Matthew Trueblood

Image courtesy of Jeff Le-Imagn Images The biggest problem—the only problem, in one sense, but more on that in a bit—is that Daniel Palencia hasn't been healthy this year. Here we stand on the edge of September, and he's yet to crack 20 innings pitched. In a season that has seen winter investments in Phil Maton and Hunter Harvey go for naught and injuries to Cade Horton, Edward Cabrera and Ben Brown cannibalize the bullpen, the Cubs have needed their relief ace, and he hasn't been available for much of the campaign. If he still looked like himself when he was on the mound, though, we could have a different conversation. In fact, since he's now healthy(ish) again, we could have a downright sunny one. Unfortunately, that's not the way things are. Palencia has a 4.19 ERA this season, and a 1.40 WHIP. He's still struck out over 28% of opposing batters, and his walk rate is better than the league average again, but the results when opponents put the ball in play haven't been nearly as good as they were last year. You can call that bad luck; you can observe that he also had some "good luck" last season. But the truth is that luck has nothing (or very little; luck is always a factor in baseball, but it's usually overstated) to do with it. If you want to know what's wrong with Palencia, start right here. This is his average horizontal movement by pitch type for each season of his career. Last May, I wrote about Palencia's unique fastball shape, and how it worked in concert with his sheer velocity and high-energy delivery to flummox opposing batters. I dubbed that shape "run-ride", in contrast with the more often-discussed "cut-ride" heater. The Cubs usually seek and develop cut-ride fastballs, which are pitches with (depending on the hurler and on how you prefer to look at it) more glove-side movement than you'd expect given their induced vertical break or more vertical ride than you'd expect based on their cutting action. Palencia's fastball went from good to great last year when he achieved a flipped version of that. Based on his arm action and his vertical ride, you'd expect less arm-side run than the pitch actually showed—or, if you thought of the pitch as a two-seam runner and were expecting that movement, you'd be surprised by the hop on it. That shape is a bit less unorthodox than a cut-ride one, but most of the pitchers who throw run-ride heaters sit in the low or mid-90s. Palencia's unique formula was throwing exceptionally hard—that's always been his specialty—while also achieving that two-dimensional movement. As you can see in that chart, though, that magic is gone. Palencia's fastball still steams in at 99 MPH or so most of the time, though it's down a half-tick in average velocity and has particularly lost its top register. (The percentage of his heaters that hit 101.0 MPH was 14.8 last season; it's just 7.6 in 2026.) It still has good carry for a pitch thrown so hard. The horizontal movement, however, is gone; his heater has gotten arrow-straight. You can see the effect of that on pitches like the one on which he allowed a back-breaking home run to TJ Friedl on Friday. akR3UHhfWGw0TUFRPT1fQUFKV1V3Y0ZYZ29BRHdZQVZ3QUhVQThDQUZrQUJ3QUFBQUFDQkFKVEJRUlJVd2RV.mp4 Admittedly, one problem here is that this heater was only 97.6 MPH. For reasons we'll touch on shortly, Palencia really needs to operate up at 99-101 to be his superb self. But the bigger issue is that this pitch doesn't have that run toward the outside part of the plate. Even with Friedl swinging flat at the top of the zone, if this offering runs those extra 3-4 inches, it's a routine flyout. Right now, though, Palencia can't consistently produce that run, so pitches aren't getting off hitter's barrels as well as they did in the past. That doesn't show up solely in exit velocity (he's actually allowing less hard contact this season than last), but also in launch angle. Again, the horizontal movement difference on this particular pitch meant the difference between a line-drive homer (launch angle: 26°) and a high, lazy fly ball. This is one reason why Palencia is seeing hitters hit balls in the launch-angle sweet spot at a hugely increased rate this year, which has led to all that damage on balls in play. Hopefully, that sells you on the fact that Palencia needs that extra bit of run to make his fastball work the way it needs to. Now, let's talk about what's led to the loss of movement, so we can get a sense of how likely he is to get it back. For the first insight on that front, check out his arm angle by pitch type and month, throughout his career. Last season, Palencia kept his arm angle on the fastball just over 35°, pretty consistently. This year, it's up to 37°. That difference sounds infinitesimal, right? You can barely even see it on video. Here he is at release, last season and this season. This is a good lesson, though, in how small a thing it can be from which big things come. First, you need to know that Palencia is a pronator. That means that as he releases the ball, he slightly turns his forearm and hand outward. That's where that arm-side run comes from, for most pitchers. Therefore, that slight change in arm angle means Palencia's fingers are slightly more behind the ball as he release it; the pitch has slightly more backspin and slightly less freedom to run off the fingertips and off to the side, despite that turn of the arm. You can see this (although, again, we're talking about small margins) in Palencia's spin axis data. Here's a visualization of the spin and movement directions of his pitches in 2025. Here's the same one for 2026. The difference is almost imperceptible, but it's there, and it's wreaking havoc for Palencia, because he so badly needs those extra few inches of wiggle—especially with anything less than his A+ fastball. That's because he doesn't have a true out pitch other than the fastball; his slider has just never been an exceptionally good pitch. He's never found command or comfort with the splitter. He needs the fastball to work at peak effectiveness; it's not doing so. The slider is a separate but equally salient problem. Just when Palencia could have used a boost from that pitch, it's gotten worse this year, rather than better. He's been unable to find any lateral bite at all with it, and even the depth he achieved fairly often in 2025 is absent this year. That goes back, again, to the arm angle, and to Palencia's motor preference. He's not a guy who can "snap off" a slider in the traditional sense, with a late, powerful and deft inward turn of the wrist. He presets the slider grip and his wrist to produce the movement he wants. That works less well from a higher arm slot, though—and if he's releasing the ball later in his arm action. We've thoroughly diagnosed him, now. Palencia is extremely reliant on his fastball, and right now, that fastball isn't moving the way it needs to, because his arm angle is a touch too high. Ditto for his slider. Time to finally, truly attack the big issue: Can this be fixed? Can it be done quickly? To answer that, let's talk about his recent injury history, in the context of his impressively explosive delivery. Palencia is not a big guy. He's very, very powerfully built, but he's a gas can; the levers are short. All of bhis power has to come from the ground, and from the energy he can create within his frame. The fluidity of people like Chris Sale, Josh Hader or Jacob Misiorowski is not available to Palencia, if he wants to throw hard. He's adapted well to that; he's trained his body to generate enormous torque. For that reason, though, he's always been vulnerable to injuries involving the big muscles that do that power production. In both 2024 and 2025, he was sidelined by shoulder strains, but the shoulder is a big place. Specifically, Palencia was dealing with