Matthew Trueblood

The hot bats in the Cubs lineup have overheated a bit lately. At precisely the wrong time, this team is losing touch with its offensive identity. Image courtesy of © David Banks-USA TODAY Sports This week's series at Wrigley Field matches the two teams who have seen more pitches per plate appearance this year than any others in MLB. The Cubs are even more of a patient, grind-it-out offense than the Brewers, though. Whereas Milwaukee's tendency toward running deep counts stems partially from their vulnerability to swings and misses, the Cubs whiff at a below-average rate as a team. No, in the place of the power they're missing, this team has done its best work when it has battled opposing pitchers to a stalemate, forcing opponents to use up their bullpen or getting great looks at a starter the third time through the lineup. This group of position players accomplishes the indispensable but difficult task of gathering, transmitting, and utilizing information gleaned from long early plate appearances admirably, and it pays off. Lately, though, that's not happening as much. See that cluster on the far right of the graph? That's the Cubs' last eight games, coming into Monday night's contest. It was a stretch in which the team didn't swing at fewer than 49 percent of the pitches they saw in any contest, easily the longest such streak of their season. All eight of those games are among the 37 in which the team has swung the most this year. As we well know, swing rate is a highly imperfect measurement of approach at the plate. Seiya Suzuki is having the best month of his career partially because he's swinging more often. He's more decisive up there. Still, it's hard not to read this as the accumulating impact of some hitters trying to make things happen in the stultification of the late summer. A decade-old study did demonstrate that plate discipline frays as the season wears on, and the Cubs aren't in any position to be the exception to that rule. They've been on edge and trying to survive, then surge, ever since the All-Star break. They're in the middle of a long stretch without an off day, and the cluster of games discussed above were mostly a long road trip through losing towns. Nonetheless, the Cubs have to get back to their consistent, sound team approach. They cut down their swing rate on Monday night, but it availed nothing, because they still looked tired, anxious, and overeager. They hit far too many Brewers pitches right into the ground, trying to get back what was lost when Jameson Taillon gave up four first-inning runs. It was irrational, but you could see the team trying to hack their way out of that hole. They weren't taking enough pitches to get into good counts, and thus, their swings weren't sufficiently aggressive. By the time they smoothed out that approach, they were too far behind even to make a game of it and put serious pressure on Craig Counsell's bullpen. Despite the atrocious numbers lefties have put up against Corbin Burnes this year, Mike Tauchman needs to be atop the batting order Tuesday night. Hopefully, he can set the tone, the way he has for much of the time since he claimed the leadoff spot. Jeimer Candelario probably also needs to be elevated, belatedly, to the second spot in the batting order, where his patience can further force the Brewers' hand, while Nico Hoerner's more aggressive approach needs to be reserved for when there's traffic on the bases near the bottom of the order. It's not a magical salve, but to generate offense the way they will need to against the better competition ahead, the Cubs have to recover their patience at bat. View full article

As we preview three games against the division-leading Brewers at Wrigley Field, don't fail to stop and appreciate the fact that the Cubs have come this far. This will be fun. Image courtesy of © Charles LeClaire-USA TODAY Sports It's not too much to say that this is the biggest series the Cubs have played at Wrigley Field since September 2019, when they hosted the Cardinals with a chance to catch them in the fight for the NL Central. They'd lost the two games prior thereto, but they still only lagged St. Louis by three games, and they welcomed the Cards for a four-game weekend set. We all remember how that turned out. In the most heartbreaking turn for the team since the demise of the 2008 team in the NLDS, the Cards swept the hosts, putting an unofficial but very real end to both Joe Maddon's tenure with the team and the Cubs' hopes of milling their half-decade of success into a real dynasty. It was brutal. Fear not: this series has no such potential. Even if the Brewers put the seal on their division title by sweeping the Cubs, it wouldn't be the end of the Cubs' chances to reach the playoffs. More importantly, whereas that 2019 team was playing under the clouds of the previous year's failure to finish off the Brewers and the winter of bad feelings and no spending by ownership, this team has already met their expectations for the season, and the welcome heartburn welling up in Cubs fans has been hard-earned by this resilient, talented team. Secure in the knowledge that the pressure will not exceed the pleasure, then, let's look at this exciting matchup in greater detail. The Starting Pitchers To open this set, each team will send the starter about whom they feel the least certainty, at least out of the three who will take the hill on each side this week. For the Cubs, that means Jameson Taillon, whose hot streak from mid-July through the trade deadline has given way to some inconsistency over his last few starts. Still, he's a few important notches better than he was early in the campaign. He'll have to be careful with the Brewers' lineup, which is heating up at just the wrong time and which includes some dangerous left-handed hitters in Christian Yelich, Sal Frelick, Rowdy Tellez, Brice Turang, and the switch-hitting Carlos Santana. Still, Taillon has rediscovered his