Matthew Trueblood

Plenty of caveats, but using FanGraphs's Farm Rankings, Astros are 21st, the Yankees are 16th, and the Twins are 13th. You'd love to have an overflowing farm teeming with can't-miss dudes from which to pick, I guess, but there's plenty in those three orgs to target if it comes to it. Most of the truly dire systems belong to teams who are also sellers this year, so if they make a trade with anyone but the Braves, they will at least have some good names about which to inquire.

It's a high-stakes Sunday, as the Cubs need a win to seal a series victory over the Red Sox and get this all-important homestand off to a good start, with their ace on the hill. Before the game, let's take a deep breath and savor the intersection of this homestand and the beloved viral baseball game, Immaculate Grid. Image courtesy of Immaculate Grid For the two or three web-wise baseball fans who haven't yet found it, Immaculate Grid is the game (some distant spiritual descendant of Wordle, related to Sporcle quizzes on its mother's side) in which a player gets a grid of nine empty squares, lined by teams and/or achievements players might have notched in seasons or careers. The challenge is, with nine guesses, to fill out a perfect grid, where each square contains a player who either played for both teams in question or played for the team and managed the named feat. Our twist on the fun is that, with the Cubs hosting the Red Sox, Nationals and Cardinals during these 10 games, I'm going to name and write a bit about each of the six players (just six) in MLB history who have played for all four of those franchises. I'll put it in the Spoiler bubble below, though, so you can grab an unopened water bill and write your answers on the back of the envelope before viewing the answers. As a service to you, dear players, I'll also list any other teams for which each guy played. Does any of this matter much? No. Is it fun? The entire reason that Immaculate Grid exists is that, yes, it is. If we can't occasionally find a reason to talk a little bit about the players above, then we're just not trying hard enough. In a couple of those cases, it's especially scary to consider that if we don't learn from history, we might be doomed to repeat it. View full article

It's still too early to tell whether the Cubs will or should be buyers or sellers at the trade deadline. Their needs came pretty clearly into focus a while ago, though, and one of them is a consistent right-handed bat with power. As the Mets become very obvious sellers, one of those should emerge as eminently available. Image courtesy of © Brad Penner-USA TODAY Sports Over a long career, Tommy Pham has showed an extremely consistent ability to hit the ball hard, and he's demonstrated consistently excellent plate discipline. Everything else about his game--his defense, his ability to get the ball in the air where all that exit speed can do real damage, his health, and even his relationships with teammates and management--has been less consistent, but as he ages, even those things seem to be tightening up. Pham, 35, signed a one-year deal with the Mets this winter for $6 million, plus incentives based on playing time. He's been so good (and the Mets offense, alas, otherwise so bad) that he's going to earn many of those incentives, whether he's traded or not. Even so, he'll cost less than $8 million in total, a very manageable number. Given that, his .271/.347/.476 batting line will make him a very attractive trade target over the next two weeks. Everything in his batted-ball data suggests he can keep up this pace, at least for the balance of this season. Pham is running a career-high pull rate and career-low ground ball and pop-up rates. He's lifting the ball consistently, still generating excellent exit velocities, and not slicing underneath it in the process. With his trademark patience at the plate, he's getting on base at a good clip even as he adds a bit of power. Pham has lost a step, and modulated his formerly hyperaggressive approach on the bases, but he's still fast for his age and has used his newfound savvy to steal 10 bases in 11 tries. He's almost unplayable even in left field, but could fit there as the short side of a platoon with Ian Happ if Happ (.238/.365/.313, 0 HR) continues to show such ineptitude against southpaws. Otherwise, he'd have to be the designated hitter, but he'd be an awfully good one to add to the mix. In exchange for Pham, it's a safe bet that the Cubs would have to give up one useful prospect, but not anything that they would miss terribly. Kevin Made is still quite young for High A, but he's only posted a .651 OPS there this year, and with the additions of Matt Shaw and Josh Rivera to an already crowded medium-term middle infield picture, the Cubs could look to alleviate that jam by shopping Made this month. If he were involved in this kind of deal, Chicago would also have to throw in an intriguing arm, but one with some warts on his profile, too. Alternatively, if the Mets want a player with plenty of risk but some chance to profile a bit like Pham for the longer term, the Cubs could offer Nelson Velazquez. Since he returned to Iowa last in mid-May, Velazquez is hitting just .245/.321.,426 there, with a hefty strikeout rate. Still, we've seen his combination of power and speed look good at times over the last year and change. The last question is about whether and how Pham could fit into the bigger picture of the Cubs roster. They'd need to feel like they could entrust Christopher Morel with more playing time at third base, or else like they couldn't trust Morel to play much at all, in order for this to work. Patrick Wisdom would be shunted off the roster, and Trey Mancini would either face the same fate in short order or need to start playing more first base again. In that way, the fit is imperfect. As an addition to what is already the league-leading offense in pitches seen per plate appearance, though, Pham makes a ton of sense, and he has the right-handed jolt that has been missing from the lineup for most of the season. As relatively low-cost bats go, he's an appealing one. View full article

