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Not much concrete good news came from the first 60 percent of this Cubs season. One trade has yielded so much present and expected future value, though, that it can't help but give you some hope for 2025 and beyond. Image courtesy of © Tommy Gilligan-USA TODAY Sports While the Chicago Cubs were able to cap off the first half of the 2024 season on a largely positive note, truly encouraging narratives around the team remain fairly sparse. The bullpen cost them games early in the year, and the lineup was pinned down by a number of underperforming and/or injured players that have left them unable to compensate. Many of the “positives” of the first half lie in the starting rotation. There is, though, at least one rousing offensive success to emerge out of these troubled months, with long-term implications aplenty: Michael Busch. Busch wowed with an impressive home run streak back in April, in which he put a baseball over the outfield fence in five consecutive games. While there have been some dips in performance since then, Busch has largely burnished his reputation as an extremely capable bat for the Cubs. The overall numbers for Michael Busch illustrate a mature bat capable of hitting virtually anywhere in the lineup. His slash at the break reads .271/.357/.466, with an 11.6 BB%. It’s a walk rate that sits in the 87th percentile among qualified hitters. If there’s any concern, it’s in the punchouts. Busch’s strikeout rate still sits over 30 percent (31.0%), but it dropped roughly eight percentage points between May and June, and he's posted an even 20% rate thus far in July. It seems contradictory to tab Busch as a mature bat, while at the same time noting some fairly intense punchout rates. But it’s not as if he’s going up and swinging wildly. His 45.4 Swing% is quite measured, while a 25.4 O-Swing% is good for the 74th percentile. He also ranks 22nd in the league in pitches per plate appearance, with 4.14. That’s well above the average of 3.87. So his strikeouts are more a byproduct of his ability to work the count than a ghastly inability to make contact. Busch has also proven to be a rare source of power for the Cubs this season. He’s posted an isolated power (ISO) of .195 to date, book-ending the first half with a .234 mark in April and a .231 in the first couple weeks of July. Only Ian Happ and Seiya Suzuki boast higher ISOs than his. As such, the walks and power allow him to compensate for his strikeout deficiencies while putting the screws to opposing pitchers via deep counts. When Busch was acquired from the Los Angeles Dodgers, the scouting report focused almost exclusively on his bat. It’s part of the reason why the Dodgers were willing to part with one of their top prospects in the first place. Once they signed Shohei Ohtani to serve as the full-time designated hitter, that closed the book on Busch’s Hollywood career. It was a time before the Dodgers’ intense battle with the injury bug on their infield, but their hypothetical lack of space was the Cubs’ immediate gain. While he probably wasn't ever going to cut it at second or third base, Busch's acclimation to the job of playing the cold corner every day in the majors has been as smooth as could possibly have been hoped. First base is not an easy position to which to transition. While it may not require as much athleticism as other infield spots, there’s a toolbox that not everyone possesses, especially from the standpoints of hands and instincts. Busch has proven to be adept at each facet the position demands, though. He’s posted a Fielding Run Value of 2 to date, and 5 Defensive Runs Saved. It’s that defensive component that has helped Busch to establish himself as one of the better players at the position in all of baseball. The FanGraphs leaderboard has him fourth in WAR (2.0) among first basemen. The names ahead of him are Bryce Harper, Freddie Freeman, and Christian Walker. Names behind him include Vladimir Guerrero Jr. Yandy Díaz, Pete Alonso, and Paul Goldschmidt. Putting it in that perspective illustrates just how much of a success the first half-season of Busch's Cubs tenure has been. The Cubs had been without a long-term solution at first base since they traded away franchise icon Anthony Rizzo. Frank Schwindel was a brief flash. Matt Mervis appears destined for a Quadruple-A career. Cody Bellinger provides too much value as an outfield glove to pin him down on an infield corner full-time at this point. None of Eric Hosmer, Trey Mancini, Alfonso Rivas, P.J. Higgins, or Jared Young turned out to be more than weak stopgaps at the position--not that they were ever expected to. But such a high volume of players getting reps at first base – to say nothing of Jeimer Candelario, Patrick Wisdom, David Bote – speaks to the difficulty they’ve had finding stability in the wake of the Rizzo trade. And while there are a couple of notable names in the system, including BJ Murray Jr & Haydn McGeary, neither appears remotely close to a major-league cup of coffee at this point. We can also throw the financial aspect into the discussion. With names like Alonso and Walker potentially available at the position, the Cubs are now able to lock in a pre-arbitration player at the position instead of shelling out huge dollars. The average fan shouldn't worry about the team’s finances, but massive savings there could allow the team to reallocate funds in other areas of offensive deficiency. (Whether they actually will spend money aggressively elsewhere is, of course, a different question.) Ultimately, it’s hard to overstate how much the emergence of Busch has silvered the lining of the dark clouds hanging over this team after the first half of 2024. With the potential for additional evolution, it’s hard not to think that the position is locked down for the foreseeable future, and easy to get excited dreaming on how he might perform over the next three to five seasons. View full article