talent, and should keep the Cubs in the contest. Milwaukee will send out recent Cubs alumnus Wade Miley, whose 2023 alongside Lake Michigan has been a rough sketch of the 2022 he passed just a bit further down the shore. His ERA (3.18) is almost identical to the one he had with the Cubs last year (3.16), but he's made 17 starts already--eight more appearances than he managed last season. Even so, injuries and the ravages of age are his constant companions. When he's been on the mound, he's been his usual self, with that cutter-heavy approach that keeps his splits fairly neutral. He still limits hard contact fairly well, but his strikeout rate keeps trending down, and is now well below league-average. His ground-ball rate has also sagged this year, so the best play would seem to be to get some right-handed slug into the lineup and try to clear the fences against him. With the fly ball-oriented Taillon on the mound, this might be the game in which David Ross sneaks Patrick Wisdom into the lineup at first base, with Jeimer Candelario at third, Christopher Morel at DH, and both Mike Tauchman and Nick Madrigal on the bench to start. On Tuesday night, the series's marquee matchup takes place. That's when Justin Steele takes the ball, in search of his 15th win, with Corbin Burnes toeing the slab for the Brewers. Even a year ago, it would have been a little bit nuts to think of this as an even match, but at the moment, that might be the case. Steele is tiring as we near the end of the season, and has allowed a home run in four of his last five starts. That's not good. When he's going well, Steele keeps the ball in the park. Still, he's gutted out strong efforts almost every time. Burnes has been much more uneven this year. In July, he was not only his usual self, but the best pitcher in baseball. He allowed an OPS of .387 for the month. That's not an OBP, or even a slugging average. Combine the two, for batters facing Burnes in July, and you're still under .400. Both before and since then, though, he's been inconsistent. Sometimes much too reliant on his famous cutter, Burnes has run into occasional trouble with home runs, and he's walking far more batters than he does when he's on top of his game. Despite the excellent spin he imparts on just about everything, the arsenal Burnes is using lately just doesn't faze right-handed batters that much. On the season, they have a .709 OPS against him, including 14 home runs in 314 plate appearances. That sounds a bit humble, but remember that it bakes in stretches during which he was going a lot better than he is right now. For that matter, compare it to how lefties have hit against him this year: a .493 OPS, and a 28-percent strikeout rate. He's a reverse-splits guy right now, and the Cubs' best matchups against him are likely to be Dansby Swanson (who's 7-13 with two homers against Burnes in his career, already), Nico Hoerner, and the red-hot Seiya Suzuki. Still, expect to see Tauchman in the lineup for that one, because he, Candelario, and Ian Happ all have the patience to take advantage of the high walk rate Burnes has allowed to lefties this year. Tuesday night's matchup might favor the Cubs, then, but Wednesday's will be the sternest test. Brandon Woodruff so dominated the Padres Friday night that he looked not only fully recovered from the shoulder trouble that sidelined him for half the season, but restored to his Cy Young-caliber best. Woodruff is hard on the Cubs anyway, and if he's operating at that level again Wednesday, Kyle Hendricks's margin for error will be virtually nil. Woodruff's big quirk is that, with two strikes, he goes to the fastball to put hitters away. Of the 167 pitchers who have thrown at least 1,000 pitches with two strikes since the start of 2021, Woodruff uses the fastball in those counts more often than all but three. When Cubs batters fall behind in the count, they need to sit on the fastball. If they whiff on an offspeed pitch, so be it. The payoff is in looking for the heat in an offspeed count and hitting ir hard somewhere. Who's Hot, and Who's Not To be honest, most of the Brewers lineup is hitting well right now. That's how a team wins eight straight games. The Cubs will probably see all 13 hitters on the Milwaukee roster during this series, in some capacity, and in this rivalry, it's always the guy you don't expect who comes up with the big hit. Thus, let's leave Yelich and William Contreras alone for the moment, and talk about the supporting cast for the Crew. Right now, the quartet of rookie hitters who have often energized the Brewers offense this year is struggling mightily. Over the last two weeks, even as the team has surged, these four have hit the rocky section of Adjustment Avenue. Growing Pains Player PA AVG OBP SLG Andruw Monasterio 44 0.154 0.25 0.179 Brice Turang 43 0.256 0.326 0.256 Joey Wiemer 13 0.083 0.154 0.083 Sal Frelick 30 0.185 0.267 0.222 Meanwhile, though, a cadre of veterans who had been in slumps until that point have suddenly rediscovered their stroke--especially their power. Back on Track Player PA AVG OBP SLG Willy Adames 51 0.326 0.392 0.543 Carlos Santana 54 0.271 0.352 0.583 Mark Canha 44 0.324 0.409 0.459 Tyrone Taylor 39 0.303 0.41 0.545 This doesn't mean the Cubs can afford not to take Turang, Monasterio, Frelick, or Wiemer seriously. All four have their redeeming offensive virtues, and when any of them get on base, they become a threat to steal a base. It's just that the bigger, more established names are the ones who have recently been doing damage. In tough spots, when it's an option, Ross might want to order that those guys be pitched around, to go after the rookies instead. The Battle of the Bullpens With two days off last week and a couple of relatively easy wins mixed in, the Brewers come to town with their bullpen as fresh as they could possibly hope for it to be. Fifth starter Adrian Houser departed Sunday's game after just two innings, and could land