injuries to the muscles that can almost as easily be called the back as the shoulder—including the lat. Earlier this year, he suffered what was initially diagnosed as an oblique strain, which turned out to be another lat strain. Finally, this summer, the stress of the delivery traveled down the kinetic chain a bit, to his forearm. Palencia is trying to manage the stress that his delivery puts on his body. Unfortunately, some of it is unavoidable, and unfortunately, it's pretty clear that he's still not 100% able to push though and produce power the same way, even as he works through whatever's lingering there. In both pairs of screenshots above, there's a postu ral difference that's actually more evident than the relationship between hand and shoulder. That's Palencia trying to get down the mound more aggressively, getting more power from his legs to take some of the strain off his core and his arm. However, the higher arm slot is an inevitable product of that change to how the rest of his body is moving—and right now, as he protects that arm and tries to avoid blowing it out altogether, going back to moving the way he did in 2025 doesn't seem to be an option. I don't think Palencia is capable of returning to the level at which he pitched for much of 2025, at least until 2027. If he can get through the stretch run healthy and rest over the offseason, he might be in position to return next year at full strength, but it's just not possible without a few months off for the elbow and the forearm. That's bad news for the Cubs, and for Palencia, of course, but the baseball gods don't always give you the break you need. Track Palencia's horizontal fastball movement, vertical slider movement, arm angle, and fastball velocity, in that order. If they each trend in the right direction over the final few weeks of the season, he might be rounding into form just in time to dominate in October. Don't count on it, though. The Cubs will (probably) have to cling to leads as best they can with a patchwork bullpen the rest of the way. The only good news is that that's what they've done all season, anyway. View full article

Image courtesy of Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images The cruel thing about expectations is that you have to earn them, and then you have to live up to them—and then, once you live up and even exceed them, they just rise, and it's even harder to meet them from then on. Athletes make brilliant plays and put up great statistics, and maybe they time it just right and that makes them rich and famous and beloved, but even if it does, it also makes them an object of scrutiny. And it means dealing with lots of ever-rising expectations. Pete Crow-Armstrong is having a season for the ages. He should win the National League MVP Award, unless something unforeseen happens between now and the end of the campaign. He's matured extraordinarily quickly at the plate, and the cut-to-the-bone intensity of the way he's competed all season is irresistible. He's an elite slugger who also runs the bases like it's his last day on Earth. He's carried a thoroughly average team to a comfortable playoff position as the calendar flips to September. And, of course, he's the best center fielder in the game, defensively. Right? Look: he's certainly not bad. Crow-Armstrong is, in fact, above-average out there, even this month, according to Statcast. He's been worth 2 runs in center in August, if you believe Fielding Run Value, and since that's the only publicly available defensive metric that allows us to split it out by month, you kind of have to believe it, right? Crow-Armstrong is a plus center fielder; that's not in question. However, he was worth 7 runs in March and April, and 7 more in May. He had a bit of a sag in June (I felt that one, too, but thought it best to see if the blip was just that), but he saved 6 runs in July, too. In those months—the first third of the season, essentially, and then July, especially after the All-Star break—he was clearly the best defender in the game. He ran down everything. His body control was exquisite. His arm, which got some of its potency from the genius of his footwork, was a weapon. There just didn't seem to be any undefended grass for the opponents to find in center field; that's an empowering feeling for a pitching staff. It's not quite true lately. This is normal; I'm not excoriating or castigating Crow-Armstrong. The grind takes its toll on everyone; you can't opt out of getting tired by seeming to be the human incarnation of Red Bull. Then, too, there's the fact that Crow-Armstrong has plainly worked hard to keep good weight on his frame this season, so he can maintain the exceptional bat speed that has made him such a fearsome slugger. You pay a price for that, too, when you previously moved like Hermes in cleats and cut through the wind like a blade. He's a sturdier guy than he was even a year ago, which means he's a tiny bit slower and less lithe—and maybe, when it's been almost three weeks since the team's last day off and your legs are heavy, more than a tiny bit. Hopefully, though, you've also noticed this, because it's not just some artifact of the numbers. Here's a single hit by Kyle Tucker when the Dodgers were in town at the start of this month that didn't have to fall in. M3k2MTFfWGw0TUFRPT1fRGxBRFhBRURVQWNBWFZ0V1ZRQUhCbFJTQUFOVVZGRUFVQU5UVVZZRlZBTUVDQVpR (1).mp4 Any center fielder will tell you that the hardest ball to read is the line drive coming right at you. In a tied game and with no outs in the inning, Crow-Armstrong might have been thinking at least half-consciously about not taking undue risks. He also excels mostly when going to his left or his right; he's never been the most daring center fielder in the league when coming in straight in on the dive. However, he's made catches on balls just like this before—including earlier this year, against the Dodgers, in Los Angeles. Playing this one safe is the kind of tiny, subtle sign that a player is either conserving some energy or not quite as razor-sharp as is required to be an elite defender in this increasingly fast game. This one is a more straightforward example of Crow-Armstrong not making a play he would normally make. d2V3eFFfV0ZRVkV3dEdEUT09X1ZBbFVVd1pWQUZNQUR3TUtVZ0FIQnc4RkFGbFRXbGdBVjF3QlZnWlRVd01EQWxSVA==.mp4 See the way he leans forward, and the stomping deceleration as he approaches this ball while it falls? That's not the mark of a below-average fielder. It's extremely normal. This is how just about everyone plays this ball. The thing is, go back in time a few months, and it's not how Crow-Armstrong plays it. His unique brilliance laid in the fact that on balls just like that one, he would glide through the ball without slowing down at all. He showed a once-in-a-generation feel for running through the catch point, or even sliding or diving through it with as little lost speed as physics would allow. The guy who almost makes this very important play, but doesn't quite get there? He's not letting the team down, or anything, but he's not saving the day, the way Crow-Armstrong usually does. This happened the very next day. TzA0cm9fWGw0TUFRPT1fVUFaVUJRVUNWZ3NBV1ZzQ0F3QUhBUWRWQUZrQldnSUFCQVJVQTFBSENGVmNBQVZl.mp4 This was even more catchable. Situationally, though, it demanded a bit more caution, and Crow-Armstrong was more cautious, all right. He didn't even rush onto the short hop, as he did the day before. He made a calculated decision to pull up and wait on this ball. That wasn't necessarily the wrong choice; it kept the runner who began the play on first base from reaching third. He made the safe play. In May, though, that ball is caught. It might be that Crow-Armstrong is actually slower lately, either in responding to the ball off the bat or in that fateful final step or two in pursuit of the