Matthew Trueblood

Image courtesy of Vincent Carchietta-Imagn Images Injured Chicago Cubs starter Edward Cabrera began his rehab assignment with Triple-A Iowa Friday night. In the I-Cubs clubhouse, he might have bumped into teammates Ethan Roberts and Hoby Milner, who are each already on the same path back to the majors. Meanwhile, over the weekend, the Cubs will put Justin Steele and Daniel Palencia back on mounds at Wrigley Field, as each builds toward rehab assignments of their own. From their perches on the rubber, each hurler might spot Ben Brown, still on flat ground but throwing daily in his own quest to return this year. Out in Arizona, in the searing heat of the sun but removed a bit from the heat of the Chicago spotlight, Hunter Harvey and Shelby Miller are doing the same thing: steady buildup. Each is on a throwing program that gives them at least an outside shot of contributing down the stretch, although the fact that they're so geographically remote reflects the figurative distance between them and big-league readiness neatly. That's not a normal amount of important rehab work being done by pitchers for a playoff hopeful. Those are eight names, including three or four who would have appeared on any list of the 10 most important hurlers to the 2026 Cubs if you'd made such a tally in March. It's tempting to imagine a world in which even half of them—let's say Cabrera, as a starter, and Palencia, Milner and Steele as relievers—come back at full strength and transform a below-average pitching staff into a World Series-caliber one, just in the nick of time. No sooner can you conjure that mental image, though, than you surely flash on another, less welcome one. It's Monday evening, and you're watching Jed Hoyer's post-trade deadline press conference. And in your gut, you feel a cold fury you can't fully place, until his voice comes into focus and you hear it: "We obviously, you know, weren't able to get anything bigger across the finish line here, but we feel very confident about our pitching staff. We have a lot of guys coming back." With just over two days to go before the trade deadline Monday evening, the Cubs haven't yet made a notable addition to their pitching staff, save the emergency pickup of David Peterson in late June. Peterson has been good and looks like he'll stick in their rotation for the balance of the year, but the bullpen has received reinforcement only via minor moves, and the team has yet to pounce on a higher-end starting pitcher. It's far too early to worry much that they won't do so; they understand the scope and the urgency of their need for help on the mound. It's essential, though, that we all avoid falling into the trap of the planning fallacy. The plan, of course, is to have Cabrera make two or three more rehab starts—his first one didn't go great; it might not have moved him closer to a return—and then reinsert him into the rotation. The plan is for Milner (out since June after an emergency appendectomy) to be back in the big-league pen very soon, and for Roberts to follow, with each taking the place of journeymen whom you'll soon forget were ever Cubs. (Sorry to the Jake Woodford family, but it's true.) The plan is for Palencia to reclaim his place at the back end of the pen. None of that is guaranteed, though. The injury histories on Cabrera, Roberts and Palencia are way too checkered to depend on that at all. Milner's particular problem—physically recovering from a relatively serious internal surgery takes time, and he was never as imposing as your average pitcher, anyway—is intractable. Meanwhile, Steele, Brown, Harvey and Miller are all very high-upside potential boosts for the bullpen, but it's too much to say that any of them are even part of the plan. Even the Cubs themselves are merely holding out hope on those four, and the difference between a plan and hope is the difference between a house and a housefly. Nor are all the team's currently healthy options assured of staying that way. The ages and injury histories of guys like Matthew Boyd, Shota Imanaga and Javier Assad are not in their favor. Even if the team gets a couple of key arms back soon, they might lose a couple, at the same time or shortly before or after. The Cubs absolutely must make multiple, significant upgrades to their pitching staff via trade in the next two days, unless they're comfortable punting on this season and praying on next year instead. That position feels untenable, given where they are as an organization, so their urgency should remain very high. Adding a starter has to remain a priority. Adding a could-be closer should be next on the list. That's a tall order, and one that neither Hoyer nor the farm system from which he's attempting to deal is well-suited for. If the Cubs don't find a way to fill it, though, they'll make a disappointing and early October exit. Knowing all of that, they remain very active. The team has talked to the Mets not only about starters Freddy Peralta and Clay Holmes, but about right-handed relievers Luke Weaver and Huascar Brazobán and lefty Brooks Raley. They remain engaged with the Angels on Reid Detmers, and they've talked to the Tigers about multiple available pitchers, though sources familiar with the conversations said the team is more likely to obtain Casey Mize than Tarik Skubal if they end up making a deal with former Cubs front-office wonk Scott Harris. In a perfect world, the team would acquire Emerson Hancock of the Mariners, who is available if the return is big enough and if they get immediate help on offense. That would mean giving up Pedro Ramírez, but the Cubs would also have to add "at least" one more good piece (likely a prospect), according to a source familiar with Seattle's plans. Hoyer excels at casting wide nets. He doesn't do nearly as well at the more important task of hauling in his quarry. That has to change this weekend, because the Cubs can't afford to count on gettng healthy at the right time. The odds of that are far too long. View full article

