Matthew Trueblood

As we make a Monday check-in on the Cubs' playoff odds, what jumps out is that they've surged upward--but not primarily because of the division standings. Image courtesy of © Matt Marton-USA TODAY Sports The Cubs still have two series left against the NL Central-leading Brewers, and winning two out of three games in both would not only pull them within a game of Milwaukee, but assure them of the tiebreaker over the Crew if the two teams finished with the same record. Thus, they have some meaningful measure of control over their destiny even within the division, but the odds are stacked against them. According to FanGraphs, it's Milwaukee who owns almost a three-in-four chance of winning the division flag. Chicago really doesn't need to worry about that as much as they did a month ago, though. Whereas, in June, it looked like division title or bust for everyone in the Central, the Wild Card pack has fallen back so badly that the Cubs are now closer (2.5 games back) to the first Wild Card position than they are to first place in the Central. The Diamondbacks and Marlins look, if not like frauds, then like the not-quite-ready upstarts most observers projected them to be before the season began. The Phillies and Giants have both come back to Earth after stretches during which they looked like they might sew up the top two spots easily, and in fact, they play one another in Philadelphia this week, giving the Cubs a chance to gain ground on at least one of them with each win they manage in Detroit. As a result of all that, the team's Playoff Odds have roughly doubled this month, despite only a nominal change in their underdog status within the division. Whereas they were given 11.5 percent hopes to claim a Wild Card spot three weeks ago, they're now pegged at 33 percent. That's pushed them to the right side of a coin flip to reach the postseason somehow, and it doesn't even account for the fact that they're no longer in the running only for the second and third Wild Card berths, which would line them up to be visitors in a Wild Card Series. In effect, the top Wild Card spot is as valuable as winning the division. It's harder to claim, because there will be more teams in the running for it, but the Cubs would host a Wild Card Series at Wrigley Field whether they were the division champions or that top Wild Card winner. They still have head-to-head games left with the Giants, too, so they will have an opportunity to seize that position, rather than merely scoreboard watching. It's the Phillies who pose a problem. Partially thanks to bad timing, the Cubs were dominated by Philadelphia in head-to-head play this year, so they own the tiebreaker between those two teams. The difference between playing them in Chicago or in Philadelphia in October, too, could be decisive. It would almost be better for the Cubs, if they couldn't surpass the Brewers or the Phillies, to finish with the third Wild Card, thereby playing Milwaukee in Milwaukee for that playoff showdown. We're getting ahead of ourselves, of course. As has been the case for the last month, the Cubs just need to focus on winning the games on their own schedule. If they take care of business, they have an excellent chance to reach the postseason, as the projections are beginning to reflect. Still, it's nice to keep an eye on the standings and the odds, to gain a better sense of perspective on this race. The avenues to success are getting wider and more welcoming. The division race might not be as make-or-break as we first believed, and the most important objective of this sprint to the finish--earning home games in front of a rabid Wrigley crowd when the playoffs begin--seems to be more achievable than we might have imagined. View full article

The Cubs will send Drew Smyly to the mound to start Tuesday night's game in Detroit. That's a mistake, and a bizarre one, given their other recent choices. With the fifth spot in the Cubs' rotation coming up for the first time in a week and a half, a decision was due at the end of the team's series against the Royals at Wrigley Field Sunday. During their three-game set in Detroit to open a weeklong road trip, the Cubs will send Javier Assad to the mound Monday night, then let Drew Smyly return to the rotation Tuesday. In doing so, they'll eschew the opportunity to call up lefty prospect Jordan Wicks for that start. That's a glaring error, and one that should surprise and disappoint Cubs fans. Over the last month, David Ross and Jed Hoyer have given both voice and action to the notion of a sterner meritocracy governing the construction and usage of their roster. They traded for Jeimer Candelario to bolster the lineup, and in so doing, they said goodbye to the underachieving Trey Mancini. They also used that acquisition to (temporarily) disenfranchise Seiya Suzuki, giving more playing time to Mike Tauchman, despite the massive difference in the level of organizational investment in those two players. Earlier this weekend, they parted ways with Tucker Barnhart, another player to whom they were financially committed for 2024, because he was no longer able to help the team win. A fortnight ago, they had the same clarity about Smyly. He was demoted to the bullpen, amid a tailspin that has lasted considerably longer than did his impressive start to the season. He's looked better in short relief work, and given that he's a two-pitch pitcher anyway, it seemed like a tidy fit for him. Even so, when it became clear on Tuesday that Marcus Stroman would not be returning to claim this fifth slot in the starting rotation, Ross nodded in Smyly's direction from the beginning. That was fine, insofar as it was a gesture of organizational loyalty and commitment to a veteran player who will probably return next year in some capacity. Now that it seems to have been an earnest declaration, though, it looks like an unwelcome departure from the new mode the team adopted after its season-saving winning jag in July. In his last 13 starts (and start-like appearances, when Smyly worked behind openers Hayden Wesneski and Michael Fulmer), the aging southpaw had a 7.22 ERA, and there was not one iota of bad luck involved. He allowed 17 home runs in those 13 outings, and opponents batted .312/.380/.592. Pitchers who looked even more cooked than this have come back from the brink of unusability, but the odds are against Smyly being a successful starter again anytime in 2023. By not trading for reinforcements for the rotation at the trade deadline, the front office voluntarily left themselves open to the possibility of needing stop this particular gap. That was probably a miscalculation, but it