As we close in on the midway point of July, one thing is becoming increasingly clear: the Chicago Cubs will be sellers at the MLB trade deadline. There isn’t a stretch to talk them out if it in the way that we saw 2023. Veterans currently on the roster will no longer be so by the time the calendar flips over to August. Navigating that, though, remains a difficult task. The Cubs, at large, are an underperforming group. They don’t have a long list of players prospective teams will be keen to acquire. Given the roster construction, though, it’s hard to identify anyone who could or should be considered untouchable. Nevertheless, as this team probably hopes to contend next year, there are at least a couple of names we can likely establish as being part of the 2025 Cubs. That starts at the top of the starting rotation with Justin Steele & Shota Imanaga. The former still has three more years of arbitration eligibility. Ideally, the team signs him to an extension before the years get too deep into that. In terms of run prevention, Steele has been (somewhat quietly) better than he was during his Cy Young candidate last year. He’s pitched to a 2.95 ERA, a 3.33 FIP, and continues to minimize walks. It took him 13 starts to get his first win, but it wasn’t to any fault of his own. And while Imanaga is 30, it’s hard to imagine the Cubs moving him in the first year of his deal. While he hasn’t been as dominant as he was to start the year, few expected him to be. Heavy flyballs will lead to more run production on the part of opposing hitters. But the stuff is absolutely there, and his uniquely structured contract should have him in town for at least three more years. There’s no reason to think the Cubs want to move forward with any two arms atop their starting five than Steele & Imanaga. Javier Assad likely pitched well enough to earn another (ideally healthy) year in the rotation if we wanted to extend the conversation. Ben Brown’s upside is too great for it to be considered. Given their health status, neither is part of the discussion, but one imagines neither would be seriously considered a trade candidate anyway. In the field, things get murky. The offense – and, in some cases, the defense – has underperformed to such a degree that you wonder who would even pursue some of their bats, let alone whether the team has anyone up to being deemed untouchable. There’s at least one in the form of Michael Busch. While the strikeout remains north of 30 percent, he’s shown a certain maturity and level of consistency at the plate that’s a rarity throughout the lineup. He’s walking at a rate (12.6 percent) that compensates for his susceptibility to punchouts and has started July with a .278 ISO. He’s providing stability in a lineup that lacks it. It’s also hard to imagine the team would rush to trade Ian Happ, either. I’m not sure they’d go as far as labeling him untouchable. But he’s hitting extremely well and has an upper-tier approach for the days when he’s not. He’s as close to the face of this organization as they’ve had since the guys from 2016 and has two more years under contract. We’ll throw his outfield comrade Pete Crow-Armstrong in there, too. The defense plays at the highest level. His bat’s just a work in progress. On the position side, though, that might be it. Seiya Suzuki is an interesting one. His defense is seemingly getting worse. But he’s showcasing more consistent power. Is it enough to compensate for his bouts of swing-and-miss or the defensive woes? Christopher Morel’s situation isn’t entirely dissimilar. He possesses massive power and has really reigned in the whiff of his game. A .219 BABIP is holding him down to a miserable extent. His defense, though, hasn’t taken the steps the team thought it might. It’s hard to imagine the team considering two separate players with notable defensive shortcomings to be untouchable. One or both could be moved. Feet to the fire, this is the list of untouchables (without current health issues): Justin Steele, Shota Imanaga, Michael Busch, Ian Happ, Pete Crow-Armstrong. Four of those are my perspective. The other one (Happ) is me trying to feign an understanding of the inner workings of the front office. And that’s probably as far as I’d be willing to go. Teams wanting a prospective DH could absolutely pursue the likes of Suzuki or Morel. Cody Bellinger & Nico Hoerner each make a certain degree of sense to be moved. You can justify those on some level. Probably Happ, too, but I don’t think the team wants to do so anyway. You can’t, though, explain your way out of moving either of your upper-tier pitchers, your one stable (cost-controlled) bat, or your future defensive superstar. View full article