This is the thing people keep missing, imo, as they advocate for extending Bellinger: he’s hitting free agency. He *has* agency. They can’t just keep him and tell him he’s a first baseman. There’s no way they can pay him as much to play first base as someone will pay him to play center field, so he’s not going to come back to be the first baseman. Again, I could see a scenario (albeit a wild one) where they keep Bellinger, but it’d have to involve either getting a stunning opportunity to cash PCA in for a present-tense star or an even more unlikely trade of Happ or Suzuki. I know no one wants to think of it this way, but extending Happ closed off most realistic avenues to retaining Cody, and anyway, you’re not gonna get him to sign some pre-market extension. He only comes back at the going rate in free agency, which would hamstring them as they try to find a legit slugger and/or new front of the rotation pieces (unless that weird scenario where Happ or Suzuki and their money find a new home does come to fruition).

This is one of the best times of year for baseball fans. Races for the postseason are just starting to percolate and gather heat, but just as excitingly, the trade deadline looms. The Cubs need to be active at this year's deadline, one way or the other. Let's talk about a potential trade that would send star center fielder Cody Bellinger up north. Image courtesy of © David Banks-USA TODAY Sports Today's is the first in a series of pieces we'll do as the deadline approaches, featuring mock trades that could make sense for the Cubs under various circumstances. Check North Side Baseball daily for more, and jump into the discussion by leaving your opinion in the comments. With two home runs in the first game after the All-Star break Friday night, we can officially declare Cody Bellinger to be on a heater. He's hitting .302/.357/.518 for the season, with 11 homers and 11 steals. He's making contact at almost exactly the rate at which he did so when he won the 2019 NL MVP award. He's played plus defense both in center field and at first base, and it's been a joy to watch him play. Even beyond the steals, he runs the bases well and aggressively. In the field, he doesn't just track down fly balls well, but charges singles and returns them to the infield quickly. He uses his speed and his strength well in every dimension and facet of the game. Alas, we have to be realistic. Once the Cubs locked Ian Happ in for three more years with their April extension, it got a lot harder to fit Bellinger into the team's long-term plans. He's having exactly the season he and Scott Boras hoped he would have, which means that he'll hit the market this winter seeking almost exactly the deal he and Scott Boras envisioned a few years ago, before injuries sidetracked him for multiple seasons. The Cubs have too many other needs and too much other money committed to pay what Bellinger will cost beyond 2023. Even if one were of the mind to move Seiya Suzuki (eating a sizable share of his contract, in the process), it might be tough to justify retaining Bellinger. Unless the team finds such an enticing trade target that they elect to trade Pete Crow-Armstrong now, he's their center fielder of the future, and the future figures to begin on Opening Day 2024. To re-sign Bellinger would mean paying him more than several teams will surely be willing to pay for a star-caliber center fielder, while intending to stow him away in right field. Bellinger has the arm for that, and maybe playing right would keep him a bit healthier over the course of a long deal, but it's tough to make the value match up in that kind of situation. The next question, then, is whether it's worth retaining Bellinger for the rest of the year, making him a Qualifying Offer, and accepting draft pick compensation when he departs in free agency. If the Cubs climb back into the division race over the coming fortnight, that's an easy call. If they fall farther back, it's equally easy, although painful. Right now, as they struggle to get out of neutral and the clock slowly ticks down toward August 1, it's tough. On one hand, the team would absolutely get more in a trade than the draft pick they'd get for Bellinger is worth, and the chance that trading him is the thing that torpedoes what could otherwise be a winning or playoff season feels vanishingly small. On the other hand, even the remote chance that the team will turn things around is worth preserving, for as long as it exists. Dealing Bellinger before that candle flickers out would be a betrayal of the team's responsibility to do its best for the fans and for its own players. All that said, though, perhaps there's a deal worth making, anyway, because it could be nearly a wash in the short term and a profitable one in the longer term. The Minnesota Twins have a major need, and Bellinger could fill it perfectly--if the price is right. For those unfamiliar with the particulars of the 2023 Twins, it's pretty simple. They have an elite pitching staff, but they can't hit. In particular, they're hurting for