Image courtesy of Jonathan Dyer-Imagn Images Despite varying levels of need, none of Jonah Tong, Andrew Painter or Braxton Garrett are even on the major-league roster of their NL East clubs right now. Yet, each have been subjects of inquiry by the Cubs ahead of Monday's trade deadline, as the team seeks ways to build a playoff-caliber starting rotation both now and for the balance of the decade. Sources familiar with the conversations said Chicago has sounded out several teams on hurlers under long-term team control, in creatively structured isolated deals or as part of larger packages. If the Cubs and Mets get together on a trade that nets the North Siders any of Freddy Peralta, Clay Holmes, Luke Weaver or Huascar Brazobán, Tong (or fellow minor-league assignee Tobias Myers) could also be part of the deal. For New York, adding a controllable arm to the deal would give access to the Cubs' top tier of young assets (other than Josiah Hartshorn, who's viewed as essentially untouchable during this period). For Chicago, getting a controllable arm as well as immediate help would soften the blow of shipping out a top prospect. Although Tong and Myers would each be longer-term plays, it's also possible that each could help the Cubs before the end of this season. The story is similar with Garrett, whose return from December 2024 Tommy John surgery has not gone smoothly. The Cubs have long had some level of interest in Sandy Alcantara, but the team might also try to scoop up Pete Fairbanks in a low-cost move while finding their immediate starting help elsewhere. If the Marlins want to get anything of value in return for Fairbanks, they could include Garrett, a lefty under medium-term team control whom the Cubs believe would improve under their care. A swap that nets Chicago Garrett would have to include a good young player going to Miami, but it would be a cheaper move than dealing for Reid Detmers or José Soriano. A trade for Painter is less likely, because the Phillies are likely to dangle him to teams who can directly give them offensive help, a source said. However, a variety of three-team possibilities could lead to the Cubs ending up with Painter, while they send a prospect or young big-leaguer to a seller who forwards a (probably) outfielder to Philadelphia. Like Detmers and Soriano, Garrett has just two years of team control left after this season. He also won't be eligible to be optioned to the minors next season, although the Cubs' belief is that they wouldn't need to consider that, anyway. Painter and Tong wiull each have six more years of team control after this year and multiple option years remaining; Myers falls in the middle. He'll have four more years of team control left, but can't be optioned beginning next spring. They represent a wide spectrum of possible approaches for the Cubs, who are keeping as many options open as possible. Many of the partners with whom they hope to engage on trades are still vacillating between buying and selling, or looking to do some of each. In a sense, the Cubs are, too, as they try not to leave themselves too much work to do this winter. If the right opportunity arises, they'll pounce on a chance to improve the 2027 and 2028 rotations, but the present is the top priority, so moves like these will happen only once they have enough clarity to be sure they won't compromise their efforts to prepare for October. View full article

I would guess one or two of them (specifically, Milner and probably Palencia) will be back. I don't think they can afford to count on any of them. At all. Miller, fwiw, is completely out of the picture.

Image courtesy of Joe Puetz-Imagn Images You could feel it coming. All night, in St. Louis Wednesday night, Pete Crow-Armstrong was just missing the big hit. He was getting off his 'A' swing, but not quite getting to his spot on time. In hitting, that's no small thing, but if you can generate the swing path and direction and bat speed that Crow-Armstrong was generating consistently Wednesday, you're dangerous. Eventually, as he has done all year, he was going to get that wrinkle ironed out and put an equally lethal swing on one, but not mishit it. It was just (pun intended) a matter of time. When it did happen, his timing—in a broader, different sense—could not have been better. The Cubs slogged to a scoreless draw through nine innings in the third game of their four-game set against the Cardinals. It took some brave escape-craft from Matthew Boyd to gut out seven frames, then sparkling showings from two vital relief arms (Jacob Webb and Caleb Thielbar) to push the game to extras. The offense was utterly stalled, though, and needed someone to come up with a thunderbolt. All year, that's what Crow-Armstrong has done, and he did it again. On an 0-1 pitch, Cardinals hurler Luis Gastelum got his changeup to dip just below the zone. It just needed to dip much farther. Crow-Armstrong sliced cleanly through the ball and hit a screaming, no-doubt, rising rocket of a homer to right-center. He knew it was gone the moment he made contact; he pimped the daylights out of it as he rounded the bases. He's earned every drop of that celebration, too. In late and close situations this year, he's batting .370/.453/.630, with three home runs, three doubles, and a triple in 64 plate appearances. Once he reaches base, in those spots, he's 6-for-6 stealing bases. In high-leverage at-bats, his OPS is 1.056. In medium-leverage ones, it's .996. Those types of splits don't tell us as much as we sometimes tell ourselves they do, about a player's character or clutchness, but it's a fact that Crow-Armstrong has been excellent when the team has needed him most this season. Ah, but you could also feel it coming, couldn't you? Boyd had spun his seven great innings, and Webb and Thielbar had taken their turns. Even as Crow-Armstrong homered, Trent Thornton was warming up to pitch the 10th inning. Unfortunately, that made sense. Here's the whole Cubs bullpen right now, from most to least trusted by Counsell: Webb Thielbar Ryan Rolison Thornton Gavin Hollowell Tyler Ferguson Aaron Civale Jake Woodford Rolison would have been working for a third time in four days, and the first two batters he would have faced (Lars Nootbaar and JJ Wetherholt) had just seen him Monday night. Hollowell and Ferguson also each pitched earlier in the series, so Thornton was the freshest of the three right-handed middle relievers. But Thornton isn't viable in high-leverage spots, and he rapidly showed why. To be fair, he got a little bit unlucky, in that one can normally expect better defensive support from Nico Hoerner than Thornton got to start the inning. On a 2-2 pitch, he executed a 96-MPH fastball above the zone to Nootbaar, who flattened out completely to reach the ball and hit it straight down. He hit it sharply, but it was a high chopper that ran out of steam as it bounced past Thornton. Hoerner raced to his right, but he slightly misread the ball. Had he seen the way the ball was dying after the high arc of its initial bounce, he would have realized he could make the play on his feet, then turn or jump-throw to retire Nootbaar. Instead, thinking it would maintain its speed more, Hoerner dove. He was able to knock it down, but only that. Keeping the ball on the infield stopped the automatic runner from scoring, but that run didn't matter. The play was to get there without going to the ground, leaving time to retire Nootbaar. Because the Cubs had shaded Nootbaar to pull, Dansby Swanson even would have had a chance to flag the ball down and throw for the out, had Hoerner not intercepted the ball. That read all has to happen in the blink of an eye, though, and Hoerner was fooled. The rest of the mess would be Thornton's own making. He walked Wetherholt, putting the winning run on base and the tying one into scoring position. After falling behind 3-0, he worked back to a full count with a pair of fastball strikes, but then he lost Wetherholt. He started Jordan Walker with two non-competitive misses, too, and this time, he got lucky: Walker bailed him out with a terrible 2-0 swing on a sweeper well out of the zone, then tapped out on another, much closer one, giving the Cubs one out and keeping the double play in order for Iván Herrera. Thornton just isn't the right guy to get that twin killing. Instead, on the first pitch, Herrera laced a double to the gap in left-center, bringing around the tying and winning runs with one stroke. When Crow-Armstrong homered, this game had a chance to be one of the best wins of the Cubs' season. Barely 10 minutes later, it was one of their worst losses, instead. The Sword of Mulholland has hung over Thornton all year. Entering Wednesday, he had a 2.50 ERA for the year, but his expected ERA was 5.13, because he has struck out just 15 of the 127 batters he's faced. Like former Cubs lefty Terry Mulholland, he just can't miss enough bats to be viable when the game is tight and the margin for error grows thin. That he's in the top half of the team's de facto bullpen hierarchy right now screams out the danger the team still faces. This is not the same pleasantly patchwork kind of relief corps the Cubs have so famously cultivated over the last handful of seasons. They're simply bad. This feels like the kind of bullpen fringe contenders used to assemble during the years just after the rapid expansion of the 1990s. Webb, Thielbar and Rolison are credible big-league relievers. Civale, Woodford and Thursday starter Javier Assad are fine long relievers, and that's what Colin Rea can become if the team makes multiple upgrades to its starting rotation before the trade deadline, too. However, none of those four long men has meaningful upside if condensed into a short relief role, and modern bullpens need five or six guys you can trust in short relief. No good team in the history of the sport has needed three or four you can use to sponge up innings in blowouts. Hollowell, Thornton and Ferguson represent the team's bigger batch of attempts to find a diamond in the rough for the year, and all of them (like Corbin Martin and Ethan Roberts, among others) have failed. From a playoff-ready bullpen, the Cubs are currently missing (approximately) the best, third-best and fifth-best arms. Adding a starter this week will allow them to shift someone into relief, but the Chicago front office has to add at least one high-end reliever and at least one supplemental arm capable of missing bats and/or keeping the ball on the ground in medium-leverage spots. A heavy lift awaits that front office over the next 100 hours or so. They have to get this right, and it's not going to be easy. As Wednesday reminded them forcefully, though, there's no alternative. The Cubs' current pitching staff is just plain insufficient. They need a lot of help, so they don't waste huge hits like Crow-Armstrong's—or, widening the lens a bit, the huge season Crow-Armstrong is having and the opportunity that has given them. View full article

