Matthew Trueblood

The Chicago Cubs' rookie ace takes the mound for the team's series opener Monday night in Atlanta. He's still the league's ERA leader, but to remain dominant, he has to keep making changes. How? Image courtesy of © Kamil Krzaczynski-USA TODAY Sports Everyone you know wants to talk about Shota Imanaga. Every baseball writer you've ever heard of (and maybe one or two you haven't) has jumped in to try to explain and celebrate the greatness of Imanaga's first six weeks in MLB. I can't even judge them for it, because I have been doing the same thing for months--since before he even debuted, and then right after he did so, too. The last week or so has seen a scramble to get to the bottom of Imanaga's greatness. An MLB.com piece by the excellent David Adler dug into the characteristics that allow Imanaga's fastball to play up, relative to his velocity. (That was a theme of the above-linked piece from right here at North Side Baseball, in January, too.) Adler's piece also touched upon the uniqueness of Imanaga's splitter, which I wrote about for Baseball Prospectus in early April, and that pitch was the central focus of Meghan Montemurro's deep dive at the Chicago Tribune late last week, as well. Taking a bit more of a holistic tack, the insightful Kyle Kishimoto covered Imanaga's sterling work so far for FanGraphs, within which he cited the extremely detailed, novel take of Michael Rosen (at the Pitch Plots Substack) earlier in the week. Utilizing release angles on a pitch-by-pitch basis and breaking down Imanaga's mechanics in exquisite detail, Rosen discussed Imanaga's seemingly exceptional command and the way he manages to attack the top of the zone so consistently despite a low release point and arm slot. Somehow, after all of that, I still think there are a couple of interesting things we can say, by way of updating our understanding of Imanaga as he takes the mound for the eighth time. Let's say them, shall we? First of all, as beguiling and unique as both Imanaga's fastball and his splitter are, they will quickly see a decline in their efficacy if hitters start to feel confident of which one they're about to get. In his first couple of starts, Imanaga was very fastball-heavy, either still looking for the feel on his signature splitter or trying to establish command and consistency with the new, top-of-zone focus the Cubs have instilled in him on the fastball. Since then, though, he's steadily increased his splitter usage, making himself much less predictable for opposing hitters. That very unpredictability has helped his stuff play up, even as the league has gotten more data on him and should be figuring him out. His splitter has earned more whiffs with increased usage, in defiance of the principle of diminishing returns. Very soon, I think, there will need to be more than two pitches in this mixture, to make the recipe keep tasting as good as it has thus far. Technically, of course, there already are. Imanaga has tinkered with a sinker, and he's fairly comfortable with both a sweeper and a curveball--though neither has been especially effective so far. Eventually, Imanaga probably needs one of those pitches (the sweeper is, perhaps, the best candidate) to take a step forward, but for now, he's getting by because hitters have less hope of guessing right on pitch type with each passing appearance. The locations of those two pitches complement each other so perfectly, too, that's it's viciously hard for hitters to accurately distinguish them. Given the release angles and mechanics discussed so completely in Rosen's piece, the directions in which Imanaga's fastball and splitter diverge from one another inscrutably. From a wide angle on the first-base side of the rubber, he steers the ball across the plate with remarkable consistency, attacking the upper, glove-side quadrant. I've said this often before, but it's funny how much it messes with hitters when a pitcher is comfortable pounding that section of the zone. It's a huge part of what makes Jacob deGrom so good, when he's healthy. Obviously, deGrom's velocity is also a key characteristic, and one Imanaga lacks, but as we've discussed before, Imanaga has plenty of other elite traits on his heater: spin, vertical movement, and a flat approach angle. deGrom has an exceptional slider, which breaks along the vertical line that fastball traces and bites a bit to the glove side. Obviously, Imanaga's splitter goes the opposite way, laterally, but the gist is the same. The consistency of Imanaga's locations on those two pitches is cruel. For righty batters, especially, it looks like the fastball is coming in at the letters, over the middle or slightly inside on them, but just as often, it's the splitter, diving to about shin-high on the outer third of the plate. Soon, opposing managers will try to counter that by running more lefty batters at him, but that could make his sweeper a more effective weapon. Let's take one last look at the splitter, though, through the lens of the new bat-tracking data released to the public via Baseball Savant on Sunday. As soon as that data hit the site, nerds everywhere (including at least four of the authors mentioned above, if you count me) were all over it, looking for interesting nuggets. Here's one I unearthed. The new metrics don't just include swing speed. The site now also lists swing length for each hack a hitter takes, measuring the distance traveled in three-dimensional space by the tip of the bat from the beginning of the swing through the (real or theoretical, depending on whether the swing resulted in contact or not) point of contact. As you would guess, longer swings tend to be faster swings, but they're also more prone to whiffs. Quickly, though, I realized that that's not true in equal measure for all pitch types. On fastballs, the average length of a swing that makes contact scarcely varies from that of swings that result in whiffs. On breaking balls and offspeed pitches, though, swing length matters a lot. Largely because it becomes a proxy for messing with a hitter's timing, manipulating swing length is a good way for a hurler to reliably induce whiffs on non-fastballs. Pitch Type Group In Play Swing Length Whiff Swing Length Hard 7.1 7.1 Breaking 7.5 8.1 Offspeed 7.6 8.3 This is the definition of getting a hitter out in front of a pitch that (with a velocity difference from the fastball that is a key variable in getting whiffs) is designed to do precisely that. A hitter goes to make contact in a given spot, but they're fooled, and their bat is a half-foot farther in front of home plate (and probably in the wrong place in another dimension or two) than they anticipated. Imanaga, unsurprisingly, has been very good at inducing unwantedly long swings on his splitters. I've highlighted a few other Cubs here as points of interest and reference, but the long and short of it is simple: Imanaga gets whiffs on the splitter because he's better at getting hitters' bats out of position with it than most pitchers are on their offspeed offerings. No team Imanaga has faced yet has posed the kind of threat to him that the Atlanta club can. Monday night could be his first tough outing of the year. The more we see (and read, and think) of him, though, the less plausible it seems that anything short of an injury can truly sidetrack the Cubs' imported ace. View full article

I *am* with you on that part; I think I wrote as much when he came up. My thing (and here's where *I'm* probably on an island, but so it goes) is that I'm not sure development is ever coming. I hated the approach he was taking in Iowa, just swinging at everything when it seemed like he needed to be working on exactly the opposite. And he looks overmatched a LOT at this level, and the approach sucks. I increasingly view him as living somewhere at the intersection of Corey Patterson, Brett Jackson, and Félix Pie. He's probably got a few years as a second-division regular in him, but I'm not buying him as a long-term answer at this stage. So I could see keeping him and trusting that whatever improvements he's still capable of can just as easily be made in a defense-forward part-time role, which is where I'd be aiming to settle him anyway.