did make some sense, given where they were when the deadline came and what it would have cost to add more than a backend starter on an expiring contract. The wall into which any justification of using Smyly this week runs is not about a player who might theoretically have been available three weeks ago; it's about one whom the team should have called up from its top minor-league affiliate. Jordan Wicks was the Cubs' first-round pick in 2021, which means that he hasn't yet been added to the 40-man roster. In fact, he doesn't even need to be added to that list this winter, which means that bringing him up to the parent club this year would be a proactive profession of faith in him. It wouldn't have to cost them anyone on the current 40-man roster, because they currently have two open spots, but it would force some early and difficult decisions this winter. That does have to be accounted for. Surely, the Cubs wish that Ben Brown were healthy right now, or that Caleb Kilian had figured things out to the extent they hoped when they recalled him earlier this month. Sometimes, though, it's the front office's job to embrace future headaches in exchange for making a playoff-capable team better in the short term. This is one of those times. Wicks saw an uptick in his fastball velocity in his most recent start with the Iowa Cubs, and with even that small bump, he profiles as a starter who can effectively go through an MLB lineup twice. In that same start, he also debuted a reengineered slider, with a combination of firm velocity and tilt that he hadn't previously shown in Triple A. In fact, Wicks's whole movement profile made more sense in this latest outing than in any of his previous ones at Triple A. He's getting more run on his sinker, so he can lose some of the depth and sweep on his slider without losing the effectiveness of that movement. It becomes easier to command, and easier to land for strikes, but not materially more likely to be hit hard. Those two pitches--the sinker and the slider--will be his bread and butter against lefties initially. Against righties, Wicks is a four-seamer and changeup guy, and he uses the curveball to change eye levels. That pitch had more depth on it than ever in his last appearance, and the extra velocity on the fastball only accentuated the contrast there. He's not yet a fully-formed mid-rotation starter, but he's taken major steps in that direction. The Cubs could and should have called him up to pitch Tuesday night with confidence, especially since the date beyond which his rookie status will be intact for 2024 has now passed. Maybe Smyly is a glorified opener, himself. If the Cubs intend to start him Tuesday night, but then swap him out for Wesneski after an inning or two, that's a fine stratagem. If they make it a bullpen game, sandwiched between what they surely hope will be long outings by Assad and Jameson Taillon against a weak Tigers lineup, that's acceptable, but it risks tiring out that relief corps at the front end of a long and crucial stretch during which they'll play 27 games in the same number of days. (Their only off day between last Thursday and Sept. 14 comes on Aug. 31, and it's immediately canceled out by a doubleheader in Cincinnati the next day.) At some point during the next month, the Cubs will need Wicks. As their upper-level pitching depth has been thinned by injuries and some truly nightmarish implosions, they've gotten steadily closer to being truly desperate. It would make more sense to work Wicks in now than to blindly hope that Smyly figured something out during a side session that he can bring back with him from short relief to the starting staff. Instead, the team is back to betting on a questionable veteran, rather than trusting and trying it with a younger and more talented player. Normally, this would be the kind of small thing at which we could shrug and grumble, but over which no serious worry would be warranted. Unfortunately, the Cubs haven't put themselves in a normal position. This is a contending team, with every bit of the talent possessed by any of the teams with whom they're vying for playoff spots, but they still bear the standings scars of their long period of mismanagement and underperformance in May and June. They also haven't fully availed themselves of opportunities to create a little more margin for error. They went 3-2 this week, but 3-2 at home (with plenty of chances gone by the wayside in the losses) at home against the Royals and White Sox only constitutes holding serve. All of that means that the Cubs need to treat every game as winnable and important. Starting Smyly sends the message that they still think they can afford to go easy now and then. It would be great if that were true, especially with the grueling schedule ahead. Alas, it ain't so. Wicks might make a start in Pittsburgh, or next week in Cincinnati, but if the team doesn't leave with at least a series win in Detroit, the pressure eventually placed on the young hurler will only increase. View full article

Losing a series-opening contest against the Royals Friday was the latest reminder that the Cubs' newfound status as credible contenders doesn't mean they have it made. They remain flawed, and overcoming those flaws might mean shifting their approach to their own roster. Image courtesy of © Kamil Krzaczynski-USA TODAY Sports Let us look to the Atlanta Braves. After all, they're currently the class of the National League, and arguably the best team in baseball. They're also very unusual in the way they deploy their position players, by modern standards. Last year, Guillermo Heredia spent almost the entire season on Atlanta's active roster, and he appeared in 74 games, but he totaled just 82 plate appearances. This season, Charlie Culberson spent two months on the club, but he only made a single appearance, collecting a hit in the only time he was sent to bat. These days, that's very strange. Thirty years ago (and certainly before then), teams prioritized their starting position players to this extent. They often carried 15 position players, but two or three of them would go unused (or very, very lightly used) for weeks at a time. Some managers innovated and made better use of their entire roster, through mechanisms like platooning and creative defensive substitutions. Mostly, though, they trotted out static lineups filled with the best nine players they had--or at least, the best nine they had available. Now, however, teams conceptualize player usage very differently. Some specific sabermetric findings, especially about the value of rest for catchers and about the aforementioned platoon dynamic, have encouraged