Matthew Trueblood

Definitely. We'll be doing just that once the signings do (and/or don't) happen. It's just helpful to have an idea of how they might go about it, and why they targeted some of the guys they did late yesterday. As you probably saw, they already signed Melendez for more than the slot value in the seventh, so the trend is (broadly) continuing, but we'll check in again on the other side of the trade deadline.

There are more traditional, more readily digestible ways to do it, but the Chicago Cubs have found what they think is the most effective way to extract value from the convoluted exercise that is the MLB Draft. On Day Two of the 2023 Draft, that came into especially clear focus. Image courtesy of © Steven Branscombe-USA TODAY Sports It's become the custom of about half the teams in MLB to let statistical modeling guide their efforts to maximize the talent they compile in the draft. That doesn't mean that any team is solely drafting based on a number or on algorithmic decision-making software, and it doesn't imply that teams less focused on that style of valuation are totally ignoring the numbers. Still, it's the most common way of doing things, and it's making the draft more efficient with each passing year. The Cubs are not, strictly speaking, a model-driven team. That, again, is not tantamount to an allegation that they aren't using mathematical tools and quantitative inputs to shape their approach. It's just not governing them the way it is for some other teams. They rely more on their scouts than many other teams do, especially when it comes to amateur talent, letting stats and demographic information fit into the picture but not dominate it. Nor are the Cubs a team who lurks and looks for players well-liked by the consensus talent rankers, and then snaps them up opportunistically. That's one way that other teams are trying to maneuver in the world of capped draft bonuses and constrained overall spending. Those clubs still put exhaustive effort into scouting players, but they let the wisdom of crowds work for them, and they avail themselves of (usually) having more than the average amount of money to spend on their draft class. No, unlike their four division rivals, the Cubs hardly ever have an above-average bonus pool. Even when they have a lowly record, they miss out on the extra picks (and the bonus allotments attached thereto) that go to the Reds, Brewers, Cardinals, and Pirates, among others. They can't easily offer overslot money to certain players to push them down the draft board, nor pounce when they see a player sliding due to their demands--even if the aforementioned, much-trusted scouts do love the player. Instead, they seem to be taking an interestingly idiosyncratic approach. The Cubs' type in the draft is players who they believe are undervalued by the rest of the draft process, for one narrative reason or another. That's not the story of every single pick they make, of course, but it dominates and repeats in the discussion as one runs down their draft board. This is how the Cubs settled on Cade Horton last year. They were able to sign him for less than the slot value of the seventh overall pick, because of the injury that limited him early in his junior year at Oklahoma and the fact that he hadn't fully focused on pitching until relatively late in his amateur career. It's what attracted them to Jaxon Wiggins, their second and final pick on Day One this year, after Wiggins missed this season due to Tommy John surgery. The trend only got stronger as the team went deeper into their draft in 2022, and the same is true with this year's class. With their first pick (a third-rounder, 81st overall) on Monday, the Cubs grabbed Josh Rivera, the shortstop for the College World Series runners-up from Florida. Rivera had a great final season with the Gators, but that was his senior year. Before that, injuries, the pandemic, and uneven development had made him less than a top-tier prospect. As was true with Horton, and with others the team has taken recently, it will be impossible to evaluate the validity of the excuses for Rivera not being more highly rated. By the time we know whether or not he pans out as a prospect and contributes in the big leagues, untold numbers of other variables will enter the picture. The Cubs are embracing the idea that they can pick out meaningful narratives and mitigations, anyway, and if they're right, they're hitting on a very profitable vein of talent. Because Rivera was a senior this year, they should be able to sign him for less than the slot value of that pick--just as they were with Horton, and just as they probably will with Wiggins, each for different reasons. In the fourth round, the team virtually stood the image of Rivera on its head by taking Will Sanders. A big, sturdy right-hander from the University of South Carolina, Sanders came into this year as a potential first-round pick, but his stuff didn't progress as hoped, and he had a foot injury take a huge bite out of the latter half of his season. That the Cubs were as interested in Sanders as in Rivera is a good reminder that it's not as simple as (for instance) the front office believing in developmental momentum. It's just about finding players on whom they think teams are changing their evaluations either too slowly, or too quickly. That's how they believe they can get more bang for the bucks the rule set allows them to spend. It also helps them, with regard to Sanders, that other teams have doubts about the shape of his fastball. The Cubs don't have the same preferences most clubs have, right now, when it comes to getting huge carry and missing bats with fastballs at the top of the zone. They wouldn't throw back such a player if they fell into their laps, but it's not a skill the Cubs want as much as other teams want it, and it's not as great an emphasis once prospects enter their system as it is in other pipelines. That means that they're likely to have slightly higher grades on pitchers like Sanders than some teams, even before accounting for confounding factors like injuries and odd developmental arcs. To whatever extent they save money on Wiggins, Rivera, and Sanders, the Cubs might spend some of their overslot room on fifth-rounder Michael Carico, a left-hitting catcher from Davidson College in North Carolina. Even there, though, the Cubs got him partially because he missed a chunk of the season with a broken wrist, and didn't look great in a few of the sterner tests on Davidson's less-than-elite schedule. Injuries are a common theme here, because they create an immediate and non-negotiable space of uncertainty and subjectivity. That other teams are uncomfortable with that is, in the Cubs' current approach, precisely the point. That's not to suggest that other teams aren't taking players with injury histories, or that the Cubs are targeting players because of injuries, but it seems clear that they ding most players whom they've flagged as talented less than most other teams do based on injury. Of course, no draft class can be composed solely of damaged goods and guys you've convinced yourself are undervalued. The focus Jed