on the injured list, but stalwart long man Bryse Wilson ate four innings and kept the Brewers in the game long enough for them to effect a comeback. Then, they added on so admirably that they didn't even need to use their suite of high-leverage relievers. Devin Williams and Joel Payamps have each pitched just once in the last four days. Milwaukee's superb relief depth is starting to show through. They've helped former Cubs project Trevor Megill finally figure it out, and while Megill is probably down for Monday night after throwing 32 pitches to close out Sunday's win, he'll be a factor in this series. So will rookie flamethrower Abner Uribe, who lacks consistency right now but might have the best pure stuff in the National League. That's not to mention rubber-armed middle relievers Hoby Milner and Elvis Peguero. The Cubs can't count on any comebacks against this group. By contrast, the Cubs' pen feels awfully thin right now. Michael Fulmer is on the IL, and Adbert Alzolay, Julian Merryweather, and Mark Leiter Jr. have borne a heavy workload lately. Thank goodness for Javier Assad and Keegan Thompson, who saved the pen Sunday and gave the more trusted arms a breather ahead of this crucial set. That Drew Smyly is now a permanent part of the pen also helps, though Ross has only used him in low-leverage spots so far. After Thompson's dazzling two innings in his first appearance since being exiled to Des Moines early in the summer, it will be interesting to see whether he re-enters the team's circle of trust. If he could be his 2022 self down the stretch, it would give the relief corps a huge and needed boost. Who's Next? A really good season, which is what this one has become for the Cubs, is filled with heroes. Some guys have their defining moment, and others simply step in and stop a gap at a vital time. We've seen that heroic turn for Morel and Yan Gomes at the plate, and for Marcus Stroman and Fulmer and Leiter and Alzolay on the mound, and for Happ and Tauchman in the field. In order for the team to come back and win the NL Central, they need the next hero to emerge this week. Any end-of-season hype video has to include some clips of big hits and big plays from the few games right in front of us. That we even get the chance to see whether or not that happens, though, means Ross's charges have done a wonderful job over the last month and change. The Cubs' playoffs start tonight. View full article

It's scoreboard watching season, and the scoreboards were unfriendly to the Cubs this week. Still, they made progress in their pursuit of the postseason. Image courtesy of © Charles LeClaire-USA TODAY Sports There were a couple of series this week in which the Cubs almost couldn't help being helped. The Giants and Phillies played a set in Philadelphia, and then the Reds visited the Diamondbacks over the weekend. Alas, in all the games that didn't set potential Wild Card rivals in opposition to one another, the Cubs got very little help. Arizona, improbably, swept the Rangers, before taking three of four from Cincinnati. The Giants recovered from losing the first two games of both series to salvage the finales and stay afloat. The Reds, in turn, swept the Angels before their desert defeat. The Phillies swept the useless Cardinals this weekend. The Brewers haven't lost since August 17. No matter. The Cubs' scorching-hot second half has earned them the right to focus simply on taking care of their own business. By going 5-2 on their road trip through Detroit and Pittsburgh, they raised their playoff odds to 65.6 percent, according to FanGraphs. That site has them down from division title odds of about 25 percent a week ago to just 14.9 percent, thanks to the Brewers' unstoppability, but obviously, the Cubs get a chance to change those numbers in a big way this week at Wrigley Field. In the meantime, Baseball Prospectus is more sanguine, anyway. They had the Cubs at a very healthy 39.6 percent likelihood to win the Central entering Sunday, and while another Milwaukee win slightly dented that figure, it's still much more encouraging than 15 percent. Because the PECOTA projection system is unyieldingly stubborn in its belief in the hopeless Padres, they still give the Cubs worse overall playoff odds than does FanGraphs, but that problem will take care of itself. The Cubs just need to keep winning. Obviously, that's easier said than done. They did survive the 12-game soft spot in their schedule with an 8-4 record, but they looked lucky to be playing the White Sox, Royals, Tigers, and Pirates in the process. Their next four opponents are the Brewers, Reds, Giants, and Diamondbacks, and they need to be more ready and play better ball if they want to even go .500 over that stretch. That's doubly true because the schedule is so grueling, logistically. They only have one off day coming, and it will immediately be neutralized by a doubleheader. That said, these are must-win series, and that's bad news for all the Cubs' opponents. This team has played a lot of must-win games already this year, given the position they were in as the trade deadline loomed, and they've met the challenge each and every time. That aforementioned .500 mark for these 13 games (7-6 is the target, so it's technically better than .500 that we're looking for, but still) would be more than sufficient. By going 27-14 since the All-Star break, the Cubs have given themselves breathing room. They still need to be very good over the balance of the season, but they can make most of their hay against the Rockies and Pirates. They only need to keep their heads above water in the tough fortnight ahead. That's the privilege they've earned, and it's why their playoff odds are looking rosy with five weeks left in the season. View full article

