Matthew Trueblood

Am *I* mad? You think the Phillies are going to trade their still-optionable third catcher, when they just had a prolonged absence for their star starter? 🤣 That team's trying to win a World Series. And Yan Gomes's age when he signed with the Cubs was higher than Haase's right now. Didn't stop him from being a valuable and valued member of the catching corps for two years, before he fell apart this year. 🤷‍♂️

Given their proximity, their division rival status, and what happened last November, there might not be any two teams less likely to strike a deal than the Cubs and their northern neighbors. But there might be a trade fit between them too perfect to be ignored. Image courtesy of Matt Blewett, Brian Flaherty - USA Today Sports An injury to Christian Yelich has left the division-leading Brewers short a left-handed bat as they head into the trade deadline. The team doesn't want to pour a lot of resources into that breach, because they're in the process of reinforcing their injury-ravaged pitching staff, and that needs to be their primary focus. Still, it's a problem. Leadoff hitter Brice Turang has given Milwaukee a .305 OBP in his last 249 plate appearances, dating to mid-May. The Cubs, as it happens, have a trade candidate who bats left-handed and gets on base. Mike Tauchman had two hits Saturday night, doubling his total since returning from the injured list a week ago. It's been an ugly stretch in terms of results, but he continues to work counts and make contact. He's only struck out once in 29 plate appearances since coming back from the groin strain that sidelined him in mid-June. On the year, he's batting .247/.344/.356. The dearth of power deeply dents his trade value, but it's not zero, because his on-base skills are so good and he's a fine extra outfielder, to boot. Meanwhile, the Brewers have a player on their 26-man roster whom they're unlikely to be able to carry for long. They signed Eric Haase to a bargain-basement deal back in December, then effectively relegated him to Triple-A depth status by signing Gary Sánchez in the endgame of the offseason. Haase, 31, has spent over a decade in professional baseball, but more of it has been in the minors than in the majors. Like Tauchman, 33, he's a journeyman and a veteran, but not an impending free agent. In fact, both players are under team control (if any one team wants them for that long) through the 2026 season. Two of my Cubs Twitter favorites, Cooper Rushing and Brett Taylor, casually mentioned something in the wake of Saturday's trade bringing fireballer Nate Pearson into the organization: it would be nice to make a similar move for a catcher before the trade deadline. The parallel is superficially imperfect, because Haase is half a decade Pearson's senior, but this is what a Pearson-like catching addition could look like. His success in the big leagues has only been intermittent, but Haase is widely respected for his professionalism and preparation, and he improved dramatically as a framer last season, even as his offense cratered. This year, while waiting for his chance to return to the majors, he posted an .870 OPS at Triple-A Nashville. That's not especially impressive, on its own, but Haase also raked throughout the spring, and he's mashed three home runs among 10 hits in 25 plate appearances for the parent club this month. Ordinarily, intradivisional rivals--especially those whose fan bases attach extra significance to every encounter with one another--don't transact together, especially with players under control beyond a given season as the pieces. In this case, though, it's hard to imagine either team feeling especially worried about being burned. Neither Tauchman nor Haase is going to alter the future of this rivalry in a meaningful way. What could happen, though? Tauchman, an adept leadoff man, could spark the Milwaukee batting order down the stretch, sliding Turang to the bottom of the lineup, where his bat really belongs. The Crew could make a deep October run, even if it's with Yelich restored to the lineup and Tauchman available mostly as a pinch-hit option. The Cubs, in the meantime, could get the next version of Yan Gomes: a journeyman backstop with a late-blooming bat and the perfect combination of utility and expendability They might decide to keep him for the next two or three years, or not, but he'd be the perfect post-hype guy to grab and take a chance on, with an eye toward figuring out the 2025 catching corps. Both teams could benefit substantially, without much downside. Each player could end up cut before season's end, but the Cubs are almost sure to trade Tauchman, anyway, and they're not going to get a prospect with any real ceiling. Milwaukee, meanwhile, figures to let Haase go within a few days, too. Had it not been for Yelich's injury, they would have had to designate Haase for assignment when Sánchez returned from the injured list this week. There might be no better realistic use for either player in their current organization than to be swapped into the other. There might also not be any better way for the front offices to spend their limited time and energy on these two than by swapping them, to keep themselves flexible and focused on bigger moves. View full article

Amid a season derailed by injuries to the hard-throwing, high-leverage relievers they were hoping to count on, the Cubs acquired a hard-throwing reliever with team control--but also a long history of injuries, and some questions about his ability to pitch in high leverage. Image courtesy of © David Richard-USA TODAY Sports The numbers on Nate Pearson tell a pretty fair story. He's capable of racking up strikeouts, but control and command are major problems. The Cubs are taking a chance on him as a change-of-scenery guy, landing him from the Blue Jays with two and a half years left before the righty hits free agency. Pearson's fastball sits 98 and touches 102. He's always had that ability, but staying healthy and finding a secondary pitch to complement that fastball have been persistent problems. As a result, even in what is his best MLB season to date, he has a 5.63 ERA. He's struck out 28% of opposing batters this season, but is also walking over 9% and giving up too many home runs. We'll see what they gave up, and there will be more updates here, but for now, this move feels like an acho of last season's José Cuas deal. The team brought in an underachieving right-handed reliever with some obvious features of interest and some team control remaining. The question will be whether they're the right group to bring everything together for the talented arm. UPDATE: A Bit More About Pearson, and Now We Know the Return Every pitcher is unique in some ways, but if you looked at the picture accompanying this article and thought that the Cubs had Luke Little and Porter Hodge and were hoping to complete the set, you would be in the right ballpark. Pearson was a first-round pick by the Blue Jays in 2017, one pick after the Cubs took fellow Florida