Hoyer, Carter Hawkins, and especially Dan Kantrovitz put on that kind of pick in the first few rounds is designed to create breathing room in an otherwise tight budget. It's getting some savings in unexpected places at the top of the board that lets a team draft more aggressively in the sixth through 10th rounds. Last year, there were just six total picks in rounds eight and nine who signed for more than slot money. The Red Sox, Rays, and Mariners each went over slot in the eighth round, and the Guardians did so in the ninth. The Cubs did it in both, with Mason McGwire and Connor Noland. This year, they could end up paying more than the slot value for their sixth-round selection, Alfonsin Rosario. With really impressive power, Rosario is fairly advanced and physical for a high-school outfielder, and his commitment (to Chipola Junior College, where guys like him have gone in the past and returned to the draft with higher stock) could require a little extra cash to break. They'll do it, though. The rest of their picks Monday look more signable. Yahil Melendez is young and toolsy, but has a lot of growing to do--both physically and as a player--before landing on any real prospect radars as a shortstop out of Puerto Rico. Brett Bateman can go get it in center field, but is a college outfielder (from the University of Minnesota) without a ton of projectability. Jonathan Long hit for power at Long Beach State, but as a first baseman, his bat has to really translate nicely into professional ball for him to have a prospect profile. In the 10th round, though, they again found a player with a little upside, even if he might cost the full slot amount. Luis Martinez-Gomez, from a Texas junior college, has a projectable body and good present stuff. It's the kind of pick many teams might have tried to nudge into Day Three, where they could sign him for up to $150,000 without anything counting against their bonus pool total. Last year, teams gave four-figure bonuses to 14 players in the back half of Day Two, trying to maximize their savings against bonus pools by taking players barely credentialed to play pro ball. The Cubs' lowest bonus paid was $25,000. It sure looks like the Cubs still have some money to spend on Day Three, so expect them to be aggressive, as they were last year. They spent overslot money on Luis Rujano last year, in the 14th round, but they also took Brock Blatter, whom they were unable to sign. The idea there was always to sign one of the two, but rather than fish in shallow waters otherwise, they also signed five of their Day Three picks to $125,000 deals--maxing out what they could do without those guys counting against their pool. Haydn McGeary, who's having such a loud 2023, was one of those five. That's the Cubs' process in action. Monday saw it unfold and expand just as we might have expected. Last year, only six other teams were as diligent about using every pick on someone credible and signing as much of their class as possible as were the Cubs. Those teams were the White Sox, the Guardians, the Tigers, the Royals, the Yankees, and the Nationals. No single thread ties all seven of those clubs together, but think of them as the top achievers in the portfolio approach to drafting for 2022. For the AL Central clubs, it's clearly vital that they fill out their system as deeply and roundly as possible with draftees, not only to increase the likelihood of having solid, homegrown talent on the parent club in the future, but to minimize their expenditures on free agents in both the majors and the minors. The Yankees and Nationals are interesting inclusions, though. They, like the Cubs, are less concerned with certain analytical aspects of prospect evaluation than much of the rest of the league. They have lots of money, but don't want to be cornered into spending it on the free-agent market. They're run by guys, in Brian Cashman and Mike Rizzo, who are very similar to Hoyer in terms of age and experience in baseball, and who got waived into the big bumper crop of saber-savvy executives, despite not being as relentless in their statistical bent as others. It shouldn't escape our notice that Kantrovitz is an alumnus of the Cardinals and Athletics front offices. He has shaped draft boards for teams who want to build from within, and who take a very market-based approach even to the anti-market draft system. That he's carried that over to the Cubs is little surprise, and it's probably what drew the Chicago front office to him, in the first place. Over a decade ago, it was Theo Epstein's (and, for a time, Hoyer's) Red Sox front office that cracked the draft wide open. By collecting compensatory picks and flouting the soft slot values assigned to all picks, Boston kept the farm system stocked to overflowing despite being perennial contenders. Right when Epstein came to the Cubs, the Collective Bargaining Agreement changed, thwarting him at all turns. Suddenly, small- and medium-market teams (and the Cardinals) got valuable picks to which the Cubs could have no access. The free-agent compensation system became much less favorable to big-market teams, and the slots went from pillow-soft to rigid and confining. That's why Epstein and Hoyer undertook such a deep rebuild in 2012, and why their farm system dried up once they came out of that. Kantrovitz is meant to be the overdue solution to the not-so-new problems of the Cubs' systematic disadvantages in the draft. He's well-versed in winning an unfair game, and the Cubs (perversely) need to do just that. The approach they're taking to that is high-risk, but given their annual circumstances, they face risk anyway. This search for small reasons why players in key areas of the board might be undervalued is how they can maximize the potential rewards. It was on full display on Day Two here in 2023. View full article

It seemed to take every drop of blood and sweat they had in them. It happened despite an injury to one cornerstone of the team and a bad performance by another, each of which loom as the team looks toward the second half. The Cubs managed a winning week heading into the All-Star break, though, and they're not (yet) cornered into selling at the deadline. Image courtesy of © Wendell Cruz-USA TODAY Sports When Marcus Stroman let the game get away from him in the sixth inning Thursday afternoon against the Brewers, you didn't have to squint to see the writing on the wall. There was, in that moment, a very good chance that the Cubs would tumble into the break, nearly 10 games out of the lead in the NL Central and without any serious right to be anything but sellers during trade season, which begins in earnest as soon as the Draft and the All-Star Game end on Tuesday. Nor was a hiccup from Stroman, the Cubs' co-ace, the only reason for that rapidly rising sense of doom and gloom. Dansby Swanson was already sidelined, after suffering a heel contusion running the bases Wednesday. The script went: Cubs lose, after Stroman comes undone in a close game. Cubs go to New York, where they've never beaten the Yankees before, without either of their top two starters lined up to pitch there. Cubs end the first half