I don't *WHOLLY* buy this, but it's worth noting that a lot of baseball people say AAA is worse than it's been in a long time right now. I'm not sure it's serving a strong developmental purpose for players at PCA's phase. Personally, I like the idea of batting him ninth, never giving him a third PA in a game unless it be in very low leverage, but getting his defense for at least the first six or seven innings most days. (I know that's not how most people think about substitutions, taking *out* your defensive stud late, but I have long felt that was an unexplored place to find value. More balls in play early in games, before the strikeout dudes in the bullpen come in. Plus you can keep more options open for the moment in the 5th-8th when his spot is due, see what kind of hitter (righty? lefty? power? contact?) the situation demands, and you haven't burned anyone.

I don't think that's happening. I won't say it *couldn't*, and I'm divided on whether it *should*, but I doubt it will. Happ wants to be in there, and what he's dealing with (lingering hamstring issue) is not serious enough to push him out, in his own opinion. That matters, here.

The Chicago Cubs' off day Thursday is their first since Apr. 22, and their last until May 19. They faced the ferocious heat of Dylan Cease and Robert Suárez against the Padres Wednesday, which is doubly difficult during such a long stretch with so few days off. Here's the thing: it's about to get worse. Image courtesy of © Kamil Krzaczynski-USA TODAY Sports On Wednesday, the Pittsburgh Pirates announced that Paul Skenes (the No. 1 overall pick in last year's MLB Draft and the best pitching prospect in baseball) will make his debut for them on Saturday. They didn't announce the corollary, but any simple reader of the schedule can see it: Skenes is almost certain to make his second career start against the Cubs, too, the following week. If the Pirates use a six-man rotation in the short term (which seems likely, given their current group and the caution with which they've handled their top young arms), the Cubs will also see flamethrowing rookie starter Jared Jones twice in the next 10 days. Late in games against Pittsburgh, they'll see Aroldis Chapman and David Bednar. In between series against the Bucs, they'll take on Atlanta, and over the next fortnight, they could well see Chris Sale twice, too. That's after catching Dylan Cease for a second time this season on Wednesday. We've already discussed the fact that the Cubs are right in the middle of the toughest stretch on their entire season's schedule. The way the pitching matchups have fallen, especially around so few days off, has magnified that. It's not a figment of your imagination or an overreliance on anecdote we're talking about, either. Cubs hitters have seen the hardest average fastballs of any team in baseball this season, at 94.9 miles per hour. They're trying to overcome seeing better velocity than anyone else, but that's very hard to do when your lineup isn't at full strength, and harder still when the schedule has been so grueling. This can't excuse losing (or even eking out 2-1 wins) in all of the upcoming contests against overpowering aces. If the Cubs want to demonstrate that they're a playoff-caliber team, worth being taken seriously, they need to do so by putting together competitive at-bats and scoring some runs even against opposing aces. If they can't do that, anyone who has been feeling especially bullish on this first-place team should revise their estimates of their potential downward. While Cease pitched well Wednesday, the Cubs failed, too. A good team having a good day puts up a better fight than the one Chicago mounted, even when a good pitcher is going well. It's hard (and often wrongheaded) to evaluate a lineup during a stretch of so few days off and so many formidable opponents, but the Cubs have put themselves in this position. They could have (and absolutely should have) spent anywhere from $25 million to $50 million more this winter to improve their offense and their pitching depth. If they had, they would have two more wins than they have now, and the stakes of the stretch just ahead would be lower--not just because a little bit higher a percentage of the wins needed to reach October would be in the bank, but because everyone could be more confident that the team is good enough to get that far. As things stand, this is a team that entered the season with well-founded projections of a record right around .500. They've won games at a better clip than that so far, but some unsustainable performances are propping up the record, and some of the biggest questions about this team have yet to be answered in any encouraging degree. The Cubs have a tough draw here. It would be maximally fair to this roster to keep expectations low for the rest of the month, and to hope they can catch fire when the schedule softens up slightly in late May and June. The schedule doesn't soften as much as it used to, though, especially when it comes to fastball velocity, and this team isn't good enough to casually accept a prolonged period of mediocre play. The team will have to savor and make the most of its off day. Starting tomorrow, the job remains difficult, but there are no excuses for not getting it done--other than the undesirable one that they just aren't good enough. View full article

Timing is everything. At a juncture in the season when the Chicago Cubs needed relief from a building narrative about blowing late leads; at a moment when Tuesday night's game desperately needed a quick resolution; and at the critical point in the flight of a conspicuously placed fastball, Michael Busch's timing was perfect. This isn't the end of a story. Busch might not have fully solved his problem with that pitch, and even if he did, there will soon be another round of difficult adjustments due. It is, however, the end of a slump. That swing is the kind that gives a hitter the confidence that abandons them when they're getting beaten in the same place over and over. Pitchers will have to move on, at least for a bit. And in the meantime, Busch secured the most exciting win of the season to date. View full article

During a transition segment on the radio home of the Chicago Cubs Monday afternoon, a few hosts had a good conversation about the team's second baseman and his power potential. The big question at issue: Can he find a way to hit for more power? Image courtesy of © Kamil Krzaczynski-USA TODAY Sports It's no secret that Nico Hoerner has been a hit-over-power, speed-over-power, defense-over-power guy during his Cubs tenure. He's only managed 23 home runs in 1,736 career plate appearances, and if we're honest, that overstates the extent of the power he's displayed. Fourteen of those 23 homers (and 61 of his 109 total extra-base hits) have come at home, and anecdotally, when he does clear the wall, it tends to be narrowly, on warm days and/or ones on which the wind is blowing out. A brief discussion between Laurence Holmes, Dan Bernstein, Matt Spiegel, and Danny Parkins centered on whether that could eventually change. Hoerner is sturdily built, and every so often, he takes a huge, aggressive swing that suggests he's trying to tap into more power. As the hosts noted, "more power" doesn't have to mean 20 home runs a year. Hoerner's swing seems more geared toward splitting gaps, and with his speed, merely doing that with moderate consistency seems like it should net him 40 doubles and triples a year. Alas, he only had 27 such hits in 2022, and 31 in 2023. So, is there more to be unlocked here? Unfortunately, I strongly suspect that the answer is no. It's not just that Hoerner seems to prefer taking aim at the opposite field, or that he hits the ball on the ground somewhat more often than even doubles hitters usually do. It's also that, given how hard he's capable of hitting the ball, the league has sealed off its defensive weaknesses to hitters like him. First, consider that Hoerner's 90th-percentile exit velocity this year is 101.2 miles per hour. Of the 283 hitters who have come to the plate at least 70 times this year, that ranks 238th. There are a number of good hitters down in his area of that leaderboard, but there aren't