Jason Ross

He didn't have back injury in college, however. This is a new back injury suffered this year. He was coming off of a season ending surgery last season, however.

This is a freezing cold take, and one that is beyond the pale. I like Ramirez. But Swanson has been excellent. Swanson has been the 7th best SS in baseball this year.

Oh, I'm with you in that end. I swear some people forget that more than yesterday happened. And with the NFL, I can almost get it. Sample size of 17? Yeah last week is like a big part of the whole picture. But my brother, they play 162 baseball games. Why do we live in a world where two games matters?

To be fair, that's not what I'm suggesting however. In the regular season I'd go with Shota for five and then use a regular BP. In the playoffs I'd pick your favorite RHP to attack RHH in the 1st, Shota for 4 and then a normal BP. I do not want to pick Civale and make him the Shota piggyback. I think it takes away a lot of BP options and choices.

I do think he was pretty good Tuesday. 8 whiffs isn't amazing but not bad, thought he got BABIP'd a little (Brewers had an .222 xBA all game and his BABIP was nearing .400). I think if you get that version of Boyd here on out, it's a good start most days and probably a little more considering the competition. That said, we haven't seen that from him a lot recently, so we have to really, ya know, see it for the next few starts. If he is that guy the rest of the way you can probably coin flip Boyd or Opener/Shota as far as I care.

This is exactly why I think Playoff Shota can be a real thing. Give me a guy who can go an beat up RHH in the first inning to give Shota the ability to skip seeing the top of the order a third time and the best RHH on a team, turn Shota loose for ~18 hitters (maybe it's 12 outs) and I think you can really put yourself in a good position as you enter the 6th. You'll be on a little extra rest, you're letting him empty the tank a bit more to keep the velo up and you can skip the third order penalty that really affects him.

On Shota's last start there was plenty of good and bad. The good: - avg fastball was 92.0mph - 15 whiffs - 67% strike% The bad: - 5th inning fastball velo was 90.9 - Of the three home runs, they all came with two out in the 4th inning or later - Of the three home runs, two were on fastballs with average velo of 91.1mph and 90.6mph When his fastball sits north of 91mph it's useful and last start was a good microcosm of that. He was great early, he struggled to maintain that velocity late, and he got tagged on two fastballs when the velo was dipping. No, the Cubs should not treat him as a four-inning arm here on out; you can in the playoffs and for that aspect I think he's going. to be an asset. As squally said, the Cubs shouldn't treat the next month as an extended playoff series. But also as Berz said the hand wringing on Shota is just bonkers. He's a fine pitcher. He does give up home runs. The trick to him is that you know they're coming so it's a lot of sequencing. Imanaga has a 4.01 ERA and a 3.80 xERA. He's better than some of ya'll act, despite the obvious flaws.

Bummer they couldn't take three of four, but the split is fine. The division wasn't happening at this point but they battled hard, there looks like a few more reinforcements working their way back in Steele, Cabrera and Swanson, and the team knocked around the best pitcher on the planet. Long way to go to grab WC1 back and there's some easier teams on the schedule coming up. Worse outcomes than this and it shows they're good enough to hang with the Brewers if they see them in a playoff set again.

If he hit 100 wRC+ at the MLB level he'd probably be around a top-10 catcher in baseball. There are only 15 catchers in baseball (250 PAs) with over a 100 wRC+ and a few of them aren't great defensively. Truly, he just has to hit enough to be a bit better than Hedges offensively assuming he won't be that elite defensively. He will find a home at the highest level if he can just be like an 85 wRC+ guy at the MLB level.