junior-college arm Brendon Little (not to be confused with Luke), and after a strong start in pro ball, he became a perennial top-100 prospect. That label is a bit of a backhanded compliment, though, because if your career goes to plan, you escape prospect list eligibility before you can be on as many of them (five times for Baseball America) as Pearson was. He battled injuries and never got over the hump to really last as a big-league starter. Now, he's about to turn 28 years old and has only once pitched more than 50 innings in a season, across all levels. Worse, Pearson's sheer stuff hasn't always translated into great outcomes. His fastball is a little bit straight, although it does have a flat vertical approach angle from a low three-quarter slot. Control is the problem. He doesn't throw the heater for strikes consistently enough, and it gets him into trouble. His slider is missing more bats on a per-swing basis this year, but it's not getting enough swings, period. For the right to try to help Pearson find what's eluded him, the Cubs gave up Yohendrick Pinango, who briefly had low-grade prospect hype but no longer looked likely to figure into the team's plans. He would have needed to be added to the 40-man roster this winter, so the Cubs just elected to commit that same spot to the imminent relief ace upside of Pearson. They lose no flexibility, either, because they can always non-tender Pearson this winter and get that roster spot back if things don't work out. As with Cuas last season, this move is about shoring up the bullpen right now, but much, much more so about trying to find medium-term relief help at a very low cost, relative to (for instance) spending on that segment of the roster in free agency. It's a sound way to build a bullpen and a good way to manage risk and scarce assets. Because these are relief pitchers, though, there are no guarantees that it will work, as Cuas should remind us. Pinango, like Nelson Velázquez, isn't worth missing much, so while this is far from a transformational move, it's an intriguing and perfectly solid one. Much hinges on the team's ability to help Pearson throw some strikes with his fastball and force hitters to fish for his slider. UPDATE 2: It's a 2-for-1. It did feel a bit like Pinango was too little to get for Pearson, from Toronto's perspective, and now we can see why. The Cubs also threw in Josh Rivera, the University of Florida alumnus and third-round pick from last year's Draft. Rivera is very much a future utility infielder or organizational depth piece, rather than any kind of budding star, but he might have a better chance of playing 200 games in the big leagues than Pinango does. This feels, then, like the Cubs consolidating some of their impressive farm system depth, knowing they're likely to replenish it in the next few days, anyway. They give up two players who had little chance to be more than fill-ins for them, and while they only get up to three years of an erratic reliever in return, it's pretty obvious what the upside is for Pearson. He could be their closer next year. He could, by reducing even one of his homer or walk rates, be a solid setup man. That has more value, in the modern game, than a fourth outfielder or a fifth infielder, so the team is rolling the dice on the chance at a quick turnaround for Pearson, knowing what they're losing is the very thing of which they already have plenty. View full article

It's hard to survey the number and specific identity of the teams who have reportedly shown interest in the Cubs' veteran righthander without coming to the conclusion that the wheels of a deal are in motion. Image courtesy of © Matt Marton-USA TODAY Sports This week has seen an absolute torrent of Jameson Taillon trade rumors. It might be easier to name teams who haven't been linked to him, but for the sake of clarity, let's just list those who have: the Houston Astros, New York Yankees, Boston Red Sox, and Baltimore Orioles. When I wrote about Taillon's trade value earlier this month, I mentioned the Mets and Guardians, who haven't yet appeared as rumored destinations, but they, too, remain solid fits. All these teams make sense as fits for Taillon, for various reasons. The Orioles just need some depth and reinforcement in their rotation, as they navigate a season in which they've lost two starters to Tommy John surgery but still look like locks to reach the postseason. The Yankees have a history with Taillon, and as Cubs fans know by now, he's an agreeable, fine presence for any clubhouse, so it's no shock that a former employer would be interested in having him back. We can safely assume that Taillon is familiar to (and well-liked by) Red Sox chief executive Craig Breslow, since he was heading up the Cubs' pitching department when the team signed Taillon two offseasons ago. Houston, like Baltimore, needs healthy and reliable arms. Of course, those teams all also share an important characteristic: they have big budgets and room to spend, this year and next. That makes them interesting trade partners for a Taillon deal, because if the Cubs do move him, they could look to absorb a portion of his remaining salary (roughly $6 million for the balance of 2024, and $18 million in each of the next two campaigns) to improve the talent they get in return for him. Doing so would not help them replace Taillon this winter via free agency, as they'd surely need to do, but they should have plenty of room in their own budget to do that, anyway. A trade with a rich team ready to take on Taillon's full freight would mean one with a less exciting young player or two coming back. Then again, each of these clubs has some reason to let the Cubs help them financially and give up a little bit of extra talent, in exchange. The Astros are very close to crossing the second luxury-tax threshold for this season, and they face some tough decisions about Alex Bregman, Framber Valdez, and Kyle Tucker in the coming months and years. Boston, Baltimore, and New York all have ownership groups whose willingness to spend seems to fluctuate unpredictably, but with the Yankee payroll well over $300 million for this year as it is, they'll pay heavy taxes on any further money added, and that's going to be true for several years to come. Taillon still has two and a half years left on his contract, but the way he's pitched over the last calendar year (32 starts, 178 innings pitched, a 3.34 ERA, a .666 opponent OPS), he has tremendous excess value, anyway. The Cubs should only trade him if they can get both some salary flexibility and significant young talent in the deal, but that suddenly looks very plausible. It would be a mild surprise, at this point, if he's not dealt by Tuesday evening. He can help some new team in as many as three pushes to the postseason, but hopefully, a trade can also net the Cubs something that helps them in just as many, down the road a year or two. View full article