any power hitters there. That's before even accounting for the fact that Hoerner puts it on the ground fairly often. Other guys in his range in terms of 90th-percentile EV include Mauricio Dubón, Ceddanne Rafaela, Gsvin Lux, and Brice Turang. What Hoerner does do well is hit line drives, and because he puts the ball in play so often, he can produce a huge quantity of them. Right now, he's averaging a launch angle just over 3 degrees on balls hit more than 95 miles per hour, which is a problem, but let's imagine that he can fix it. Even if he started hitting a large number of hard (85-100 MPH) line drives (launch angle 10-18 degrees), which he sort of already does, I'm not sure how well he would be rewarded for it. Why? Because we live in the Age of the Long Single. Here are swarm charts showing actual and expected results by qualifying batters on batted balls matching the criteria above, back in 2016. I've highlighted three players with skill sets loosely correlating to Hoerner's, just to illustrate the potential value of the ability to hit firm, low liners and run a little bit. Dustin Pedroia, José Ramírez, and Ian Kinsler all shared Hoerner's blend of speed and line-drive mentality, with great hand-eye coordination keeping their strikeout rates low. They plugged a lot of gaps and reaped a lot of doubles from their efforts. That was back when teams were still learning the macro-level lessons to which Statcast data eventually gave them great insight. Nowadays, replicating those results is very difficult. Here's the same swarm chart for 2023 and 2024, as one oversized season, with Hoerner and another pair of comparable hitters highlighted. Studying this, you might be tempted to note the large discrepancy between Hoerner's expected and actual averages on those batted balls, and to count him as unlucky. He's also getting fewer extra-base hits, even as a share of all hits, than his batted-ball data on these liners suggests. Alas, it's not luck. It's a combination of the league's evolution and Hoerner's inability to subvert it. As those lessons from Statcast seeped into the water supply for teams, they adjusted their outfield positioning. Even the shallowest center fielders of 2024 play, on average, about as deep as the average center fielders of 2015 and 2016. The same things are happening in the corners. It's not quite a no-doubles approach, but teams have moved all their outfielders back (all else equal), with the idea of cutting off more would-be gappers and holding hitters to long singles. Let's imagine, now, that Hoerner not only gets the ball off the ground more often, but also hits it a bit harder. Moving the sample of batted balls we're looking at from 85-100 MPH out to 90-105, here's the distribution of outcomes on low line drives since 2015, league-wide. Defensively, the league isn't maximizing the out rates on those batted balls. They are, however, holding batters to singles on them better every year. This, remember, is basically the outer edge of Hoerner's reachable range. Even if he stretched and found more pop, he'd be moving out into a range within which extra-base hits are less common all the time. His speed should allow Hoerner to force the issue and stretch the odd would-be single into a double, but it doesn't always work that way, because his lack of long fly-ball power allows teams to play him in such a way as to cut those line drives off sooner than they might against a batter like Christopher Morel. The league plays deeper than they would have a decade ago, even against a hitter like Hoerner, but they don't have to play as deep against Hoerner as against a true power threat, so they can still get to the ball within range of a strong throw to second base most of the time. It's not impossible for Hoerner to evolve into a hitter with more power. I suspect, however, that it's functionally impossible for him to evolve into as good a hitter as he already is, with more power. Right now, his highest-quality contact--by far--comes to dead center and right-center. That's a result of how his swing works, and a lot of the great things about his profile (his contact skills and plate discipline, especially) are tied in with that manner of things. For as long as it remains true, Hoerner isn't going to rack up extra-base hits, because teams will have a fairly easy time holding him to singles based on the way he hits the ball and his tendency to hit it best to the big part of the park. A change in approach that draws more of his best contact around toward left field would alter the balance of things. It would probably also mean more strikeouts, fewer walks, and little overall improvement. Though his body and his existing platform of skills makes it tantalizing to dream on his upside, the reality is that the current version of Hoerner is two things: a very good hitter, and probably the best one he'll ever be. The Cubs need a bit more from their lineup, but they should expect and endeavor to find their upgrades elsewhere. View full article

The Chicago Cubs' offense remains inconsistent, and its failure to fire at all over the first five innings of Monday's loss to the San Diego Padres was a key factor in that defeat. Another, though, was the latest in a chain of bullpen meltdowns that has to stop. What's the secret? Image courtesy of © Kamil Krzaczynski-USA TODAY Sports Some fans have sharply criticized Craig Counsell's deployment of his new team's relief corps this season, even as they have acknowledged that the talent with which he's been asked to work might be insufficient, and even with the understanding that the ultimate responsibility for massive failures to perform falls on the shoulders of those who have thus failed--in other words, on Adbert Alzolay, Jose Cuas, and the other hurlers who have done the actual work of letting games get away. There's been a thread of conversation drawn out from the premise that Counsell, who built and burnished his reputation in Milwaukee partially on bullpen management, was supposed to prevent these kinds of things from happening. By and large, I find that line of thinking misguided, though it's understandable. Counsell does bear responsibility for the utilization of the pen, but a front office that overestimated its own pitching depth and a series of injuries that would have been hard to forecast (and which feel a bit like karmic recompense for the team's hubris) have conspired to put him in a tough position. The line already bordering on cliché from such heavy use is true: It's impressive that the Cubs are 21-15, even if they've gotten there in sometimes frustrating fashion. Let's turn our attention specifically to Monday night, though, because I think there's some interesting stuff to say about that contest. It was Justin Steele's first start since Opening Day, and he looked great, but Counsell lifted him with two outs in the fifth inning, after the star southpaw had thrown 68 pitches and faced 18 batters. Richard Lovelady came on in Steele's stead, to face left-hitting Luis Arraez, but he also stayed in to start the San Diego sixth, in a scoreless tie. In my opinion, three important things are true about the series of decisions Counsell made in this game, and about the way Cubs fans have interacted with them (and will, until Tuesday night's game begets a new narrative). Here they are. 1. It was the right night to let a game get away. Every now and then, it is a manager's job to demand that their team earns a win themselves. Not every tie game in the sixth can compel a skipper to flip open the case over the activation switch and fire up their 'A' bullpen. Trying to will burn out the guys whom a team needs to trust to hold leads late in a season. Sometimes, even when a returning co-ace gives the evening a sense of extra import and potential momentum, you have to shrug and let Richard Lovelady and Daniel Palencia try to hold things together. If the Cubs had a 2-0 lead going into the sixth, I might sing a different tune, but at 0-0, it was proper to ask Lovelady to wade even through a right-leaning, dangerous heart of the Padres order. This is my extremely rational side talking. Analytically and objectively, this game called for a bit of a reset, especially because the offense