ball. It might be that he's choosing to play the percentages, to avoid some of the ugly errors that befell him even while he was making such incredible plays earlier this year. I think the most likely explanation is different, though. I think Crow-Armstrong is preserving himself a bit. I would guess that's subconscious, because he seems utterly incapable of throttling back on purpose; he just burns too hot. But this is common—almost universal. When young players who have traditionally been high-motor defensive stars blossom into elite offensive producers, they usually become more conservative, less valuable defenders. This is true in other sports, too, but it's especially true in baseball. Teams not only don't mind this, but often encourage it. The better you hit, the more conversations about your defense start to center on reducing mileage on your legs or avoiding that fateful rollover wrist sprain. Playing great defense requires putting your body at risk, especially at high-value defensive positions. Teams like when their star sluggers do a tiny bit less of all that. Baseball—life itself, I guess, but especially baseball—is about tradeoffs. Many of those tradeoffs are unavoidable, even if we wish they weren't or can't quite articulate why they are. To spare some energy; to avoid those nagging injuries; and to find extra time for BP, a player often gives up a bit of pregame defensive work or pulls up on a fly ball they almost could have caught. It's normal. It's fine. It might even be crucial. It's sad, though, to me. The exhilaration of the completeness of Crow-Armstrong is a bit deflated by this turn. No matter how clear-eyed you are about those tradeoffs we mentioned and about the reasonable limits of all-around superstardom, be honest: a little piece of you wants Crow-Armstrong to keep being the best defender you've ever seen and to go steal 50 bases, in addition to hitting the way he's been hitting since late May. That, it turns out, might not be possible. Willie Mays used to play so much and so hard and put so much of himself into all facets of his breathtakingly gorgeous game that he would end up in the hospital for a day or two, a time or two a year, due to exhaustion. No one wants to see Crow-Armstrong push himself quite to that extreme, and the fury of his competitiveness makes that feel like a real risk sometimes. It's ok that he's currently taking just enough weight off the gas pedal to keep the car under control. We'll all just have to hope that he can put the pedal back down when the games matter most, and that the part of his game that initially made him stand out hasn't been permanently diminished by his transformation into an equally excellent hitter. View full article

Image courtesy of Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images Calling the Cubs' loss Tuesday night in Arizona a gut punch would be inaccurate. A gut punch is a single, sudden blow to which you left yourself open, but which required the opponent to spot the vulnerability instantly and attack without hesitation or error. What happened to Chicago was more like losing your cap on a windy day; missing a chance to seize it before it spins away; and then plunging down a roadside embankment chasing the damn thing because you weren't watching where you were going. Let's review the carnage. Clay Holmes did everything the team could have asked of him. A sudden ace with a chance to pitch at the front end of Chicago's postseason rotation, Holmes was stellar, spinning seven scoreless innings against a Diamondbacks lineup that lacks some of its dynamism right now amid the ongoing Ketel Marte drama. Meanwhile, Ian Happ paid off a great at-bat with a three-run homer, and the team even tacked on an early insurance run. It looked like smooth sailing. To ensure it stayed that way, Holmes got some defensive help from newly-minted second baseman Pedro Ramírez. After seven innings, the Cubs not only enjoyed a comfortable lead, but hadn't been scored upon since early Sunday. They'd scored 30 runs since then, the first time they've put up that many runs between opponent tallies since 1969. It was all looking easy. That was the trap. It's never easy. In the bottom of the eighth, the Cubs found that out the hard way. Daniel Palencia's efforts to get back into a groove since coming off the injured list have been erratic, in costly ways, and this was no exception. After one quick out, he hit a batter, then walked a batter. He struck out the dangerous Corbin Carroll, and he had a 2-2 count on Gabriel Moreno; he was almost out of the jam. Then came that gust of horrible wind: a check-swing grounder by Moreno that somehow stayed fair up the first-base line. It eluded Michael Busch and trickled down the line, allowing one run to score and resulting in two more in scoring position. A Geraldo Perdomo single plated both runners, and Craig Counsell had to lift Palencia in favor of closer Jacob Webb. Four-out saves are a tall order for Webb. His improvements this season have been real, and he's a legitimate high-leverage arm, but he's not a top-tier relief ace. That means he's going to fail sometimes. To minimize the number of times those failures happen, it's important to avoid asking too much of him too often. To minimize the impact of the times when he does fail, it's important to have a decent-sized margin for error as often as possible. Lately, the Cubs are asking a lot of Webb, and doing so when the margin for error is minimal. Flawed Catch and Tag Cost Cubs Chance to End Game on Stolen Base Attempt Thus, even after he got the team out of the eighth with a 4-3 lead intact, Webb had a gauntlet to run, and this time, you knew it wouldn't be easy. With one out in the bottom of the ninth, he walked Tim Tawa. With two outs and pinch-hitter Ryan Waldschmidt at the plate, pinch-runner Jose Fernandez took off for second base, and that moment came when the Cubs could have spared themselves the loss of that cap to the win, before it even lifted off their head. Webb did a reasonably good job holding Fernandez. Miguel Amaya got off a good (though certainly not a great) throw, and there was a chance—or maybe just a ghost of a chance—to get Fernandez. The play was close enough that, even after the initial safe call, the Cubs elected to go to replay, because if the out had been converted, it would have ended the game. It was a very quick review; the call was confirmed. But we don't have to focus on the fact that Fernandez was safe; let's examine how close he came to being out, and whether he should have been. Amaya's throws to second on steal attempts have largely been quite accurate this year. He rates as average in terms of pure arm strength, the rapidity of his exchange and release, and that accuracy, but he makes lots of throws that feel even more accurate than the metrics reflect. He belongs to the class of catchers who generally see their throws tail into the runner, in a good way. Here's an example: SzRCeWxfWGw0TUFRPT1fQVZkWUJWY0hYbGNBV1FZR1Z3QUhVRkJmQUFNRVZGVUFDMVVEQ1ZFR1VBTURCZ1VE.mp4 There are other times when Amaya seems to be throwing a bit wide of the bag to the third-base side, only for the ball to run back over the base almost perfectly, like this: Uk85UjNfWGw0TUFRPT1fVjFJQ0FGRU1VRkFBWEFNQUJRQUhBUTVSQUFNR1dsRUFVMVlGVlFFSEIxRlZVVk5X.mp4 Unfortunately, the throw he made Tuesday night wasn't quite like either of those. It stayed true, and it stayed on the third-base side of second. Here's where Ramírez was (and Fernandez, the incoming runner, too) when the ball arrived: At this point, Fernandez is only a few feet from the base, and getting all the way from where Ramírez catches it to the runner's arm or shoulder before their hand reaches the base is no easy task. At this point, there was no chance of getting an out on the play. However, even a beat