deflated, seven or nine games under .500 and eight or nine games behind the division lead. It seemed painfully obvious how it would all unfold. The Cubs went off script. Two-run homers by Cody Bellinger and Yan Gomes brought them back to tie the game Thursday, and though they went on to lose the game, they had showed some fight just when they seemed to be out of it. Friday night in New York, Jameson Taillon had his best start as a Cub (not saying as much as we wish it did, of course, but it would also have been several other people's best starts as a Cub) and the team earned a surprising win. Drew Smyly continues to be a source of some concern, as the regression monster is not so much biting him as swallowing him whole, but after the loss Saturday, the Cubs managed a comeback win Sunday. That the Yankees helped them out with that series victory, by way of some sloppy defense and wild pitching from the bullpen, doesn't really matter. The Cubs took advantage of their opponents' mistakes. That's often the key to victory, and too often, the Cubs haven't managed to do it. The risk that the team will have to cave in and sell at the deadline is still very real. They're seven games out of the division lead, and equally far out of the third Wild Card position. They'll have to answer a lot of questions on the homestand they have beginning later this week, against the Red Sox, Nationals, and Cardinals. That's 10 games. If they win fewer than five of them, they have to sell at the deadline. If they win five, they'll still be in a holding pattern, but the pressure will be ratcheted up, because it'll be vital that they win at least five of their last seven games before the deadline. If they win six, they can start to gently lean toward selling, but they'll need to develop discussions on both sides of the market, nonetheless. It's seven. Seven is the magic number. Seven games out of playoff position, seven wins needed to truly turn toward buying, and No. 7, Swanson, whom they need to return as soon as possible and at as close to full strength as possible. In seven games this past week, the team clawed out enough wins and showed well enough in their losses to earn a bit more time to dream and dare. In the next two weeks, they need seven wins to fully climb back into the mix. Twice this season, the club has shown the capacity to get that hot. After starting 1-3, they streaked to 11-6. Then, in mid-June, they had that even hotter streak, winning 10 of 12 against the Giants, Pirates, and Orioles. It would be nice to have seen longer stretches of good play, or more of them, but at least the proof of concept is in place. Now, David Ross and his squad need to go get the job done, so that the front office can justify building upon the foundation they've laid. View full article

Until Friday night, the Cubs had never won a game against the Yankees in the Bronx. They were 0-12 there. Between that bit of historical trivia and the team's record when Jameson Taillon starts thus far this year, it was hard to feel encouraged about the game. Taillon surprised everyone. Image courtesy of © Brad Penner-USA TODAY Sports Entering Friday's game, left-handed batters were hitting .308/.395/.654 against Jameson Taillon in 2023. It goes without saying that having half the league rake against you at such a rate renders being an effective starting pitcher impossible. Taillon's gaudy ERA reflected a little bit of bad luck, but mostly, he just couldn't get lefties out, and he often couldn't even keep them in the ballpark. That changed Friday night. Undoubtedly, it helped that the Yankees only had three lefties in their lineup (Anthony Rizzo, Billy McKinney, and Franchy Cordero), but Taillon also made a substantial and notable adjustment. He pared down his pitch mix to those three batters almost entirely to two offerings: his four-seamer and his curveball. For much of this year, Taillon has been trying desperately to get outs against lefties with his cutter. Under the Cubs' direction, he further developed the cutter, which had been a very small part of his repertoire last year. They believed he could play it off the four-seamer to great effect. That's rooted in sound fundamental pitching theory. The cutter is often a pitch with a reverse platoon split. It looks like a four-seamer, but it runs in on the hands of an opposite-handed batter, and it can generate weak contact at a very high rate. That depends on a number of other conditions, though, and Taillon just didn't meet those prerequisites. Should we worry about the fact that the Cubs tried to help Taillon bring along a fledgling pitch, only to have it turn out to be essentially useless? It's hard to know. Sometimes, taking a chance like that turns a pitcher into a Cy Young Award candidate. Still, the Cubs' hit rate on tweaks like these in recent years is troublingly low. For today, though, that doesn't need to be the headline. Taillon cleverly unwound his miserable results against lefties, even if only for one night. He pitched brilliantly, using his four-seamer and curve to change eye levels and create a significant vertical disparity. He still didn't miss as many bats as one might prefer, but he stayed off the Yankees' barrels--even those of Rizzo, McKinney, and Cordero. It's fun and interesting that the adjustment amounts to a mirror image of similar ones made by (for instance) Marcus Stroman recently. Like Stroman, Taillon is a guy for whom the depth of his arsenal has always been the headline, rather than the nastiness (and especially the bat-missing potency) of any one offering. Like Stroman, he just made a breakthrough by bifurcating his pitch mix based on handedness, to an extreme extent. He still threw all his pitchers (four-seamer, sinker, sweeper, curve, and yes, the cutter) to righties last night, even as he became almost a two-pitch guy against lefties. Stroman, however, pares down to two pitches (sinker and slider) against righties. That is, by far, the more common version of this approach. Guys who struggle with opposite-handed batters usually address the issue by adding pitches, until they have a kitchen sink to throw at those guys every time they come up. Against same-handed ones, they usually have two pitches that play nicely enough off one another to dominate without further assistance. Taillon is trying the reverse. Only time will tell whether it's a winning gambit, but this deep into a season this frustrating, it was well worth a shot, and the early returns are terrific. In eight shutout innings, he allowed just one hit. He only had nine whiffs all night, and the Yankees hit 11 balls hard against him, but he manipulated their launch angles well and was able to work the edges of the zone more effectively. The Cubs don't need results this dazzling every time. If Taillon pitches equally well but gets a bit less lucky in each start the rest of the way, the team will still benefit considerably. There is finally light at the end of the tunnel for Taillon. View full article

Cubs Twitter is far from a monolith, as we know, but my sense is that it leans much more toward buying than selling. I don’t know, my finger isn’t on the pulse either.