did nothing for the first half of the game against Yu Darvish. I'm not sure how removing Lovelady and bringing on Palencia without forcing the former to wear it a bit and soak up another few outs jived with that rationale, but it did seem like Counsell was willing to let the game go if the offense couldn't assert itself and prove the contest winnable. They didn't, so he was doing his duty by protecting both Steele and his top bullpen arms. 2. Counsell might not fully understand how hard the universe pushes against the Cubs, sometimes. Alright, time to lean all the way the other direction, and embrace some irrationality. I admit that this sounds like unhinged paranoia, but I mean it in a more serious and less panicked way than others might, especially when the stakes are higher than they are right now. Here's my take: be it the culture of the team, the physical properties of Wrigley Field, the higher average attendance and fan investment (including palpable fan anxiety), or some metaphysical aspect I don't quite believe in but can't rule out, the Cubs work a little bit uphill late in games, compared to other teams. I've held this opinion for two decades, first in a far more meatball, teenaged form, but even as I've become a nationally-focused baseball writer and spent time closely covering other teams in addition to the Cubs, I feel this. There's a tightness to games that shouldn't be tight, when the Cubs are involved. There's a sense of near-despair that sets in (not in me, but, seemingly, in the team or the gathered fans) when it shouldn't--when games are tied, or even when the Cubs have the lead but issue a seemingly innocuous one-out walk in the seventh. Some people felt this, and then believed it entirely dissolved back into whatever evil crevice first disgorged it once the team broke its many curses and won the 2016 World Series. I've never felt it changed much at all. Sometimes, they do win the wrestling match, but this team seems to have to wrestle with the baseball gods in a way others don't, whenever being genuinely good (especially in a lasting way) seems within reach. A manager coming into the team from outside always has a learning curve where this is concerned. Deep down, baseball men don't believe in forces beyond their ken, and they think they can control any situation. In Milwaukee, Counsell believed that, and he was right. In Tampa Bay, Joe Maddon believed it, and he was right. In San Francisco, Dusty Baker believed it, and he was right. At several stops, Lou Piniella believed it, and he was right just about every time. Leo Durocher, Dallas Green, and Jim Frey believed they could control the previously chaotic, too. They were all accomplished and respected baseball men. They all had to be roughly disabused of that belief in their control over things, once they took over the Cubs. I happened to be in a hyper-rational period of my life when Maddon took over the Cubs, and I heavily criticized a lot of the decisions he made as he took his lumps from whatever unique form of gravity pulls the Cubs downward. Ultimately, though, I give him a lot of credit. To a greater extent than most of his predecessors (and to a much greater extent than his successor, prior to Counsell), Maddon proved nimble enough to adjust and come up with a new plan when he encountered The Wrigley Whatever. I don't think Counsell yet understands what he's up against. I don't think the Cubs' demons are exorcised (although I also don't actually believe they're demons; I'm using a mystical shorthand for an intangible but non-magical Whatever); I don't think the 2016 championship solved anything. Counsell's remit, like Jed Hoyer's, should be to finish the work of the previous regime and make the Cubs a normal big-market, cornerstone franchise in this sport, capable of the decade- or decades-long stretches of sustained success enjoyed by every other such franchise in existence (the Dodgers, Giants, Yankees, Red Sox, and Cardinals), but never by the Cubs. To do so, eventually, he has to grapple with The Whatever. I suspect that will have to mean leaving starters who are pitching well in games a bit longer than he did in Milwaukee, where relief pitchers just don't suffer the same cosmic deflection when they try to throw a 2-2 slider. I suspect it will have to mean occasionally bearing hideous blowouts and having to designate usable hurlers for assignment, to better shield some of the guys with a bit more upside from overwork. I tend to think it also means letting fewer close games get lopsided out of a concern for the following week; Maddon got good at snatching up any win that wandered across his path. That was how he briefly became the cat and made The Whatever a mouse. I also suspect it will take another few months before Counsell even really groks the need for those kinds of changes. I think he's still thinking rationally right now. Generally, I applaud that. Generalities just don't stick very well at the corner of Clark and Addison. 3. Most importantly: this was the kind of boring loss everyone has been begging for. The only thing interfering with the enjoyment Cubs fans should be deriving from a strong start to a strange season has been the unpleasantly plunging shape of several of their losses. Openly, in some cases, fans have been asking for a boilerplate, 6-2 loss that would leave everyone feeling flat but not live inside anyone's head for more than one night. Despite a fun little fake rally and some frustrating missed opportunities to finish the comeback, this was that kind of game. You're not supposed to win, or even be in, many games in which you are held scoreless over the first five innings. The late runs (and even the stranded runners) really don't matter much. This was a standard-issue loss, and was probably likely to be a loss from about the fourth inning onward. The Cubs can use it to reset a bit, and fans should do the same thingl. I've already spent too many words on a couple of squishy notions and a couple of questionable (but probably correct) managerial choices. Again, this game, on its own, doesn't demand to be remembered. It just spurred me to trot out a few thoughts that have swirled in my head over the course of the first 20 percent of this season. As the Cubs get healthy and their schedule opens up a bit, they should be able to lean into an improving talent base and overcome The Whatever a bit more easily. View full article

The ace of the 2023 Chicago Cubs makes just his second start of 2024 (and, hopefully, his first full one) Monday night. Will we see him use his full arsenal? And what, exactly, does answering that question entail? Image courtesy of © Lily Smith/The Register / USA TODAY NETWORK By and large, Justin Steele is a two-pitch pitcher. He has a fastball (a cutter, really, but some sources label it as a four-seamer), and he has a slider, and those two offerings account for nearly 97 percent of all the pitches he throws. The tendency, when analyzing pitchers who lean so heavily on a set of offerings, is to dismiss the remainders as inconsequential. In some senses, it's a reasonable stance. In his rehab outing at Triple-A Iowa Wednesday, though, Steele threw three sinkers and five changeups. That would have qualified as heavy usage of those pitches in any start for him last year. Maybe we should pause for a moment and take a harder look at how he uses those two pitches, to figure out when, why, and whether they matter more than we think. We're still setting aside Steele's curveball, here. He only threw that pitch 18 times last year, and it's not a good one. Nor does it have any clear utility. As it turns out, though, the same can't be said of the sinker and change. Though those appear rarely, when they do, it's clear what Steele is trying to do with them--and they work pretty well, all things considered. In total, Steele threw 48 sinkers and 28 changeups last season. Of the changeups, he threw three to each of the following: Nolan Arenado, Paul Goldschmidt, and Bryan Reynolds. Of the sinkers, he threw two to Bryce Harper, three to Luis Arraez, four to Christian Yelich, and five to Corbin Carroll. Those are cherrypicked names, but not the only examples. Steele disproportionately throws these two pitches