The Cubs have a solid, veteran outfielder who doesn't fit into their long-term plans, at least as a regular starter. Should they trade him, though, or is the value he'd command outstripped by what he means to the existing team? Image courtesy of © Matt Marton-USA TODAY Sports For the second straight season, Mike Tauchman has been a pleasant surprise amid a roster full of disappointment. He's roughly a league-average hitter, with on-base skills making up the huge majority of his value. He's a fine outfielder, a bit below average in center field but a bit better than average in either corner. He's also a stolid, respectable presence in the clubhouse and on the team, and his approach is a great example to young players, even if they're not all able to emulate him. If things were better on the North Side, it would be a no-brainer to keep Tauchman. Craig Counsell was quick to promise him a roster spot this spring, because he identified him as a valuable piece of a winning club. Tauchman is batting .246/.343/.358, even amid a 2-for-20 struggle since returning from the groin strain that sidelined him for a month. He's a local product, and the fans appreciate the way he goes about his business. After this season, the Cubs will still have two years of team control on him. Even for a team with nothing to play for in August and September, Tauchman isn't without value. On the other hand, the playing time Tauchman soaks up is necessarily at the expense of someone (be it Pete Crow-Armstrong, Christopher Morel, Michael Busch, or a young player for whom there's not even room on the roster while he's around) whom the team would like to evaluate and develop down the stretch. There's also an opportunity cost to keeping him. Though a late bloomer without the power that teams value above all else in the modern game, Tauchman has some trade value. His team control might not be priced in the way one would like, but that's because he might also not be a player the team wants to retain for the long haul, anyway. He'll turn 34 years old this winter. Given all that, maybe the best and noblest course is to trade Tauchman this week. He won't fetch much, but even a far-off project or a depth piece could be a nice addition to the organization, and it's hard to envision him being an especially helpful piece beyond this season. The Cubs traded Joc Pederson to Atlanta in July 2021, getting only forgettable first base prospect Bryce Ball in return, and they wouldn't get much more than that type of player for Tauchman. However, they could also further burnish their reputation as an organization that does right by players, by giving Tauchman a chance to play meaningful baseball and (perhaps) earn both some extra money and some well-deserved glory by contributing to a team chasing a championship. It's a dilemma. It's a reflection of how frustrating and sad this season has been, because neither keeping nor trading Tauchman feels very good under these circumstances. Then again, there's some reason to feel good, too. Tauchman has had a solid year and a half playing in front of hometown fans, coming up with big hits and making big plays in the outfield. There will be pleasant memories of him even if his Cubs career is nearly over, and if they do retain him, he'll make the team more respectable and more watchable down the stretch. Tauchman is a good story, even nestled into a rather sad one. Whichever way the organization decides to go in the coming days, they've gotten good value from a minor-league signing, and there's upside in either course of action. View full article

With just a fistful of days left before the MLB trade deadline, the direction and a few constraints are clear. The 2024 Cubs aren't good, and Jed Hoyer has helpfully acknowledged that he won't trade for players who only help this season's team. With a robust farm system and a pressing need to be better next year, though, could they pry loose a star-caliber contributor with significant team control? Image courtesy of © Andrew Dieb-USA TODAY Sports That Hoyer and company understand their situation better than to try to make short-term upgrades is encouraging. The next logical question they face, though, is an equally important one: how do you go about acquiring players who represent long-term upgrades, and who can help you avoid the grisly fate of being this forgettable again in 2025? The obvious answer is to be patient, develop what is one of the league's stronger farm systems, and make a splash or two in free agency this winter. But what if the right opportunity is out there right now, rather than later? The Cubs aren't the only disappointed club looking to build for the future this month, and they're much closer to contention than a few of the others, like the Athletics, Angels, White Sox, and Rockies. (Hey, that almost sounded like a carefully chosen list!) Some of those other teams have great players under team control beyond 2025, who could be part of the Cubs' next winning window--but they also have significant motivation to move those guys now. Waiting until this winter (let alone next summer) might not be an option. So, which guys are good enough to justify paying a high price in young talent right now (even though it includes the cost of their contributions for the balance of 2024, which won't matter), to position the Cubs as a championship-caliber team for the next half-decade? Luis Robert Jr. Robert isn't as young as he might feel. He'll turn 27 just after the trade deadline. He's also vulnerable to lots of whiffs, and as he's tried to tone down his aggressiveness and accept some walks this season, he's seen his strikeout rate spike to the north side of 33%. There are also major durability questions, given that last year was the only one of his career in which he's played anything like a full season. Those are the downsides, and they're familiar refrains to most Cubs fans, because Robert plays right across town and the mounting frustration for Sox fans is well-known. The upsides make up for all that. Robert doesn't hit for power as consistently as you might like or expect, given his tools, but last year was the breakthrough in that regard, as he hit 38 homers and 75 total extra-base hits. When he's been on the field this year, it's been the same story. Built like a strong safety, Robert is going to keep popping plenty of homers, and his speed translates to plenty of stolen bases and some strong defense in center field. He's under contract through 2027, if whichever team controls that contract exercises each of their options, and will only cost $55 million in total over the next three seasons. Trading with a team with whom you share a city is tough, but we know the Cubs and Sox are capable of it. Hoyer has a farm system strong enough to put together a leading offer for Robert, and few players with any degree of availability are capable of transforming the Cubs lineup the way Robert could. Garrett Crochet Speaking of the White Sox, of course, Crochet is making huge headlines. If he weren't on an innings limit for this season, he'd be a very legitimate AL Cy Young Award contender, with