All year, the Cubs have played Whack-a-Mole with their starting rotation. If they want to make a charge in the NL Central, they have to finally break that pattern. Saturday night was a start--no pun intended. Image courtesy of © Charles LeClaire-USA TODAY Sports After a solid big-league debut by Jordan Wicks, the Cubs have their first semblance of stability in the starting rotation since at least mid-July. In truth, it's the first time they've had some level of comfort in all five spots all year. Even now, of course, Jameson Taillon is wobbly, and there are questions about how well Justin Steele can bear up under his accumulating workload, and there are sure to be some non-performance workload constraints on both Wicks and Javier Assad down the stretch. Still, at least they have five starters who give them a robust chance to win. It's a good thing Wicks was so impressive in his first start with the parent club, because Michael Fulmer landed on the injured list with a forearm strain Saturday, too. The Cubs have already dodged one forearm strain bullet this year, with Steele missing the minimum amount of time when he had the same problem in June. Fulmer is older than Steele, though, and his elbow has a longer history of tsuris. At the very least, he won't be back until mid-September, and there's a decent chance he won't pitch for the Cubs again. That takes a huge bite out of David Ross's bullpen depth, and puts more pressure on the starters. Fulmer has also been a favored option to work multiple innings or go early in bullpen games this year. Without him, some interesting but very nervous-making names become potentially vital cogs in the machine in the near future. The Cubs are nine games into a stretch of 13 days without a break, and after their one day off this coming Thursday, they immediately play a doubleheader to kick off 14 more games in 13 days. They are, then, one-third of the way through a murderous gauntlet of a schedule stretch, and it's the softest third. After Sunday, they'll play direct rivals for playoff position for the balance of this period, with the exception of a trip to Coors Field. For the next week, the day off and the substitution in the rotation they've just made work out perfectly. The probably starters figure to be: Game Date Opponent Starter Sun., Aug. 27 @ PIT Assad Mon., Aug. 28 MIL Taillon Tue., Aug. 29 MIL Steele Wed., Aug. 30 MIL Hendricks OFF Fri., Sep. 1 @ CIN Assad Fri., Sep. 1 @ CIN Wicks Sat., Sep. 2 @ CIN Taillon Sun., Sep. 3 @ CIN Steele After that, though, it gets sticky. The following Tuesday, at home against the Giants, none of these five will be available to start on regular rest--and, for various reasons, starting any of them on short rest is out of the question. Thus, we're sure to see one of a few guys not currently in the rotation take that start. Alternatively, someone else could take the non-Assad start Friday, with Wicks skipped, but either way, they will need a sixth starter no later than September 5. That guy could, shockingly, be Shane Greene, who starts again for Iowa Sunday. He's stretched out as far as any of these emergency options would need to be, since Ross is unlikely to ask any of them for more than a few innings, anyway. It could be Keegan Thompson or Michael Rucker, as the longest in a relay of relievers. It could also be Caleb Kilian, who had another encouraging start (six innings, seven strikeouts, no walks, one run) Friday night. None of these are inspiring options, but each is theoretically palatable. That's good, because it's probably not the last time the team will call upon them. Whichever of those pitchers makes the September 5 start, they'll be auditioning for another start later in the month--probably in Colorado, as the club tries to save the best starters for the toughest opponents and still give extra rest here and there for (especially) Steele and Wicks. This is far from an imposing postseason rotation. It's a deeper group than it has seemed to be since Drew Smyly started his long and ugly slide in late May, though. That they'll have to make up for an ever-thinning bullpen, one in which multiple pitchers are trying to weather the rigors of a full season of relief work in MLB for the first time, is daunting, but they can survive and overcome that. Wicks had a thrilling debut, and it allows fans to dream on this team making a playoff push in which they're not obligated to score six runs three times every five days in order to win. That, alone, has tremendous value. View full article

When the Cubs' diminutive, displaced second baseman started taking grounders at third base this spring, many took it as a joke. No one should be laughing now. We're rarely going to see the dazzling play from Madrigal at third. Indeed, the species of dazzling plays that are possible at that spot are largely out of reach (no pun intended) for a player like him. He's made dozens of subtly excellent plays just like those, though, and as a result, the numbers say he's not merely been a pleasant surprise. He's been one of the best third basemen, with the leather, in all of baseball. My preferred defensive metric is Defensive Runs Saved (DRS), the stat furnished by Sports Info Solutions. By their reckoning, only six people who have patrolled the hot corner this year have saved their team more runs than Madrigal's five. Hayes is the runaway leader, at 18, even though he's missed time with injury. Ryan McMahon, of the Rockies, is second, at 16, and more familiar stars Matt Chapman (11) and Austin Riley (7) come in right behind them. Then there are two players (Taylor Walls and Nicky Lopez) whose primary positions are elsewhere on the infield, and who have only combined to play about as much at third as Madrigal has. Defensive Runs Saved is a counting stat, though. That Riley and Chapman have played more than twice as much as Madrigal means that he's actually been as good as they have, on a rate basis--or at least, that's the implication. For an explicitly rate-based defensive metric, we turn to Baseball Prospectus, who has created a new suite of defensive stats this year and are vying to reclaim their former position