sooner, there was a chance to do so. Understanding how that chance slipped away offers some insight into the nature of this kind of play. Here's where everyone relevant was when the Diamondbacks broadcast first cut from the center-field camera to the one high and behind home plate. That looks innnocuous, but there's a morsel to comment on even here. Ramírez is in this habit, when playing second: he curls to the shortstop side of the bag, then gets out in front of it. That's how Dansby Swanson receives throws on plays like this one, but it's not how you typically see a second baseman do so. Most of them prefer to achieve that same position right at the front edge of the bag via the right side of the keystone. Here's Nico Hoerner on the play against the Pirates that we looked at earlier: This initially seems like a detail so small as not to matter, or at least to be rightfully subject to the comfort and whims of each inidividual, but how you address the base can change how the whole play works. Broadly speaking, the sooner you get to that spot right in front of the base, the less hurried all of your actions thereafter will be. Which side you arrive on will also color the way you prepare your body for the quick-twitch movements required to convert a caught-stealing opportunity, and what type of movement you (subconsciously) choose when that situation presents itself. Here's a key moment in the flight of this particular throw. Ramírez established his initial position, but now, he's reacting to the throw itself. The rest of this play is an improvisation, based on past reps that bear at least some resemblance; this is the last moment when he'd really deciding how to play the ball. By now, it's clear that Amaya's arm angle was a hair higher than usual, and that this ball is going to end up wide of the bag on the third-base side. In a way, that works out nicely for Ramírez, who showed up on that side of it, anyway. Now, though, he has to react and move quickly, to get into position for when the ball arrives. Here's the fateful step he chooses to do that. Just before this, Ramírez had taken a step that put his left foot about a foot in front of second base. That was a bit too aggressive, but it got him into position to stick that right foot out farther, building potential energy within his frame. It also gave him something firm to put his weight on, so he could edit that first step with the left foot. Had he turned his hips a bit more toward first base at that moment and pulled the left leg through, he could have moved toward the near-default of Swanson, an expert on these plays. He could have dropped into the one-knee tagging stance Swanson adopts on virtually every such play. (Yes, that stance can still work even when a throw looks like Tuesday night's did, a bit to the third-base side of the optimal spot.) Instead, though, Ramírez's rebalancing step with the left foot just went backward. He achieved a wider base and a powerful position for the turn-and-dive tag, but his hips got locked into place. From the reverse angle, you can see (as he's about to receive the ball) that he wasn't in a stable position where he could shift and turn off that left leg, either. By the time the ball got to him, Ramírez was pretty off-balance. He needed some of that lean, because he was a long way from getting his tag to its mark and was running out of time, but some of the awkwardness in his position really was just that. He ended up reaching for the ball, snaring it a bit sooner than was necessary, and his tag couldn't reach Fernandez in time. This might sound overwrought, but a throw-and-catch to nail a would-be baserunner really is a rapport play. Amaya and Ramírez, unfortunately, have almost no established on-field rapport. That matters on multiple levels. Catchers get used to throwing with certain defenders' moves and positions in mind. Infielders, on the other end, move in response to and in anticipation of a catcher's typical throws. Greater trust between catcher and middle infielder allows those infielders to let the ball travel more, which nearly always produces an earlier tag arrival than going and snatching the ball. Swanson is special as a receiver of these throws, too. His absence is heavily felt, on plays like this just as on balls hit in the hole or when it's time to turn a double play. But as is true in other areas, moving Hoerner over to stop the gap also leads to a downstream downgrade. Hoerner not only has much more experience working with Amaya, but is a lighter-footed athlete around the base than Ramírez is. Here (on the same play we studied above), look how he creates a moment in which both of his feet are off the ground just before the ball arrives, maximizing his opportunity to contort himself where needed to cover a big space with a lightning-fast tag move. Less explosive and less polished, Ramírez just isn't the whiz that Swanson and Hoerner are, and on the fateful play Tuesday night, those disadvantages were compounded by the fact that he and Amaya have worked together very little on throws like these. Swanson and Hoerner each could have gotten an out on that play, ending the game. Ramírez couldn't make that difficult play, so the game continued. Jacob Webb's Sudden Home Run Problem Dooms Cubs That just leaves falling down a hill, from our earlier metaphor. That's just what Webb did next. He hung a 2-1 slider in the thick of the zone to Waldschmidt, who launched a two-run, walkoff homer. It was the third time the team has been walked off in their last five gaesm, and the second time it came on a homer against Webb. The righty didn't have great feel for his fastball or for his signature changeup, so he went to the slider he's taken pride in this year—the one he believes has made him less predictable and harder to hit for right-handed batters. He just didn't execute it. It's always the little things that add up to something big and insurmountable. It's never just bad luck. It's bad luck, compounded by a slight deficiency in a skill you barely notice most of the time, and then seasoned with a combination of a bad mistake and an opportunistic foe. The Cubs found a uniquely excruciating way to lose Tuesday night, with a few small mistakes made worse by circumstances and sequencing. That's not easy to shake off, no matter what, but coming on the heels of two other games that slipped away in similarly miserable ways makes it exponentially worse. All the team can do is come back Wednesday and try to secure a series win, hoping they gained at least a little experience, rapport and wisdom from their failures. View full article

Image courtesy of Joe Nicholson-Imagn Images At some point in every baseball career, it's time to reckon with Father Time. You've been playing a child's game for a lavish living for years, now, and in so doing, you've racked up a heavy debt to the arbiter of aging and entropy. He'll let you run up a tab for a while, unremarked-upon, but you both know the bill must eventually be paid. If you try to escape him, he'll take out your knees. (Actually, he'll do that either way, but work with me.) If you ignore his collection calls, you're liable to embarrass yourself. It's best to set up a payment plan, so there are fewer surprises on both sides. For a hitter, that means giving up a bit of the bat speed that made you an elite prospect in this game; a bit of the selectivity that made you an elite player once you reached the highest level of competition on Earth; or both. You give back when Time only loaned you, and you learn to live by your wits—to succeed using what talent remains with you and what you've learned over all these years doing the hardest thing to do in team sports. It's Michael Conforto's time, already. Yes, it's too early. Yes, he's only 33 years old. Yes, I'm 37, so I feel hopelessly old writing