Image courtesy of Darren Yamashita-Imagn Images It wouldn't be a sexy pickup, but the Cubs have checked in with the Giants about right-handed starter Tyler Mahle and are "still interested" after gauging the price, a league source said. Mahle, 31, is an impending free agent who signed a one-year deal worth $10 million with San Francisco this winter. He has a 4.96 ERA in 89 innings over 17 starts, but little has changed about his profile from last year, when he had a 2.18 ERA in a similar amount of work. Mahle was never as good as the surface-level numbers he put up with the Rangers in 2025. Indeed, he hasn't been viewed as more than a back-end starter since roughly 2022, when he was a modestly hyped trade chip for the Reds but proved unable to stay healthy after being dealt to the Twins. However, he also hasn't deserved some of the ugly results that have befallen him this year, and he'd be much better in front of the Cubs' far superior team defense. He spun six scoreless innings in his latest start, Monday against the Brewers, to boost his trade stock a bit. One reason for the Cubs' interest in him is his contract, which they view as an opportunity to get a useful starter at a minimal cost in talent. Mahle's actual salary for this season is $7 million, but he's guaranteed a $3-million signing bonus that will be paid on January 15, according to Cot's Contracts. Incentives in his deal will earn him an extra $1.5 million if he pitches at least 36 innings the rest of the way. In total, despite nominally picking up a player whose prorated salary would be just $3.3 million for the final third of the year, the Cubs could end up paying Mahle twice that much, if they acquire him and he stays healthy the rest of the way. The Giants would like to get out of paying that money, a source familiar with their thinking said, which has led to a low asking price on Mahle as the trade deadline approaches. Mahle is the kind of pitcher you can run out there for a playoff game, but you'll want to have a quick hook ready. He wouldn't be a game-changer for Chicago, by any means. If they can get him cheaply and add him to the rotation mix, however, the front office could feel emboldened to make bigger or more long-term-focused moves. Whether that takes the form of giving up a top prospect for rental relief ace Adrián Morejón or trading for a controllable arm (think Reid Detmers, Emerson Hancock, or even more creative possibilities like Carmen Mlodzinski, Andrew Painter or Braxton Garrett), making a move to bring in a pitcher with a high ceiling will be easier if the team feels it has set a solid floor for a team hurtling toward the top Wild Card spot in the National League. As we've already discussed this week, the team has ownership's blessing to add payroll ahead of the deadline, although not in the form of onerous long-term deals. Mahle would be the perfect way to leverage that flexibility. He has an arsenal that suits Tommy Hottovy's predilections well and a pitch-to-contact profile that would feed the club's elite fielders. Before committing to that path, however, the team will want to see whether and how they can make a separate move to create more of a splash and upgrade the segments of the pitching staff on which they'll lean most heavily in the postseason. View full article