as the best measurers of defense in the baseball analysis sphere. According to Range Out Score, their rate stat for defensive range, the only third baseman who has been better in meaningful playing time is Manny Machado. Madrigal's arm dents his value slightly, and Riley and Alex Bregman edge past him on the overall rating on that basis, but it's still astounding to see Madrigal matching up so well with those names. Finally, let's turn to Outs Above Average (OAA) and Fielding Runs Prevented, the Statcast-powered figures found on Baseball Savant. Again, only six players come in ahead of Madrigal in total FRP at third, and five of them have played substantially more innings there than he has. These metrics actually credit Madrigal with an above-average value based on throws, not because it mistakes his arm for a cannon (although, surprisingly, he comes in 13th of 42 qualifiers for average arm strength at third, at 84.9 miles per hour), but because he gets rid of the ball so quickly and is so accurate. His feed to Nico Hoerner on that double play last night is a perfect example. Both DRS and OAA report breakdowns for players based on the direction they have to move to make a play, and both report what you would expect for Madrigal. He's a bit weaker than average on balls to his right, forcing him to the foul line and setting up long, potentially hurried throws. However, he's been a master on balls hit in front of him and on those to his left, where his quick feet, clean picks, and momentum set him up for a sound delivery to first base. His range is a half-step better in that direction, because he's more certain and less rushed when he goes that way, but even going toward the line, he's serviceable. What does this all mean? Well, for one thing, we might want to get used to the sight of Jeimer Candelario as the designated hitter on the lineup card. That was his position Friday night, and it makes a lot of sense to keep him there on a semi-regular basis down the stretch. Unless and until the team options Patrick Wisdom, he can act as the backup third baseman, and Candelario can get most of his reps at first base and DH, with Cody Bellinger flexing between center field and first. If the team recalls either Pete Crow-Armstrong or Alexander Canario when rosters expand next week, it will make even more sense to keep Bellinger primarily at first, and Candelario might reclaim some time at third. When Kyle Hendricks, Justin Steele, Javier Assad, or (ahem) Jordan Wicks start, though, Madrigal should start with them. This was one of Joe Maddon's big things with the highly modular 2016 Cubs. He would put Javier Baez at third base when Jon Lester started, because the other team was likely to run out a bunch of right-handed batters and hit ground balls to the left side, where Baez could have a tremendous impact. This dynamic is different, but the math is very similar. With their starters on the mound, the Cubs get a ground ball in 32.2 percent of opponents' plate appearances--second-highest in MLB. When their relievers enter, that number falls to 27.2 percent, good for 24th in MLB. Madrigal can have his greatest impact if he starts the games started by any of the team's more grounder-friendly starters. He can bat ninth, and David Ross can pinch-hit for him later on if the matchup warrants it, because it's less likely that his defense will come into play later on, anyway. With his improved hitting and his superb glove work, though, Madrigal has carved out a significant role for himself. View full article

It would be brutally unfair for the Cubs to expect any better than the production they've gotten from their top trade deadline addition. Alas, David Ross hasn't noticed, or else he's frozen by too much loyalty. Image courtesy of © Lon Horwedel-USA TODAY Sports Since the Cubs acquired Jeimer Candelario, he's played 20 games. In them, he's batted .333/.405/.551. He's cranked out 10 extra-base hits, drawn nine walks, and struck out just 17 times. He's even 2-for-2 stealing bases. The only troubling number on his entire line is his total number of plate appearances: 79. That's 12 fewer than Ian Happ has over the same span, even though Happ has played just one more game. Happ, somewhat infamously, has batted third in every game this month, and has been untouchably ensconced there since the end of June. Neither the above nor the forthcoming is meant as a criticism of Happ. It's becoming somewhat trendy to bash Happ on social media, mostly because the team has been so slow to take any action with regard to his prolonged slump at the plate. Truthfully, though, he's coming out of it. His worst stretch was from mid-May through mid-July. Admittedly, this is an arbitrary starting point, but since July 22, Happ is batting .225/.326/.460 in 129 plate appearances. The power that was utterly absent during his worst doldrums has returned, and he's walked 15 times against 24 strikeouts in this slow recovery period. It's not necessary, then, to call for Happ to be benched, even against left-handed pitchers. If Patrick Wisdom were going a bit better, that might be a more valid conversation, and we'll need to revisit things if the Cubs call up Alexander Canario next month, but as things stand, Happ belongs in the lineup every day. He and Candelario just need to switch places. Ross has yet to write Candelario into his lineup at any spot higher than sixth, and he's most often slotted him in seventh. In any given game, that creates roughly a 45-percent chance that Happ will get one plate appearance more than Candelario. That's backward. Candelario has been an excellent hitter against relief pitchers since 2020, Happ has been similarly good this year, but not nearly as consistently so. Ross might be trying to protect Happ's ability to see opposing starters a third time, because he's hitting .394/.488/.634 when he does so this season. He's always excelled in that split, because he's the kind of hitter who learns