this, but it seems much more deeply rooted. The new breed of baseball executives come from elite management programs and financial backgrounds. They've been relentlessly trained to maximize every asset at their disposal. Letting three or four roster spots become afterthoughts is anathema to them. Jed Hoyer is very much one of those executives. He's always been this way, as a team-builder: more interested in fingertip strength than in building glamor muscles. He's a depth guy, and David Ross (the career backup catcher) is an equally ardent believer in that principle. The Cubs actively seek platoon guys, and matchups in which they can make liberal use of their bench. They don't have a set lineup. Even since they acquired Jeimer Candelario, they've rotated Nick Madrigal and Patrick Wisdom into the lineup. Since Seiya Suzuki's brief and successful reset, both he and Mike Tauchman are getting regular playing time. It's not a nine-man lineup; it's a 12-man rotation. After Friday's frustrating loss, maybe it's time the team ditches that line of thinking, in favor of what's been working so well for Atlanta. Even against left-handed starters, the team should slot Tauchman in as their center fielder every day, with Suzuki in right, Cody Bellinger at first base, and Candelario at third. When September comes, they could call up Pete Crow-Armstrong to play often in center field, or just to come in as a defensive replacement. They can still tweak the batting order based on matchups, but they'll get better, more consistent defense (and probably no worse offensive production) by sticking to a regular lineup. That's not to suggest that they'll transform into the Atlanta lineup overnight. There's no Matt Olson or Ronald Acuna Jr. in this group, and even Atlanta's lesser hitters have some pop. The Cubs will continue to make do with a more OBP-centric approach, because they have no choice. Still, if they want to claim the NL Central title or win a Wild Card berth, they'll need to play extremely well the rest of the way. Tightening up their rotation of position players could be the best means of doing so. View full article

With Marcus Stroman sidelined indefinitely, the Cubs have rearranged their starting rotation for this weekend's series against the Royals. It makes clearer how the team intends to manage their ace's workload, but it raises other questions, too. Image courtesy of © Kevin Sousa-USA TODAY Sports After his start Saturday in Toronto, Justin Steele has 126 innings pitched this season. That's seven more than his previous career high, which he attained last season--before being shut down for the year with an injury after his start on Aug. 26. That was at the end of a lost campaign, though. This time around, the Cubs need their All-Star southpaw to be available and fully functioning all the way into October. That will require the occasional concession. This isn't (or at least, it ought not be) about keeping Steele's total seasonal workload below a certain number in order to protect him for the future. The famous Verducci Effect, named after baseball columnist Tom Verducci, is the alleged increase in the likelihood of injury if a pitcher logs more than 30 more innings in a season than he did the previous year. It became very famous in the early 2000s, as teams rapidly embraced the relatively new concept of shielding young hurlers from injury. The problem with it is that it's complete bunk. Never worry about the Verducci Effect. It was a junk finding by a reporter far out of his depth. Even the misguided Verducci was focused mostly on pitchers in their early and mid-20s, and Steele turned 28 last month. Again, then, raw innings total should not be a category about which the Cubs or their fans worry much. They're still going to be careful, though, because of Steele's specific history and his skill set. Last season was the first time he ever got to 100 innings pitched in a professional campaign. He wasn't shut down out of sheer proactivity then, either. A strained lower back shelved him, and made the decision easy. He's had hamstring issues. He missed time earlier this year with a forearm strain, an unwelcome reminder of the Tommy John surgery he underwent back in 2017. Durability has always been a major question for Steele, and because of his unique two-pitch attack, the Cubs have to do everything in their power not only to keep him healthy, but to ensure that he pitches at something close to full strength every time he takes the mound. The lack of a third pitch or overpowering velocity leaves him thin margins for error, compared to most similarly good pitchers. That's why, even though Steele last started Saturday and Jameson Taillon went Sunday, it'll be Taillon Friday afternoon at Wrigley Field, with Steele coming back Saturday on a full six days' rest. Despite the bad Marcus Stroman news, the organization has decided to make the most of the schedule quirk that left them with two off days this week, after the one they had last week between their road series against the Mets and Blue Jays. Steele is the beneficiary. Taillon will go on regular rest. The decision probably isn't solely about getting him extra rest, either. From here, one can vaguely map out the rest of the season for Steele, and it's likely to look like this: Saturday against the Royals Next Thursday in Pittsburgh Aug. 29 against the Brewers Sep. 3 in Cincinnati Sep. 8 against the Diamondbacks Sep. 15 in Arizona Sep. 20 or 21 against the Pirates Sep. 26 in Atlanta Oct. 1 in Milwaukee This way of aligning things sets Steele up to pitch in all but one of the Cubs' remaining pivotal series: both of the ones against the Brewers, the one against the Reds, both against the Diamondbacks, and the one in Atlanta during the final week. It only requires them to use a sixth starter once, and that on a getaway day in Colorado on Sep. 13. They also have the flexibility, this way, to decide against using Steele the second time they see Arizona, and to send him to the mound in that last game against Colorado, after all. The nicest thing about it might be that Steele sets up to start the first of their games in Atlanta, and thus to be on regular rest for the season finale. If that game turns out not to be important (either because the Cubs are eliminated by then, or because they've sewn up a playoff berth), they can scratch Steele, but this gives them the option to use him if the season is on the line. The first priority, at this point in this season, is getting as much good work out of Steele as possible, in order to increase this team's playoff chances. It will sound cold and calculating, but Steele is due to begin getting paid better via arbitration this winter. He's 28. The Cubs should protect him from overuse, but only insofar as it aids him in being ready to win the most important games of this season. This is no time to be coddling pitchers. This is no Stephen Strasburg 2012 situation, and the Nationals were just plain wrong to baby Strasburg that year, anyway. If things go as hoped, Steele has nine more starts left in this regular season, and the chance of another four or five in October. The goal should be, as safely as possible, to get him over 200 innings when all is said and done. View full article