Image courtesy of Joe Puetz-Imagn Images The differences aren't huge and obvious. In baseball, 'huge and obvious' is usually quickly re-rendered 'desperate and exploitable'. Alex Bregman is a better hitter now than he was a month ago, but the changes he's made have all been subtle. He's a couple inches farther off the plate, but only that much. He's slightly more closed in his stance, but only that much. The one glaring alteration isn't in anything he's doing that pitchers can force him not to do; it's in how deep he lets the ball travel. His average intercept point in the month of July is about 2.5 inches deeper than it was in the previous two months, which is something like adding a mile per hour to your fastball: helpful, and hard to counter. Bregman has hit the ball especially well since the All-Star break, but truthfully, his process has been ahead of his results all season, and he started to round into form even before the break. He used the Cubs' off day at home on July 2 as a chance to implement some changes to his stance, stride and timing in the batter's box, and ever since, he's been much more like the player the Cubs hoped they had signed to a five-year deal over the winter. Bregman's bat speed is down. That might not be permanent, but it's turned out to be persistent. As a result, he's spent much of the season hunting for the adjustments that would let him hit the way he's always hit despite a bit less explosive rotation. It took a long time to find it. Here's where he finally did. These are visuals depicting Bregman's stance, stride and average contact point on swings in May (left) and July (right): What he eventually figured out was that hitting the same way he always has isn't currently possible. There might be a lingering physical limitation tied to last year's quad strain, or this might just be Bregman's new normal, but to be a successful and well-rounded hitter at this point, he needs to so some things differently. Thus, this month, he's moved slightly away from the plate, and turned slightly inward to close his stance. That gives him more room to get on plane while the bat is behind his body, and a better chance of getting it into the hitting zone on time and square to the incoming pitch. He's been less susceptible to changes of speeds this month because of this. However, that comes at some cost. Were Bregman to try to keep hitting the ball out in front of himself by the same amount as he did in the past with this adjustment to his stance, he would be late on most fastballs and too early on most breaking stuff. Instead, as you can see by the yellow dots in the visuals above, he's letting the ball travel a bit more. It's not about starting later; it's about knowing that he has a bit more work to do to get to the ball and square it up well. Bregman has also shortened his stride, which keeps him a bit more engaged through the core and makes it easier to stay through the ball and drive it to all fields from his default hitting position. He's had several opposite-field extra-base hits this month, and that's not a coincidence; it's a product of his altered approach and setup. ZFh2enpfWGw0TUFRPT1fVkFJRlZWQlJBd2NBQ2xNR1Z3QUhDUUZRQUFCV1dnVUFBVlFOQ1FjTUJnSUVBbGRl.mp4 This is a huge deal for the Cubs. They need to pour all of their time and energy over the next five days into adding pitching before the MLB trade deadline. They couldn't afford to upgrade their lineup, even if it were obvious exactly where an extra bat would fit without cramping the style of Craig Counsell. Offensively, they need to be carried the rest of the way by the guys already on the roster, and Bregman has been arguably the most glaring underachiever in the lineup this year. If he's now turning things on—if this shift in where and how he stands and where he tries to catch the ball in the path of his swing continues to work—it transforms the team. A fully operational Bregman makes this batting order brutal for an opposing pitcher. He's still not quite that guy right now, but it's getting easier to see that guy showing up by September and October with each passing day. View full article

Image courtesy of Patrick Gorski-Imagn Images Before this season, Jed Hoyer and the rest of the front office secured permission from the Cubs' ownership group to spend beyond the first threshold of the competitive-balance tax, in order to sign Alex Bregman. Now, after injuries to the pitching staff threatened to derail their season, ownership has doubled down, according a team source. The Cubs can "spend whatever they want" as they hunt for upgrades to the roster over the next six days, according to a source briefed on the team's plans and discussions between ownership and baseball operations leaders. If Hoyer and Carter Hawkins eventually decide to make a move that would result in a major payroll increase, they would still circle back to Tom Ricketts and others to inform them of the plan, but the team has made room in its budget to bolster a roster that badly needs reinforcement. Right now, the Cubs sit halfway between the first and second thresholds of the competitive-balance tax ladder, according to Cot's Contracts, which projects their CBT payroll number to be around $254 million. The first threshold is $244 million; the second is at $264 million. The only increase in penalties for surpassing the second threshold, though, is a slightly larger surcharge on expenditures beyond that $264 million number. Other penalties (like receiving worse draft picks in return for departing free agents and repeater penalties if the team is over the threshold again in 2027) are unaffected by whether or not they exceed any secondary thresholds. Though long-range planning conversations do occasionally happen between Hoyer and ownership figures including Tom Ricketts and team president Crane Kenney, the same source indicated that no firm answer has been established as to whether the team will be allowed to exceed the tax threshold again in 2027. Any deal that brings in a player with a locked-in salary for that year will have to fit "into the broader plan," according to another source, but the Cubs have ample room to maneuver as they look toward the winter. Seiya Suzuki, Ian Happ, Shota Imanaga, Jameson Taillon and Matthew Boyd all have eight-figure salaries that come off the books this fall. The team will have to replace a lot of talent via free agency and trades, because their farm system isn't ready to backfill such heavy losses, but the team views this week as an opportunity to get a head start on that very work. By trading for a player (or two) under team control beyond this year, they hope to check one or more boxes off their offseason shopping list, gaining cost certainty and a planning advantage heading into a winter that will be disrupted by a lockout. This marks a minor departure from this winter, when the club was very focused on 2026 and some could-be trade partners felt they were assigning little value to 2027 and 2028 in their negotiations. It's possible that the extensions to which they signed Nico Hoerner and Pete Crow-Armstrong this spring shifted the team's thinking, and that Crow-Armstrong's emergence as a superstar capable of carrying a team into October has altered their ambitions for the medium-term future. Having this freedom to spend gives the team some flexibility in the days ahead. In deals for starters like Seth Lugo, Michael Wacha, Sandy Alcantara or Robbie Ray, one way the team could reduce the prospect cost would be to absorb the whole of those players' remaining salaries. Knowing they can spend more than $10 million for the balance of the year if needed also makes it much easier to bring in multiple players. Relievers Antonio Senzatela ($12 million) and Luke Weaver ($9.5 million) have substantial salaries this year and would still be owed a few million apiece when acquired; having spending room means such players still fit into a plan even after prioritizing a starter. Again, players (like Lugo, Wacha and Weaver) with 2027 obligations are slightly more complicated cases, but because so much money is coming off the Cubs' books, the team should be able to take on at least one such deal without flinching. All will depend on their evaluations of those players and their ability to help the team, of course, but it's good to know that money won't stand in the way of a valuable short-term upgrade. View full article