power stuff that has translated surprisingly smoothly to starting after an early career spent in the bullpen. The caveat in that sentence looms large for contenders who are interested, though, because his usage limitations will cap his impact on anyone's World Series aspirations for 224. Though four years Justin Steele's junior, Crochet is actually a year closer to free agency. His fast track to the big leagues and subsequent injury troubles have shaped one of the strangest career arcs in recent memory. He's under team control for just two more seasons after this one, but an acquiring team would be in a decent position to negotiate an extension with him. Even without one, he'd be such a high-impact addition that it's tantalizing. Brent Rooker Injuries and the pandemic distorted the early career of Rooker, too, making a player whose profile made him a good candidate to bloom late all along guaranteed to do so. He's bloomed in extraordinary fashion since the start of last season, though, with 30 homers in 2023 and 23 already this year, all playing his home games in Oakland. A take-and-rake pull-side slugger, Rooker could hit 35 or 40 homers in a good year at Wrigley Field. He strikes out a ton, but also draws plenty of walks, and would be the traditional cleanup man the team has needed for at least three years. Rooker will turn 30 this November, but still has three seasons of team control remaining after this year. He's not likely to be good much longer than that, but the Cubs wouldn't need him to be. They could pay the price to get him, and slot him into their lineup right away, with increased confidence that 2025 will find him anchoring a more powerful offense. He'll get expensive in arbitration after that, but not prohibitively so, and for a team desperately needing pop, he's an obvious target. Logan O'Hoppe This is a bit of an out-there idea. O'Hoppe, 24, is under team control four more years after this one, and he's a career .262/.321/.472 hitter. He's a slightly below-average pitch framer but a strong controller of the running game, and his reputation as a game manager and handler of pitching staffs is strong. He's a budding star behind the plate. Here's the thing: catchers all have short shelf lives, and the Angels aren't very close to contention. Nearly every day brings new evidence that that front office doesn't really know what it's doing. Swooping in and simply stealing a player as good as O'Hoppe isn't possible, but prying him loose from them might be easier than it would be from another organization that was a bit less of a mess. The prospect package it would take to bring in O'Hoppe would be truly staggering, but the Cubs don't have to pay for him solely with prospects. It's possible they could get involved in a three-way trade in which Justin Steele goes to a high-level contender, and both the Cubs and the team acquiring Steele send prospect talent to the Angels in a huge package. Steele's value to a contender right now might be higher than O'Hoppe's, despite the latter being five years younger and under team and cost control longer. Therefore, the Cubs might get some small secondary piece in the deal, too, without giving up much more than Steele. The Angels have some interesting arms under long-term control, but whom they haven't had success developing yet. Ryan McMahon The Rockies sound a bit more like a rational organization, lately, which means they might be more open to trading a player like McMahon than they have tended to be in the past. According to one report, they've told McMahon he's not going anywhere, and he did sign a long-term extension with them in 2022, but if they're realistic and ready to be proactive, they have to see that keeping him would be foolish. Left far behind by the rest of their division, they're just now getting better at scouting and player development, in ways that might pay off in half a decade. McMahon is only under control through 2027, and will cost $44 million over the final three years of the deal. His timeline doesn't match theirs, and he's not the same face-of-the-franchise star that Troy Tulowitzki, Carlos González, or even Trevor Story were, anyway. However, McMahon should appeal quite a bit to the Cubs. He's a left-handed hitter with ample power (though more in the form of doubles than over the fence, much of the time), and he's taking walks at an excellent rate this year. He's also one of the best defensive third basemen in baseball. He'd answer a lot of questions about the long-term alignment of the Cubs infield, just as they're pondering creating more such questions by trading Nico Hoerner. Farm depth like the Cubs' is valuable in two ways. It can yield huge on-field value, directly, by having those players develop into homegrown stars. However, it can also return value by turning into trade value, and bringing back players like these. If the Cubs can consolidate some of their organizational depth this week, create more flexibility, and start to put cornerstones in place for a winning window they hoped would open this year, they'll be in much better position next July than they're in right now. View full article

In a de facto trade deadline preview episode of This is Not a Rebuild, four Cubs heads try to figure out what this team thinks it should be, and how they'll get from where they are to that destination. Image courtesy of Matt Trueblood via Spotify for Podcasters It's been a few weeks since our last episode, but all the important facts of Cubdom remain unchanged. Jed Hoyer is ready to acknowledge that this team can't be a trade-deadline buyer, but it's not yet clear whether he understands that they need to be sellers. More importantly, it's hard to figure out how this team can best be a seller, given how they're built. We parse takes from outsiders about the egregiousness of the Cubs ever being sellers; weigh the team's options with Justin Steele and Jameson Taillon; try to convince ourselves to feel encouraged about the recent developments in the bullpen; and nerd out a little bit on the subject of close plays requiring a tag at home plate, and how a catcher should set up for one. Speaking of catchers, we also try to guess how and on what timeline the Cubs will heal the scar that has been that position this season. It's going to be a slow process, at this point, but Moises Ballesteros makes it a fairly promising project--if his tiny, round self can stick at the spot. We close with some musings about whether it would be a good prank to tell a solid, respectable veteran player they were traded to the White Sox this week. Enjoy. Apple Podcasts: Spotify: We'll be back next week, with a comprehensive review of the team's activity at the trade deadline. Tune in then! View full article