a lot even from his misses--pitches he mishits, fouls off, or whiffs on altogether, but which he can square up a couple innings later after going to the video and adjusting his approach. Rarely does the batter hitting seventh get that third look at the starter. If that's Ross's concern, though, there's another way to ensure it. Against righties, Happ could bat second or third, with Candelario in the other spot, and Nico Hoerner could slide down to that seventh spot. Hoerner is running exactly a .730 OPS against righties for the second season in a row. That's a fine number, but it ought not to garner him a spot at the top of the lineup, when Happ and Candelario are available. Meanwhile, when the Cubs face a left-handed starter, they can and should just put Happ seventh--or even ninth, where he's less likely to see that lefty a third time and can act as a second leadoff hitter. It's clear that clubhouse politics are a part of the rationale for the status quo, so it's not all that likely that it will change. To make the Cubs offense fully functional and give them the best chance they can manage to win the division, though, something needs to be done. View full article

The Cubs didn't get greedy. They went to Detroit aiming only to win the series, not to sweep it. Having managed that, they head to Pittsburgh a bit fresher. Image courtesy of © Rick Osentoski-USA TODAY Sports It felt almost like David Ross quietly decided to make this week's pit stop in the Motor City a breather for a team breathlessly racing toward the finish in the race for the NL Central. Joe Maddon used to declare American Legion Week at roughly this time of year, with enforced late arrivals for the players and minimal pregame work. Neither Ross's personality nor that of the team he's leading this year quite jibes with that gimmick, but this was something close. We've already discussed the decision to start Drew Smyly, at length. Just as much as sending him out there to open things, though, Ross's decision to let Smyly take the mound again for the fourth inning after the Cubs came back early on Tuesday night signaled that he was willing to lose that game in exchange for resting his bullpen a bit. He demonstrated the same thing Wednesday, when he brought Michael Rucker into a tie game in the sixth and let him face five batters, going into the seventh. Using Rucker in such a pivotal situation drew some raised eyebrows, and rightfully so. Of the 175 pitchers who have made at least 31 relief appearances this year, Rucker has the lowest average Leverage Index (LI, a stat capturing the importance of various game situations, where 1.0 is average and higher means more important), at 0.343. We can safely say that Ross would not have called upon Rucker in such an important moment if he weren't operating somewhat outside his usual paradigm. This is a good time to talk about the way Ross uses his bullpen again, because it's one of the places where he departs most strikingly from other managers--and one of the interesting ways that his tendencies interact with the roster the front office has given him this season. I wrote quite a bit about Ross and his relief corps in April and May, including pieces on how the team seemed to love multi-inning firemen; Ross's penchant for chasing wins by inserting high-leverage guys into games in which the team trails; and the unusual depth of Cubs relievers' pitch mixes. Much has changed since then. Read those pieces from the spring, and Keegan Thompson and Brad Boxberger pop up often. Everyone was waiting for the return of Brandon Hughes (or the full-strength version of him, at least). Adbert Alzolay was not yet seen as a pitcher with a defined role, let alone the top job in the bullpen. Some of the decisions Ross has made with this unit, to be sure, have merely been responses to exigencies like injury and poor performance. Nonetheless, we can say some things with confidence, now. One of them is this: Ross runs a flatter, less hierarchical bullpen than almost any other manager in baseball. Consider a quick comparison between the Cubs and their two rivals for the NL Central crown, the Brewers and Reds. In Milwaukee, Craig Counsell uses Devin Williams in every make-or-break situation, but reserves him in anything that doesn't quite rise to that level. Williams has the highest average Leverage Index in MLB. Joel Payamps and Elvis Peguero had to work their way from peripheral roles to their current high-leverage jobs, but even so, they rank 64th and 71st on the LI leaderboard. (Remember, there are 175 pitchers on the list, overall.) David Bell and the Reds have been, if anything, even more aggressive. Alexis Diaz ranks third in LI, with Lucas Sims 20th, Ian Gibaut 56th, Buck Farmer 85th, and Alex Young 112th. That's five relievers with an average LI of at least 1.098. (If it seems odd to you to see an above-average LI at a below-average position on this list of 175, remember that it's only including guys who have made at least 31 appearances. For the most part, pitchers who can't be trusted in at least medium-leverage situations won't accrue that much playing time. They spend much of their season on shuttles to Triple A.) Ross's Cubs make a sharp contrast with those two teams. Alzolay ranks 48th in LI for the year, and even if you eliminate the time before he became the closer, he'd still have an average that would fit around 20th on the list. Mark Leiter Jr. is 87th. Michael Fulmer is 98th. Julian Merryweather ranks 142nd, with an LI of 0.897. Part of that equation is that, on average, the Cubs have faced slightly lower-leverage relief situations than have the Reds or Brewers, but another part is that Ross simply doesn't have the same partitions between trusted and untrusted relievers that most of his brethren do. He still has a group in which he is most confident, and right now, it's the four named above. With Ross, though, those guys are going to get turns coming in even when the Cubs