Image courtesy of Charles LeClaire-Imagn Images The Chicago Cubs designated Jameson Taillon for assignment Monday, the team announced. Righty reliever Andrew Wantz, signed last month after being released by the Tampa Bay Rays, will be promoted to take Taillon's place on the active roster. It's a sad but necessary end to the four-year Cubs tenure of Taillon, 34, who had a 5.92 ERA in 15 starts with the team this year. Wantz, 30, is a fringe arm who made seven appearances as a quasi-starter with the Triple-A Iowa Cubs before being called up, with a 4.32 ERA. He's ready to give the team length, but is even less of a viable starter than Taillon was. He's here strictly as a fresh arm; the team will replace him very soon. The timing of this move makes it fascinating, even though it was dictated by logistics as much as by any specific plan to complete an imminent deal. According to a source close to the team, no trade to immediately replace Taillon is close to completion, but it's clear that a spot is now open in the rotation. By Friday (rather than next Monday, Aug. 3, when the trade deadline hits), the team needs a new starter. They could always patch things together with a bullpen game, but ideally, at this point, the team will move within the next 72 hours to acquire a starter to reinforce their rotation. David Peterson, Colin Rea, Matthew Boyd and Shota Imanaga are slated to start the four games the team will play in St. Louis to start this week. Theoretically, the team could hold back Javier Assad (who pitched three innings Saturday night) and have him ready to start Friday, but that would mean operating with a seven-man bullpen during a series that will be emotionally draining and sweltering—and, again, on the front end of a stretch of 17 games between off days. Realistically, the team is likely to need Assad in one of the two latter games against the Cardinals. The trade deadline will arrive just in time to refresh a pitching staff that has been stretched to its breaking point by injuries and poor performances all season. Jed Hoyer and Carter Hawkins had to make this move now, but that they were willing to do so speaks volumes about their negotiating position heading into the final week before the deadline: Everyone knows they need pitchers. Everyone knows they need multiple pitchers. There's no leverage, and there's little depth on the farm, so the team will simply have to pay up for the help they require. This transaction is an acknowledgment of that. Though his contract won't be well-remembered, there were stretches during which Taillon was a key part of Cubs teams fighting to keep their heads above water. Since the middle of last season, he has largely been compromised, pitching through various injuries as much as possible but often not even being able to. He had a 4.21 ERA in 525 1/3 innings with Chicago, including a good year in 2024 and solid work before the injuries began pulling him apart in 2025. One of the most well-liked players in the game, he leaves a void to fill in the clubhouse, but the team is full of leaders and positive presences. They'll have to rally to one another and embrace the accountability to results implied by this loss. Taillon's contract expires at the end of the World Series, so he wasn't going to be part of the team beyond this year, anyway. The clock is ticking, and the Cubs' position is clear. They have glaring weaknesses and huge needs—and an equally massive opportunity to win the first Wild Card spot again and host another playoff series at Wrigley Field. By letting Taillon go Monday, they all but announced that they'll be fighting to secure that position down the stretch. It won't be cheap, but multiple additions lie close ahead. View full article

Image courtesy of Matt Marton-Imagn Images The synergy of the Cubs' pitching infrastructure is never more clear, these days, than when Jacob Webb takes the mound. The de facto relief ace of a team currently missing Daniel Palencia, Phil Maton, Hunter Harvey and more, Webb has a 2.84 ERA and a team-leading 5 saves. He's also struck out 27% of the batters he's faced, which is a career-best mark. He doesn't throw especially hard, and he knows he's gotten some good fortune here and there, but he's thriving in his new home on the North Side. That's thanks to a skill set that surely jumped off the page for Tyler Zombro, the Cubs' vice president of pitching, but also to the diligent coaching of pitching coach Tommy Hottovy. Those two leaders play off one another brilliantly in cases like Webb's, where there's plenty of appealing clay but a bit of molding is required. Webb's changeup is his signature weapon. That's been the case almost as long as he's been in pro ball. However, unlike most pitchers' changeups, Webb's doesn't tumble due to low spin, and it doesn't have much vertical depth. It's a pitch that runs to his arm side based on a lot of spin, in fact. It's just a change in spin axis created by the way he throws the pitch. "I think the four-seam changeup will always have a little more spin than other ones," Webb said on July 19, standing next to his locker in the Cubs' clubhouse at Wrigley Field. "Yeah, I just use the standard four-seam, straight changeup grip. It’s kind of like I grip the fastball and then just slide it over in my hand a little bit." Most pitchers try out grips that are a bit more elaborate, like the circle-change, the splitter, or the newfangled kick-change, in order to find a pitch that moves as much and has as great a speed differential from the fastball as Webb's. The big right-handed hurler has the luxury of sticking to something similar to his heater, because he's comfortable doing what most pitchers aren't. "A lot of it comes from, I supinate a little bit on the fastball, cut it a little," Webb said, referring to a slight turn of the wrist to make the palm face inward as he releases the pitch, "and with the changeup, I pronate." That sounds like a very simple statement, but for those who know pitching, its profundity and uniqueness are obvious—and that goes extra for Zombro. Tread Athletic, the pitching-forward training facility where Zombro got his start as a pitching guru and development wonk, emphasizes the importance of understanding motor preference. Most pitchers naturally either supinate or pronate as they release a pitch; Tread and Zombro help them identify that tendency and problem-solve around it. Rare are the hurlers who can truly do both, though, and Zombro loves guys who have that much facility with the ball. "It’s definitely harder, and it all comes down to throwing it," Webb said. "You have to get that feel for it, for that little bit different way of releasing each pitch. Catchers and hitters have told me a lot that it looks pretty similar, so I just try to lock that in and make sure I’m executing that slight turn every time." Zombro and Hottovy have helped Webb lock in those invaluable manipulations, which is why Webb has a sensational 42% whiff rate on the changeup this year. His fastball has what amounts to cut-ride properties, relative to his low-three-quarter arm slot; that sets up the changeup beautifully. "You can get used to pronating and supinating, both. It takes a lot of throwing," Webb said. "And I’m not too extreme with the pronating. If you watch Devin Williams, he really pronates hard and kind of drops his slot on that pitch. I want to stay in the same slot and just turn it the other way from my fastball." Webb is above-average in that ability to turn both ways, but he's not elite. Only a handful of pitchers in each generation show a real ability to move the ball up and down, left and right, all with well-dialed tweaks of the wrist. If Webb were on that level, you'd have heard much more about him by now, and he wouldn't have signed a cheap one-year deal to be a middle reliever for the Cubs over the winter. There has, for most of his career, been a glaring weakness in his game. "The last few years, I threw the sweeper, but I felt like I could never quite find the feel for it," he said. "I had to think too hard about supinating, getting around that ball more, and I just couldn’t consistently do that with command. So they actually showed me a grip, here, for more of a bullet-spin slider, a tight slider. That feels a lot more comfortable, because I can just kind of rip down through it. It’s a lot more like my fastball; I don’t have to exaggerate as much and get around it the same way." Indeed, you can see a progression at work. Here's what Webb's movement profile looked like against righties in 2025: Over the first two months of this season, Webb kept trying the sweeper, while he and the Cubs also explored a curveball and that new slider: Finally, though, over the last two months, he's locked in on that slider, pulling down through the side of the ball and not exaggerating the supination. He can comfortably throw that pitch without losing feel for it, or for his fastball or changeup. Instead of more extreme a turn in one direction, he's now leaning into smaller turns in both directions. It's precisely the kind of thing both Zombro and Hottovy love. "It’s a great feeling for me, to have something for righties," Webb said. "Because I’ve had a lot of trouble with righties in my career before this. Just having something that, moves away from them but I can keep it on the plate, match that with my fastball, it makes a big difference in terms of comfort facing them in a big spot." Forcing righties to respect the outer half of the plate—throwing the high fastball and then a slider out there on the edge, for instance—also sets them up to swing over or be tied up by a well-placed changeup running in on them. The slider taking the place of the sweeper makes Webb a more complete and versatile reliever. Craig Counsell is deeply appreciative of his righty's evolution. "Jacob’s been, amidst all the change and all the turnover, a real consistent presence down there," the skipper said. "He’s taking the ball kind of whenever, and oftentimes, kind of in the most important spot in the game, and he’s handled that part really, really well. He’s been available, and durable. He’s been a really important part of putting this puzzle together." For his part, Webb hopes to continue in that kind of role—although not the same one, exactly—for the rest of the year. "I don’t think I’m really a defined closer or anything, but I feel really good about working in those leverage spots," he said. "I definitely hope to stay in an important role like that once Danny returns, hopefully. That trust always feels good." Whether it's a returning Palencia or an incoming relief acquisition, someone is likely to push Webb one rung down the bullpen ladder down the stretch. From where he is now, though, even one rung down is pretty high. Thanks to that new slider and the delightful fit of his skill set with the philosophies and competencies of Zombro and Hottovy, Webb has been good enough to keep an injury-torpedoed bullpen afloat. He won't have to do it single-handedly for much longer. View full article