this, and maybe you feel hopelessly old reading it. But that's the game now. Everyone throws 100 and everyone has a fourth pitch (a fourth! Like 10 minutes ago, they didn't all even have three!). Being 33 means it's time to start paying back Father Time for once having let you defy the laws of physics by, you know, hitting those pitches 400-plus feet, without major tradeoffs. Really, of course, Conforto started his repayment last year, when he hit a measly .199/.305/.333 for the Dodgers and practically fell out of the league. He's always been a good and fairly balanced hitter, but last year—despite still having pretty darn good bat speed and showing excellent plate discipline, in terms of swinging at strikes but laying off non-strikes—he became a fairly one-dimensional one, and a bad one. Try explaining this, then: Conforto has given up 1.3 MPH of bat speed this season, plunging from markedly above-average to barely so. He's swinging at more pitches outside the zone than he did last year, and whiffing more often than he did last year. But he's also hitting .232/.326/.473. He is, once again, a robust left-handed bat, and he's come up with a bunch of huge hits for the Cubs. That only works if you're very, very smart—very willing to adapt, and to change your plan to achieve what's required of you. Let's talk about how Conforto, specifically, has achieved it. Changes like this are built from the ground up, at least metaphorically. They start when you dig in in the box, and they accelerate with every preparatory breath and movement and they really accelerate once you start your load and unleash your swing. So, first, we need to look into what Conforto's looking for. Even several months ago, that was impossible, but now, it's not. Earlier this season, Statcast released new swing timing data, which lends us insight into how a hitter is timing and aiming their swing. How Conforto is timing and aiming his has changed this year. One way we can see what a hitter is planning at the plate is by seeing how often they're late on the fastball. Conforto has been late on heaters markedly less often this season than he was last year. That means he's sitting on that velocity band. Relatedly, he's also centering the ball on his barrel better, and specifically getting tied up less often. The ball doesn't run in onto the label of his bat as much as it did in the past. Note, though, that Conforto has also been underneath fastballs more this year than last. That's the unmistakable evidence of Father Time getting his installments. You can time yourself to the heater and swing with conviction, but when you lose that little bit of bat speed, you end up underneath the ball even when you're ostensibly on time. All of that is ok, because here's the thing: timing himself to pull the fastball isn't only about hitting the fastball. Conforto's been early more often against breaking stuff, which is just what you'd expect. But there are two mitigating factors that ameliorate the problems he should be experiencing because of that earliness. First, he's not always sitting on the fastball. As we just saw, he's never late on the heater. Occasionally, though, he knows to hunt a breaking pitch, so there's a bifurcation between the swings on which he's fooled on the breaking ball and the ones on which he guessed right. It's a more pronounced bifurcation than in the past, and it's allowed him to be more productive. The second mitigating factor is that Conforto's swing is on plane with the breaking ball more consistently this year. He's actually whiffing more on those pitches than he did in 2025, but until you get to two strikes, a whiff is just a strike. Last season, Conforto was often rolling over breaking stuff and making contact with it, but only weakly, and on the ground. This year, as you can see in the right-hand image above, he's swinging over the top of breaking pitches much less often, and clipping the bottom half of the ball much more frequently. All of that is good news. It's easy to see that Conforto is hitting the ball in the air more this year (65.9% of his batted balls, up from 58.0%) and that he's pulling it more (46.4%, up from 38.0%). From that information, you'd assume he's pulling it in the air more often, specifically, and you'd be very right (29.7% of his batted balls, nearly doubling last year's 16.0%). But to understand how he's achieved that, we have to know the above. We also have to know the below. Conforto's swing hasn't dramatically changed this year. In fact, the movements are all virtually identical to what they were a year ago, except that he's that little bit less explosive and less aggressive in throwing his weight into the swing. Mostly, the changes in where the ball is going and on what trajectory all come from timing his swing differently. To understand that, check out the first moment at which his swing began to work uphill through the ball in each season. There's very, very little difference to observe—just that his toros stays back slightly better and his arms are slightly more extended this season. Now, here's where his swing finished at contact in each season. Despite the lower bat speed, as you can see, his arms are more extended this season; his bat is working slightly more steeply uphill; and his barrel is oriented toward the pull field. These are composite images across pitch types, so we know there's more nuance than meets the eye, but Conforto is going and getting the ball this season. Locking in more often for the fastball means catching that pitch out front more, and when he gets a breaking or offspeed pitch, he'll usually pull that, too. Compared to last season, his swing is a bit flatter, especially late in its arc, and that works in his favor; it keeps his barrel lined up with pitches that would have dipped underneath it last year. Mechanically, not much is different. Even the alterations in body position at key points in the swing have to do mostly with timing. But timing, in hitting, is everything, and timing is a trick you can learn while borrowing those great gifts from Father Time, so that you can keep tinkering with it even as you're forced to pay him back. Conforto's contact point has moved more than four inches farther in front of his body, as a result of changes in what he's looking for and how he times his swing. Swinging slower but catching the ball farther out front constitutes a pretty complete reinvention for a hitter. It's a testament to Conforto's talent and to his work ethic that he's made this one work, using almost nothing but experience and an understanding of timing honed by an entire lifetime in the batter's box. The Cubs, who would be far worse off without his fits-and-starts heroics, have to be delighted with the way he's repaid their investment, too. View full article