If their best relievers had stayed healthier throughout this season, the Cubs might be in position to act as buyers at the upcoming MLB trade deadline. That dream is long dead, but the way they're getting healthy just days before the deadline could still be a boon to the team's ongoing rebuild. Image courtesy of © Matt Marton-USA TODAY Sports For a while there, Craig Counsell was trying to hold together a bullpen on a team aimed at contention without the services of any of the four best pitchers in that bullpen, as of a year ago: Julian Merryweather, Adbert Alzolay, Mark Leiter Jr., and Drew Smyly. The team had to make do, for long stretches, without at least two or three of those four, plus lesser contributors for whom hopes had been high, like Daniel Palencia. Injuries to the starting rotation, too, weakened the pen, pulling pitchers like Javier Assad, Ben Brown, and Hayden Wesneski away from potential roles as key relievers. Not all of those problems have been resolved, and sadly, they've become irrelevant. The 2024 Cubs aren't good enough to win anything worthwhile, and even a fully healthy and overachieving bullpen the rest of the way wouldn't change that. There's very good news, though, and here it is: the return of Merryweather, a couple of encouraging outings from Leiter, the expected rebound from Héctor Neris and the sustained excellence of Tyson Miller has created an opportunity for the team to get a bit aggressive at this trade deadline, even if they lack the self-awareness or risk appetite to trade players slotted into larger roles for multiple seasons. First, let's establish the key premise here: Almost no relief pitcher has any value beyond the season in which they're having success. This is why, even when the season looked salvageable, the Cubs would have been foolish to trade the haul of talent Oakland will demand if they move Mason Miller this summer. It's also why the team happily traded Scott Effross for Wesneski two years ago. Service time is only a remote, secondary consideration for relievers, whose overall value has a low ceiling and who can experience huge variance from year to year in that value, even if they stay healthy--which is far from a sure thing, of course. Therefore, it doesn't make any sense for the Cubs to hold onto Neris, Smyly, Merryweather, Leiter, or Miller. It's impractical and out of the question for all five of them to be traded in the next week, but the team should shop them all, and trade as many of them as have any trade value. It will be ancillary pieces. It might amount to nothing. Then again, they've gotten Wesneski, Brown, and Palencia in the last three years by being willing to trade lots of relievers when they were of no real use to them. It's possible none of those three are ever meaningful contributors to a good Cubs team, because of Wesneski's insufficient stuff, Palencia's insufficient control, and Brown's dubious health, but it's still possible one of them is a long-term helper. Brown, especially, has had a tantalizing 2024. Ultimately, the Cubs won't escape their cycle of mediocrity until they make bigger changes, but the positive trends in their bullpen make it possible that they could add some valuable pieces to their organization even if they don't yet have the guts to do so--or if Tom Ricketts doesn't want Jed Hoyer to be the one to clean up the mess he's made. Trading any or all of these relievers is the kind of work Hoyer has proved very trustworthy on, and there's little to gain by holding onto them. This is an opportunity the team should seize with both hands. View full article

Just before the All-Star break, the Cubs got their erstwhile utility pitcher back from the injured list, where he'd been shelved with a forearm strain in late June. He pitches again Monday night, and is one of the North Siders most worth watching for the balance of this season. Image courtesy of © Jeff Le-USA TODAY Sports It's profoundly unlikely that Javier Assad will be traded in the next week, because of all 30 MLB organizations, the one who is likely to value him most highly is the one for which he already toils. He's been shuttled to the bullpen more than once in his young career, and nearly got the same treatment again this spring, but every time, he ends up being needed in the rotation again--and he keeps producing competitive, even impressive starts. As fans well know, though, Assad doesn't throw hard or miss many bats, by modern standards. He's hard to trust as a durable ace, though increasingly trustworthy as anywhere from the fourth- to the sixth-best starter on a playoff-hopeful team. He's a kitchen sink guy, using a fastball, cutter, sinker, changeup, curveball, and slider to make up for his lack of raw stuff or any one killer offering. In the last few starts before he hit the injured list, and in the one abbreviated one before the break, we saw him make a change to one of those pitches. It's not the out pitch he's been missing, but could it be the next way he discovers to stay just ahead of hitters' adjustment curves? Nominally, Assad has never thrown a sweeper. He's gone through a few versions of his breaking stuff, but the one on which he settled early this season was a sweepy offering. It wasn't a sweeper, but that was roughly the shape it took. Here's his overall pitch movement chart for this season. Notice, though, that there are two slider clusters here. That's because, starting in mid-June, Assad switched to a different type of slider. It's a harder, tighter offering, with less sweep and less velocity variation from his array of fastballs. Here, you can see the difference on a zoomed-in basis, with the color of the points indicating velocity to illustrate that aspect of the change. You can certainly see the change in the data. Let's compare a couple of offerings on video, to get a physical sense of it. Here's Assad throwing a sweepier slider to the back foot of Jack Suwinski, in May. Assad in May.mp4 Here's a firmer, tighter, much more vertical slider to Matt Chapman, on Jun. 17. Assad on Jun 17.mp4 Aesthetically, functionally, statistically, these are distinct pitches, and he switched pretty neatly from one to the other in mid-June. Assad is doing something different with his slider now. So, we should ask the natural question: is this slider better than the old one? So far, the answer is clear: no. It's not. Despite not having the pitch sweep off the plate with horizontal movement as much, Assad isn't throwing more strikes with the new shape on that pitch. He's not getting more chases or more whiffs. When batters connect, they're hitting it hard. No measurement you would use to evaluate the two versions of the slider says the new one is superior. Yet, it could eventually be better, either on its own or as part of that deep and varied arsenal. If he sets it up right, this version of the slider should eventually get more swings, and if he can command it, it should get more ground balls. If he can throw the slider for strikes, it should increase the effectiveness of all three of his harder pitches, as hitters are forced to become a bit more defensive. Pinned down and forced to choose, I would say the new version of the slider is the better one, or at least that it has a much higher ceiling in terms of impact on his overall approach. It