production in center field, where shuffling Byron Buxton to designated hitter has left Michael A. Taylor as the everyday starter, and they're not getting enough out of first base. Alex Kirilloff, their 2016 first-round pick, has just four homers in 204 plate appearances. That was to be expected, as he's always been hit over power and has dealt with multiple wrist surgeries already in his young career. However, he's also striking out almost a quarter of the time, which is uncharacteristic and concerning. Bellinger would fit like a glove (er, and a bat) into the Twins' lineup. He could play some center field and some first base for them. His contact skills would be a balm to the league's most strikeout-prone offense. In a weak AL Central, he could be the difference-maker who get the Twins over the top. For the Cubs to give him up, though, the Twins would have to be willing to pay. There will be several other suitors, and the Cubs' playoff dreams (however faint) and the option of giving him a QO give them some leverage, anyway. Happily, Minnesota has a solid farm system, and several recent graduates of it who might be available even on their big-league roster. It's unlikely that the Cubs would have much interest in Trevor Larnach or Matt Wallner, who have good upside as left-handed sluggers but also show plenty of warts, and who only play the corner outfield spots. Again, having Happ and Suzuki locked in (even if only monetarily) makes adding another corner-only outfielder a tricky proposition. However, the Twins have a few other young hitters who could have immense appeal to the Cubs, as part of a Bellinger. One is the aforementioned Kirilloff, who (despite the problems described above) has a 117 wRC+ for the season. He's drawing walks and collecting singles at a fine rate, and with more development, he could turn into an above-average first baseman, albeit one more in the lineage of Sean Casey or Wally Joyner than in the traditional slugger's mold. Another is Jose Miranda, who's taken a massive step backward this year and just hit the injured list with a shoulder problem, but who looked like a cornerstone of the team's lineup for the future just a few months ago. Miranda is considerably further from free agency, and it's unlikely that the Twins would want to move him in exchange for a player who will leave after this year. They could be more open to a Kirilloff trade, though, because he's due to become eligible for arbitration via Super Two after this season. If the Cubs do land Kirilloff, they could also probably persuade the Minnesota front office to throw in an extra arm from the lower levels of their farm, especially by offering to pay down the remaining money owed to Bellinger. Slot Kirilloff into the lineup as the first baseman, and the Cubs' offense doesn't take a terrible hit for the loss of Bellinger. The downgrade is real, but it's not crippling, and center field would become an open space on the lineup card. In the very short term, that could be filled by Mike Tauchman, but by the middle of August, it could be time to stick Crow-Armstrong out there. His speed and defense would be worth the potential for some offensive struggles, especially if the Cubs fall out of the race by then, and the audition would give them a better sense of how much they need to pad their lineup for 2024. If Crow-Armstrong hit the ground running, the team could even come out ahead from the exchange. Four years of a usable first baseman--even one with a spotty health track record and a dearth of power--would be a steep price for the Twins to pay for Bellinger, and they might prefer not to take such a gamble on this one season. On the other hand, that front office is under mounting pressure to deliver a return on the team's ownership's record-level investment in the roster, first by reaching the playoffs, and then by breaking their nearly two-decade drought without a playoff victory. Kirilloff would be a good get for the Cubs, but an alternative to that form of the deal could be just as interesting. The Twins have a pair of starters showing well in Double-A Wichita, in David Festa and Marco Raya. Festa is a bit of a Ben Brown clone: big, hard-throwing, and with a good three-pitch mix that should make him a mid-rotation starter in the big leagues soon. Raya is much smaller, but still uses a riding heater to miss bats and set off a three-pitch arsenal. Those two are the kinds of arms the Cubs still need to stockpile, especially with the likely departure of Marcus Stroman and the increasing likelihood that they won't be able to rely on Kyle Hendricks or Drew Smyly beyond the end of this season. Getting both for Bellinger is a pipe dream, but getting either would be a solid return. Bellinger is a unique player on the market. If he stays hot for the balance of this month, and if the Cubs still decide to trade him, he should command a very handsome price. The Twins are a great fit, and there's at least one form of that transaction that wouldn't even make the Cubs materially worse in the short term. View full article