to good hitters. All three of the sinkers Arraez saw were in Steele's start against the Marlins last May 5, the second straight turn in which he faced that team. Later in the season, when he also faced the Diamondbacks on a second consecutive turn, he threw a total of seven sinkers and changeups. We can start to articulate a theory of usage for these ancillary offerings, based on the above. Steele almost never shows an average or worse hitter either of these pitches; he feels he can beat them with the cutter and the slider. Occasionally, if he thinks they've picked up on something or they've just had a lot of looks at him in a short period, he'll slip those pitches in against such a hitter, but he mostly reserves them for very good hitters whom he needs to catch by surprise, or whose bat paths spell danger for his main offerings. Twenty-four of the 28 changeups he threw came the second, third, or fourth time through the lineup. The sinker usage was more balanced in this regard. Unlike the changeup, which is all about just forcing the hitter to see and adjust to something new, the sinker is also about getting inside, where Steele is more comfortable pitching. As you'd expect of offerings that are designed to catch hitters by surprise (but in which Steele doesn't actually have very much confidence), he uses them mostly early in counts, although late in games. Over two-thirds of the sinkers and changes he threw were in 0-0, 0-1, or 1-1 counts. Steele was rarely trying to put anyone away with the sinker or the change. What he wanted was either weak, early contact or a stolen strike, plus the small but nonzero value of putting another pitch in the hitter's mind. He doesn't throw these enough to have hitters thinking about them in most situations, and they aren't good enough offerings to dominate in a vacuum, but they can create some situation-specific uncertainty. Given these parameters--he mostly threw the offerings against good hitters, the second and third time through the order or when they'd seen him less than a week before, in neutral counts--the results against them are pretty respectable. Batters hit .294/.333/.353 against his changeup and sinker, when plate appearances ended on them. Overall, he got 24 strikes that weren't balls in play, threw 37 balls, and allowed 15 batted balls. The average launch angle on those 15 batted balls was -7 degrees, and only five of the 15 were hit at least 95 miles per hour. In context, that counts as success. I think it's fair to say that, while Steele still relies on two pitches, there's more to his repertoire than that. In tough situations, when the circumstances make it unlikely that he can continue dominating with the cutter and the slider, he does turn to those marginal extras, and it works well enough to get some key outs. It might be more important than we realized to have the odd trick in one's back pocket, for such moments, even if the pitches aren't good enough to be bigger parts of a hurler's mix. As Steele returns to the Cubs rotation, keep an eye out for his third and fourth pitches as contests unfold. View full article

The top pitching prospect in the Cubs organization made his Triple-A debut Saturday, giving us a first glimpse at hard data on his pitch mix. As it turns out, it looks a lot (and maybe more than you'd have guessed) like the team's incumbent ace. Image courtesy of © MATTIE NERETIN / USA TODAY NETWORK The results were mixed in Cade Horton's first start with the Iowa Cubs. There were also some things to monitor, though not outright causes for concern. Most of all, though, there were indications of what kind of pitcher Horton is, rather than just how good he is. The similarities to Cubs ace Justin Steele are significant--more so than I would have guessed, at the very least. If you're reading this, you probably understand that Steele is far from being the prototype of the modern top-line starter. He really only throws two pitches (although, more on that coming tomorrow, right here at NSBB). He doesn't throw especially hard. His fastball doesn't have the carry that is the signature trait of many elite heaters. In fact, it's more of a cutter than a true four-seamer, despite continuing to be labeled as the latter in most circles. Here's Steele's pitch movement chart for last season, from the catcher's (or batter's) perspective. Steele's success comes from making it so hard for hitters to distinguish that cutterish fastball from his slider. A fastball that already has some of the movement characteristics of a slider interferes with the batter's efforts to pick out one offering and attack it. The absolute movement difference between his fastball and slider is smaller than for most great pitchers, which is why his strikeout rate tends to be lower than other aces', but he induces lots of weak and harmless contact, thanks to that same trait. Now, here's Horton's pitch movement chart, but from the pitcher's perspective, so that we're looking at his movement more or less the same way we were looking at Steele's. It's hard to compare this to Steele's, because of the massive difference in volume. The pitch classification algorithm also needs some time to learn his arsenal better. Because of how hard he throws his curveball, a handful of them got classified as a slider, mucking with the movement average for the pitch. Because of how much cut the fastball has, it mistook a few of his heaters for sliders, too. Still, you can see the gist, right? Horton has a four-seamer that actually cuts a bit toward his glove side, more often than not, whereas most guys' run a good five or six inches to their arm side. That pitch pairs nicely with his slider, just like Steele's does. These are radically unusual movement profiles. This chart shows the horizontal and vertical movement of four-seamers by lefties throughout the league last year. I've highlighted Steele, Shota Imanaga, and Luke Little, to demonstrate how much the team seems to like unusual fastball movement profiles. Steele is, if it's possible, even more of an outlier than this suggests. Many of the guys similarly far from the pack are relievers with weird arm angles; Steele is a high-volume starter with an essentially ordinary delivery. It's freaky to have this kind of movement from that slot, just as it's freaky for Imanaga to get so much ride on his heater from a low release point. As unusual as Steele is, though, a righty like Horton having the same profile would be even stranger. The only northpaw to whom we can reasonably compare Horton is Sonny Gray. That's an encouraging comp, but it's lonely out on that island. Other things distinguish Horton from Steele. That changeup looks like a major separator, despite its lack of vertical movement relative to the heater. Its huge horizontal movement differential should make it a pitch he can throw for weak contact against lefties, and it augurs well for his potential to develop a sinker down the road, should he need or want to. The curveball also looks like more of a weapon than Steele's. Gray, like Steele, has success with his fastball because of its unusual shape, and despite its pedestrian velocity. Somewhat surprisingly, looking at just this one game's data, Horton faces a similar constraint. He only averaged 93.7 miles per hour, even with the algorithm reading some of his more cutter-like and slower fastballs as sliders, and his fastest pitch of the game was 94.9 MPH. His scouting report (and previous readings even this year) have him sitting 94-96 and touching 98, so it could be that he was just a little bit tight or trying to mitigate the risk of overthrowing in his Triple-A debut. It could also be that, as he stretches out toward what would be a traditional big-league starter's workload, he's giving up some of his hottest heat (and the carry that came with it) for more of that cutting action. Either can work, and he can still be an elite starter either way, but the risks attached to each possibility and the shape of his eventual performance could vary widely, depending on which thing is happening. There's only one truly negative indicator here, and it's more something to watch than something over which to wring our hands at this early juncture. Horton has some of