The end of July will see the Chicago Cubs as trade deadline sellers. It’s hard to imagine too many untouchables with a roster such as this. However, given the rampant underperformance throughout the roster, a handful will be labeled unmovable. That lack of mobility largely stems from contracts. If it’s a health thing, we’re probably not discussing them as a trade candidate. In the case of contracts, the term or the dollars are both hindrances to prospective teams’ willingness to pursue. There’s also (obviously) a performance factor. I’m not going to pretend to know math as far as the former is concerned. I teach American Lit. But it’s easy to know when a contract is an obstacle, especially when combined with performance. As is the case with our first (and second) unmovable. Dansby Swanson isn’t going anywhere. There have been some minor flashes, but he’s ultimately in the midst of his worst offensive season. He’s hitting .204 and reaching base at a mere .281 clip. He’s striking out almost 28 percent of the time and offering a .136 ISO. Those aren’t just career-worsts. Those are Swanson bottoming out entirely. The defensive metrics have returned, but even that element of his game hasn’t passed the eye test as frequently. Signed through 2029 at an AAV near $26 million, there isn’t a team out there inquiring. Kyle Hendricks is on the opposite end of the (term? sentiment?) spectrum. He’s carrying a $16 million AAV on his deal this year, the last of his five-year deal. That deal might not be so cumbersome if Hendricks was near his best. But he’s been a shell this year. His ERA is north of seven. His FIP is 5.40. A BB% of 7.1 is his worst mark as a Cub. Hendricks is also allowing 1.85 homers per nine innings. Everything about him – much to our collective chagrin – is screaming cooked. No team is acquiring him currently. Perhaps he can latch on with a smaller deal in the offseason, but he’s not a factor here. In the blend of contract & performance, we should probably throw Hector Nerís into the discussion. He’s on a $9 million deal with a vesting option after 60 appearances. He’s at 33 thus far. Each one is seemingly shakier than the last. A 15.8 BB% is the worst of his career and the fourth highest among relief pitchers. His whiff rate has plummeted, and his contact rate is high. It’s quality stuff, too. A 39.8 HardHit% is roughly 12 points above last year. Nope. He’s here. Same with Drew Smyly. There is no vesting option (only a mutual one), but he’s playing on a $9.5 million deal and has had issues with command and flyballs this year. The Cubs aren’t eating significant cash just to move him. He’s probably worth grouping with the others. There was a point last year where Jameson Taillon might’ve been considered for this list. But he’s pitched well enough and is only 32 with two affordable years remaining. A team needing stability, like Baltimore or San Diego, might be interested. I suppose it’s somewhat good news that it’s a relatively small group of immovable guys. While there likely aren’t any that will fetch some massive return for impact talent, the front office should be able to build up a future roster pretty nicely if navigated appropriately. Of course, whether they can be trusted to do so is another discussion. Nevertheless, we do have one certainty for this year’s trade deadline. Dansby Swanson will be a Cub well down the line. Kyle Hendricks will be a Cub at least through this year. Hector Nerís will be a Cub this year and maybe even next. Those jerseys will at least get a little extra run than some current teammates. View full article

Long about the second or third stellar play Miles Mastrobuoni made behind Justin Steele in his start last Friday, I started to have some surprising thoughts. Image courtesy of © David Banks-USA TODAY Sports The first thought was: Why would the Cubs play anybody but Miles Mastrobuoni at third base for the remainder of the year? The second was: Is Miles Mastrobuoni the most exciting player the Cubs have to offer? But once I talked myself down from each of those, I started to wonder something else. Given his utility and increasingly apparent defensive excellence, does Mastrobuoni have enough to offer on offense to make him a valued regular in this lineup? I must admit, I’ve defied my typically preferred baseball archetype in matters of Mastrobuoni. Generally, I’m a fan of the utility type who offers upper-tier defense even if the bat doesn’t play. Perhaps my pro-Cubs bias has made me more dismissive of it in a higher-stakes scenario. But in those days where we’re slogging through a shaky pitching performance or a lineup absent of any production, Mastrobuoni has shown an ability to jumpstart the heart rate--if ever so slightly. Which brings me back to the original question: Is there anything of value in that bat? Mastrobuoni has 65 plate appearances at the big-league level this year. The slash includes a .172 average and .262 OBP, to go along with a .034 ISO. His wRC+ is 41. In most respects, it’s an extension of last year. Mastrobuoni finished with 149 plate appearances at the highest level, with a .241 average, .308 