Image courtesy of Patrick Gorski-Imagn Images The Cubs have a stealth relief ace. Trent Thornton has a 2.38 ERA in 40 appearances. He's saved three games, despite only being called upon for that duty in emergencies. He has a 1.3 Win Probability Added, so even adjusting for leverage and situation, he's been solidly above-average. This season, only two Cubs pitchers (Ben Brown and Javier Assad) have a higher WPA than Thornton's. The Cubs also have a ghastly liability. One of their most important middle relievers is unable to avoid running into barrels, walks almost 10% of opposing batters, and has fanned only 14.9% of them. He doesn't miss bats; he doesn't fill up the strike zone. When opponents get the ball in the air, they usually hit it hard, so he's vulnerable to homers. He's only given up four of them this season, but that number could easily be twice as high. A bunch of fly balls have come down just on the right side of deep fences. bGJ3WldfWGw0TUFRPT1fQXdaVFVRVUNYZ01BRDFNRFZBQUhVdzRIQUFCUUFsVUFBRkVHQ1FjQ1VBSUFWUUFD.mp4 Which player is real: the stud or the dud? It's hard to tell for sure. Thornton doesn't throw so many strikes that he should be able to get away with the ball being in play as often as he does. Yet, there's something real in the way he's doing it—just enough to give one pause before casting him aside as an option for a team bound for the postseason. Here's Thornton's spin profile by pitch type this season. The left-hand array shows the spin direction of the ball out of his hand; those are the directions the batter expects the ball to move based on the way Thornton releases the ball. The right-hand graphic, however, shows the actual direction of movement. Most pitchers get at least a little unexpected movement on one of their pitches, utilizing seam effects to change the way air moves over the ball. Hardly anyone gets such significant differences on so many offerings, though. Most of Thornton's pitches achieve what's called spin mirroring, where if the hitter reads the spin axis, they'll be unable to tell whether he's throwing a fastball (his sinker and four-seamer spin almost identically out of the hand) or a breaking ball (his curve and sweeper spin similarly, too, and almost precisely the opposite direction of the fastballs). The curve moves mostly as you'd expect, but the hitter can't fully commit to it, because of that spin mirroring. The sweeper, though, has much more lift and glove-side movement than the spin direction would imply. Thornton's four-seamer is similarly faithful to its spin direction: it's a cut-ride offering. His sinker, however, runs more to the arm side than the hitter would expect. His cutter, meanwhile, mostly has backspin out of his hand, but veers to the glove side. Because Thornton neither throws especially hard nor achieves exceptional movement, he doesn't rack up many swings and misses, and that does mean running into barrels sometimes. It's not quite right to say that it's hard to square him up. It's more correct, in a strange way, to say that it's easy to mishit him. He can, when he executes and the hitter isn't in a position to outguess him, induce a lot of low-value contact, even if that's not precisely soft contact. He runs a high ground ball rate, by crawling out to the end of opponents' bats and up the handle. He gets a fair number of fly balls that are well-struck, but which die on or around the warning track. That's not the profile you'd sketch for a high-value, high-leverage October relief arm. I have Thornton high on the list of arms the Cubs should try to replace, as some of their currently injured relievers get healthy in the coming weeks. So far, though, he's been quite effective, and it's not all smoke and mirrors—or, more correctly, it's mostly smoke and mirrors, but not necessarily the kind that lose all effect once they're spotted. View full article

Image courtesy of Patrick Gorski-Imagn Images The three division races in the National League feel as though they're over. The Dodgers will win the NL West; they face no serious competition for their crown. The Brewers have put a comfortable cushion between themselves and the Cubs in the Central, with 6 games in the standings and an edge in the race to claim the head-to-head tiebreaker. The team from Atlanta's most concrete-crusted inner-ring suburb has only three games on the Phillies, after a surge by the second-place Phils, but it still feels like the current leaders will win each sub-pennant. That, in a way, puts the Cubs in an ad hoc division race of a different kind for the final five weeks. To host the Wild Card Series again this year, Chicago needs to hold off the Phillies, over whom they enjoy a de facto 2.5-game lead. It's only 2.0 games on the standings table, but the Cubs also have the tiebreaker sewn up between the teams. They're another two games ahead of San Diego, and two more ahead of Arizona. Though the Marlins and Cardinals are at least clinging to the periphery, it feels like four teams are vying for three spots—and, with three strong division champions in the league, you really don't want to have either the second or the third Wild Card berth, any more than you want to miss the playoffs altogether. The Cubs should view claiming the top Wild Card spot as a miniature division title to chase, because doing so would mean hosting whoever finishes second for a best-of-three series at Wrigley Field. Right now, by FanGraphs's estimation, they have a narrow lead in that race, in terms of projections. It's lovely to have that edge, however small, and the team can further stretch it by winning even once in Arizona this week. They swept the Diamondbacks when they visited Wrigley early this season, so a lone victory would mean the Cubs own the tiebreaker in all relevant cases. As you can see, though, the gap isn't wide. The team's margin for error hasn't swelled the way they might have hoped it would. In fact, Chicago is merely back to the same projected wins total they first reached on May 7, after a long dip in between. They shot up to 92 and 93 projected victories for a few short days at the beginning of this month, for a simple reason: their trade deadline. Adding Kevin Gausman, Clay Holmes, Ryan Zeferjahn, Braxton Garrett and Tyrone Taylor—basically, adding Gausman and Holmes, alone—boosted their projections nicely, because those players all addressed key needs for the team. Unfortunately, since then, the team has realized mixed results. Zeferjahn is struggling to adjust to life in his new environs. In the first six games started by Gausman and Holmes, meanwhile, the team is an underwhelming 3-3. The two have each shown flashes of what the team felt they were trading for, but neither has demonstrated consistent front-line stuff or delivered the hoped-for volume. That needs to change in the desert. The Cubs need to put together at least one more nice winning streak to reach their destination for the season and host another playoff series on the North Side. That means getting more out of Gausman and Holmes, and figuring out how to get Zeferjahn past the mental block he appears to have hit since coming to town. It doesn't have to mean winning the series against Arizona, though that should be the goal. It does, however, need to mean solid outings and as few setbacks as possible for each of their deadline pickups. Whatever urgency they already felt on that score, it must have risen Sunday, when Shota Imanaga looked frighteningly like the version of himself who proved unpitchable by the end of the 2025 season. If that start was just a blip, the Cubs can survive it, but if Imanaga is trending downward again, the team will need the boost of Gausman and Holmes pitching to their pedigrees considerably more. Technically, their advantage in projected standings is already smaller than the one they have in the real standings. They need to widen that gap, or start convincing the projections they're for real, with their games against the Diamondbacks and the lowly Reds this week. Gausman and Holmes stand at the center of that need, but it goes deeper, too. Making the playoffs is no longer the primary objective. At this point, they can almost take that for granted. They need to bear down and plan on winning the first Wild Card seed. That will take some doing, and it has to begin with getting what the numbers expect out of players for whom they gave up a bounty of young talent early this month. View full article