have a narrow deficit, rather than a narrow lead. He tries to keep close games close, in a way most modern managers eschew, even though it can mean that less talented, less trusted pitchers have to cobble together the innings to win a game every now and then. Rucker is as low-leverage a reliever as they come, but only if he's compared solely to other pitchers who have stuck in their club's bullpen for most of the season. This isn't going to change, in all likelihood, over the final six weeks of the season. It's just going to gently evolve. Smyly might return to the bullpen, having been soundly thwacked in his bid to re-join the rotation. Some of the injured guys whom the team has badly missed are poised to return. There could be more help coming from Iowa. Ross will fit the new pieces in, but he'll still seek matchups he likes, and he'll still ask the relievers he likes best to do some things they wouldn't be asked to do on other teams. If they meet the challenge, though, there could be considerable payoff for that gambit. View full article

Beauchamp, his eyes uncovered

After throwing away one of their 38 precious remaining opportunities to win a game, the Cubs wake up Wednesday hurting. Now, at least, there's no more confusion here. Image courtesy of © David Reginek-USA TODAY Sports To be fair to Jed Hoyer, it wasn't he who said that every opportunity to win is sacred. That was his former boss, Theo Epstein, at his introductory press conference in October 2011. Ultimately, Epstein wasn't able to uphold his own purpose statement, and it's never been clear that Hoyer holds winning as dear as Epstein does, anyway. Still, sending Drew Smyly out there to give away Tuesday night's game was a galling betrayal of the principle that should underlie every baseball team's enduring endeavor. Every opportunity really is sacred, and the Cubs desecrated a pretty big one. Thankfully, every cloud has a silver lining. It's really just the sun shining, back there, and sunlight can be harsh, but it's a welcome respite from the storm the clouds brought. This sunlight is going to hit Hoyer and David Ross in the eyes like it hits the brutally hungover (fitting, since Tuesday night's choice suggested a certain measure of baseball inebriation), but they ought to see everything clearly in it. Smyly has demonstrated his inutility as a starter beyond any refutation or excuse. He's done in the rotation for the rest of this season, and if Tuesday night's calamity was what it took to finally effect that, then we can count it as a tiny win. The Cubs have only deeply imperfect options behind Smyly. They'll need to ask for more innings from Hayden Wesneski, even though he's made strikingly little progress in his struggles with left-handed batters this year. They'll need to recall Jordan Wicks, whose performance at Iowa suggests that he's ready but who will be limited both by their willingness to let him pile up innings and by the rough edges he has not had time to sand off his game in the minors. In all likelihood, they'll call upon erstwhile Tigers and Atlanta reliever Shane Greene, too, but as something closer to a starter than to his old single-inning, high-leverage role. I wrote about what Cubs fans should (and shouldn't) expect from Wicks in my piece Monday morning, excoriating the choice of Smyly to toe the slab Tuesday night. He'll be a competent fifth starter, though probably not (immediately) any more than that. Let's discuss, briefly, what Greene brings to the table. About seven months older than Smyly and without any meaningful success in MLB since 2020, Greene is an unlikely candidate to show up and pitch at a three- or four-inning stretch in a playoff race in 2023. Yet, he's posted a 2.84 ERA in four appearances with Triple-A Iowa this month, including five scoreless innings as a starter Tuesday night. His fastball velocity (unsurprisingly) faded badly late in that outing, and it would be surprising and ill-advised if the Cubs asked him to do that much in any single game if and when he gets the call. That, however, doesn't mean he can't contribute in a multi-inning role of some description. Greene has tweaked a couple of things in his work since signing a minor-league deal with the Cubs in late June. He's now sporting a sinker that actually has heavier downward movement than his cutter and slider, the secondary pitches he uses most against lefties and righties, respectively. Here are his pitches charted by horizontal and vertical movement by year, with this month's Triple-A work in the blue boxes. Greene has also become an increasingly furious slider slinger, against righties. He's developed a second variation of the pitch (not pictured here, but obvious in parsing his data) that looks more like a sweeper, too. Greene hasn't recovered the mid-90s velocity he had when he was a successful closer in Detroit, and he's unlikely to overwhelm big-league hitters at this stage. His sinker and four-seamer consistently get hit hard, and his only future in the majors is as a junkballer. With his command of the slider and cutter, though, he might well be able to give the Cubs 15 or 20 good innings down the stretch. At this point, the worst-case scenario for him is just that he produces exactly the way Smyly has for over two months. There are bad days, even in good seasons. The Cubs fought valiantly to try to pull out Tuesday night's game, but the front office and the manager cornered them. When the front office and coaching staff chose to send Smyly to the mound, and then when Ross chose to let him take the mound again for the fourth inning with a one-run lead, the rest of the team was compelled to be perfect. They nearly managed it, but it wasn't fair to ask it of them. Compounding the misery of that game itself, the Reds, Brewers, Marlins, Phillies, and Diamondbacks all won. There's no truly good news here. All that's left is to flush the day, secure a series win Wednesday afternoon, and turn all eyes forward. There's a risk, right now, that this team will vitrify and shatter in the August shelter, the same way they did in 2001. Smyly's start had all the overconfident front-office overtones of the Brian Matusz Game in 2016, but this team shares much more in common with those 2001 Cubs than with the essentially bulletproof eventual champions. To thwart that risk, they need to take action. Thankfully, even while it damaged their playoff odds, Tuesday probably gave team management the wake-up call it needs to increase those odds by making more serious choices the rest of the way. View full article