Being swept by the White Sox would have been a huge blow to the Cubs' playoff hopes, and to the fan base's morale. On Wednesday night, the North Siders needed a hero. They got one. Image courtesy of © Kamil Krzaczynski-USA TODAY Sports At this stage of Christopher Morel's career, it's still hard to tell what kind of long-term role would best suit him. He hasn't found a defensive position at which he's truly good, and the one at which he comes closest to meeting that standard (second base) is filled for the Cubs through at least 2026. The electricity of his bat and his personality, though, make it even harder to imagine this team without him than it is to imagine him in any particular spot. Morel was in the middle of a prolonged slump when he stepped into the batter's box in the ninth inning Wednesday night. He's prone to those, and when they happen, they're especially ugly, because he strikes out at such a high rate even when things are going well. However, he's now delivered the game-winning extra-base hit in the team's final at-bat twice in the last four games, at a time when he's otherwise cold. At other times, when he's hot, his bat can carry the team almost on its own. He's now hitting .260/.327/.516, and for his career, he's hit 35 home runs and 72 total extra-base hits in 738 plate appearances. Morel's pivotal walkoff homer came at a moment when it was starting to be tempting to sketch out lineups that exclude him down the stretch--wherein Mike Tauchman is pushed to designated hitter by the arrival of Pete Crow-Armstrong and the reemergence of Seiya Suzuki. Every time that temptation even begins to burgeon, though, Morel seems to do something to dispel and discredit it. Morel commands such love and enthusiasm from his teammates, too, that it's hard to justify demoting him into what would be a vanishingly small role. This winter, the Cubs will have to send Morel to Hot Corner University. Maybe he'll never be a credible third baseman in MLB, but if there remains a chance of that, the team needs to maximize it. In the meantime, the rest of the way, Morel has to be the regular DH, pending any injury that might open up second base. David Ross can tactically shield him from bad matchups, especially if and when the Cubs add another solid bat to the mix come September, but the lineup is incomplete without Morel. He has the power they need--the dimension their offense otherwise lacks. That he's also as upbeat and energetic a player as anyone in the clubhouse is just a neat bonus. Whether the Cubs can carry the momentum of Morel's massive hit into their weekend series against the Royals remains to be seen. With another day off Thursday, though, fans can spend today just being grateful. Had the Cubs been swept by the wimpy White Sox, they'd still be 3.5 games behind the Brewers, and the frustration level would be sky-high. Instead, and in defiance of those who might have wondered if the team could sustain the run that brought them this far in the face of some ineffective starting pitchers and some injuries to others, the team pulled a game closer to the division lead and proved that they have some serious spunk. View full article

There wasn't any real harm in the Cubs' 5-3 loss Tuesday night against the White Sox. It was just one of those inevitable losses that happens, during a long season. Unfortunately, the Cubs can't necessarily afford the inevitable losses. Image courtesy of © Kamil Krzaczynski-USA TODAY Sports When players, coaches, broadcasters, and fans spend April reciting the old saw about every game counting the same in the standings, it seems forced. It feels like manufactured urgency. In April, we are all young, and life is long, and there is time to kill. Under the aegis of the promise of a long summer ahead, teams fritter and waste the occasional spring battle. Eric Hosmer can play for a while. The front office's confected bullpen can take time to settle and cure. Now, though, the truth that made those cliches so popular is falling hard on this Cubs team. On Tuesday night at Wrigley Field, they lost a game they could have won, but not necessarily one they should have won. The White Sox scored a few runs on an assortment of modestly struck hits against Kyle Hendricks, and Luis Robert landed the decisive blow when Julian Merryweather hung a seventh-inning slider. Hendricks's stuff is permanently diminished, and his arm-side command of the sinker is inconsistent. He didn't have it early on Tuesday, and it got him into trouble. Merryweather has been, by and large, excellent this year, but he seems to have an unfortunate knack for giving up long hits when the leverage index is highest. The Cubs lost the game on the bases, too. Steals set up two White Sox runs, and a deadeye's dart by Yasmani Grandal cut down Nico Hoerner to take the tying run off the paths in the home seventh. It was just a tough night. They happen. These are the contests that even 100-win teams lose--the ones where the luck and the lean of things just seem to go against you. Therein lies the rub. The problem is that, after starting 26-36 and 43-50, the Cubs have so little margin for error that even these losses hurt. The Brewers lead the division by 3.5 games, and the Reds are tied with Chicago. The Marlins have a one-game lead on them for the final Wild Card spot, and they also own the tiebreaker. There are only 43 games left in the regular season. Six of those are against the Brewers, and four are against the Reds. Seven are against the Diamondbacks, who lurk just 1.5 games behind them in the Wild Card chase. Three are against the Giants, who are two games ahead. Time is running short. The Cubs find themselves running and running to catch up to the sun, but it's sinking--racing around to come up behind them again. They're the ones who gave themselves so little time to close their deficits, so they have no one but themselves to blame. Still, it's a wrenching feeling, because there's no reason why Tuesday night's loss ought to feel lousy--except that it's a loss, and this has to be winning time. This team now has to play like something better than a 100-win team, and that might not be possible. View full article