Image courtesy of © Michael Clubb/South Bend Tribune / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images August always marks the last "full" season of the minor leagues. Some teams like the Triple-A Iowa Cubs will wrap up their year on September 18th (as they have not had a good enough season to quality for the International League playoffs), whereas others such as the Double-A Knoxville Smokies will add a few postseason games to their schedule. Regardless, the season is wrapping up for the Cubs' up-and-coming youngsters. So, as we get ready to put the MiLB season to bed soon, let's look at who had big offensive months in August. Ranking Cubs' Best Minor-League Hitters In August Honorable Mention - James Triantos, Triple-A Iowa Cubs James Triantos was called up to the MLB side of things at the end of July and spent a cup-of-coffee with the parent club on the bench. As the 26th man, he wasn't used often and as such, was sent back to Iowa midway through August. Since his return to Triple-A, the utility infielder has been on fire, posting a 143 wRC+, hitting two home runs, and walking seven times in just 39 PAs. Had this been a full-month's worth of plate appearances, he'd be higher than this, but he deserves a mention here for how good he's been since returning. Honorable Mention - Kane Kepley, Double-A Knoxville Smokies Kane Kepley got promoted (finally) from South Bend to Knoxville at the start of the month. On the surface, the outfielder's .206 batting average since his promotion may scare you off; but the good news is that it's hiding some underlying data that's pretty positive. Since getting to Knoxville, Kepley has walked (19 times) more than he's struck out (13 times), and has seven extra-base hits, including three home runs. His 135 wRC+ tells a far different story than the batting average. Obviously, it's best when these things work in tandem, but even so, his positive start despite the talent jump deserves an honorable mention. Third Place - Angel Cepeda, High-A South Bend Cubs Angel Cepeda may have finally seen it "click" for him at the plate at High-A. Cepeda, a former high-profile IFA signing out of Venezuela, has always oozed potential but has yet to fully break out for the organization. Posting a 116 wRC+ on the year last season (with a similar late-season breakout at Myrtle Beach), the hope was that would continue into 2026. While he hasn't been bad, he's flown a bit under the radar as "just good enough." Lately, however, that's changing. While his 114 wRC+ in August is right at his season's number, over his last 45 PA's of the month the shortstop posted a 145 wRC+, highlighted by six long balls. And while I didn't consider it for this list, it's probably important to note that he smashed two more on September 1. Second Place - Ariel Armas, Double-A Knoxville Smokies Ariel Armas is a very good defensive catcher; this much has been known dating back to his days in college when he won an NCAA Gold Glove award for his work behind the dish. Because of his position and defensive acumen, the bar for Armas to clear offensively to remain interesting is very low. The good news for the Cubs is that the 23-year old may be in the midst of a late-season breakout of his own, landing him into the top three for this list. Hitting .289 and four home runs has given the backstop a very promising 121 wRC+ over the month of August, a significant improvement over his 72 wRC+ prior to that. First Place - Josiah Hartshorn, High-A South Bend Cubs Another month and another award for the Cubs' top prospect (ho-hum). Hartshorn has just been amazing this season and better than anyone would have expected. He hit a little bit of a snag for a brief spell in July, but August was a return to form for the Cubs' burly outfielder. Hitting .333, smacking six bombs, and walking 19 times while only striking out 23 times (good for a a 164 wRC+) is a recipe for another award. One more thing; just like Cepeda, Hartshorn went and homered in his first game in September, as well; there's no stopping the guy. There just aren't enough good things or superlatives to lay at his feet. He's probably one of only two hitters system-wide who can even be considered for MiLB hitter of the year (with Owen Ayers) and months like this are exactly why. View full article

Alex Bregman is now 15th in baseball in fWAR. You could try to tell reddit and X/Twitter that, however...

What an embarrassment by Milwaukee. I get it, you're losing and it's the rules. But this horsefeathers is horsefeathers pathetic.

Could be the heat. Could be just warming up. But Harrison's velo is down.

If there was a case where the Cubs called up a 1b/3b today as opposed to tomorrow, it's not because of the backup SS. It's almost assuredly for a pretty bad situation. Thankfully, he's just the Sept 1st callup. So crisis averted.

We're clear. No injuries to report. Murray will be the September callup. He won't be active today.

Because it's August 31st, I would assume someone is unable to play today or that this move is pending a tomorrow official call-up. If he is officially called today. I would be concerned that Busch has a knock we don't know about. However, I hope it's more of a "Michael Busch is having a kid!" and can't play for two days type thing.

I think it makes some sense. You need a 1b somewhere on this roster. He's Rule-5 eligible (and we should assume it's going to happen until it isn't...even if it feels likely to follow the 2021-2022 offseason). So I have no issue with it. He's not exciting but as a 28th man you probably aren't going to be exciting.

Asking to see BJ Murray start at 1b immediately is the ultimate shiny-new-toy syndrome. He's put in a lot of work and has had a pretty good year. He's also 26 and a repeater who had to go to Double-A to figure baseball-life out again. He doesn't need to start tonight. The Cubs are playing Milwaukee. Play the best players.