just isn't achieving those things yet. Going forward, this is just one of many things to watch closely whenever Assad pitches. Maybe, in a huge surprise, some team will step forward and make the Cubs an offer they can't refuse for the stability and impressive results Assad has provided for much of the last two years. It's more likely, though, that they'll trade another starting pitcher before the deadline and that Assad's role will only become more important down the stretch, with an eye toward 2025. He won't even be arbitration-eligible this winter; the team has all kinds of time with him. If he can really find something with this slider, maybe he can become a true mid-rotation starter, even for a team with high hopes for the near future. In any case, it's an interesting thing to watch. The Cubs need more of those, amid a season in which they have too often been unappealing or lifeless. Assad is a competitor, a FIP-beater, and a feather in the cap of a pitching development infrastructure still trying to prove itself good enough. This change to his mix is a fun wrinkle and further evidence that he and the team are still trying to find creative solutions to some of their problems. View full article

It's not that they suck. It's that they don't seem to understand that they suck. Image courtesy of © Jeff Curry-USA TODAY Sports Any clear-eyed decision-maker came to the conclusion that the Cubs need to be sellers at this trade deadline three weeks ago. Some of the world's most hopeless optimists (equal emphasis for each word in the phrase) root on the North Side Nine, though, so even entering the All-Star break, there were those who thought this team might reprise the success they had in the second half of last July, saving their season and forcing the front office to become trade-deadline buyers. That was an indefensible position, but we all hold some of those. Hopefully, even those folks had the scales fall from their eyes this weekend. The Cubs eked out one more win than they deserved in a three-game home series against a solid but unspectacular Diamondbacks team, which is to say, they won one game. In the three contests, they scored four total runs, two of them after the first of their two losses was essentially decided. Too little, too late has been this team's secret motto since roughly the 2018 All-Star break, so it would be unreasonable to feel surprised about it, but eventually, this pattern has to spur action designed to interrupt it. Right? We can all picture an early, almost throwaway scene in one of those romantic comedies from the peak years of that genre (around the turn of the century), where a frustrated girlfriend stomps out the door and shouts over her shoulder something like, "Give me a call when you grow up!" It's a wake-up call, lobbed rudely but righteously at a 20-something man who truly does need to make huge changes in his life, but who isn't yet ready to see it that way. He comes around over the next 90-100 minutes, of course, and the couple often reunites, but the point is what the line establishes: there's an immaturity at work here. It's a waste of the departing girlfriend's time, and even of the audience's, to watch this reasonably handsome, vaguely promising dude do nothing worthwhile with himself. That's how I feel about the Cubs at this point. It's not clear to me what they're doing that is worth anyone's time, or why anyone should pay attention to them until they demonstrate not only an openness to change, but the real beginnings of it, and a good-faith intention to do more of it. Shota Imanaga had another stellar start Sunday. Nico Hoerner continues to heat up in July, and Seiya Suzuki came up with a big hit. This team is vaguely promising, for a list of reasons much longer than those three players. They're also not going anywhere, until they grasp the magnitude of the change required here. They're going on six years as a dysfunctional offense, with two different cores of key contributors and plenty of money being spent on those six years' worth of lineups. Do they need to totally overhaul their organizational hitting development? Do they need to fire their hitting coaches (yet again)? Do they need a major overhaul of the player personnel, because something is wrong with the chemistry of this group? Maybe the answer to all of those is no, and they need to find yet another explanation. More likely, the answer to all of them is yes, but incompletely so, and they need to figure out how much weight to give each problem and potential solution. At any rate, the uninspiring series loss this weekend was just the latest in a long line of them, and the only remarkable thing about it is the number of fans and organization members who persist in the expectation that something else will happen, without some pain. The Cubs have seven more games before the trade deadline, but not one of them matters. Nor did these three. If they don't undertake some form of serious and significant change, nothing they do on the field for the final two months will matter, either. The team is so far behind so many teams relevant to their short- and long-term prospects that they can't reassert themselves as an entity worthy of our attention until they decide to become that kind of relevant team. Yes, that does mean seriously considering trading Justin Steele, despite his multiple remaining seasons of team control. Yes, it means listening open-minded and open-eared on Hoerner, and yes, it means trading Ian Happ if you can find somewhere he's willing to go. It means a lot of uncomfortable change, because while even Jed Hoyer now understands that his team is not a playoff-caliber one, there's a more important truth that doesn't seem to have settled into the minds of either Hoyer or many Cubs fans: the team isn't even close to being a serious contender for anything worth winning. Thus, they need to be thinking the same way they were at the 2021 and 2022 trade deadlines, even though (or specifically because) they don't want to end up on as long and dispiriting a competitive timeline going forward as they were on in 2021 and 2022. This roster wasn't built to sell, and isn't well-positioned to do it, but that's because the front office was drastically wrong about the quality of the team it had assembled and developed. They're in a tough position from which to sell, but an even worse one from which to do anything else. They need to grow up and face some tough realities about their own unseriousness. View full article

I like that thought too. Catcher feels like an area of need, dunnit? Mo Baller probably isn't a true backstop.

Yeah, second is the only place where Morel has looked comfortable, right? I would slot him there and see whether the reduced pressure and increased comfort got him back in touch with his offensive talent. In the meantime, I'd probably prep Shaw as a third baseman, understanding that his overall athletic profile would probably make second a natural fit if and when that turned out to be the best place for him.