In Saturday's game between the Cubs and Blue Jays, there were 18 fastballs that topped 99 miles per hour, and 13 batted balls that topped 98 in exit velocity. Suddenly, the Cubs can win games like that. Image courtesy of © Kevin Sousa-USA TODAY Sports At the crest of the huge prospect wave that became the core of their World Series-winning team, the organization was right on the cutting edge of everything. In 2015, they were an elite pitch-framing team, at a time when that craft was as well-understood, valuable, and easily quantified as ever. They were also one of the first teams to noticeably flip a switch and start getting the ball in the air, launching what has become the launch angle revolution of the Statcast Era. In the bullpen, they had (in Hector Rondon and Pedro Strop) a flame-throwing duo as formidable as any in baseball. Their starters missed bats, too--even without overwhelming velocity. That all held true through the title run of 2016, thanks partially to the infusion of velocity from Aroldis Chapman when Rondon began to fade. Immediately thereafter, though, it started to come apart a bit. You can see the reasons by studying the team's choices. They swapped Starlin Castro (who hit the ball as hard as anyone late in 2015 and throughout their playoff run) out for Ben Zobrist, a sturdy, versatile veteran who produced most of his value without demonstrating elite athleticism. They signed John Lackey to round out the rotation, and Lackey was very good, but he didn't throw hard or miss many bats at that stage of his career. They traded Jorge Soler for Wade Davis, and Eloy Jimenez and Dylan Cease for Jose Quintana. At every turn, they were acquiring older players whose value came from skill, rather than sheer force. That was fine, for a moment, when the team was stocked to the gills with skilled players and still had the dynamism of Javier Baez, Kris Bryant, Kyle Schwarber, Anthony Rizzo, Willson Contreras, and Addison Russell on which to fall back. Pretty quickly. though, they simply fell behind. The rest of the league kept increasing its launch angle and prizing high exit velocities. The rest of the league's average fastball velocity and slider usage steadily rose, ratcheting up whiff rates. The Cubs, locked into some choices and too stubborn or cheap to pursue others, stood still, and the world passed them by. That was still true, even into 2023. When the team was playing Eris Hosmer and Trey Mancini at the expense of Christopher Morel, they struggled to keep up with the power hitting of some of the more talented teams they encountered. They signed Jameson Taillon, in part, because he throws considerably harder than the back-end starters they've had over the last four or five years, but they also brought back Drew Smyly and Kyle Hendricks, and their top two starters are (by the standards of pitchers this good, in 2023) soft-tossers. Things are changing, though. In Julian Merryweather, they've found a reliever who (while less than perfectly reliable) can not only throw 100 miles per hour, but miss bats and hit the strike zone with it--as compared to Dillon Maples, James Norwood, and other recent relievers the team seemed to carry just to shield themselves from criticism for not having hard throwers. Part of their reason for investing in Dansby Swanson was his power. Cody Bellinger is hammering the ball, and had three of the 12 hardest-hit balls by either team Saturday. Homegrown compadres Justin Steele and Adbert Alzolay are slider-slinging bat-missers, and they showed out Saturday, too. The Cubs induced 20 whiffs by Blue Jays hitters; Blue Jays pitchers only got 14 swings and misses from Cubs batters. The Cubs had 10 hard-hit balls; the Blue Jays only managed seven. In a game that showcased modern baseball's intensity of speed and power, the Cubs outclassed (if narrowly) a formidable American League East club. They've spent over half a decade trying to win mostly on wiles and guile, and it's done little for them. Now, with a clean slate from which to work, they seem to have built (once again) a team that can keep up with the heat of the league's best competition. As they sit in the third Wild Card spot and eye a potential playoff run, that's an exciting development. View full article

An extremely promising ninth-inning Cubs rally died a tragic, avoidable death Wednesday night. Instead of falling back on the sacrifice bunt so often, David Ross needs to roll the dice and get his runners moving. At some point, understanding that they don't have elite power in their lineup, the Cubs need to more earnestly embrace the benefits of the new world that rules and dimensions changes have wrought this season, with regard to the stolen base. The team's success rate on steal attempts this year is 82.5 percent. That's too high. It means they're not being aggressive enough, and the choice to bunt to stay out of the double play and pray for contact from Morel (even assuming the bunt worked, which at least it did, this time) was a symptom of that syndrome. As every game and every opportunity to score in close contests becomes more precious, Ross needs to take better calculated risks. View full article

Though the Cubs led on the scoreboard, you could make a strong case that the Mets were a coin flip to win the game entering the bottom of the ninth inning Tuesday night. Nine pitches later, the game was over, thanks to the Cubs' dominant closer. Image courtesy of © Vincent Carchietta-USA TODAY Sports The maturation and evolution of Adbert Alzolay over the course of this season have been stunning. Two years ago, he was a half-successful starting pitcher, but he got hurt, and when he came back at the end of 2022, it was only in a long relief role, which still afforded him ample rest between outings. Before 2023, he had never made an MLB appearance on fewer than two days' rest. Now, he's made 21 such appearances. Of them, perhaps none was more impressive than Tuesday night's. Alzolay had last pitched Sunday, when (working on a second consecutive day and third out of four) he went through the meat of the Atlanta lineup to close out Chicago's series win. He had to do the same, now, but on the road, and with only a one-run lead with which to work. Worse, he had to go through Pete Alonso, who is one of the 10 most dangerous hitters in baseball and has a special knack for mashing Cubs pitching. The league is scoring 4.59 runs per game this season. That number is slightly goosed by the automatic runners in extra innings, so let's call the real number 4.50. That still means