It's hard to remember a four-game series that featured as many twists and tense moments as the one the Cubs just finished against the Brewers in Milwaukee. In all likelihood, both teams' fans came away feeling that their side should have won, but the split was the most just outcome. It's just not clear whether it was enough for the Cubs. Image courtesy of © Michael McLoone-USA TODAY Sports All the pieces and beats of the season matter. If the Cubs had come to Miller Park at 41-41, they wouldn't have needed to worry at all about a split of these four games. A split on the road is usually good enough, and splitting with a team ahead of you in the standings on the road is nearly always so. Since they came in at 38-44, though, they needed to seize this opportunity. They had to start closing the gap between themselves and the Brewers, as well as the Reds. They couldn't swing it. By the end of the series, it did seem as though the Cubs were slightly more talented than the Brewers. It's seemed that way for much of the season, and through half their encounters, it's especially seemed that way when they take the field against one another. Unfortunately, talent isn't like the tickets you win playing games at Dave & Buster's. You can't cash talent in for the wins missing from your record. Talent is more like the tokens. They give you the opportunity to succeed, but you still have to go play the games to win the real prizes. Since his return from the injured list in mid-May, Nico Hoerner is hitting .251/.304/.374. He's trying to adjust and evolve. He's tapped into slightly more power, after a start in which he was racking up singles but little else, and he's drawn a few more walks than he'd been doing early in the season. Still, the Cubs can't remotely afford for a player on whom they rely as a dynamic offensive force to run a sub-.700 OPS over nearly 200 plate appearances. Speaking of stretches of 200 plate appearances, Ian Happ's last 199 of them have resulted in a .204/.342/.327 line, He has three home runs over that span, despite hitting two in that one game in London. In his last 201, Dansby Swanson is hitting .235/.304/.399. Cody Bellinger is hot right now, but his home run Thursday was his first since the end of April. Within that span, Swanson and Bellinger have had good streaks. So has Seiya Suzuki, who's struggling mightily lately. Happ and Hoerner have managed to avoid any catastrophic slumps, though they haven't had even the brief heaters Swanson and Bellinger have enjoyed. The Cubs are two well-rounded power hitters shy of a serious lineup right now. Occasionally, they will be able to put up runs over the course of a few games, be it with the help of some poor defense or because someone like Yan Gomes (whose home run Thursday was his first since June 4, and his second since May 10) runs into one unexpectedly, but they just don't have the thump to consistently produce enough runs to win games. As I've written recently, there are things they could be doing to improve their chances. Miguel Amaya should be playing more, for instance. They could bring back Matt Mervis for another taste of the majors, to see how much he's learned during his sojourn in Des Moines. They could be left with no choice but to bring back David Bote, Edwin Rios, or Miles Mastrobuoni, in the wake of Nick Madrigal hitting the IL and Swanson leaving the game Wednesday with a bruised heel. Nelson Velazquez is a potential source of power, and has recovered from a crisis-level slump recently. There are, of course, trades to consider. Still, we have to wonder whether the team is even good enough at coaching and player development to make that stuff matter. Underachievement is a little too contagious in the Cubs clubhouse for my comfort. If they can't be counted upon to get the most out of their cornerstones, it won't matter what tweaks they make to playing time distributions, or even whom they acquire. Jameson Taillon starts Friday night in New York. He's becoming another, even more alarming exemplar of the team's inability to convert talent into real value. He represents the dangers of being as bad at that particular conversion as the team seems to be right now. He's returning to the home of a team for whom he pitched very well, and he'll set the tone for a series the Cubs absolutely must win. Hopefully, this will be the start of his turnaround, and the team will prove that they really can do something useful with talented players. Hope, alas, is not a plan. View full article

The Cubs have had some good and important wins in 2023, but Wednesday night's comeback at Miller Park was the best and the most important. It was a game heavy with implications, both good and bad, and it sets the stage for a pivotal showdown Thursday. Let's talk a bit more about it. Image courtesy of © Michael McLoone-USA TODAY Sports First of all, Wednesday night was a reminder of how narrow a margin for error Justin Steele has, using his limited repertoire. The sixth inning, in particular, demonstrated his vulnerability. He nearly escaped that frame with the Cubs down just 2-1, but a slider that found the plate and was left up a bit became an RBI single by Brian Anderson. Anderson often runs reverse platoon splits at the plate, so he's an unlikely culprit for a key hit against Steele. That's true on the surface, anyway. The reason for Anderson's split profile, though, is the way his swing works. He's vulnerable to stuff with good vertical movement, but handles horizontal movement--especially toward him--well. That means that, to beat him, a pitcher like Steele has to be perfect. His stuff doesn't have special vertical movement. He's all about horizontal movement, steering in on righties and away from lefties. That can be very effective, but against a swing like Anderson's, it's trouble. The ball has to be in the right spot to get him. Obviously, precision always helps, but pitchers like Steele have to be able to succeed when they miss by six inches or so. Against most hitters, he can do so, but as Willy Adames's go-ahead home run and Anderson's cushioning hit showed, that won't always be the case. In particular, as the league gets better and longer looks at him, more hitters will punish his mistakes. As I've written several times, Steele's cutter-slider combo really is fully about its lateral movement profile. He does achieve decent depth on the slider, and occasionally, that cutter remembers that it started as a four-seamer and takes off at the top of the zone. Mostly, though, both pitches are ordinary from a vertical perspective. That's a source of weakness for him, and it will remain so, unless or until he develops another pitch that does stretch vertically or change hitters' eye levels. Of course, there will be nights on which he's precise enough to dominate even without that added dimension. He's a great pitcher, and it's been a joy to watch him thrive in 2023. Nonetheless, Wednesday night's start was rendered ordinary because of a legitimate shortcoming for him. That's just one takeaway from the game, though, and obviously, it turned out not to be the most momentous one. Hopefully, Dansby Swanson's heel contusion will also turn out not to be the big story. Swanson's eagerness to play every inning of every game catches up to him sometimes, not only in the form of offensive funks, but in little injuries like these. On a night that saw him hit into two double plays, Swanson seemed to stretch and reach a little extra with his final few strides on the second, which might have led to the bruised heel. Extra hustle--a scintilla of desperation, even--is to be expected on a frustrating night for a player who demands so much of himself. Things like a heel bruise are more likely to happen when one pushes past the limit, especially to a player who doesn't take even the occasional days off that are customary in the modern game. If it only costs him a game and a half, this is no big deal. The Cubs just need to hope the heel settles down, rather than getting increasingly stiff or sore over the next few days. This lineup already has too little firepower. They can't afford to be long without their slugging shortstop. Even without Swanson, the Cubs came back. They