When the Cubs surrendered a three-run lead in the bottom of the eighth inning Monday night, it looked like another frustrating loss to a bad team was in the offing. One batter into the top of the ninth, the vibes had turned around gorgeously. Image courtesy of © Patrick Gorski-USA TODAY Sports On a first-pitch fastball over the inside edge of the plate, Yan Gomes got his hips through in time and lofted an untouchable line drive down the left field line for a leadoff double. It was the kind of heroic at-bat to which Cubs fans have quickly become accustomed this season, a resurgent and pivotal one for the aging Gomes. In big situations in which the Cubs need a hit, Gomes has been shockingly high on the list of people you want coming to the plate. His overall hitting has been fine, and his situational hitting has been excellent. If the season ended today, Gomes would have the best Win Probability Added (as a hitter) of his career. For the first time since his younger days (2014, with Cleveland), he's been above-average in runs and wins added based on the base-out state in each of his plate appearances. On the year, he's hitting .270/.312/.433, a sturdy line for a catcher and an excellent one for a player who occupies one of the bottom three spots in the batting order. He's come to the plate with a runner on third and fewer than two outs 15 times, and gotten that runner home 12 times. He's come to bat with a runner on second and nobody out 13 times, and at least advanced them to third 10 times. Those success rates are half again the league-average ones. All of this production partially explains the team's recent decision to cut ties with Tucker Barnhart, whom they had signed not only to back up Gomes in 2023 but as a bridge to 2024. Coming into this year, it was hard to imagine the team wanting to exercise Gomes's club option for next season, but now, it's impossible to imagine them not doing so. Miguel Amaya's emergence as another, longer-term option at the position also contributed to Barnhart's redundancy, but it's Gomes who has changed the team's thinking. He's just as likely to take a step back next year as he was unlikely to take this step forward, because the quality of his contact has only marginally improved from his disastrous 2022, but given his leadership and the goodwill he's earned with his clutch hitting, it's a no-brainer to bring him back as Amaya's mentor. In the meantime, Amaya should get more playing time, now that Barnhart is gone. Gomes will still be in there often, though, because the Cubs clearly trust him more as a receiver and game caller than they trust Amaya. Interestingly, Amaya rates better as a pitch framer, and thus better defensively overall, but he's had a hard time with some of the pitchers one might expect him to help most. No Cubs pitcher uses the edges of the strike zone more than Kyle Hendricks and Jameson Taillon do (they're 36th and 40th, respectively, in Edge%, of the 274 pitchers who have faced at least 200 batters), but while Amaya and Hendricks have been a very good match, Taillon has a 6.28 ERA with Amaya catching. Both Hendricks and Taillon rely heavily on called strikes, since neither induces many whiffs. Notably, Hendricks calls his own game now, thanks to PitchCom. Maybe there's still more for Amaya to learn about calling a game and reading opponents than has been generally understood. Gomes seems to do a masterful job of working with pitchers to get their arsenal in line with the approach required for each opposing hitter. It might be that, at least between these two at their particular career stages, Gomes's edge in game calling is wider and more valuable than Amaya's in pitch framing. Down the stretch, then, expect to continue to see Gomes as the regular catcher, with Amaya slotted in based on matchups and the need to rest Gomes but not gaining greater purchase than that. Gomes has had an awesome season, and even if his clutchness is not a skill, it's produced huge value for this team as they vie for the playoffs. View full article

You're not wrong, and I'm guilty of some moving of the goalposts, too. We'd all have been happy with the idea of any playoff games a month ago, and now I'm insisting on them at home. Part of it is that (while there's always that chance) I don't exactly expect this team to go on a deep October run, so the sheer pleasure of a series at home would be greater than if they go on the road and there's a big risk they never come home to be feted by the fans or experience the reward of this surge. But another part is me remembering what playing in San Francisco and Philadelphia in October is like, not for the Cubs specifically but for anyone, and not wanting winning two of three in either of those places to be the only way forward for them. (Most of all, and I didn't really dive into this in the piece to the extent I thought I would when I started typing, but I still value the division title. A lot. Even winning that FIRST Wild Card, which is a bit of a different thing than winning the lesser two, wouldn't be as satisfying as winning the Central. Even to whatever extent the actual privilege and value of winning it has been eroded, I still find it more appealing and rewarding a thing to win. We haven't quite NBAed away the meaning of those titles, yet.

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