Image courtesy of Joe Nicholson-Imagn Images Sometimes, even things that happen to you aren't about you. That's one of life's most important truths, especially in an increasingly interconnected world, but it's also one of the hardest truths to accept. To even say it aloud sounds to obvious that lamenting it makes one sound petulant, but observing the excruciating reality doesn't make you a whiner. When it becomes clear that your role in the world is merely to be someone else's foil, plaything or punching bag, it's not irrational to feel wounded, or even furious. A mature, equanimous response is still required, but you're not crazy for feeling a boiling distemper in your gut at those moments. For the last few years, the Cubs have been secondary characters in the story of the NL Central. They've gone from pale and forgettable challengers to more robust ones, but there comes a point every summer where it becomes clear that the story belongs to the Brewers—that they were the ones with the depth and the stakes and the blessings of good luck to win the division, and that the Cubs were only there to make the story more interesting. Last season, they were hale enough to make one last, unexpected reappearance after the battle had been all but won, pushing the Brewers to the brink in the NLDS, but they were defeated, because the Brewers were better and were always ready for that final showdown, while the Cubs weren't. That's true again this year, at least in part. The Cubs made a valiant charge through July and into August, stringing together wins and savoring the superstar turn of Pete Crow-Armstrong, but it wasn't enough to catch Milwaukee. They never got closer than three games back of Pat Murphy's crew, who weren't as hot as the Cubs were during those weeks but didn't truly falter long enough to open the door for Chicago. After heartbreaking losses in the first two games in Seattle and two corresponding Brewers wins over the team from just outside Atlanta, Craig Counsell is suddenly seven games behind his mentor-turned-sidekick-turned-master again. The division is lost. Worse, the second of the weekend's defeats came on one of those days when you find out you're in someone else's story, too, even if it's a short story instead of the epic novel that is a full season. Less than a week after the game in which Pete Crow-Armstrong hit bookend homers and seemed to take over the contest with the White Sox in a way no other player could, Randy Arozarena did it right in Crow-Armstrong's face—and even one-upped him. Arozarena's homer-robbing catch ensured that the Mariners could keep the game close until the final inning, when Jacob Webb finally stumbled in a more meaningful way. Then Arozarena, whose leadoff homer had given Seattle its first run and whose hustle on an infield single had set up their only other tally until the ninth, hit the walkoff homer to seal his total victory, right over Crow-Armstrong's head. It was a gut punch of a loss, and an unwelcome reminder that not even greatness can protect you from sometimes being outclassed. Crow-Armstrong made the White Sox scenery in a play all about him; then Arozarena did the same thing to Crow-Armstrong's Cubs. The fury that rises in you when you feel like a mouse in the paw of a cat merely playing with its food before eating it isn't unearned. It won't do to rage about it; the mouse can't summon some reserve of strength it had simply forgotten about and overpower the cat. It won't do to ignore it, either. Sometimes, the horrible truth is that you're about to be eaten. No reaction is even required of you, but the more wise and measured your reaction, the better you'll come out in the end—be that merely because you preserved some dignity, or because there might be a twist neither you nor the cat has foreseen yet. Cubs fans should take plenty of solace from the last two days, and from their general recent trend. David Peterson pitched exceptionally well Saturday, and continues to look primed for an October start. Webb's implosion was unfortunate, but overdue, too. He's been so good for so long that a bad game was bound to happen to him; maybe Arozarena will turn out to have been merely a needed setback to properly tell the tale of Webb's transformation from forgettable middle reliever to October relief ace. Meanwhile, Alex Bregman has gotten scorching-hot, in the way the Cubs always knew he could and in a way that should position him (and the team) well for October. The bullpen is a glaring weakness for this team, but this weekend brought the news that Ben Brown and Justin Steele could return in time to help that pen in the postseason, along with Daniel Palencia (already back in the mix), Hoby Milner and Shelby Miller. If the club has to rely on Trent Thornton at all or on Webb to be perfect in October, they've already lost. If they can turn Thornton and Aaron Civale into (say) Brown and Steele, their margin for error should grow. The world we live in is not, of course, a prewritten story. The Cubs, like every team and like each of us as people, are actually writing their ever-changing story, day by day. The Brewers' lead in the Central is probably insurmountable, and if the two teams meet in the playoffs, the odds will favor the Crew. Ownership of the story can always change, but right now, this year remains more about Milwaukee than about Chicago. But while that anger at not being the best (or the most favored by Lady Luck) might linger, Cubs fans should begin to feel a sense of hope. Not all stories end with happy-ever-after for the protagonists, and some secondary characters end up with a well-earned happy ending of their own. The 2026 Cubs are better than any version since the 2017 team, and even a series of setbacks like this weekend's doesn't mean they're doomed to another disappointing denouement. A World Series title is extremely unlikely, but this club is still working its way toward what should be a satisfying place. View full article

Image courtesy of USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect This week, Statcast rolled out new data evaluating the way first basemen receive throws from their teammates elsewhere on the infield. No seasoned baseball fan needs to be told that a well-timed stretch or an adroit scoop can make the difference between safe and out, but this is the first advanced, robust, transparent public framework that has been put forward to assign credit (and blame) for the work first basemen do to maximize outs on close plays and/or imperfect throws. Michael Busch doesn't light up the new leaderboard for this metric, on Baseball Savant. The net effect of first-base receiving ranges from about 8 extra outs to about 8 lost chances for one, but Busch stands solidly in the middle: he has 0 Outs Above Average (OAA) based on receiving this season. In fact, last season, he had... 0 OAA based on receiving. He's average. That's not very interesting, is it? Were it as simple as that, it wouldn't be, but there's a lot more to sift through here—and, alas, a real cause for alarm as we look toward the stretch run. When the throw is on target, Busch is a plus first baseman. He's flexible and fluid when stretching toward a throw, and good at nabbing runners by a fraction of a step. He reads plays well and cuts the ball off as early as he can, without compromising his ability to reach the ball. WERaOFhfV0ZRVkV3dEdEUT09X1YxTlRYRk1BQndvQVdWUUFBd0FIQWdBRUFGa0RWVk1BVTEwTkFBZFhBQXBRQWdSUQ==.mp4 Most on-target throws are near-automatic outs, but some first basemen—especially those under 6 feet tall, like the 5-foot-11 Busch—struggle to secure the ones that are fringy, because they don't stretch as well or move as decisively into the ball as the play demands. Busch might not quite be a good enough athlete to play second or third base, as the Dodgers (and, not so long ago, some Cubs fans) once hoped, but he reacts to throws like an infielder; he's comfortable making plays by receiving throws. There are plenty of first basemen of whom that's not true. Bryce Harper, whom the Phillies moved back to the outfield after the trade deadline, rates worst in the league as a receiver at first base, thanks partially to plays like this one: he just doesn't attack the ball quite