beat the game's least beatable closer, with a parade of flares and tough at-bats. The legend of Mike Tauchman continues to grow. He'll never hit for much power, but his approach--and his ability to pay off tough at-bats with more than the consolation prize of having made the pitcher work--has been exactly what the Cubs needed. As we said when he was called up, Tauchman wasn't designed to be a temporary rotation piece. They kept him in Triple A while they could, to avoid losing him to the vagaries of an early roster crunch. The plan, given the way things have gone, has to be that Tauchman is a permanent part of the team's outfield and DH plans, even if not quite a full-time one. Then, it was Adbert Alzolay's turn. Wednesday night was a huge test for him. He'd been ok, but not quite good enough, Sunday against the Guardians, and the story was the same Tuesday night against Milwaukee. The Cubs badly needed to hold a one-run lead, and Alzolay had to overcome two straight uneven outings. That he not only did so, but dispatched the Brewers in 10 pitches, might have been the most encouraging of the several good things that happened for the Cubs in that contest. On top of shaking off the bad juju of the last two games, Alzolay showed his best stuff in a while. His fastball topped 97 miles per hour for the first time since late April. Now, the Cubs have a chance to earn the series win they needed to keep themselves in the race when they arrived in Milwaukee. They just need to cap it off with a victory behind Marcus Stroman. Getaway days have been unfriendly to this team throughout David Ross's tenure, but they have to break the pattern. Stroman looked alright for most of his first outing after leaving his previous start with the beginnings of a blister, but things got away from him in the sixth inning. The Brewers are dissimilar from the Guardians, who keep the pressure on by putting the ball in play relentlessly. Milwaukee strikes out at one of the highest rates in MLB. Stroman just needs to be able to miss bats at the key moments, to avoid letting a rally spiral on him the way one did against Cleveland. One series can't turn around the Cubs' season. This team is still well below .500. With two thrilling wins under their belts and their ace taking the mound, though, they have a chance to stay afloat through the All-Star break. That's the gift that the Tauchman-led comeback Wednesday night gave. Now, they just need to make the most of it. View full article

As the Cubs' occasionally promising season circles the drain, they continue to carry one of the most promising players in their organization on the big-league roster. He never plays. What is the plan for Miguel Amaya, and why does every possible answer seem so discouraging? Image courtesy of © David Banks-USA TODAY Sports A concussion suffered by Yan Gomes forced the Cubs to call up Miguel Amaya from Double-A Tennessee in early May. That stay on the roster only lasted about a week, but Amaya got the bump to Triple-A Iowa thereafter. Three weeks later, he was back with the parent time, this time thanks to his own stellar production and the team's need for a jolt on offense. Alas, either that wasn't really the reason (maybe it was a clerical error, and everyone was too embarrassed to say so!), or no one told David Ross that it was. Upon returning to the roster, Amaya started six out of seven games--three each at catcher and designated hitter. Since then, though, he's only been written into five of the 18 starting lineups Ross has constructed. During that time, he's gotten into the game late only twice (and one of those really came right at the end of his streak of playing every day, on June 11). He had only 19 plate appearances over the final 20 days of June, and started July by riding the bench, too. This can't be explained by performance. Since June 11, Amaya had batted .313/.421/.625 (before his pinch-hit strikeout Sunday night). Sure, that's in a minuscule sample, but he can't magically succeed in chances not given to him. Over the same span, in twice as many plate appearances, Yan Gomes is hitting .265/.375/.294. He's done well to grind out at-bats and extend innings by getting on base, but his power is on summer sabbatical. Gomes has gotten half the work behind the plate, and Tucker Barnhart is getting an even share of the other half with Amaya. Barnhart has hit .250/.333/.438 in 18 plate appearances, a searing hot streak that has his seasonal OPS almost up to .500, but even during it, he's fanned seven times. Obviously, Gomes and Barnhart are trusted, veteran receivers behind the plate. As glowing as everyone's comments about Amaya's defense have been so far, it's not surprising that Ross trusts both of them more than the rookie who's had so little experience even in the upper minors. This team is desperate for offense, though, which should have dictated an extra start or two for the man with some obvious and instant upside at the plate over the last three weeks. Failing that, Amaya could slot in as the designated hitter. Christopher Morel has gotten seven starts there over the span in question, and Seiya Suzuki and Ian Happ each grabbed a little time there in order to manage their workload during the slog of late June in a long season. Still, that Amaya only fitted in twice in that role during this window is jarring. Where is Amaya being squeezed? It begins with third base, really. That's where the return of Nick Madrigal, and the everyday playing time he's gotten, has closed off an avenue to playing time in the field for Morel. Madrigal has been good, but as the Cubs drifted punchlessly through June (a month in which they were 24th in MLB in slugging average), he would have been a candidate to sit out occasionally in favor of someone who could cure that shortcoming. Morel finally got penciled in for a start at the hot corner Sunday, but even then, Amaya was benched. Here's where the rubber meets the road with the greatest force. It was Trey Mancini who started at DH instead of Amaya. Mancini, slugging .351 for the season but a positively sizzling .389 during this stretch that has seen Amaya sidelined, has 22 plate appearances since June 11. He's the first right-handed bat off the bench. He's gotten time at first base and at designated hitter. He's been a costly disaster, worth -1.2 Wins Above Replacement according to Baseball Reference and actually hurting the Cubs even more than that, but the skipper can't find the gumption to park him in the doghouse, and the front office can't summon the humility to admit their mistake and cut bait. Farming out Amaya again shouldn't even be under discussion. He's 24 years old, with good health and developmental momentum on his side for the first time in two years. As one of three catchers on the roster, he doesn't even pose a daunting challenge in the management of the roster. He's far from a guaranteed source of production, but the Cubs need to give him roughly twice as much playing time as he's gotten over the last 25 days. If they fail to do so, they'll shortchange themselves in both the short and the longer term. View full article