With the announcement of the Cubs' probable starters coming out of the All-Star break and into this pivotal 10-game homestand, it quickly became clear that the team still believes they can catch the Brewers and Reds. They want to be trade deadline buyers, and they're maximizing their chances of doing so. Much can change in the next two weeks, but let's look at how the rotation maps out for the rest of July. Image courtesy of © Jeff Hanisch-USA TODAY Sports Rather than one of the team's All-Star starters, Kyle Hendricks will take the ball first against the Red Sox this weekend. Marcus Stroman will follow him on Saturday, and Justin Steele will get a full cycle of rest between his one-inning All-Star appearance and his first start of the second half--this after he last pitched Wednesday, heading into the break. To be sure, the Cubs are partially managing Steele's workload with this setup, and they're probably pleased to give Stroman an extra day's rest (making it nine days between starts for him) as he tries to permanently put the hot spot on his finger out of his mind and to shake off the slightly wavering command he showed during his final few starts of the first half. Primarily, though, this arrangement is about making sure that both Stroman and Steele make their two starts on this homestand against the two toughest opponents the team faces between now and the deadline: the Red Sox and the Cardinals. By lining things up this way, the lowly and unimposing Nationals get some combination of Jameson Taillon and Drew Smyly, then Hendricks in the series finale Wednesday. At the end of the stretch of 10 at Wrigley, the team also gets a true off day, having played a Sunday day game and not needing to travel before starting their two-game set on the South Side Tuesday night. That's a nice chance to catch their breath before the White Sox series, and it lengthens the rotation out by a day already, but it'll be interesting to see (depending on how well they do during the homestand, of course) whether they elect to stretch it even further. The Sox are even worse than the Cardinals, right down there with the Nationals among the game's truly ghastly teams. The schedule the team has created would have Hendricks and Stroman pitching in those crosstown games, but after that, they have to go to St. Louis for four games against the Cardinals, then come back to Wrigley to face the Reds to finish July and begin August. In his only official start since going back to Iowa to stretch out, Hayden Wesneski went three scoreless innings, allowing two hits and one walk while striking out six. He missed bats with both his four-seamer and his sweeping slider. If he has two more good starts over the coming fortnight at Triple A, it's easy to envision the Cubs bringing him back up to face the right-leaning White Sox lineup in one of those two contests. That would not only continue the trend of giving extra rest to the veteran rotation members whenever able, but set up Stroman and Steele to start the first two of those games under the Arch. Whether Wesneski would then fold into a six-man rotation, or whether the team might then consider demoting Drew Smyly to the bullpen, is a question for a much later date. It will be interesting to see how Smyly and Taillon look coming out of the break, not only because the Cubs need to get at least two victories in their four starts on this homestand, but because Smyly has been so untenably awful over the last month and a half. In eight starts dating to May 28, he's averaging about 4 2/3 innings per outing; has a 6.75 ERA; has walked 22 against only 28 strikeouts; and is allowing a .996 OPS to opposing batters. Taillon, while still inconsistent, has certainly trended upward from rock bottom. Smyly is taking his place there. The southpaw, much less protected by his two-year, $19-million deal than Taillon has been by his four-year, $68-million one, could be out of the rotation for good if he doesn't come up big soon--even if the Cubs flop here and end up trading one of their other veterans at the deadline. The set of the rotation coming out of the break is exactly what Cubs fans should want to see. It signals purpose and determination, even in the face of long odds. That doesn't mean it will work, but the decisions are right. The bullpen should be more rested, too, and perhaps David Ross can be more proactive with Smyly or Taillon if they struggle, calling upon Javier Assad for long relief or converting to a bullpen game on the fly, before letting the game get away from the team. One way or another, the Cubs need wins. The coaching staff and the front office have set them up for success, and the schedule ahead is soft. This team has to prove itself. View full article

Very well put. We’re in lockstep on the Mervis decision web then.

Well, you and I just disagree about the absolute merits of Amaya and the relative ones of him and Barnhart. But that’s fine. I’m only suggesting buying some time with that IL stint—opening up playing time to get a more robust evaluation of Amaya, figuring out whether other guys can assert themselves as DH options—not using it to permanently dump him. Although obviously, feeling as I do about it, I do kind of envision them moving on from him before the year is out. To the Mervis point, I do think they could justify swapping out Wisdom for him, but that probably would have to wait until Swanson is healthy, at the very least. I think Young is the guy directly standing in his place on the roster, although Young does some things Mervis can’t, and it’s Young who could be swapped out for him at the lowest transaction cost, right?