We should take every scouting report at the time of the 2020 draft with an extreme grain of salt. Even the ones that ended up being nailed on. Most of these players had barely been seen in a full year prior to that draft. And teams were working on shoestring scouting budgets beyond even that. They were at best using junior year data on prep guys for just about all of it. And with how much those things change from year to year? Those aren't worth much. 2020 was a flat out luck driven draft. Truly, the scouting report on Ed Howard wasn't much different than PCA. Premium positions. Great perceived gloves. Sucks that Howard got hurt and we never saw what he could be. Great for PCA for turning into an MVP candidate. But that draft was an impossible ask for any organization.

You do know that even the best relievers sometimes have a few rough patches, right?

Image courtesy of Rick Scuteri-Imagn Images This week at North Side Baseball, we've covered a few players who we think could be on the precipice of being a September call-up as rosters set to expand next week. Teams will be permitted to bring up two more players on their 40-man roster for the final month of the season. We looked specifically at pitcher Jaxon Wiggins and catcher Owen Ayers. Both of these players are the "typical" kind of player we see teams add with expanded rosters: prospects with a specific skillset that could help a team down the stretch, but who have yet to establish themselves. Shelby Miller, who has accrued over 920 innings in the majors to date, certainly breaks this mold, but he could be due for the same type of treatment as his much younger counterparts. Miller, a 35-year-old converted starting pitcher, has had his share of ups and downs over a long career. He was a first-round pick by the St. Louis Cardinals in 2009, and after being part of some very good Cardinals teams, he was traded to Atlanta for a strapping outfielder named Jason Heyward. He posted a promising 3.7-fWAR season in 2015 as a 24-year-old with the Braves. This excellent start to his career caused the Arizona Diamondbacks to become enamored with him, going as far as to trade their recently drafted top prospect, Dansby Swanson, to Atlanta to acquire him as a lead in their new-look rotation. After his strong start, however, the right-handed pitcher really struggled to find his place in the league, having a terrible 2016 in the desert and then eventually bouncing from organization to organization. He even made three appearances for the Cubs in 2021. (If you don't remember it, don't worry. It was just for two innings total and they were highly forgettable.) Things started to look up for the journeyman at last in 2023. While Miller had what seemed like a successful 42 innings with the Dodgers (posting an ERA of 1.70), however, the underlying data suggests that this may have been smoke-and-mirrors. Another down year in 2024 while pitching out of the Tigers' bullpen put his career on ice. Miller, once again, looked like he would struggle to find his place. Then, just last year, a return engagement with the Diamondbacks revived Miller's career—and the under-the-hood numbers looked a lot better this time. He was traded to Milwaukee at the deadline, and for the Brewers, he was considered a pretty big get. In a cruel twist of fate, Miller suffered a major injury just when he seemed to be reestablishing himself. He went down with elbow trouble in early September and underwent Tommy John surgery in October. Without much of a market, the Chicago Cubs scooped him up on a two-year contract late in the offseason, hoping that they could use him in 2027. Little did they know the reliever had other ideas. He's zoomed through his recovery, and might pitch in the majors less than 12 months after having been on Dr. Keith Meister's table. The Case for Cubs Calling Up Shelby Miller First and foremost, we have to forget what we remember about Shelby Miller. The "old" Shelby Miller was a starting pitcher that relied heavily on a diet of four-seam fastballs, sinkers and cutters. He would also mix in a curveball (pretty regularly) and a changeup (sparingly). He got more groundballs than flyballs. He gave up a decent amount of contact. That guy is gone; long, long gone. This is also not the same version of Miller whom the Dodgers and the Tigers had in their bullpens during the 2023 and 2024 season. During those years, Miller's average fastball velocity sat at 93.6 MPH. He had scrapped most of the noise around the fastball, ditching the sinker, cutter, curveball and changeup almost entirely. Instead, while he still relied on the four-seamer nearly 60% of the time, he mixed in a splitter around 20% of the time and a sweeper the rest of the time. The foundation was set for a reinvention, but his fastball velocity was keeping him back. Something had to change for him to really become a weapon. Last season, he rediscovered the lost electricity in his arm. His fastball sat a full two ticks higher than it had the prior two years, and sometimes touched 97 MPH. The results were fantastic: elite chase, whiff and strikeout rates, a 2.74 ERA and a 3.67 xFIP. He specifically became a deadly weapon against left-handed batters, striking out 32.4% of lefties last season. That was a whole new guy. That was, at least, until Miller went down with the injury that keeps pitchers up at night: a torn UCL, requiring Tommy John surgery. These operations can keep pitchers out quite some time. Just look at starting pitcher