the very worst release extension you'll see, at an average of 5.8 feet. In other words, he covers just 5.8 of the 60.5 feet between the rubber and home plate. The league average is right about where Gray is, at 6.5 feet. Steele averages 6.4. Since the start of last season, 179 pitchers have thrown at least 400 four-seam fastballs. Horton's extension on his would rank 170th in that group. Effectively, that little extension takes a tick off the fastball, which is why most of the guys in that range (Kyle Hendricks, Lucas Sims, Luke Weaver, José Urquidy, Alex Faedo, and more) have fastballs that play down, relative to their raw velocity. Horton's delivery might not yet be a finished product. For that matter, his pitch mix probably isn't, either. He's close to big-league readiness, but not quite there. Over the next few starts, the movement profile of his fastball, the confidence he shows in his curveball and changeup, and the three-dimensional readings on his release point will be important things to watch. We're getting close to seeing him in the majors, and when we do, it might look an awful lot like the mirror image of Steele. By then, though, he needs to have command as good as Steele's, or have made an adjustment or two that make him materially more complete. View full article

A very good start went suddenly and (eventually) fatally bad for Ben Brown Thursday. It's a pattern we've seen from his before, and a reminder that he's still more clay than sculpture. Image courtesy of © John Jones-USA TODAY Sports About two-thirds of the way through his second pass through the Mets batting order, Ben Brown hit a speed bump. The fireballing Cubs starter had looked excellent through the first two innings, without fine control but with plenty of sheer stuff to make up for it. He was cruising, until he reached the fifth frame. When the wheels came off, though, all four came off at once, and he couldn't even finish the inning. His inability to do so led directly to the team giving up the lead and (eventually) losing the game, though that's a different thing than saying that he's at fault for the loss itself. Brown's flashes of brilliance have been less flashes than sustained but interrupted periods of sunlight between sliding ships of cloud. He doesn't just look good for an inning; he looks good for 12 or 13 batters at a time. Unfortunately, the talent to shut a lineup down for three or four innings at a time hasn't yet matured into the skill of pitching well enough to maximize the team's chances to win over a full-length start. There's an obvious reason for this, and a couple of more subtle ones. Let's discuss them all, and then tackle the interesting aspect of this discussion that sets Brown apart from most pitchers in similar (but importantly distinct) circumstances. Having only two pitches one trusts enough to throw against a big-league hitter is a major hindrance, if one intends to face that hitter more than once in a game. If one hopes to face the best hitters on an opposing team three times, it verges on crippling. Brown has tinkered with as many as five or six pitches, as recently as last season and this spring, but once games start, he's effectively limited to his fastball and his curveball. I've already written about the unique power of each of those pitches and the way they interact with one another. His fastball combines raw velocity, movement, and extension impressively. His curveball is unique and vicious. As two-pitch mixes go, his is special. It can flummox hitters more than one time through the order, which immediately distinguishes him from any number of pure relievers whose stuff doesn't hold up that way. Still, having two pitches is a limitation within which Brown is always working, and it's no easy problem to work around. It gets difficult to be unpredictable when your opponent is playing true-or-false baseball, instead of taking a full-bodied multiple-choice test. For just that reason, Brown tends to start finding trouble about 15 batters into outings. It doesn't even quite take two trips through the order, because although he holds his stuff well, he hasn't yet shown the ability to rein in command when he's not hitting spots with one of his pitches to one of his desired locations. That lets opponents learn more quickly, and they can communicate some things to one another, rather than just waiting for their own turn to come around again after their at-bat ends. On Thursday, Brown was very fastball-heavy through the first four innings. He was trying to hold the curveball in reserve, to some extent, and to keep his pitch count under control. As far as those goals went, he was having success. Unfortunately, he didn't have good command of his fastball to the glove side, and it cost him--if only in small, seemingly inconsequential ways, at first. Brown walked Brett Baty in one inning, because his curveballs were all coming inside on him and his fastballs were all out over the plate. Baty was able to distinguish them easily, and waited out 2-2 and 3-2 curves that weren't especially close. The next frame, Brown walked Brandon Nimmo, throwing him seven fastballs out of eight pitches. The one after that, he walked DJ Stewart on five pitches, with four of those being heaters, too. By trying unsuccessfully to beat those hitters with his fastball, he ensured that he would end up having to face the top of their lineup a third time just to get through five innings. Times Through Order Fastballs Curveballs Total 1 23 11 34 2 30 14 44 3 7 4 11 If his execution had been a bit better, the strategy might still have worked, but Brown wasn't able to hit the inside corner to lefties with the fastball--at least not to the satisfaction of home-plate umpire Chad Fairchild. He went in there repeatedly, often clearly trying to get a called third strike, and missed his spot by a little too much to manage it. Commanding the fastball to the glove side from an arm slot like Brown's is a rare and invaluable skill. That, as much as his velocity, is what makes ex-Mets ace Jacob deGrom so good. Since Brown hasn't yet found the feel to do it, though, he has to work around that shortcoming. It means extra pitches, and fewer strikeouts than the quality of his stuff might imply. It's a problem. In this case, though, the problem was exacerbated by another. Having only those two offerings, and throwing so many pitches the second time through the order, Brown was out of ways to fool them when he had to face New York hitters a third time. They didn't start obliterating everything he threw, at that point. Brown isn't like Kyle Hendricks, or even Justin Steele or Jameson Taillon, where it starts to feel like batting practice once hitters figure out what to sit on. Still sitting 97-98 80 pitches into his outing, Brown kept the Mets from swatting it out of the park. He just couldn't stop them from outguessing him, spitting on non-strikes, and poking singles. Here's the result (color) of every pitch he threw to a batter he was seeing the third time, plus the pitch type (shape) of those pitches. He might as well have thrown the top of New York's order squares and circles that third time, in real life. They knew what to look for, and where, too well. As evidenced by the fact that his trouble really began the second time through the lineup, what Brown needs is a third pitch. In the absence of it, he's not going to be a great, traditional starter, capable of frequently going six or more innings. It's fair, too, to wonder whether (after one more start, perhaps, to help the team weather a schedule short on days off until the end of this month) Brown could be ticketed for the bullpen, where this deficiency is much less important. For the moment, though, let's not assume that's the plan. It might end up being the right choice, but Brown can pitch more innings and have more value to the team if he can stick in their rotation, even with his two-pitch mix. Let's further assume that, while he's surely not done looking for a third pitch that will work, he's going to need to make do with the two he has for the balance of this year. How can he avoid things like what happened Thursday? How can he better finish his outings and give his team an easier path to wins on his