that each inning begins with a 0.50 run expectancy, on average. Alzolay was working, again, on a third day out of four. Francisco Lindor and Alonso are not average, ordinary hitters. There's a good case to be made that Cubs fans (and Mets fans, too) should have narrowly expected New York to at least tie the game in that situation. Instead, Alzolay ripped right through them. He didn't miss bats quite the way he does when he's fresh, but he still retired the Mets easily, including starting the game-ending 1-6-3 double play with poise. For the last two-plus months, this has been the pattern. Alzolay just keeps growing more confident, and he just keeps coming up with big outs, even though he's now 50 innings into a season of doing a more intense job and enjoying less (and less-predictable) rest than ever before. The secret to his success, of course, is the Bolivar Slider. Around the time he really came into his own as a dominant closer, Alzolay became an unrelenting slider monster. It's been the key to his confidence and the inability of opponents to do anything with him. He's throwing the pitch well over half the time, yet, he's pounding the strike zone. He's honed the strike-to-ball slider beautifully, but he's also hitting the corners with both his four-seamer and his sinker. With just seven walks in over 50 innings, he boasts the ninth-best walk rate of 388 pitchers who have logged 30 or more innings this season. He's been overwhelmingly good. Alzolay has also claimed a privileged place in the Cubs clubhouse, and in the Cubs zeitgeist. He's developed a signature fist pump when he completes a save, but it's not the work of a man mad with ego. On Twitter and beyond, Alzolay hypes up his teammates as much as himself. His years-long friendship with Justin Steele has been well documented. He loves to talk about Steele's "Mississippi fastball" and Drew Smyly's "Arkansas curve," and that makes him more perfect for this team, still. When he made that great play to finish the win Tuesday night, he incorporated a loving exultation of the back of his glove into his celebration, an homage to Marcus Stroman, who does the same thing whenever he makes a good defensive play. His energy and his awareness of what makes his teammates great makes Alzolay a catalyst for the burgeoning chemistry in that clubhouse. The 2023 Cubs have a sense of place, and of identity, but it's made up of distinct and intact places and identities. The pitchers have cleaved to this trend of modifying the key pitches certain of their cohort by putting their home state or town in front of it. The hitters are, unexpectedly, led by Mike "the Palatine Pounder" Tauchman, and by Cody Bellinger, whose name is synonymous with Los Angeles and the Dodgers dynasty. Dansby Swanson left his hometown team to sign here over the winter. Jeimer Candelario, although without his own agency in the decision, has gotten a chance to come back to his first baseball home. To some extent, this season will be defined by one place--the one in which the Cubs finish in the NL Central standings. Alzolay, though, is the most brilliant exemplar for the way this team has already met reasonable criteria to be called a success. They're packing Wrigley Field, ensuring that that place once again defines and embraces the team. They're gelling into a group that can represent both the neighborhoods that take pride in being Cubs enclaves and the wide, diverse diaspora of Cubs fans. They have fun, and they have swagger, but none of that would matter or last very long if they weren't winning. Alzolay is a terrific source of the first two, and he can be that way because he's contributed so much to the third. View full article

Over this season's final 49 games, the Cubs have to give themselves the best possible chance to win every day. In the week since the trade deadline, they've done so--but it's necessitated a drastic choice. Image courtesy of © Vincent Carchietta-USA TODAY Sports Of the seven starting lineups David Ross has drawn up since the arrival of Jeimer Candelario, only two have included Seiya Suzuki. The Cubs' incumbent right fielder has lost his regular gig, at least for the time being. Mike Tauchman has started the other five games in right, with Cody Bellinger in center field and Candelario at first base. It's awkward for everyone involved, but less than two full seasons into a five-year deal on which they spent over $100 million, Suzuki is going to have to earn and fight for playing time the rest of the way. It took a long period of struggle to unseat Suzuki from his position. He's batted just .207/.268/.307 since June 15, and one of his three home runs during that span was against a position player pitching in a blowout. In years past, big commitments have paralyzed the Cubs when it comes to redistributing playing time, but that's not what kept Suzuki in the lineup for so long. Rather, it was a combination of a lack of better options, and the fact that Suzuki is persistently, enigmatically less than the sum of his parts. When the other options at first base included only Trey Mancini and Patrick Wisdom, Ross was inclined to use Bellinger there most of the time. That necessarily meant putting Tauchman in center, and left right open for Suzuki. After the team acquired Candelario, though, the constellation of possibilities shifted. Suzuki still wasn't producing at the plate, so it made sense to move him to the bench in favor of the more consistent Tauchman. It's maddeningly difficult to pin down what's ailing Suzuki, and it feels as though he should recover at any moment, but it's been a long drought for him. Let's take a look at what's happening. Firstly, Suzuki is undergoing a prolonged power outage. He consistently drove the ball early in the season, but that punch has faded badly as the year has progressed. Seiya Suzuki, Average Exit Velocity Over Time, 2023 Month Avg Exit Velocity (MPH) April 93.5 May 91.4 June 93.2 s. July 1 89.7 That's bad, but Suzuki is the kind of hitter who can usually weather some missing pop. He draws many walks, and puts the ball in play at a pretty high rate--or at least, he used to. Seiya Suzuki, Whiffs Per Pitch Over Time, 2023 Month Whiffs% (All pitches) April 8.9 May 7.5 June 6.8 s. July 1 12.1 That whiff rate since the start of July is still a hair below the league average. Even going on a per-swing basis, Suzuki is only a bit worse than the average, whiffing on 28.2 percent of swings since July started, while the league whiffs on 25.8 percent of them. With his extremely patient approach, though, Suzuki is always going to take a lot of called strikes. He can only afford to swing and miss at even an average rate if he's doing damage when he makes contact, and recently, he simply isn't doing so. Our Matt Ostrowski wrote about this issue last month. Suzuki's problem is that too much of his hard contact comes on the ground, where the chance that it becomes an out is substantial and the chance that it becomes an extra-base hit is virtually nil. That's a perennial problem for him. Right now, though, there's more going on. It looks, to me, like Suzuki is struggling with his timing and pulling off the ball too often as a result. Last year, he hit the ball to right field 33.1 percent of the time, significantly more than an average hitter. He's still capable of hammering outside pitches the other way, too. That was on display as recently as early June, in Anaheim. 