OBP, .060 ISO, and wRC+ of 71. I’m not going to blame myself for wondering what the point was, given numbers that look like that. At the same time, though, there are some interesting things happening. In his first 17 plate appearances with Tampa Bay in 2022, Mastrobuoni struck out six times. It was a 35.3 K% to go along with only a single walk (5.9%). Last year, he cut the K% to 21.5 and jumped the BB% up a bit to 8.7, in a much more expansive sample. This year, he’s at 13.6 on the K% side and an impressive 10.6% rate for walks. It’s all a minuscule sample, but bear with me. Comparing only the two Cubs years (given the larger samples they provide), Mastrobuoni has a higher swing rate thus far in 2024 (40.4%) than he did in 2023 (37.4%). But he’s raised the in-zone swing rate by roughly six percentage points, and dropped the chase rate by about three. It’s helped him to move his overall contact rate up from 78.8% last year to 82.4% this year. His whiff rate has fallen slightly, while his called strike rate has dropped by about 4%. Some zone awareness and subsequent aggression within the zone are apparent. It's also important to note that virtually any scouting report you can find on Mastrobuoni from his Tampa Bay days is going to mention his on-base skills. Sure enough, he walked at a 21.8% clip in 2023 and a 14.3% rate this year in Iowa. His on-base there was .448 last year and .361 this year. There’s also a possibility for slightly more power. His ISO figures in Iowa the last two seasons have read .178 and .183, though it's way, way easier to hit a ball out of Principal Park than it is to leave any big-league stadium. He’s just been working on the ground a bit too much (46.7 GB% this year) to realize it at the top level. He’s making reasonably good contact (38.7 hard-hit% combined in the two seasons). He’s pinned down by a .174 BABIP, more than anything. This is all to say that I don’t think Mastrobuoni has a play-him-everyday kind of offensive skill set. But I think the approach and contact trends are such that he does have more to offer than we’ve seen so far. There appears to be potential for legitimate value out of the utility role. Depending on the route the Cubs go at the trade deadline, we could be in for the first extended run for Miles Mastrobuoni to show us something on offense. I’m at a point where I’d like to see it. View full article

It's hard to be patient and farsighted enough to evaluate a streaky hitter as a player. The Cubs' left fielder makes it closer to impossible. Let's try, anyway. Image courtesy of © Kamil Krzaczynski-USA TODAY Sports I think I’m starting to come around on Ian Happ. Is his defense somewhat overrated? Probably. Would you like more consistency & sustainability out of his offensive output? Certainly. Is he too stoic to be a face-of-the-franchise type? I, personally, think so. But when he’s going in the way that he has in the last several weeks, he’s a rare catalyst for an otherwise (mostly) dormant Chicago Cubs lineup. Not that it’s only this recent stretch that has made me realize Happ’s value to the lineup. He’s been quite good since the start of May--even if my own perception is only just catching up to that fact. At the end of April, Happ had a .216 average, a .333 OBP, and 29 strikeouts across 120 plate appearances. His ISO was a mere .098. His wRC+ was 93. The latter figure indicates that Happ was below-average, but it's not nearly as bad as we might’ve perceived. I did, however, wonder in the early days of May if his lack of power was wrought by too much patience. While there was a boost in the power game the following month – and, subsequently, the wRC+ figure – perception still wasn’t working in Happ’s favor by the end of it. His strikeout rate jumped another five percentage points, nearly touching 30. He was walking less often. And so, while his ISO did experience a significant jump as the month wore on, the overall numbers still just were not working. Things changed in June, however. The strikeout rate remained high (27.4%), but the walk rate climbed back up to 16.0% for the month and the power continued to manifest (.256 ISO). He hit only .244, but reached base at a .387 clip and supplied regular power. You can compensate for some of the lower-performing categories when the rest look like that. That’s a version of Happ we can work with. The July edition is my favorite, though. Happ has 28 plate appearances so far this month. He’s slashing .417/.500/.875, with a 17.9 K% & 14.3 BB%. His ISO is at .458. The massive three-run shot off his bat onto Eutaw St. on Tuesday was essentially the death knell against a very good Baltimore Orioles team. For a Cubs team that hasn’t been able to put teams away virtually all season, the timing was impeccable. Overall, it’s a hilarious stretch that is (obviously) in no way sustainable. But the seeds from which these shoots have emerged were planted in June. Happ’s has toned down the whiff in his game since May. He cut it slightly in June, and even more so through the first week-plus of July. He’s getting the ball elevated, with a ground-ball rate that has decreased steadily since he started the year off at nearly 50% in April. No full-blown Happ analysis is the goal here. It's just to point out that there