Jason Ross

I think "Tyson Miller" feels a potential outcome for him. I don't see starter, but I do see the potential for "RHH who really can use chase to get righties out".

I'm always interested in new ideas. I'm about to be real bored in the next 48 hours; wife is away, and summer break is on. I'm headed out of town end of next week, but about 3pm tomorrow and then I've got plenty of researching time. And then after mini-vacation too.

Thats a really good one! And one I will *probably* have to look into more than just the 9th inning. If you're patient, I'll make sure to address it next week because unlike some of the others one (and no shade to them they're good too!) they're more opinionated and this feels like it has some sort of an answer. And I want to give it the attention and research it deserves!

For all of the complaints on Swanson, he's up to an 89 wRC+ and entered the game with a 1.7 fWAR on the year. He doesn't always do it the most pretty, but he has been a consistent value provider.

"Dansby Swanson after his two home run performance today: is he the greatest hitter of all time?"

Dansby is heating up, so I suspect Ian Happ will go in a prolonged slump for the next 30 days. For whatever will fans on X and Reddit have if both are decent/good at the same time?

Dansby hot streak initiated.

1-4 line-out isn't a typical addition to a scorecard

The offense is fun again.

Not 80%, but the Braves have three of their projected SP's on the IL-60 right now. The Cubs only have two on IL-60, with two on IL-15 and one of those back soon. But yeah, I don't want to play it off as "The Cubs don't have a lot of injuries" just that a few other teams also have had a lot of injuries and it's not a training staff issue so much as an unfortunate bad happenstance (though should also be fair to mention the Cubs' staff has some injury concerns on paper and they've all seemingly come to fruition).

Fangraphs does have an injury section of their Roster Resource but I'm getting 500 Error when I load up roster resource right now. Not sure if it's a popup/adblock setting on my chrome or just down right now.

https://www.rotowire.com/baseball/article/most-injured-mlb-teams-ranked-by-severity-score-111870 The Cubs aren't even in the top-10 according to this metric. You can buy this specific one or not; that's really not the point. But there are 29 other teams and what the Cubs are going through isn't so special. They have faced a lot of injuries. Other teams have as well. This idea that it's the training staff is just searching for an answer to a question when the correct one is right in front of you, but you just don't like it because there isn't an easy scape goat.

Norway is cool.

He did have a neck strain last year.

Brave of you to assume any SP in this system would manage to be healthy for a week right now.

Didn't mean to suggest you were saying it's panic time, just in general, I don't think it's panic time. I think starting Will Sanders right now is probably panic-time move. But I do think getting Will Sanders MLB looks is probably better than finding the next Jayden Murray.

Probably a bullpen day, yes. To be fair, I think starting Will Sanders in Milwaukee is essentially waiving a white flag and throwing a bullpen day as is. Can't really expect him to go into Milwaukee against the NL Central division leaders and expect a good outcome. So I think regardless of what they do, when Cabrera's spot pops back up, it's probably going to be a long one. Maybe they'll rush job Matthew Boyd back, but I'd rather take an L in Milwaukee in June than rush him back. Let him build up...they need healthy SPs.

Not "Cubs" related but draft related: Just Baseball dropped their top-250: https://www.justbaseball.com/mlb-draft/2026-mlb-draft-top-250-prospects/#entry-225319

I think Sanders struggles too much to get into the zone right now for him to be a starting option. I'm with Bertz; I wouldn't mind getting him a look in the BP: give him some bulk low-leverage innings at the start and see how MLB hitters react. He's doing a really good job of getting Triple-A hitters to chase and whiff, but sits in-zone in the 10th percentile and when he's getting hit, he's getting hit hard. Triple-A hitters are just not anywhere near MLB hitters. Think about how good Ballesteros has looked time and time again in Iowa and how much he's struggled in the last month. I've read more than once on here that he's still the "best pure hitter" on the team or something along those lines from people here (for the record, I think maybe he can be that, but he isn't today). Sanders has probably done enough, coupled with the terrible Cubs' pitching injuries to force a look that way. But I think as a SP, MLB hitters are going to either use that low zone-% to their walk-advantage or force him into the zone too often and hit him hard. Shorter spurts make it easier to hide poor zone-rate. And low-leverage situations will allow the Cubs to see whether or not he can continue to get whiff and chase against far better and more seasoned hitters to offset the zone issues. I know we're frustrated right now, but the Cubs are above .500, in the playoff hunt and the Brewers are not an impossible number of games away (the Brewers were roughly this far back from the Cubs last year around the same point of the season, so it can happen). And to be fair to the Cubs only the Dodgers have gone 7-3 in the last 10. They aren't in "just start the kids" territory yet. But with injuries probably are in "well, might as well see what Will Sanders can do down 4 in the 7th inning" territory, too, rather than fill that spot with our 5th recently DFA"d 30 year old journeyman we pick up.

Justin Steele, Cade Horton, Daniel Palencia, all seem to fly in the face of this, no? Injury does not equal failed development. Especially when it comes to pitchers. And two things can be true. The Cubs haven't really gotten the best out of Cabrera but that they have developed some pitchers. Even if it probably isn't enough.

I'll ask Brock if it's in the podcast budget to hire a PI.

Cabrera has a strained hamstring/adductor. Quick google doctor suggests 6-8 weeks is probably a good timeline meaning...probably it for Cabrera this year as a starter.