6a87fefc-11a6-498d-ab40-3ce19c54e209.mp4 This season, however, Suzuki is only using right field 19.6 percent of the time, far below the league average. It's not because he's bailing out or selling out for power; his timing is just way off. Suzuki's bat path requires him to clear his hips fairly early, to generate bat speed, but that always creates the risk (if he guesses wrong on pitch type or location, or if his rhythm is just wrong) that he'll pull off and get the ball out on the end of the bat. That results in a lot of weak contact to left and center fields, and that's exactly the problem he's run into over the last month and a half. 02feecd3-6abd-44f9-a309-bb723a7858e6.mp4 Fixing that kind of problem can be difficult--especially without regular reps. Alas, the Cubs can't give Suzuki those reps right now. They have to make up ground in order to claim a playoff berth, and Suzuki doesn't give them their best chance to do so, offensively. There's still a role for him. His defense has been excellent, and he clearly has utility at the plate in certain matchups and situations. Until he can demonstrate having cured his timing problems or being better able to outguess opponents, though, he'll have to try to rediscover himself in inconsistent playing time. Hopefully, the Cubs can help him smooth things out via work in the cage or during on-field BP. In the meantime, Suzuki will continue to play mostly as a platoon bat and late-game tactical substitute. View full article

Before earning their series victory over Atlanta on Sunday, the Cubs made a notable roster move. To a pitching staff that got little reinforcement at the trade deadline and that needs some for the stretch run, they added a surprising but familiar name. Image courtesy of © Jayne Kamin-Oncea-USA TODAY Sports After the front office elected not to pony up for a left-handed reliever last week, it seemed like they intended to place a bit more trust in southpaw Anthony Kay, the only lefty in their bullpen at the time. Kay has minor-league options, though, and after he had a couple of tough, draining outings during the team's weeklong home stand, they sent him down. In his stead, they recalled Caleb Kilian, who will get one more chance to prove his utility to a big-league pitching staff. In neither of his previous stints with the parent club has Kilian been an effective pitcher. Last year, after a disastrous audition in the majors, he couldn't even get outs upon his return to Triple-A Iowa. He had some superficial things going for him, but none of the things that really make a pitcher successful in MLB in this day and age. He didn't throw hard enough to overcome the lack of movement on his heat. He didn't have enough command of his secondary offerings to weaponize them or keep hitters off that fastball. Some of that might have changed, and changed very recently. He's 4-0 in his last seven starts with the I-Cubs, allowing just a .565 OPS over that span, but it's in his most recent start on Aug. 1 that some things really seemed to click. He pitched six innings of one-run ball that day, allowing five hits and one walk but striking out six. He did it by completing what has been a slow evolution into a pitcher who offers opposing hitters tougher angles, achieves more effective movement, and can better overpower people when needed. Kilian has steadily raised his release point, getting behind the ball better with his four-seamer and creating a steeper angle from his hand to home plate. That change is part of a group of subtle but important mechanical tweaks, the sum effect of which is to make his breaking stuff much better differentiated from his heater in terms of movement without sacrificing anything in terms of deception. Here are his release points by month and pitch type throughout the portion of his professional career that has been tracked by PITCHf/x. This month is in the blue box. As you can see, he's never been so close to releasing the ball over the center of the rubber, and he's never released it higher. Those changes have wrought gains in movement and life on the fastball, which was Kilian's problem the last couple times he saw big-league hitters. They've also unlocked a bit more sheer velocity. He's throwing harder as this year goes on, with his average velocity in his lone August start up a full tick even since May. There's more horizontal and vertical movement on Kilian's four-seamer, which lets it better set up the cutter (the pitch he used to notch his final strikeout of that start last week, as seen above). He's not elite in terms of that movement, but he's gone from below- to above-average by making these adjustments. A guy with a four-seamer that sits 96 and can often touch 99, with average-plus movement, is a lot more effective than what Kilian showed before his last several outings. Just as importantly, he's been able to integrate these adjustments while balancing his four-seamer with his sinker. It's been tough for Kilian to balance his two fastballs and find the utility of each, but he's started to figure it out as he's made these mechanical improvements. His sinker has more rising action now, too. It's a close cousin to the sinkers Javier Assad, Mark Leiter Jr., and Adbert Alzolay use, now, which seems to augur well. Now that he's joining the big-league team, Kilian is likely to fill a long relief role. In fact, we could see him as a piggyback for Drew Smyly right away Monday night. Unofficially, he seems to slot into the same role Assad was in before he was pressed into starting duty. There's no reason, other than the possible mental block of having failed in the majors in each of his previous opportunities, why Kilian can't be similarly effective. It's easy to call him the last arm on the roster, but given the obvious weariness of the guys higher on the food chain, Kilian is still important to this team for the foreseeable future. Happily, there are at least this handful of reasons to think he's ready for that responsibility. View full article