So, uh, what now? Image courtesy of © Matt Marton-USA TODAY Sports The Cubs started what is, technically, the second half of their season Sunday night with a game that neatly summarized their first half. It was, in turns, infuriating, depressing, wildly exciting, and then deflating. The ultimate culprit in their failure was bad luck, but that didn't change the fact that they also had a talent shortfall, and that shortfall was a factor, too. For the weekend, the Cubs outscored the Guardians by one run, but lost two games out of three. One step forward, two steps back. That's the season, and that's the story of Sunday, too. It's hard to imagine that the Cubs can keep running Jameson Taillon out there every fifth day, but they've done it 14 times, now, and they're now 2-12 in those games. Taillon put them in a hole it seemed like their feeble offense would have no hope of escaping, but the bullpen did admirable damage control, and Christopher Morel hit a home run to give a little bit of juice back to the crowd in the bottom of the eighth. Then, just the way the team climbed off the mat to make a surge throughout the middle of June, they miraculously put themselves back in the catbird seat in the ninth. It took a pair of cheap dribblers to first base breaking their way, but they strung together enough good outcomes to come back from four runs down and tie the game. It was a good moment. It couldn't last. Adbert Alzolay hit a frequent snag for this team, when he was unable to fan Amed Rosario and equally unable to give in and work around him. Rosario hit a single that could almost have been a groundout, but instead just led to a collision between Dansby Swanson and Nico Hoerner that gave every Cubs fan a scare unlike any since Justin Steele left a start a month ago with forearm trouble. Jose Ramirez hit what could have been a go-ahead single, but Jared Young (who'd made an error earlier that contributed to Taillon's continued misery) made a stellar stab, took the out at first, and held both runners. Up the rollercoaster had risen. Now it had to fall again. Josh Naylor had the same at-bat Rosario had had, only from the left side. Alzolay has only walked six batters all season, and eight since returning to the majors in the second half of last season. He's always around the zone. It's one of the things that makes him a great high-leverage reliever. Every now and then, though, it's a bug, not a feature. As happens too much to Taillon, and occasionally to Stroman, and to Julian Merryweather, and to other Cubs, Alzolay couldn't find a way even to pitch around Naylor, let alone to retire him. Sometimes, hitters show Chicago hurlers that they have them measured--that their swings are an unsolvable fit with the pitchers' offerings and their shapes--and the Cubs just can't figure out how to escape the plate appearance without giving up the deciding blow. Naylor's ground ball up the middle wasn't so different from the one Morel hit to bring the Cubs within a run in the previous half-inning. It was well-hit, but a ground ball. It got through because the infield was drawn in, and so two runs scored, instead of one. This time, the Cubs had no answer. They went down so meekly in the bottom of the 10th that whether they trailed by one run or two hardly ended up mattering. It was an anticlimactic ending to a great game. That, again, is how it's felt to follow this team for much of the season. Pat Hughes is fond of remarking that .500 teams don't simply win a game, then lose the next day. Baseball isn't like that. The 2023 Cubs are starting to have the uneasy vibe of a .500 team, even though their run differential rides on the high side of that and their actual record rides on the low side of it. They'd lost 10 of 14 when they arrived in San Francisco just over three weeks ago. They won 11 of their next 13, through the first game of the London Series, but since then, they've dropped seven of eight again. There's not much time left on this ride. There are four weeks left until the trade deadline, and one week left before the All-Star break. In that week, everything is going to come to a head. The Brewers and Reds are six games up on the Cubs. Milwaukee and Cincinnati play themselves nine times in these next four weeks, but before that, the Cubs go to Miller Park for four games. They then wind down the unofficial first half with a weekend set in New York. If they don't win at least four of those seven games (and really, five is the target figure), then the team will be deadline sellers. This is their last stand. They don't seem ready for it, at all, and luck has been so steadfastly against them all year that they hardly seem to have a chance. The only solace to be found is that, every time we've had such certainty about anything so far this year, that certainty has been immediately shattered. View full article

When MLB announced the pitchers and reserves for the 2023 All-Star Game Sunday, the Cubs landed three players on the National League roster. It was a good moment for the team, and a well-deserved honor in each case. Image courtesy of © Peter van den Berg-USA TODAY Sports Remarkable even in the absence of anything truly spectacular, Dansby Swanson has come exactly as advertised this season. Of the stars the Cubs could have signed to big deals to be their shortstop over the last two winters (Trea Turner, Xander Bogaerts, Carlos Correa, Javier Baez, Corey Seager, Marcus Semien, and Trevor Story), only Swanson, Seager, and Semien made the All-Star cut this year. It's a huge and needed victory for the front office that Swanson, their first megadeal signee since Jason Heyward, has been the caliber of player they believed they were buying. Swanson's defense was the sure thing, for many, but it's been a subtle and steady joy to watch him every day at shortstop. He plays nearly every inning of nearly every game, and his hands and feet are in the right position more often than those of any other shortstop in the game. That his arm is weaker than those of the other elite defenders at that spot is not only surmountable, but almost a non-issue, because he's so good at charging the ball when necessary; modulating his exchange and release to account for the speed of runners; and thinking through each situation. Offensively, though he's not on track to deliver the power for which some might have hoped after he clubbed 52 homers in his final two seasons in Atlanta, he's been the most reliable hitter in the lineup. With a more patient approach and less focus on lifting the ball, he's increased his contact rate and avoided the long slumps that pockmarked even his breakout campaigns. It's been a slight disappointment to see him run the bases with extreme conservatism, and the team needs power more urgently because he's delivering less of it than anticipated, but his overall contribution has been terrific. Steele and Stroman don't even come with the minor reservations one can tick off about Swanson. Despite a missed start by Steele due to forearm tightness, the duo have combined for 24 Quality Starts in 33 turns in the rotation. Only three moundsmen have had Quality Starts in a higher percentage of their outings than Steele: Logan Webb, Clayton Kershaw... and Stroman. Steele leads the league in ERA, and the only caveat that requires is that, if Chicago relievers hadn't allowed five of eight bequeathed runners to score after Stroman left games, he might have snuck in below his teammate. To have their co-aces and their $177-million shortstop all headed to Seattle, and to still be five games below .500 at the halfway point of the season, is a mixed blessing. The Cubs have to hope this trio sustains their brilliance in the second half, and that they can better support and leverage those performances. Still, Sunday was a good day, because it marked a big moment in the progress of the franchise, as well as for each of those individuals. View full article

After another brilliant start Friday at Wrigley Field, Justin Steele wakes up Saturday as not only the MLB leader in ERA, but a heavy favorite to make the National League All-Star team. Famously, he's done it mostly with two pitches: his fastball, and his slider. Less famously, though, Steele has another weapon in his arsenal: lying. Image courtesy of © David Banks-USA TODAY Sports I've written more than once about Justin Steele's fastball this year. Way back In April, I first documented the fact that his cut-ride fastball really lacked what we would typically call 'ride'. Last week, I wrote about Steele again in advance of his start in London, with the new information that Pitch Info has reclassified his heater as a cutter, not a four-seamer. Since then, though, Steele has made an appearance as an in-game interviewee on Marquee Sports Network, and during his outing Friday, analyst Lance Brozdowski spent considerable time weighing in with data-driven insights on Steele's fastball. Both Steele and Brozdowski repeatedly referred to Steele's fastball as a four-seamer, and Brozdowski compared it metrically to other four-seamers. All of this--probably unintentionally, in Brozdowski's case, but perhaps on purpose in Steele's--is part of a campaign of propaganda that is helping keep Steele's excellent streak going. As I documented in those previous pieces, Steele's