I’m definitely skeptical of Perlaza as any kind of long-term solution. One thing the Cubs as an organization and Cubs Twitter *both* do poorly, though, going back years and years, is separating “this guy can be a regular for 3-5 years” from “this guy could have a really hot, helpful 200 PA,” without totally devaluing the latter or convincing themselves that the latter necessarily means the former. I’m not auditioning Perlaza or even Mervis for long-term cornerstone status in these scenarios; I just think they have a better chance of helping this particular team down the stretch than Young, Wisdom, or Mastro. And now is the moment to figure out whether and to what extent that’s true, because it’ll shape decisions they have to make really soon.

With two and a half weeks left before the trade deadline, the Cubs still have a chance to assert themselves as buyers and make outside additions to their roster. Before then, though, the front office should try to gather as much information as possible, by making a few internal moves. Image courtesy of © Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports Though the Cubs are 42-47 as they prepare to start the unofficial second half, their pitching staff is much stronger than that. The roster needs more offensive punch, and the players likely to be available over the next fortnight are not great solutions to what ails the lineup. Before looking outside, then, the team should use the time they still have to do a couple of high-stakes, urgent evaluations. Doing so will require some roster machinations. Firstly, they should swap Jared Young and Matt Mervis, bringing the latter back to the big leagues for a second and final 2023 audition. Since being farmed back out last month, Mervis is hitting .264/.418/.528 in 67 plate appearances. Despite a minor hand injury and an understandably slow start as he landed back in the minors and went about some adjustments, he's looking more or less the way he has since the start of 2022: like a player who needs a greater challenge. Mervis might not work out, but if he doesn't, there's value in finding that out sooner. Young briefly acquitted himself well when he came up to the parent club, but has quickly turned into a pumpkin, and there's little to suggest that he'll turn it around and be an above-average hitter at the MLB level the rest of the way. He's a dead-pull hitter, which is actually a dynamic the Cubs lineup needs, but he hits too many ground balls and whiffs too much to be the kind of dangerous hitter the team needs at first base. Recalling Mervis, then, would give the team a chance to quickly assess the depth of their need for help at the cold corner before the deadline. Similarly, the team should use a phantom injured list stint to shelve Tucker Barnhart, so that they can both get a better idea of Miguel Amaya's short-term value and bring up Yonathan Perlaza for a look as a DH option for the stretch drive. Perlaza, 24, is in the middle of a third straight season with a wRC+ over 120, and while that's come without evidence of elite power potential or exceptional contact skills, he does everything pretty well at the plate. He's a switch-hitter. He has some pop. He's modestly fast and can steal some bases. If Perlaza, Amaya and/or Mervis are useful hitters, the Cubs' needs are so much smaller and less scary that they'll gain leverage in any trade talks. The trio could also give the offense the jolt needed to ensure that they win enough games to position themselves as buyers in the first place. If they flop, it will increase the chances that the team has to act as sellers at the end of the month, but that could come to fruition even without these moves. On balance, it makes sense to work hard to get a better idea of what the organization can expect from these guys as soon as possible, even understanding that that might be a painful, disappointing process. Dansby Swanson should return from the injured list fairly quickly after the break. When he does, the team will face the choice of whether to jettison Patrick Wisdom or send down Miles Mastrobuoni, whose disparate skill sets are so tantalizing but who just haven't been good enough for the last few months. Mastrobuoni's speed is nice, and he did make hard contact three times against the Yankees in his first game back after his latest Iowa sojourn, but his defense isn't quite good enough at the positions where the Cubs really need him, and meaningful power remains beyond his reach. Alas, power (like everything else) seems to be beyond Wisdom's reach right now, too. He's completely lost at the plate, or he was, at least, at the end of the first half. He's rebounded from deep slumps before, and maybe he fixed something during the downtime, but if he doesn't come out of the break roaring and mashing, it's time to move on. As an added bonus, taking either Wisdom or Mastrobuoni off the roster will make it easier to get Christopher Morel consistent playing time, including and especially at third base, so he, too, can be evaluated well before the deadline. Needing to make rapid player evaluations under the pressure of a buy/sell decision with less than three weeks to go before the deadline is an undesirable situation. The Cubs put themselves in that position with their frustrating, inconsistent first half, though, and it's time for them to gain as much useful information as possible before things lock in. To gauge the needed external moves, they need to start with some internal ones. View full article