Over the last three weeks, the Cubs' offense has been a well-oiled machine. It's even been good enough to cover up the fact that, all year, the Cubs have been getting by with three functional rotation slots, and two in chaos. Image courtesy of © Patrick Gorski-USA TODAY Sports Back in April, the narrative held that starting pitching was the strength of this team, and it was half-true. Justin Steele and Marcus Stroman had such tremendous months to open the season that it felt almost like an automatic win each time either of them took the mound. For most of April and May, Drew Smyly was nearly as good. He had a 2.60 ERA and 3.60 FIP through his 10th start, on May 23. Over that first month and a half, though, the rotation spots carved out for Jameson Taillon and for Hayden Wesneski were a constant source of agita. Taillon, of course, had a few uneven starts, then spent two and a half weeks on the injured list. When he returned, things were even worse. He ran a 6.93 ERA over his first 14 starts, of which the Cubs lost 12, before the gem at Yankee Stadium just before the All-Star break that seems to have turned around bis season. Meanwhile, Wesneski struggled to find consistency, and had to be optioned to Iowa in mid-May. The Cubs turned, at that point, to Kyle Hendricks, who made it back from the shoulder injury that had cut his 2022 season short. Immediately, Hendricks stabilized one of the two rotation spots that felt like scars on the schedule--but just as immediately, Smyly came undone. Since Hendricks's return on May 25, Smyly has a 6.75 ERA and is allowing a .964 OPS, in 12 outings. As I said, Taillon has been much closer to his true self since the beginning of July. That coincides almost perfectly, though, with the moment when Stroman went to pieces. Since his last start in June, Stroman has a 9.00 ERA. The Cubs have only won two of his seven starts, and one of those was very much despite his effort, rather than because of it. Now, he's on the shelf with hip inflammation, meaning that that rotation spot will be up for grabs for at least another week and a half. It was Taillon and Wesneski in April and May. It was Taillon and Smyly in June. It's been Smyly and Stroman ever since. At no point in this season have the Cubs had fewer than two dysfunctional rotation spots, and that's a tough way to win. It puts too much pressure on the offense and the bullpen, and even on the starters who are performing well. If two games out of every five feel like nearly automatic losses, a team has to win all of the other three just to stay above water. The Cubs' offense and bullpen have been up to the challenge at times, and since the All-Star break, they've been so good as to make it possible to forget just how rough things are. Now, the team needs to find a way to actually solve this problem, so that there's less pressure on both of those units down the stretch. Smyly's slot is the harder to fix, oddly enough. He's doing what his aging body can, and a move into full-time short relief (with Javier Assad stretching out to start in his place) is not an option, because Smyly just wouldn't be able to reliably get warm and be sharp on the kind of schedule relievers must keep. The team twice tried out an opener ahead of Smyly, during the last month, but they did it wrong. The best way to bail him out is to get it right, this time. With both Michael Fulmer and Wesneski, David Ross used his opener for one full turn through the Cardinals' (it was the Cardinals, both times) batting order. He clearly meant to give Smyly as clear a starting point as possible, so he could prepare almost normally. The Cardinals did, as the Cubs would have hoped, set their lineup differently than they would have if Smyly had started. By only bringing Smyly in to start the second trip through that batting order, though, Ross neutralized part of the Cubs' advantage. One part of the rationale for the opener is that a starter doesn't see the top of the lineup first. By starting halfway through the order, they minimize any issues with getting settled (you're less likely to give up a run or two in your first few batters faced if those are hitters 6-9 than if they're hitters 1-4) and don't start to experience the times through the order penalty within the game until the second time they face those weak batters. A starter working behind an opener should be able to go five-plus innings without seeing the best hitters in the opposing lineup a third time. The Cubs either didn't understand that, or misapplied the principle because of their secondary concern about the Cardinals' left-handed bench bats late in the game. Either way, they should put an opener in front of Smyly again. They just need to execute the strategy better. That might not turn that rotation spot into a match for the consistency and excellence of Steele, but it should at least stave off five-run deficits. Filling Stroman's slot is tougher, even though the hope is that his absence will be a brief one. Wesneski is the most natural candidate to get another shot, but he's yet to really solve his problem with getting lefties out. Even since he first returned from Iowa at the end of May, he's allowing a .656 slugging average to left-handed hitters. Until he fixes that. he needs to be deployed tactically, and shielded from lefties in situations where the Cubs could get hurt by a home run. Assad is the better choice. In his last nine appearances (dating back to late June), he has a 0.40 ERA, and is allowing a minuscule .426 OPS. He's accomplished that, in part, by paring down his pitch mix to mostly sinkers and cutters, and that's not necessarily an approach that would work in a long start, but he could give them four or five decent innings each time out. If they used Mark Leiter Jr. as an opener ahead of him, they could get to the late stages of the game with a chance to win more often than not. The best outcome, though, will be if Stroman does come back on a relatively quick timetable, at something closer to his early-season levels. Not all of the above needs to work. The Cubs have materially improved their offense, and although they missed their chance to do the same in the bullpen, Thursday night's outing from Leiter is a reminder that they still have some solid depth out there. They can survive one dysfunctional rotation spot. They just can't have two for these final 53 games, if they hope to make up the ground they still need to cover in order to win the NL Central or claim a Wild Card berth. 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