days? FIrstly, he has to show opponents the curveball more, sooner. The key shift in mindset ought to be from having even a theoretical goal of facing 27 batters to knowing he's only going to be asked for 21 or so. Once he makes that adjustment in intent, adjustments in approach can follow. Being less predictable--going something more like 55-45 with his fastball and curve, rather than 67-33, as he was Thursday--will net more whiffs and get him through the lower half of the order cleaner each time. It will reveal the curve to the other team more and sooner, and make it harder for him to get outs with it later in the contest, but in theory, he should be able to pitch five innings of clean baseball on his good days and five innings with a couple of earned runs on his more ordinary ones. Then, it's up to Counsell to get him out of there before the other team can do a lot of damage. The manager has a needle to thread, but so does Brown. Such is the nature of pitching with just two offerings in a starting role. You have to understand that you'll be out sooner than a four-pitch guy might be, but you can't transition into a pure relief mindset. You have to sequence and set up hitters, rather than reserve the curve for later, but you don't want to overexpose yourself or end up at 85 pitches in the fourth inning, either. There's a trust transaction that has to happen, between Brown, his catchers, his coaches, and Counsell. It's not easy, but it's essential, given Brown's current skill set and the Cubs' current needs. More curves and fewer fastballs will slow the opponents' learning curve. It will make it less costly when Brown does come up against good hitters a third time, after they've drawn a bead on him, because the bases will be empty and they might have just one or two outs to play with, rather than three. Then, it all comes down to execution. Can he begin to hold the fastball on that gloveside edge of the plate? If so, the whole mix works better, and he can be a dominant (if not deep-working) starter. If not, he'll still be viable, but he might help the team more in the bullpen, where the second and third looks at him don't exist and the opponents' learning curve doesn't matter. Thursday's loss was disappointing, but not devastating. It was a missed opportunity for another step forward for Brown, but it might also have given him a learning roadmap for the next phase of his season and his career. If he did learn something actionable from it, then it was ultimately a good start. Even on a day he couldn't finish the way he needs to, he showed a lot of what makes him the most exciting pitcher on the active roster. View full article

After the offense had to scratch and claw to score a lone run in nine innings against the Mets Wednesday night, it fell to the Chicago Cubs' defense to save a narrow win. They rose to the challenge nicely. That's baseball at its very best. The game itself is never better than when a team executes a great relay, whether they get the runner or not. In this case, there was extra beauty in it, not only because of the high stakes and the closeness of the play, but because this play was quite original, too. When most Cubs fans saw this play, they probably flashed back to last summer, when Happ threw out two Brewers runners at home plate to (first) preserve an extra-inning tie and (one inning later) lock up the win for the Cubs on the 4th of July. Happ Nails Turang.mp4 As a baseball history geek, when I saw the ball leading Happ toward the line as much as it did, I thought of the most iconic such play of the last half-century: the fly ball on which George Foster threw out a would-be winning run in the legendary Game 6 of the 1975 World Series. Realistically, though, McNeil's fly ball posed a different, greater challenge to the Cubs than those plays. Statcast estimates the distance of the fly ball on which Happ killed the tying run against the Brewers last July at 242 feet. We don't have such fancy tools for Foster's great play, but it's in the same neighborhood. It might even have been less than that. McNeil's would-be sacrifice fly went an estimated 272 feet, and Happ had to go far enough to get it that he also couldn't load up behind the ball the way he did for the throw above. There were two things he had going for him, in opposition to the distance and the inability to get off his strongest possible throw. One is that Alonso was running. Alonso is big and slow. The other thing is Madrigal. It's hard to overstate how impressive a play Madrigal made to get this out. Firstly, he's not a native to third base, and although he's proved himself an elite defender at that position already and taken ample reps out there, he's objectively less versed in the nuances of that kind of play than an average third baseman. Second, to the extent that players practice this kind of throw, the responsibility of an infielder making the cut is nearly always to redirect the ball to trap a trailing runner, or to remove the risk of the throw getting away. True relays to nail runners on potential sacrifice flies are exceedingly rare. The relays on which an infielder makes the cut and then tries to throw out the lead runner nearly always come on long hits into the corners or the gaps. That means more time to set up for the throw from the outfielder, and more time to make sure of one's angle to home plate. Madrigal found himself taking a throw in a whole different rhythm than is typical for a third baseman executing a relay. How rare are such plays? Since 2015, there's only been one other double play (a catch in the air and then a kill of the advancing runner, rather than a relay on a hit or error) on which an infielder made a simple cut and throw through to the catcher, rather than a throw behind the runner or some other effort to create a rundown. Here it is: Villanueva Cuts a DP.mp4 This play comes from April 2018, and it bears some significant differences from Happ's and Madrigal's. The ball Andrew McCutchen hit was a liner that caught everyone a little bit flat-footed. Christian Villanueva did well to collect and fire the ball, but it was a weird play. This wasn't that kind of situation. It's truly unique, in the last decade. I found evidence (but not video) of similar plays by Dustin Pedroia in 2014 and James Loney in 2011, but within the last 20 years, that's about it. It's extremely rare for an infielder to make a relay and successfully oust a runner for a fly-ball double play. That brings us to the next point: Happ's throw was wonderfully accurate, and so was Madrigal's. The latter created a little space between himself and the baseline, anticipating Happ's throw and making sure Dansby Swanson didn't block his sightlines. Thus, Madrigal caught the ball in a perfect throwing position, and he was lightning-quick with his exchange and release. Finally, he delivered a perfect peg of his own. With Amaya slightly favoring fair territory to accommodate Alonso's slide, Madrigal's throw was perfect. It took him into Alonso's path and led him right down to the sliding runner. Amaya made a great catch and a quick tag, to complete the burst of baseball genius and eke out a victory. In very little time and with no chance of getting Alonso unless all three were perfect, these three threaded the needle. The Cubs won yet another game they had no business winning, and Madrigal, especially, deserves credit for making that possible. While he's overextended in almost any full-time role, he remains an indispensable asset defensively. The quickness, fluidity, and precision of his actions on the double play were worth perhaps 20 percent of a win by themselves Wednesday. That was a thrilling way to end a game; the Cubs keep finding good ones. View full article