Of course not. They just won the bidding war for him five months ago and he's having a down year as he heads into his mid-30s. But I do think the premise of the question is mistaken, too. Yes, he lacks the power you want/need from him, but he's still getting on base and playing very good defense. Alex Bregman isn't the problem with this team. The problem is that they never had enough pitching depth to withstand bad injury luck and they've had lots of bad injury luck.

They need him. Trading him wouldn't be like trading Ramirez for them; it would be like trading Hoerner. I haven't heard even a whisper from anyone working for a team that he's available. Certainly, to convince them to move him, you'd have to add quite a bit to Ramirez.

That's the second time today I've heard someone mention Emerson Hancock. The Mariners aren't trading him. Did someone suggest otherwise? Jim Bowden or Dan O'Dowd someone?

Image courtesy of © Robert Edwards-Imagn Images As the Chicago Cubs have talked with other teams about their top targets ahead of next week's MLB trade deadline, one name has come up a lot more often than the team or its fans would prefer: Pedro Ramírez. The rookie infielder has been impressive in a small amount of playing time since coming up for the first time two months ago, and his combination of solid athleticism, youth, team control and a plus left-handed bat has led many of the clubs with whom the Cubs hope to deal to ask about his availability. In theory, it makes sense for Chicago to give up Ramírez in the right deal. Though he's only 22 years old and is batting .295/.341/.449 in 86 big-league plate appearances, he has no apparent path to regular playing time on the North Side. Nico Hoerner and Alex Bregman are locked into the positions where Ramírez profiles as a solid defender for the next half-decade, and his bat would be stretched a bit as an everyday corner outfielder. The utility role he's filled since roughly Memorial Day is the only one he's likely to fit neatly into at any point with the Cubs. Lately, though, he's often been the designated hitter for the team when they face right-handed starting pitchers. His left-handed swing is impressively quick and produces well-struck line drives to all fields. He provides depth and length in the lineup, plus a modicum of versatility on defense. Weakening the bench is the last thing contending teams want to do ahead of the trade deadline. Unfortunately for Jed Hoyer and Carter Hawkins, they might not have a choice. As they've scoured the market for the right deal to bolster their injury-ravaged pitching staff, the Cubs have heard Ramírez's name a lot, according to sources familiar with their conversations. The team is jealously guarding breakout top prospect Josiah Hartshorn, treating him as almost untouchable. Beyond Hartshorn, there's no one else other teams view as more desirable in the team's weak farm system than Ramírez. A few months ago, that Ramírez might be such a gem would have been almost unthinkable. His ceiling just isn't that high, for such a young player already showing well in the majors. However, his bat (at least from the left side) has passed its first tests against big-league pitching, which goes a long way. Meanwhile, Jefferson Rojas has started playing third base almost exclusively at Double-A Knoxville, and scouts with other clubs view the 21-year-old as likely to stay at that spot. Rojas's bat has been almost as inconsistent this year as it was in 2025, worrying those who already had questions about his hit tool. Jaxon Wiggins dealt with arm trouble earlier this year and has had a rocky return to Triple-A Iowa. His fastball still has exciting rising action, but it's not climbing toward 100 MPH the way it used to, even in abbreviated outings. He's also not throwing strikes. This spring, the Cubs held out hope that he would make a major contribution at the highest level this year. Now, he doesn't even have as much trade value as they'd like. Meanwhile, Matt Shaw remains sidelined with a wrist issue and is "weeks" away from resuming swinging. He'll be almost impossible to trade in the next eight days. The Cubs' pipeline hasn't been robust enough at any point in the last decade, and it's not recovering as fast as the team hoped when they reorganized their scouting and player development departments a few years ago. They don't particularly want to give up Moisés Ballesteros, but nor are prospective trade partners especially excited about him, according to a league source. Kevin Alcántara looks like he'll follow in the footsteps of fellow toolsy outfielders Alexander Canario and Nelson Velázquez, in that he'll probably leave the organization for a disappointing return, but probably not make anyone miss him much; his hit tool has turned out to be insufficient to sustain his prospect hype. That's not to suggest that the cupboard is entirely bare. The Cubs are willing and eager to trade from the lowest rungs of their system, where they have a handful of up-arrow guys. Upper-level catchers Owen Ayers and Ariel Armas each have admirers in other teams' front offices. They're in a tough spot, though, because they lack the depth to make any meaningful trade without feeling the loss deeply. The last time the team was in this particular position, they made a trade most fans regret, rather than celebrating—though it accomplished at least some of what the team hoped. In July 2017, the Cubs traded Jeimer Candelario to the Detroit Tigers, after he'd played just a fistful of games for them over the previous year. That deal patched their glaring hole at backup catcher, as they acquired Alex Avila, but it was primarily about solidifying their bullpen with controllable lefty Justin Wilson. Avila was just a rental role player, but he panned out as well as Wilson did. Candelario became a solid player in Detroit, but the deal also required Chicago to throw in another infielder, a bit further from ready: Isaac Paredes. Moving Ramírez might necessitate going out and finding a lesser Ramírez, eating into the benefit of trading him for a useful pitcher. Without including either Hartshorn or Ramírez, though, the team won't have access to the kind of help fans crave at this deadline. Ramírez is the one the Cubs would rather deal, if it comes to that—and it might. Of course, they also might opt to protect the future and buy low on someone with more uncertainty but a lower price tag. They could try to swing a better version of that Tigers deal from nine years ago, swapping Ramírez and a player far from the majors (like pitching prospect Kaleb Wing, for instance) for a controllable arm and a utility man with less club control and a higher salary than Ramírez. The risks of that type of move are extremely salient to Hoyer, though, and whereas the 2017 Cubs were trying to sew up a division title, this year's group is playing for Wild Card position. The Cubs keep shopping for starters and for relievers, but to find one who makes a material difference in their hopes for a long run this October, they might have to give up one of the few young position players who have shown the ability to buffer them against injuries and underperformance this year. It's not clear whether they'll find that risk worthwhile, given the limitations of the club and the need to regain some balance between youth and experience. View full article