Though a fan favorite and a player under team and cost control for two and a half more seasons, the Cubs' second baseman might be the best realistic trade chip for the team this month. Four contenders, especially, stand out as potential partners. Image courtesy of © Jeff Le-USA TODAY Sports It's been without power, but in the first half of July, Nico Hoerner has appeared to come around a bit at the plate. He's not ever likely to blossom into a powerful hitter, and he seems to be at his best when he understands and embraces that reality, using the whole field and keeping a sound plan at the plate. When pitchers work him away and he can stroke a line drive toward right-center field, he's the best form of himself. This month, Hoerner is batting .296/.344/.352, and if you go back 30 days, it's .282/.345/.379. That's not as valuable as the .375ish OBP he ran for the last three months of 2023, but it's a dramatic improvement from how he played for much of May and early June, when he seemed hampered by injuries he was electing to play through. Hoerner will be the Cub most worthy of careful watching coming out of the break, because if he's rested and healthy and maintains the approach we've seen lately, he might really take off. Should that happen, Jed Hoyer will find his phone ringing fairly often over the next 10 days, as he and his staff plot their course toward the trade deadline. Hoerner is a great defender and baserunner. He's 27 years old. Under the terms of the contract to which he and the Cubs agreed last spring, he'll make $23.5 million over the course of 2025 and 2026. He's a valuable middle infielder, though not quite the star the Cubs hoped they could help him become. There are three playoff-hopeful teams in desperate straits when it comes to second base, and one more who badly needs a shortstop. If they come calling about Hoerner, there might be a fit worth exploring. Seattle Mariners This one is already in the streets, as it were, though it got there by way of a fairly speculative report from Jon Morosi. The Mariners have a broad-spectrum need for more offense, but they're also not getting the defensive work they hoped for from offseason import Jorge Polanco. The switch-hitting veteran is a good cautionary tale for lovers of Hoerner, in that he had every tool but true power at his peak, but has not aged gracefully. Like Hoerner, Polanco is a former shortstop whose dearth of arm strength and the loss of half a step has forced him to move to second. This year, as he's turned 31 years old, he's hitting just .206/.302/.326, and he's struggling to stay on the field. Polanco is on a contract almost exactly as rich as Hoerner's, with a team option attached for 2025. Presumably, the Mariners want out from under those obligations. The Cubs and Seattle could swap the two players, keeping the cash essentially neutral and ensuring the best possible return for Chicago. The Mariners have a roughly average farm system, weighted toward players who are young and far from the big leagues, but they and the Cubs could still match up nicely on a trade. Colt Emerson, whom the M's took 22nd overall last summer, is one name worth watching in such a move, but so is Brody Hopkins, whom they took much later and who converted from the outfield to the mound after transferring during college. Hopkins is a high-ceiling arm who could move quickly through the farm system, and would have to appeal to a Cubs organization still building up its pitching depth. Boston Red Sox If possible, the Sox are even more destitute at second than Seattle, with a mélange of bad options through which they've shuffled hopelessly this season. They're in the unique spot of being weak on both sides of the keystone right now, and while their farm system holds hope for those positions in the medium term, new Boston boss Craig Breslow (the erstwhile Cubs guru) didn't acquire those guys, and might not be enamored of those possibilities. Either way, in the meantime, the Sox have possession of a Wild Card berth at the moment, and would surely be willing to swap a little bit of the last front office's farm system for the chance to secure that spot, even as they build toward a more robustly competitive future. Kansas City Royals You can't deny it: Hoerner just feels like a Royal. The biggest surprise contender of the season to date, Kansas City has tried a large number of players at second base, but none of them (not Michael Massey, not Nick Loftin, not (unsurprisingly) Adam Frazier) has brought both the caliber of defense they demand and any level of offensive competence. Hoerner could be a salve for that problem. He'd be a nice medium-term double play partner for the more explosive Bobby Witt Jr., and the kind of buttress they need in the lower portion of their lineup. He'd also thrive in the big spaces of Kauffman Stadium, on a team that loves to steal bases. The Royals' farm system is weaker than most, but it's trended in the right direction this season. Carter Jensen, whom they drafted out of high school in 2021 and have brought along slowly to ensure he sticks at catcher, is hitting .271/.384/.436 in the Midwest League, and should be promoted to Double-A roughly any minute (be it by the Royals, or some acquiring team). Atlanta Finally, there's the preseason NL East favorites, who suddenly find themselves lagging well behind the Phillies and who have a hole at shortstop. They're getting a very rude reminder of why Orlando Arcia was so willing to sign a very team-friendly contract extension, as he's hitting .211/.244/.333 this year. Arcia's not going to recover or improve. The team isn't much invested in him, but nor do they have another viable option at the moment. Hoerner would be a huge upgrade for them, and he would essentially be a time-release replacement for the man who bumped him off shortstop a year and a half ago. Atlanta's farm system is better than it has any right to be, given how consistently excellent and aggressive they have been under Alex Anthoupolos. The question is whether they would view Hoerner as a sufficient step up to justify depleting their depth at the top. The Cubs shouldn't trade Hoerner to Atlanta without getting one of Nacho Alvarez, AJ Smith-Shawver, Spencer Schwellenbach, or Hurston Waldrep, but those four are all either in Triple-A or the majors already. Alvarez is a shortstop, but really only profiles at third base in MLB, and would be an OBP machine but one without power. He's blocked by Austin Riley. Atlanta might be open to moving him, but whether they'd do so for Hoerner probably depends on what they think they could get out of him, above and beyond what the Cubs have. The other three are potential mid-rotation starters, and are all very close to being so in the big leagues. It's hard to let such players go, when you're in the middle of a long winning window and intend to win another World Series soon. Trading Hoerner, like trading Justin Steele, would be part of a multi-faceted maneuver aimed at restructuring and reloading an organization that can't currently compete with the likes of the Brewers--let alone the titans on each coast. Sending him out would allow them to plan for Matt Shaw or Christopher Morel at second base in the next year or two, and perhaps for much longer. Getting a great arm for him might make it easier to trade Steele for the kind of major offensive force missing from the system, and having such a player under cost control (while getting out from under their eight-figure annual obligations to Hoerner) would make it easier to go replace Steele or land a lineup anchor via free agency. Things would have to come together nicely, but the Cubs have already taken some calls on Hoerner, and those won't stop until the deadline comes--unless they move him first. View full article