enough, and catches it a crucial handful of inches later than he could have. NXk5SzFfWGw0TUFRPT1fQVFnRUFWMEJBRlFBRGdFTEFnQUhBUUZlQUZnQkFnQUFWRjBEQ0ZkUUJsZFVVZ3RX.mp4 Making sure good throws become outs is the first and most important duty of a first baseman fielding those throws. It's like pitch-framing for catchers, where stealing strikes just off the edges matters less than ensuring that pitches that really are strikes are properly called so. It's a real and important credit to Busch that he does that part of the job well. However, height—or, more accurately, wingspan—is an important factor in being a good receiver, and it comes into play on almost all forms of throws that aren't on target. For the purposes of the metrics, "on target" means that the throw arrives between 1 and 7 feet high and is within 5 feet of the base. Otherwise, throws are classified as wide, high, low, scoops (throws that bounce more than 5 feet from the bag but less than 15 feet away) or bounces (throws that bounce more than 15 feet from the base, producing long hops rather than short ones and a different fielding challenge than a scoop). Busch is above-average (1.5 OAA) when the throw is on target, but he lags behind on low (-1.2) and wide (-1.4) ones. At first blush, it might seem counterintuitive that the relatively short Busch struggles with low throws, but in fact, being a few inches shorter than players like Freddie Freeman and Nick Kurtz can turn throws that those players catch ankle-high into vicious short-hop situations. Busch just can't reach the ball before it hits the dirt, whereas another first baseman might be able to do so. Here's one such play. WU9WZ2dfWGw0TUFRPT1fQlFJQVVWVURWd2NBWEFaV0JRQUhBUUZTQUFNTVVWWUFWbEpYQkZFTUNWZGRBd0JX.mp4 It should be less surprising that Busch struggles to convert outs on balls thrown more than 5 feet wide of the base. He really does react well and read throws early, which is why he actually rates as average on high throws, despite his height: he's superb at leaping to snare the ball and finding the base on the way down. YkJMNk9fWGw0TUFRPT1fQTFJSFVWY0ZWZ1VBRGxzS1VBQUhBQTlWQUZoVUJsQUFDbFVDQ1ZCVEJGQlJWZ0FE.mp4 Anticipation can't go as far when an infielder misses the mark laterally, though. Physics don't work for you in that situation, the way they do when you spear a ball above your head and only need to work with gravity to get back to the place from which you leapt. It's not Busch's fault that he isn't 6-foot-3, but that does create a real constraint on his range as a receiver. bmJ3S0RfWGw0TUFRPT1fQWxCWlVGTU1WMU1BV1ZSV1ZBQUhVMU5TQUFNR0JWSUFVVkVBQkFRR0JsRlFBVmND.mp4 The dynamics at play are engrossing. You can work around some of the problems posed by being an undersized first baseman, but you can't completely eliminate them. You can be a good receiver around the bag even at 5-foot-11, but that value will be confined mostly to throws that are on target. Whenever you have to deal with balls that stretch your coveage radius, you're going to feel your lack of size working against you. Here's where things get really fun. Why has Busch been so consistently neutral as a receiver, despite being in trouble whenever a throw is off the mark? Because he faces fewer of those challenging throws than any other full-time first baseman. This season, among the 29 players who've had at least 200 opportunities to catch throws at first (Busch has a league-high 552 of them), none has seen as high a percentage of their throws rated as On Target than Busch's 85%. You can give him a tiny share of the credit for that, because he gets to the base quickly and clearly has a good rapport with his fellow infielders, but mostly, that stat is a testament to the steady work of Alex Bregman, Nico Hoerner and—gulp—Dansby Swanson. Of the 552 tracked opportunities Busch has had this season, 469 throws were On Target. If he were working with the Orioles' infield instead, as Pete Alonso is, he could expect to have just 435 of those throws hit their mark. That's about a 40% increase in the number of throws on which Busch would have to make a tougher play, exposing his shortcoming (no pun intended) in terms of range in all directions. The Cubs infielders don't have very strong arms, but they're so accurate that they make up for that lack of sheer power—and the value of that precision is boosted by the fact that their first baseman isn't well-equipped to save them when a throw goes astray. You can see the problem here. Swanson is now sidelined, perhaps for the year, with a Grade 2 oblique strain. That means a heavy dose of Hoerner at shortstop, and Pedro Ramírez at second base. A handful of other infielders (James Triantos, Owen Miller, Gabriel Arias and Matt Shaw among them) will get chances, too. I looked this up, so I feel obligated to report it. Since the start of 2023, among players with at least 50 tracked throws from shortstop, Hoerner has the highest On Target%. He's thrown 61 balls from short to first, and 58 of them have counted as being on the mark. However, I would apply a huge caveat to that. Firstly, Hoerner's arm is so weak that it sometimes isn't enough for him to merely be accurate. Here's the most impressive throw he's made as a shortstop since the start of 2023. It's a fine play, on a ball that took him to his right and prompted a jump-throw, but it also came from straightaway shortstop, rather than truly from the hole; he was shading heavily up the middle before the ball was hit. This was in 2024. OGdHajdfWGw0TUFRPT1fVkFaVFZWQUdVbGNBQ3dBRFZnQUFDVk5RQUFOUlYxWUFBbFpXQWxKWEJBUlhBZ3BT.mp4 Every other competitive play he's made at short over the last three and a half seasons has been less impressive than that. He has a weak arm, and it shows up even when he has time to get behind the ball and fire it off a strong platform. He doesn't transfer his weight well to get his body behind his throws; his upper body stays behind his front leg. He also pronates (turning his thumb down and his palm outward) harder than most infielders at release on most throws, resulting in de facto changeups thrown across the diamond. Worse, when Hoerner throws on the move, his accuracy gets lousy in a hurry. This is true even at second, but when he's trying to throw on the run or across his body from shortstop, it gets especially ugly. Busch was able to spare Hoerner an error on the play above, but you wouldn't want to bet on him being able to do so consistently. If you've ever shaken hands with Hoerner, this problem won't surprise you. He has unusual hands, thick and muscular but small; his fingers are longer (relative to his palms) than most people's. Thence come his struggles throwing the ball hard, and thence come the accuracy issues whenever he has to rush his release. As Hoerner slides to the left side to take over in Swanson's absence, there will be more off-target throws to first from the Chicago infield. That's likely to be exacerbated by the installation of Ramírez at second; he's not as smooth a fielder or thrower as Hoerner at that spot. That's bad news for Busch, whose skill set so nicely suits the accuracy of the throws he was receiving from the up-the-middle combo of Swanson and Hoerner. The Cubs are going to leak outs pretty badly over the coming weeks. Their rejiggered infield won't get to as many balls. They won't convert the ones they get to into outs as reliably, and they won't finish double plays as often. Busch isn't the problem in this altered equation, but expect to see an extra ball or two get away or an extra runner or two beating out a single by an eyelash. Busch is a fine receiver, but he's not gifted enough to be an excellent one. He's been thriving on the privilege of having exceptionally accurate teammates; he's going to have to survive without that privilege for the balance of this regular season. View full article