fastball just isn't a four-seamer, by any ordinary standard. Its movement (and the way some of it is derived from seam orientation) screams cutter. His grip and his hand motion through release say cutter. The pitch is a cutter. However, no pitcher is obligated to call their stuff by the name that best objectively matches what the pitch does. Pitch classifiers needn't automatically hew to what they say, but pitchers are allowed to think about a pitch in a certain way, if it helps--even if we see something totally different. In Steele's case, there's no reason not to keep talking about it as a four-seamer, so that's what he's doing. It's hard for me to believe that he's unaware of its continued metamorphosis into a cutter, something well up the fastball-to-curve spectrum from his slider but decidedly moving in that direction. If he can get hitters to keep thinking four-seamer and swinging four-seamer when he throws it, though, it can only help him continue to miss barrels and induce ground balls with the pitch. For a cutter, Steele's heat actually rides pretty high, yet he has a 75th-percentile ground-ball rate on that offering. For a four-seamer, the frequency with which he gets grounders on the pitch would be downright elite, in the 94th percentile. Obviously, hitters aren't sitting at home waiting to hear Steele's thoughts on his own repertoire before going out and trying to hit him. Nothing he or anyone else says can radically alter what happens when he takes the mound. Pitching rarely requires anything radical, though. Small shifts and small violations of expectation yield small but crucial advantages. Putting the wrong idea in a hitter's head--whether he does it in an interview, or with his alignment and the slight crossfire action of his delivery, or whether algorithms do it for him by misreading and misreporting his pitch mix--gives Steele a leg up. That's not to say that the southpaw's success is smoke and mirrors. It isn't. His slider is as valuable as his cutter, especially against fellow lefties. It's just a fun way to celebrate and cerebrate on his breakout. He's winning with command, and tenacity, and good movement. He's also winning with deception, and some of that deception isn't physical or visual. It's verbal. View full article

On Wednesday afternoon, New York Mets owner Steve Cohen indicated that his team would become sellers ahead of next month's trade deadline, if they didn't start winning games. They lost in maddening fashion Wednesday night. Sharks are circling the $400-million beast that is the 2023 Mets roster. Could the Chicago Cubs be one of them, with an eye on New York's star first baseman? In a 1-to-1 deal, barely more than a quarter of respondents are down with giving up the organization's top prospect, even for a sure-thing slugger with a year and a half of team control remaining. That's probably about right, really. Crow-Armstrong has significant upside, and the Cubs have control of his services until at least 2030, without commitment or a major financial outlay in the short term. Most importantly, perhaps, it doesn't feel as though Alonso would put the current team over the top, although it might make them favorites in the anemic NL Central. Another 14 percent of voters, though, would consider a deal in which some other pieces changed hands, and the Cubs and Mets have a lot of ways to balance the scales in such a deal. Coming off back-to-back implosions by Jameson Taillon and Drew Smyly, the Cubs might feel that they need help in their starting rotation, and the Mets have some guys in whom the team could be interested. New York also has veteran relievers who could give a boost to the bullpen. Even with a sweetener, it would be difficult to part with a player who some project to play elite defense in center field and produce at an above-average clip at the plate for one at the bottom of the defensive spectrum, despite the unimpeachable track record of the latter. To do it, one would need to believe highly in Alonso. As I've probably implied heavily enough already, I meet that criterion. Having Alonso for two potential pennant races has value, but landing him this summer would also set the stage for a potential contract extension with him. Alonso's body might not look like one that will age well, but his skill set says he'll keep slugging into his 30s. One should never, ever pay more in a trade based on the ability to extend a player's contract, though, unless the whole deal is contingent on that extension. That wouldn't be the case here, so we need to focus on the term of team control Alonso has at the moment, not on how much longer he could theoretically be a Cub if they traded for him. The benefits to the big-league team from the acquisition of Alonso would be huge, but would they be enough? And do they outstrip the alternatives by enough to justify such a high cost? Let's answer the second of those questions first. Even if Paul Goldschmidt becomes available next month, the Cardinals and Cubs are not getting together on a deal like that. C.J. Cron is the poor man's Alonso, the one the Cubs could land at a much lower price. He's on a very cheap deal that expires at the end of this season, and although he's been limited by injuries and looked a bit depleted this year, he had good seasons in 2021 and 2022. That's the bargain deal available as a short-term patch. Otherwise, the Cubs would have to ride out 2023 with Jared Young, Trey Mancini, and Matt Mervis at first base, and hope to see enough from either Young or Mervis to give them faith in them for 2024. It's possible the Cubs could win the division without getting better at first base. Those three incumbents have the talent to produce more than they have to this point. Christopher Morel and Patrick Wisdom could spend a little time there down the stretch, and each of them has power to contribute to the lineup. The team's viability this year depends more on getting Taillon and Smyly back on track, and on the production of their long-term core hitters, than on any addition they might make. Still, Alonso would be a huge improvement, and he'd materially increase their chances of reaching the postseason. He'd also solve the position for 2024, whereas (at least absent a hot and seemingly sustainable finish by Young or Mervis) they currently have a hole there, and would be looking at Cron, Rhys Hoskins, Garrett Cooper, or Brandon Belt in free agency. As Mancini has ably demonstrated, buying second-tier bats at offense-first positions is often an unhappy business. The final question to answer is whether it would really take Crow-Armstrong to get Alonso. When a multi-time All-Star with more than a year of team control is available, and the selling club has leverage, it's fair to start with any team's top prospect. The Cubs have great depth in their system, though. Could they do a more desirable deal that doesn't involve Crow-Armstrong? It's plausible. It would probably cost them one of Cade Horton, Jordan Wicks, and Ben Brown, plus Kevin Alcantara, but it's plausible. Is giving up two of that group, and perhaps another sweetener, better than doing what the Mets did when they traded for Javier Baez in 2021, and just giving up one prospect with major upside? I can see a case for either side. There's even more to consider here, like whether Cody Bellinger fits into an Alonso conversation, but that can wait for another time. For now, I'm eager to hear whether others feel that Alonso is worth all this commotion--let alone one of the best prospects the Cubs have had since their super-core of 2015 and 2016. View full article