Everywhere I've looked since the end of the unofficial first half on Sunday, I've seen the denizens of Cubs Twitter wondering whether the Cubs can muster a 43-30 finish to the 2023 season. It'll only take 85 wins to win the NL Central, the thinking goes, so the question is whether the Cubs can get to that number. I think their climb will be steeper. Image courtesy of © Charles LeClaire-USA TODAY Sports There’s no editor quite as good as 100 essayists spread out across a century, grasping at straws. “It’s not what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for certain that just ain’t so,” goes the famous aphorism from Mark Twain, the greatest American aphorist. Twain never actually said or wrote that, and all efforts to ground the modern version of it in anyone’s actual authorship lead back to much less pithy lines. It was a brilliantly succinct and important idea, clearly but imperfectly communicated, and 150 years later, we have a beautiful rendition of it, thanks mostly to trial and error. It also helps, in my opinion, that the speakers and writers who slowly polished the original framework did so while attributing it to (among others) Twain. It’s much easier to be fearlessly clever and witty when you disclaim ownership of the word web you’re spinning. They may have been (knowingly or otherwise) fraudulently borrowing on Twain’s authority in making their points, but these anonymous accidental editors did modern rhetoricians a great service along the way. Anyway, your premise that the Cubs just need to go 43-30 from here just ain't so. We have to update our estimates of the division race of which the Cubs are a part. Early on, when the obviously unsustainable Pirates hot streak put them in the lead and the previously favored Cardinals were down and out, it made some sense to envision a scenario in which a record scarcely better than .500 would bring forth a team from the Central. Now, however, all of that has changed. The Reds will enter the weekend on pace for 89 wins. The Brewers are on pace for 87. The two teams have six more games to play against one another this month, so only one can make major progress toward a 90-win pace in the next two weeks, and it's possible that neither will. Still, the Reds are a team reinvented and catapulted forward by the arrival of their star rookies. The Brewers have survived this long despite not having Brandon Woodruff in their rotation since mid-April. Woodruff will be back soon. Elly De La Cruz, Matt McLain, and Andrew Abbott aren't going anywhere. If only one of these two clubs were on pace for 88 wins or so, it would be reasonable to argue that they're likely to face down the stretch. Certainly, while they now seem legit, the Reds aren't going to keep up the pace they've established since late May, when they took off from 21-29 to their current record by winning 29 of 41. Still, their overall record contains within it a 21-29 stretch, and that was done by a different team (none of the big rookies, and no Joey Votto, either, because he was hurt) than this one. If Cincinnati adds a starting pitcher at the trade deadline, watch out. They could win 93 or 94 games. More importantly, though, even if they don't do that well, the Brewers could. After a long slump, Willy Adames busted out with a power binge just before the break. Christian Yelich was snubbed, but played the first half at an All-Star level. Their pitching staff is getting healthier, and their offense is due for regression, and the combination of those two things gives them a great chance to push toward 90 wins. Again, one need not believer either of those teams is going to actually do as well as I describe there to understand why 85 wins probably won't win the division. The very existence of two of them makes it pretty likely that one of the two will have that kind of strong finish. The Cubs, then, can't do much of anything with a 43-30 finish. They have to do something I like to call "pulling an Elia"--to wit, getting [horsefeathering] hotter'n [horsefeathers]. To believe the Cubs have a serious chance in the division, you need to buy that they can finish (roughly) 48-25. That's a 108-win pace for nearly half a season. Maybe you do believe that. That's ok. Deep down, in parts of my baseball heart I try to guard and hide away, I believe it, too. I believe that the schedule is soft enough coming out of the All-Star break to allow this team to get hot and earn a key addition or two ahead of the trade deadline. I can easily imagine a more powerful second half from Ian Happ, Dansby Swanson, Cody Bellinger, and Seiya Suzuki, and a broadly better one from Nico Hoerner. I have already made my cases for bigger roles on the team for Daniel Palencia and Miguel Amaya, and I think we'll hear from Matt Mervis again before the year is out. The Cubs massively underachieved in the first half, and even if you believe (as I do) that some of that underachievement is systemic and unlikely to simply evaporate without significant changes, the fact is that the talent core of this team is stronger than its record. It can get even better, and with a bit of good luck, a roster this good can get very hot for two months. We just need to be clear that that's what needs to happen. From here, the team has a decent chance to climb out from under .500 and post a winning season, but that won't be nearly enough to get them into the postseason. If they want to do that, they need to pull an Elia, because one of their small-market rivals is going to remain competent and make it a fight from here. View full article

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.