at the hot corner since the team moved him there last spring.

Vázquez is an offensive upgrade over Madrigal, although admittedly, it would be hard not to be. Last year, while he was underwhelming and unproductive basically all year, Madrigal did at least manage to fling a ball out to the deep part of left field. Here's his 2023 spray chart.

That's hardly a budding power hitter, and because Madrigal's plate discipline isn't good enough, it's not even the picture of the Luis Arráez-type guy the Cubs hoped they could develop after acquiring him in 2021. It is, however, a theoretically viable spray chart, for a player who plays elite defense at a position in the middle of the defensive spectrum. Alas, that's not Madrigal anymore. Here's the same chart, but for 2024.

Defenses have begun aligning themselves against Madrigal in ways that would be laughable--unthinkable, even--against pretty much any other hitter in the modern major leagues, including Arráez. He's losing what few hits his quality of contact should earn, because teams can place their fielders without fear of him burning them in any way. He's not quite a pitcher up there, because he does still make a lot of contact, but that's the only thing dividing him from the species of hitter legislated out of the game due to intractable incompetence.

Vázquez is not a big bat. He's put up fine overall numbers in the high minors, but his skills aren't going to permit that to translate to MLB. He's unlikely ever to be an everyday player, at least on a good team. However, he's much, much more of a viable contributor than Madrigal. Here's his 2024 spray chart, for comparison.

It's apples-to-oranges, because Madrigal has spent the whole season in MLB and the Vázquez has spent it in Triple-A, but the numbers tell us Vázquez is a vastly better hitter than Madrigal is.

So, while he's taking Mastrobuoni's roster spot, Vázquez will really take Madrigal's role--or he ought to. The question, then, is why the Cubs kept Madrigal around at all. His glove is valuable, but Vázquez could play third if needed, too. Two backup infielders who are both defense-first seem to constitute an unaffordable roster luxury for this competitive but incomplete Cubs team.

In short, I doubt that the move is permanent, in any significant sense. With Brennen Davis hitting the way he is in Iowa, it's perfectly possible that he (or, should either of them make big strides, Alexander Canario or Owen Caissie) will come up at the expense of Madrigal within a few weeks. In the meantime, this move makes the most sense, because if Swanson or Hoerner need to DH at all while they continue to fully recover from their injuries, Vázquez is a preferable fill-in to Mastrobuoni.

Meanwhile, now that Cody Bellinger is fully healthy and ready to play center field regularly again, Pete Crow-Armstrong became redundant, and even problematic. Having Bellinger in center most of the time again will allow the team to use Morel as the DH more often, if they so choose. Bellinger, Ian Happ, Seiya Suzuki, and Mike Tauchman are a sufficient outfield corps for now, with Patrick Wisdom able to moonlight in a corner if a need arises. You wouldn't want Wisdom as your fifth outfielder all season, but soon, that role will probably go to one of the minor leaguers named above.

Crow-Armstrong might not ever be a first-division regular. He has a higher ceiling than Vázquez, but the high point on his bell curve of possible outcomes might fall closer to past Cubs outfield prospects-turned-journeyman fourth outfielders Corey Patterson and Félix Pie than to stardom. There's still time for him to push that curve to the right, but he needs to play every day to progress in that direction, and the big-league team can't give him those reps right now.

On the surface, Monday's moves are mildly surprising. Given the Cubs' current situation, though, they make sense, and the confusion or tension they create could well be solved by another move or two within the next fortnight.