Thanks, Thayne! No pressure to change your very healthy commenting habits. We're happy to have you around though.

Image courtesy of © Charles LeClaire-Imagn Images I'm a ruminator, and one of my unfortunate habits is the rewatch. When I find a great piece of media, I prefer to marinate in it—to revisit and reexamine it—than to venture forth and try to find the next thing with something to say. Eventually, I do find new things, but I spend a lot of time going back to things I've seen and read and heard before, whether it be by actually consuming them again or by considering them in the context of some other experience or product. In season 4 of The Wire, the show's most unabashed villain takes the stage. Marlo Stanfield isn't soulless; that's just a front he uses to project and accumulate power. But the process of proving himself hard, cold and ruthless has transformed him in ways he can't perceive. Marlo is a fool. He believes he's building a kingdom—making himself ruler of all he surveys. In reality, he's renting that world, the same way a drunk rents a bottle of whiskey. Just like the drunk is destroyed by that which he clamors to obtain and arrogantly believes he controls, Marlo is hollowed out by his consumption of power. But just like the drunk, he's dangerous and destructive to others, too, for every second he breathes and refuses to reform. One episode opens with Marlo at a convenience store, where he buys a bottle of water—and, at the same time, brazenly steals something from the counter while the cashier is distracted by the transaction, in full view of the security guard near the door. It's a cheap display of immaturity and greed—the kind of thing a fool mistakes for power. It's an assertion of power over the guard, which is made plain to us when the guard follows Marlo outside. He confronts Stanfield, telling him he understands the power imbalance at play but challenging the budding kingpin to show more respect for his community and for working people. "You want it to be one way," says the dead-eyed Marlo. He repeats it several times, flustering and (eventually) spooking the guard. Finally, he lets the other shoe drop, just before walking away. "But it's the other way." In the scene itself, that means what it appears to mean. The guard, by putting on that uniform each day and trying to enforce a bare-minimum kind of order and justice at the store, is offering a mission statement for life. He wants a world where the rules apply to everyone; he wants even the drug lords of the projects to see a few lines they won't cross unless it's absolutely necessary. Marlo's reply is, essentially: no. The scene is also a metamessage to the audience of the show, which sometimes lamented the extremes to which creator David Simon pushed the characters and the awful fates met by just about anyone who tried to make a positive difference. By that point in the show's life, Simon had heard those criticisms; they did not deter him. In fact, he himself characterized the show as "angry" more than once. His background was in journalism. He wanted to press reality (as he saw and understood it) up against the TV screen and make the world reckon with it. To the viewers, this scene said, "You want a world where morality matters. You want to believe that the powerful harbor a secret wish to consort with the powerless, and conform to their hopeful view of the world. You, who watch this from (in many cases, if not most) seats of privilege and comfort and whiteness, want to believe you've helped create and now occupy a governable, essentially fair world. You don't." All of this ran through my head in the top of the seventh inning Friday night. In a 1-1 game, Ian Happ swung at an 0-2 pitch diving toward his back foot, and he hit a nothing ball—a tapper toward first base. The Pirates' Ryan O'Hearn came to collect the ball and flipped casually to Wilber Dotel for the out—or was it one? Happ, to the surprise of the Pirates, had absolutely busted it out of the box and all the way up the first-base line. The play was shockingly close. In fact, the Cubs asked for a replay review. And in fact, Happ had been safe. He beat out an infield single, on a ball that had no business being one. It took the failures of two Pirates defenders to turn that sure out into a hit, but by hustling unreservedly at the end of what should have been a third straight empty, frustrating plate appearance, Happ created a chance for a game-winning rally. On a 2-2 count, Nico Hoerner then hit a flare to center field. Happ got a perfect read, knowing not only that the ball would fall in but that it would die (it was off the end of Hoerner's bat) and take time for center fielder Jake Mangum to field and fire in. He made it to third base on the play, putting him in position to score the go-ahead run. The combined exit velocities of Happ's and Hoerner's hits (121.8 MPH) was lower than those of two individual batted balls in the career of Pirates outfielder Oneil Cruz, who has twice hit it harder than 122 MPH. But because of Happ's hustle and his smarts, he had a great chance to tick the telling tally in a crucial game. He didn't, though. Pedro Ramírez struck out looking, and Carson Kelly grounded into a fielder's choice. The rally died. You want it to be one way, in baseball and in life. You want effort and preparation and instinct and solemn, high purpose to be rewarded. But it's the other way. Baseball, like the world, is not a democracy or even a meritocracy but an oligarchy. Talent tells. Hustlers and scrappers can hustle for scraps once the big dogs eat. Of course, the Cubs were the big dogs in this fight, really. They pushed the game all the way to a 10th inning, and then they won it. Happ made a dazzling defensive play, because although he's not a superstar, he's immensely talented in his own right. In the bottom of that same seventh inning, the Pirates took their turn putting runners on the corners with one out, and they managed to hit the fly ball the Cubs needed from Ramírez. It was a