Before swallowing the bitter pill of trading a beloved left-handed starter with a bulldog mindset and an ever-improving track record, the Cubs would have to be convinced that doing so was netting them a transformational talent. There might be a perfect storm brewing, though. Image courtesy of © David Banks-USA TODAY Sports After this season, the Cubs will still control the rights of Justin Steele for three more years, assuming they don't trade him first. Steele reached arbitration as a Super Two player last winter, and is making $4 million this season. He's going to get expensive over the next few years, but everything about his performance over the last two calendar years suggests he'll be worth it. Since Jul. 19, 2022, only one pitcher with at least 250 innings pitched has a lower ERA than Steele's 2.70 is impending free agent southpaw Max Fried--and he's at 2.68, in about 45 fewer innings than Steele has thrown. As discussed yesterday, though, Fried is one of a small but exciting cadre of pitchers set to hit free agency this winter, and since Steele won't be cheap over the course of his arbitration years anyway, maybe it makes more sense to invest in one of those guys--if you can get a player who alters the future of your franchise on the positional side, in the process. It's very rare that any team will let go of such a player in this cost-conscious, youth-oriented sport, but Steele is the kind of player who compels teams to do so. Three and a half years of team control is a lot, and we're talking about one of the game's best starters. In the heat of a pennant race and having made an unfortunate habit of battling injuries in their starting rotations, three teams stand out as having both the young talent and the motivation to make a big move. Baltimore Orioles It's no secret that Baltimore has the deepest, scariest collection of young hitters in baseball. The trick is getting prospect-hugging executive Mike Elias to let go of any of them. He's right to cleave to these types of players, whose value doesn't diminish much until you have a truly embarrassing surfeit, and the Orioles are trying to establish themselves as perennial powers in the AL East, just like the Yankees. The team is inching toward that spot where they do need to move a young hitter or two, though, if it means capitalizing on the opportunity in front of them and leavening long-term fan engagement by making a deep run in October. They traded from their depth to add Corbin Burnes this winter, but Burnes will be a free agent at season's end, and he's not going to give Baltimore any kind of discount to stay put. A longer-term answer and a complement to Burnes atop the rotation would secure the Orioles' place as the favorites for the junior circuit's pennant, this year and into the future. Jackson Holliday is probably out of reach, even for a player with long-term control, like Steele. His rude introduction to the big leagues notwithstanding, Holliday is still one of the five or six best prospects in baseball. Not far behind him, though, are slightly less balanced sluggers Coby Mayo and Heston Kjerstad. Mayo is a Christopher Morel-esque third baseman, which is to say that his future is probably in right field or at DH, but unlike Morel, he seems to have an optimized approach and the ability to lift the ball consistently to left field. He could be a perennial 30-homer threat (with 40-bomb upside) in the middle of the Chicago batting order, with an above-average OBP to boot. Kjerstad is a bit more likely to work as an outfielder in the long run, though he'd be harder to pry away, too, since (unlike Mayo) he has already shown the ability to hammer big-league pitching and is on their big-league roster. He and Mayo are good echoes of the Michael Busch situation from this winter, though: extremely talented players blocked within a great organization, to whom the Cubs might provide the crucial opportunity. The Cubs could only get one of them for Steele, of course, and they'd have to be right about which one, but they'd also land some secondary piece in the trade. Los Angeles Dodgers Hey, speaking of the Busch trade, maybe the Cubs could revisit that very well. It's not clear when Yoshinobu Yamamoto will be ready to take the mound again for the Dodgers. Dustin May just had his annual season-ending surgery. Walker Buehler isn't himself anymore, and whenever Clayton Kershaw returns from his own offseason surgery, it might be to make his last ride with the team of whose excellence he's been the biggest symbol for the last 15 years. There are holes in this rotation, and there's a deep hunger in this fan base for a championship in a season that counts. They still haven't won one since 1988. After signing Will Smith to a 10-year deal (even if it's not really a 10-year deal) this spring, the Dodgers have another prospect with plenty of pedigree who doesn't have a clear path to playing time. Dalton Rushing is batting .266/.377/.459 in the Double-A Texas League, as the team brings him along slowly in the system. Rushing, 23, is a lefty batter and a no-doubt catcher who's not going to have to move to first base or DH. He'd almost certainly be in Triple-A for any other organization, and in many, he'd already be starting at catcher. Rushing isn't the only enticing player the Dodgers have, either. Josue de Paula is an outfielder who's not even 20 yet, and who has real star potential. As Kevin Alcántara's prospect star dims, de Paula is a player with the same kind of upside that excites so many about Alcántara. The comp illustrates the risk with such a player, but don't lose sight of the reward that comes with that, if the player pans out. The Dodgers also have such an impressive pitching pipeline that rounding out a trade package would be easy and fun. Maybe the Cubs could get Jackson Ferris back. Minnesota Twins One of these things is not like the others, right? The Twins are neither a financial behemoth nor a lauded producer of superstar prospects. Yet, they're marching toward what would be their fourth division title in six years (although one was in that season that doesn't count), and quietly, they've become one of the deepest organizations in baseball. They have three different players who could headline various versions of a very intriguing Steele deal. Walker Jenkins would probably be the toughest to peel away, and he's also the furthest from the majors. For those reasons, maybe he's the least likely or important of the trio. He might also have the highest ceiling, though, with a chance to be a plus-hit, plus-power, plus-glove outfielder who goes to multiple All-Star Games. The funny thing is, Emmanuel Rodriguez has that potential, too. Though just 21 years old, Rodriguez already has 167 plate appearances at Double-A Wichita, and he's batting .298/.479/.621 there. That OBP is not a typo. Rodriguez has 42 walks in that short time, which is typical of him: he's one of the most patient hitters in professional baseball. He also has speed and power, and will stick in center field until he's 30 if he doesn't end up on a team that also has Pete Crow-Armstrong. Rodriguez is on a rehab assignment in the Complex League right now; injuries have been the only thing capable of slowing his ascent to the majors. He'd be a marvelous headliner in a trade, though. So would Brooks Lee, whom the Cubs could have taken instead of Cade Horton in 2022--but who signed for about $1.2 million more than Horton did, when the Twins took him right after Horton. He's now with the Twins' parent club, and looks like a star-caliber second or third baseman who would be able to plug and play at either spot for the Cubs. The Twins would be loathe to let him go, of course, but with Willi Castro, Carlos Correa, Royce Lewis, José Miranda, and Edouard Julien, they have so much depth across the positions Lee plays that they might surrender Lee for the affordable control and playoff upside of Steele. Mayo, Kjerstad, Rushing and Rodriguez stand out, especially, as prospects who match proximity, impact potential and attainability, and who could anchor a trade package for Steele that would have to at least get Jed Hoyer talking. As the Cubs make what Hoyer has termed "tough decisions" over the next 12 days, they have to think about whether keeping Steele and paying him handsomely for the next three years is the most sensible course--or whether it would be wiser to add a potentially elite position player with more team control to their mix. View full article