Around the time the Chicago Cubs brought sidetracked reliever Keegan Thompson back from his exile in Iowa earlier this month, we wrote about how badly diminished Thompson looked there. That was true. It just hasn't been true since then. Image courtesy of © David Butler II-USA TODAY Sports It's hard to fathom the leap in stuff Keegan Thompson has effected since he re-joined the Cubs' active roster amid injuries that have taxed the bullpen in April. Maybe Thompson was dealing with a nagging, undisclosed injury when he started this season in Triple-A, not looking like he belonged on a big-league roster. Maybe he was experimenting with ways to pitch that would protect him from such an injury, and that just meant throwing less hard (among other things). Maybe he and the Cubs' big-league coaching staff discovered a mechanical tweak that was available to him, which his instructors in Iowa hadn't caught. Whatever the case, Thompson is a radically different pitcher right now than he was three weeks ago, when he was a minor leaguer and looked like he might never be much else again. We're not talking about a slight uptick or a tradeoff that got him more velocity at the cost of some other characteristic. Thompson's heater has transmogrified since he put the big-league jersey on for the first time. Level P Vel 10thVel 90thVel MxVel HorzBrk IndVertBrk Spin RelX RelZ Extension EffectVel HorzRelAngle VertRelAngle VertApprAngle AAA 38 91 90.3 91.8 92 2.1 14.9 2287.5 -30.4 72.2 6.04 90.4 -2.8 -2.01 -5.44 MLB 64 93.6 92.6 94.6 95.1 3.3 16.4 2483.7 -31.1 70.1 6.16 93.4 -2.66 -1.64 -4.46 He's yet to throw a fastball in MLB as slow as his fastest one in Triple-A this year. His spin rate is back up to where it was when he was going well. He has more riding action on the pitch, from a lower release point, which is giving him a flatter vertical approach angle. He's even getting slightly better extension toward the plate at release, making his fastball play a full three ticks faster than it did in the minors. Thompson's whole arsenal has changed, in fact. He's reintroduced his slider, and the relationship between his four-seamer, cutter, and sweeper is restored to what it needs to be for him to succeed. Here's how his pitches were moving with Iowa. And here's what they've done since he joined the parent club. Thanks partially to more consistently achieving the spin he wants and throwing it with more conviction, Thompson is also commanding the fastball much better. It's the pitch with which he attacks the top of the zone, and off of that tunnel, everything else in his arsenal plays up. The locations at which he threw heaters in Iowa betray a lack of a cohesive plan. But we've seen him much better utilize the upper half of the zone and attack hitters with the deception that creates, while he's been in MLB. If I had to guess, I would hazard that the team and Thompson did make a slight alteration to his arm slot. He's always had the kind of arm action that depends on great proprioception to permit command, because of the way he tilts his spine and lets himself lean toward the first-base line as he delivers. It's unlikely that he made a sudden and massive leap in functional core strength, which is one way to improve command and power in such a delivery, but if he and the coaches found a cue that lets him more confidently execute his motion and repeat his release point and hand position, it would explain a lot of what we've seen since he made it back. This version of Thompson, with bilateral command of the heater across the top of the zone; the curveball working off it against lefties; the sweeper doing the same against righties; and the cutter he can manipulate a bit to use against either type of hitter, is a very good pitcher. It's miles different from the guy we saw most of last season, and from the one who was throwing such tepid, scattershot stuff early this month. It would be foolish of the Cubs to rest on their laurels after reviving their erstwhile bullpen stud. He's still more solid than spectacular. The relief corps will still need further reinforcement, and Thompson shouldn't be treated as a relief ace. He's earned a shot to be a medium- to high-leverage option, though, by getting back the sizzle on his fastball and reminding the organization of what made him such a versatile weapon for their pitching staff in 2022. If he can keep throwing this hard and show this kind of command with such a deep arsenal, he's even a candidate to make some starts (or longer relief appearances) as the marathon that is the regular season unfolds. View full article

Whatever swagger the Chicago Cubs took into Fenway Park this weekend fractured Saturday, in a laugher of a loss. Then, the team sustained a gut punch of a loss in the rubber match there Sunday night. No matter. This is a time for mere survival. Image courtesy of © Bob DeChiara-USA TODAY Sports There are no guarantees in baseball, and certainly, there is no guarantee that the Cubs' injury problems won't get worse. They have Justin Steele, Julian Merryweather, Seiya Suzuki, Cody Bellinger, and Jordan Wicks on the injured list already, but that doesn't exhaust the risk of such issues on this roster. Thus, rather than even try to look ahead to the uncertain times (very soon, perhaps, for Steele and Bellinger; longer for the rest) when that crew will return, the team and its fans need to focus on cobbling together wins and sustaining health for the next several weeks. From April 12 through May 19, the Cubs only have two off days. That's five and a half weeks in which they must come to the park 36 times in 38 days, and it's not as though that stretch is light on travel. (They started it amid their West Coast swing two weeks ago. This East Coast road trip to Boston and New York only takes them to the halfway point.) However, after it ends, things really open up for them. While weather could always effect changes, the Cubs currently have a couple off days in the back half of May; three of them in June; three more (plus the four-day All-Star break) in July; a staggering five open dates in August; and three in September. In a sense, the dog days have come early for this team. If they make it through this gauntlet in good shape, they'll have ample opportunity to maneuver and convalesce over the final two-thirds of the season. Easier said than done, as this weekend forcefully reminded them. Taking a blowout loss on the chin, then feeling the sharp blow to the funny bone that was Wicks's trip to the injured list, the team got a glimpse of how they could suffer a May swoon very similar to last year's, even with what they've tried to convince themselves is a deeper team and what everyone agrees is a better manager. If the team doesn't find ways to stretch its rotation to six men for at least some portions of the next three weeks, they're going to pay a price for it. Maybe they already have, with Wicks going down, but Shota Imanaga could easily end up in the same boat if not given a better chance to steadily acculturate to the tighter turnaround between starts in MLB. They also need to suss out who will be able to provide them some competent offense at third base, DH, or in the outfield, to improve the rotations Craig Counsell has already been trying to use to avoid suffering team-wide burnout in a difficult early schedule patch. There might be players (like Richard Lovelady, who was called up to fill the recently vacated 40-man roster spot and give the team emergency depth from the left side in the bullpen) whom the team is more willing to burn in April or May than they would have been in the past. If this is the segment of the schedule with fewer chances for rest than any other, then now is as good a time as any to pull the trigger on a player without the ability to be sent back down, once called upon. We've already seen Garrett Cooper lose his place in the organization to the needed injury replacements and desirable roster rejiggering this April docket has impelled. We could see Lovelady, Carl Edwards Jr., Colten Brewer, and/or Julio Teherán depart via DFA by Memorial Day. If they help the team get to June fresher and healthier than they are right now, though, those expenditures will have been well worth it. In the second half, the Cubs can turn to prospects who are still forging themselves and wouldn't be ready even if called upon this week, like Cade Horton and Matt Shaw. A 17-11 start is a pretty good sign, and given the strength of the Cubs' schedule and the fact that they weren't full strength for any of it, that generality holds up to these specifics. The next 20 or so games will tell us much, though, and it's hard to discern what they'll tell us at this juncture. View full article