Justin Steele, who's still working back from an internal elbow brace surgery, the "younger brother" of TJ. Corbin Burnes underwent Tommy John last spring and looks like he won't pitch in 2026, either. Miller, however, has had a near-miraculous recovery and started throwing in Mesa back in July. Since then, he's rocketed from "throwing to hitters on the side" of the Complex backfields to "promoted to Triple-A Iowa" in just a matter of weeks. Best of all, the velocity hasn't gone anywhere. He's averaging 95.5 MPH so far at Triple-A. It very much looks like the player who emerged last summer survived his unhappy fall and winter. In just under six innings so far at Iowa, Miller has struck out 10 hitters and walked only one. He's running the kind of chase, whiff, zone, and stuff ratings you would hope for from a veteran big-leaguer just visiting the minors. His stuff grades out well, too. Everything here points to a healthy and viable reliever for a team who has been searching up and down for as much pitching as they can get. The Case Against Cubs Calling Up Shelby Miller The biggest case against calling up Miller is that it's just hard to know how much you can count on him. The timeline for his recovery is miraculous. With that said, he's yet to go on back-to-back days. instead, the Cubs have cautiously given him at least a few days off in between every inning he's thrown. That's not a luxury the team would have if they tried to carry him for, say, a postseason series. If Miller was the only reliever on the team after rosters expand that may need to be micromanaged in terms of his usage, you could probably find a way around that, especially with the added number of arms at your disposal. The problem, of course, is that the Miller's usage issues aren't in a vacuum. They have a handful of pitchers who may also be on some innings limitations. Justin Steele, Ben Brown, Edward Cabrera and Hoby Milner are all possible reinforcements who might return from injuries of their own, and the Cubs will have to be cognizant of how they use them all. Adding another arm into that mix could prove difficult and may make it impossible to keep a keen on every single inning. Another reason the Cubs may not call up Miller: they don't have to. Because Miller is on the 60-day IL and coming back from elbow reconstruction surgery, he gets to play by different rehab rules. Normally, a pitcher is allowed a 30-day rehab window. For Miller, that begun at the start of August. But because of the specific nature of Miller's ailment, the Cubs are granted a 60-day window. It means that the team doesn't have to make that decision this year, like they would if he was coming back from a hamstring pull. The Cubs can, in essence, "have their cake and eat it, too" by keeping Miller in Iowa for the remainder of the season while still keeping pitchers like Aaron Civale (who's been quite good in long relief) or Caleb Thielbar for as long as they can. It's a decision that they can kick down the road to 2027, and they may be forced to do just that, simply in the name of maintaining as much depth as possible. Should the Cubs Call Up Shelby Miller? The goal of the Chicago Cubs at this point is very clear: to win the last game in the postseason. This is not a team who is in for half-measures; trades like Jefferson Rojas for two players on expiring contracts (Clay Holmes and Tyrone Taylor) make that very clear. The best way for the team to achieve that goal is to ensure that their 26 best players see as much game action as possible. I believe a 100% healthy Miller is among those 26 best players. Miller fills a pretty obvious space in a bullpen. He's a right handed pitcher with reverse splits (due to his high splitter usage). He adds a lot of strikeouts, chase and whiff to a bullpen; all things that are quite useful. He'd allow the Cubs to move on from a struggling left-handed pitcher like Caleb Thielbar without feeling like they'd be short in the bullpen against left-handed hitters. Miller could essentially fill the role that Jacob Webb was filling early in the year and has since been vacated as he's risen to the team's defacto closer. But the sticking point that the Cubs' will have to wrestle with is a tricky one: how close to being 100% is Miller right now? And if he isn't 100%, at what percent is the cross-over point? The velocity suggests that his arm is feeling quite good, but his usage suggests some reservations in how often he can go. And to be fair to everyone involved; no one thought Miller would be pitching in Iowa in August, so being cautious with his usage feels entirely warranted. I think Miller will throw innings for the Chicago Cubs in 2026, because I don't believe the Cubs would have been as aggressive with him if they didn't think it was possible. Whether or not they call him up the moment rosters expand is another question, but it's likely that someone on the pitching staff will need an IL stint between now and October. This is a new, reinvented Shelby Miller, who has busted his hump to come back from TJS this year. He's had the tenacity to stick in a league that rarely wanted him, and the drive to not allow a serious elbow injury to keep him down. If you're putting together 26 men to win that last game of the playoffs, it's that kind of stubbornness you want to see in a reliever when you call upon them in tight situations. View full article

Ah, damn. Woke up and saw it was Waldschmidt who walked us off. I really liked him that draft cycle. Bummer.