Frustrating inconsistency and buzzard's luck have defined Jameson Taillon's first season with the Cubs. Tuesday night's start was sadly typical. At times, Taillon cruised, and showed the stuff that made Chicago want him, even at a hefty price. Two home runs ruined his night, though, and they could have been avoided. Image courtesy of © David Banks-USA TODAY Sports It seemed like Brandon Marsh spotted something extremely early against Jameson Taillon. Over a month in to a fairly grisly slump, Marsh suddenly found the aggressive, powerful swing that went missing for him during that period of struggle. He hit two home runs against Taillon, accounting for over half the Phillies' runs in the game, but they weren't lightning bolts that struck without warning. The first pitch Taillon threw to Marsh in the game was a fastball in the upper half of the zone. It had too much of the plate, and wasn't quite high enough, which was one of Taillon's big problems all night. Marsh fouled it off, but his swing was absolutely vicious and the exit velocity on that foul ball was (unofficially) a billion miles per hour. Taillon was, sensibly, more careful with his next pitch, another fastball that was called a ball, up and away. On 1-1, though, Taillon and Yan Gomes tried to come inside on Marsh. The pitch was a cutter, above the belt and on the inside corner, but Marsh obliterated it. One might fairly have said, as the Cubs broadcast did on Marquee, that it was a good pitch--at least in a vacuum. No pitch is thrown in a vacuum, though. Given what Marsh looked like on the first pitch of that plate appearance, the pitch Taillon threw on 1-1 wasn't a good one at all. An even worse sequence happened the next time Marsh stepped to the plate. Taillon and Gomes got ahead of Marsh this time, with a fastball that was called a strike on the outer edge and a changeup Marsh fouled off, just off the corner. Again, though, Marsh's swing was an aggressive and dangerous one, and the foul ball was struck sharply. On 0-2, the Cubs went with a fastball above the zone. Marsh laid off, but Taillon and Gomes were still in good position, ahead 1-2. They tried to put him away with a curveball low and in. It stayed both over the plate and above the knees, though, and again, Marsh left no doubt. Good pitchers (and catchers) read opponents' swings. It's one of the very important mystical aspects of the art and craft of pitching. It's related to another one, too. Good pitchers also know how to work around a hitter when they don't have a good way to get them out. In neither situation Tuesday night should Taillon have simply given up and walked Marsh. There has to be some middle ground, though--some way to pitch around a guy without completely capitulating. It takes command, and unfortunately, Taillon's control is far ahead of his command right now. It also takes the right mental approach. At some point in an at-bat in which a hitter is taking swings like those two foul balls by Marsh, a pitcher has to start thinking of a walk as an acceptable, even noble outcome. They have to flip a switch and begin thinking that the hitter will need to expand the strike zone and get themselves out, and that that's ok. Marsh, as it happens, was an especially good candidate for that treatment Tuesday night. He's been swinging at too much junk for the last month; it's why his power disappeared for a while. Maybe he would have laid off Taillon's stuff outside the zine, but it's perfectly possible he would have gotten himself out. We'll never know, because Taillon (as too often happens for him) was unwilling to take that chance and stay well out of the area where damage can be done. The aggravations went far beyond Taillon on Tuesday night. It was just one of those games, where nothing seems to go quite right. Dansby Swanson hit two balls very well, if a bit less well than Marsh did, and both died well short of doing any damage. Nico Hoerner, who ultimately drove home the Cubs' only run in the eighth inning, just missed poking an RBI single through the right side earlier in the game. A mishit blooper just barely got over Hoerner and fell into right-center field for one of Philadelphia's runs. Junior Valentine allowed a fairly large strike zone, and that happened to suit Ranger Suarez much better than it suited Taillon. You can chalk almost all of that up to bad luck, but all of it (and especially the fact that Marsh easily cleared the fence twice, while Swanson showed only warning-track power) also points toward the Phillies' superior overall talent. It was the kind of game that is both closer than the final score makes it look, and clearer than a recitation of its action makes it sound. The Cubs just had that wonderful homestand, and then a highly productive road trip that started with four straight wins. To end that trip with an unfortunate loss to the Cardinals was no big deal, but to let it become a two-game losing streak in the first game back home, despite the days off and the fact that the Phillies are no juggernaut this year, was a bummer. There's time to turn things right back around in the 12 games left before the All-Star break, but that loss put a whiff of danger back into the air, mingled with the smoky haze. Wednesday night needs to be the start of a bounce back. View full article

The Cubs are a better team than their record shows. In the National League, they rank fourth in runs allowed per game and sixth in runs scored per game. Tom Ricketts has said he expects the team to be buyers at the trade deadline. If that's true, their focus should be on adding a bat to their lineup. Image courtesy of © Jeff Hanisch-USA TODAY Sports It's probably surprising to some to hear that the team is above-average in run scoring, at least on the senior circuit. They went through a long fallow period at the plate, and their weaknesses (being on the wrong side of average both in strikeout rate and in power) can make them disproportionately frustrating at times. Nor is their current standing a wholly accurate picture of how their season has unfolded. We're taking this measurement of their relative production during a fairly long hot streak, which juices everything. Let's talk, then, about lengthening the lineup. The team needs to hit for more power, without striking out more, and they need help at first base, designated hitter, and/or third base. Here are three players who could be fits. Andrew McCutchen, Pirates DH/OF It's been a welcome surprise to see McCutchen hit so well in his return to his original team. Although long ago relegated to outfield corners and despite a couple of severe leg injuries over the years, McCutchen has remained a sneakily great athlete. He's not hitting for exceptional power this year, but his overall line--.271/.394/.431--would be an upgrade for almost anyone, and certainly a big one for the Cubs. McCutchen also has nine steals in 12 tries this year, and he's only struck out 55 times in 277 plate appearances. He'd slot in as the regular designated hitter, limiting Trey Mancini's playing time unless and until he shows he can hit and handle first base adequately. Lane Thomas, Nationals OF He's only 27, and still has two years of team control beyond 2023. It's unlikely that the Nationals will desperately try to move Thomas. However, this season has made clear that that team is far from contention, and he could be their best trade chip this summer. That's thanks to 36 extra-base hits (including 14 homers) in 328 trips to the plate this season, good for a .515 slugging average. Thomas has big tools. He strikes out often, so he won't solve that problem for the club, but he would be an excellent complement to the outfield mix of Ian Happ, Cody Bellinger, Mike Tauchman, and Seiya Suzuki. Adding Thomas would allow David Ross to keep all of those guys fresher, by rotating them through the DH spot and playing matchups better. Jeimer Candelario, Nationals 3B Since he's a free agent at the end of this year, Candelario would be much cheaper to acquire than Thomas would be. He's also much tougher to strike out than Thomas is. That comes at some cost in power, but if the Cubs feel that the rest of their lineup has found some productive stability, they can afford to add a player who keeps the line moving, as Candelario does. His batting line for the year is .260/.335/.466, which is (adjusting for the era and run environment) darn close to a perfect match for the production a believer might have expected from him when he was a Cubs prospect, several years ago. The above only scratch the surface. If the Cubs do go shopping next month, they'll have even more options than these. As a starting point, though, these three hitters are fine examples of how the team can shore up a lineup that isn't yet deep enough to support a championship run. View full article