medium-depth fly to left field, shallow enough to give Happ a chance to throw out the runner in terms of sheer distance, but it wasn't hit as lazily as one might have liked. Happ had less time to get behind it and start his movement toward home plate than he'd have liked; he had to generate all the power for a strong throw in a short span and (because a crow hop was a luxury he could ill afford) a small space. Doing that is difficult, and being accurate while doing it is almost impossible. Happ doesn't have an elite outfield arm in terms of sheer arm strength. But in this way, he's elite. He got off the throw, and fast. It was strong, and it was true, and the play wasn't even terribly close. Happ was the Manfred Man in the top of the 10th inning, too. He came around to score the go-ahead run on a hard single to center by Dansby Swanson, and though his nimbly-adjusted slide to the inside of home plate first left him coming in too fast and his front foot bouncing over the plate, his tucked leg still reached its destination before the tag from an awkwardly lunging Henry Davis. It was another great bit of baseball from Happ, and although the play was breathtakingly close to heartbreaking, it turned out all right. That's not meant to imply that Happ's refusal to jog it out in the seventh or his perspicacity on the bases in that inning somehow earned him a smile from karma in the 10th. The Cubs won the game because of Happ's talent in left field, and because they've patched together an adequate string of pitching performances lately in front of an elite defense, and because Pete Crow-Armstrong is an incandescent superstar. Crow-Armstrong homered in the sixth to give the Cubs their only run in regulation, and when pitcher Yohan Ramírez fell behind 2-0 on him in the 10th, the Pirates intentionally walked Crow-Armstrong to load the bases with two outs. First base wasn't even open; they already trailed; and Ramírez has poor control. Seiya Suzuki exploited the moment by waiting out Ramírez and accepting an RBI walk, pushing across the insurance run that would prove to be the margin of victory. Crow-Armstrong's maturation into a patient hitter who won't get himself out earned him that free pass. In the past, the Pirates could and would have kept pitching to him in that spot, expecting him to expand his zone. He's a truly great player right now. Suzuki is a fearsome and disciplined hitter, too. There is another reading of Marlo's encounter with that security guard that's worth pondering, though. Maybe it's one only watching the series from a place of privilege and comfort would ever produce, but here goes: Marlo is, in a sense, wrong. The guard is, in a sense, right. Don't get me wrong: the world is as ruthless and as avaricious as Marlo Stanfield is. But real goodness is also unkillable. Marlo has that guard killed, and Simon would probably prefer that we take a sobering, dour lesson from that: the powerful will respond to your demands for dignity only by pulverizing you. Certainly, whether a person lives or dies is the ultimate equivalent to pointing toward the outfield and saying, "Scoreboard." What matters most, to most people, is who lives and who dies. What matters most, to most baseball fans, is which team wins each game. Why did Stanfield really have that guy killed, though? To make an example of him, sure, a little. To announce his dominance over everything and everyone. But deeper, down on a level Marlo couldn't even reach or understand, he did it because the guard had revealed the truth to him. Whether we try does matter, and so does whether we persist when our first attempts fail. Morality does matter. The world will not reward your good thoughts, words or deeds, in an extrinsic way; the world will come closer to punishing you for them. But it's your duty to think good thoughts, say good words, and do good deeds, anyway. Sometimes, you'll have enough power and enough opportunity and enough luck to be celebrated for that goodness. Sometimes, you won't. But life isn't counted out in dollars or in influence. Those are outputs. The real measure of our time is our inputs. Happ struck out both times he saw Jared Jones Friday night. In his third at-bat, against Dotel, he swung at a bad pitch, took a good pitch, then swung at another bad one. He happened to just touch that third offering, though, and when the least window opened for him to turn a bad day for the better, he seized on it like he understands the difference between a thing done well and a thing done ill. He was fully present. To him, the right things mattered, and doing things right was his way of expressing what mattered. As most Cubs fans know, Happ is from Pittsburgh. Many forget (or never knew) that, 11 years ago, he lost his father to brain cancer, just a few months after he was drafted by the Cubs. The emotions tying him to Pittsburgh aren't simple; they must be equal parts joyous and painful. When he takes the field in his hometown, his surface-level stoicism burns off a bit, and you can see the same attention to detail and insistence on consistency that was handed down to him by Keith Happ, an agronomist for the United States Golf Association. He was a .306/.387/.528 career hitter at PNC Park before Friday. On a night when his bat wasn't doing the job, he found no fewer than three other ways to will the Cubs to a win. Not all of those efforts directly contributed to the win, in a tangible way, but that's not the same as saying they didn't all matter. They did. You can't win 'em all. Nor can you run 'em all out. Nobody is on their game and on fire with intelligent intensity all the time. Games played the way Happ played Friday night deserve special recognition, though. It's easy to give that recognition, because he ended up making a big and obvious contribution to an important victory. Even if the Cubs had lost, though, that seventh-inning sequence would have been valuable. Not all rewards are extrinsic. You can win every day, if not every game—one way, or the other. View full article