are a lot of important developments that have taken shape in building up to this offensive explosion. The ultimate aim here is to give some insight into managing my own perception of Happ. I discussed earlier in the year my struggle to grasp his level of actual quality. I think I’m finally arriving at real conclusions. Those conclusions read as follows: Ian Happ is a high-quality baseball player, who is prone to stretches of offensive ineptitude in which he retreats into too disciplined an approach and gets caught in-between, resulting in many groundballs and poor batted-ball luck. During those stretches, he’ll provide occasional power and enough on-base presence via the walk to compensate just enough. In between those stretches, he’ll light up the stat sheet through mixing line-drive contact and home run power. The former components make him frustrating. The latter makes it all worth it. View full article

There hasn’t been any real consistency this year as to how the Chicago Cubs have utilized their designated hitter slot. The early expectation was to deploy Nick Madrigal primarily at third base from the jump. Christopher Morel would see more looks as the DH until the latter gained more comfort transitioning to his new position. Image courtesy of © Katie Stratman-USA TODAY Sports Christopher Morel showed enough early improvement, though, to see more time. Combined with the offensive ineptitude of Nick Madrigal, that projection didn’t even remotely pan out. Morel started at the DH spot only seven times in March & April against 22 starts at the hot corner. As such, the team has gone through much of the year without a surefire solution at the position. Eleven players have at least one start as the team’s designated hitter heading into the weekend. In a general sense, rotating the DH makes some sense. Especially as the team has sought more time for Pete Crow-Armstrong in center field, it allows you to work with Ian Happ, Cody Bellinger, and Seiya Suzuki there. Mike Tauchman, when healthy. Patrick Wisdom’s power bat, on occasion. However, the leaders in DH that started this year have been Morel (19) and Suzuki (18). However, an important component is taking shape on the North Side that will likely impact how the Cubs intend to use that spot moving forward. And while that component is developing, it’s anything but clear. It’s the increasing inability to put either Morel or Seiya Suzuki on the actual baseball field. We’ve touched on Morel’s defense of late (and throughout the year). While the eye test might’ve shown some steady improvement early in the year, it’s obvious that he lacks the chops to be a viable long-term solution at the position. He lacks the instincts and probably some tools to make it a success. A similar situation is developing in the case of Suzuki. Friday afternoon saw him drop yet another routine fly ball, something that’s become alarmingly common for him despite a steady run as a fielder during his days over in Japan. Morel has been, statistically, the worst third baseman in baseball by Fielding Run Value. Among third sackers with at least 200 innings, only Jeimer Candelario’s -6 is close to Morel’s -8 on that end of the leaderboard. Suzuki, meanwhile, ranks 34th out of 42 right fielders in FRV (-3). He’s in league with names like Gavin Sheets and Nick Castellanos, who have a…certain reputation with the glove. Suffice it to say neither player has a long-term future in the field. This presents an interesting dynamic for how the team will utilize the DH spot moving forward. With two players becoming increasingly unreliable in the field, how do you balance the only spot they might be fit for? Rotating Suzuki into the slot more frequently seems more likely in the immediate future. Assuming Pete Crow-Armstrong is healthy, an outfield configuration of Happ, PCA, and Bellinger seems most appropriate for the defensive side of things. And since you don’t want Seiya’s bat out of the equation, he’ll have to get his plate appearances from that particular spot. When one of those guys needs a blow, or you want an offensive bump, given PCA’s shortcomings on that side, you throw Suzuki in right and let David Bote, Patrick Wisdom, or Miles Mastrobuoni handle the hot corner. It also presents some interesting trade deadline implications. With the team likely to fall on the sell side of things, do they prioritize moving one to free up that DH spot for the other and improve team defense? I suppose that would depend on what they’re seeking in return, between lower-level prospects, high-upside guys who are blocked (a la Michael Busch), or, more unlikely, a surefire longer-term piece in part of a larger deal. It presents an interesting quandary for Craig Counsell in a season full of them. A team that was so good on defense a year ago finds themselves trying to handle two regulars whose defense appears to be in steady decline. At the very least, it adds another curious element to how the team approaches this month’s deadline. View full article

The Chicago Cubs chose not to pursue an established player for their vacancies on the infield corners this winter. One of the young hitters they plugged in is adjusting and improving nicely. The other, however, is struggling mightily. Image courtesy of © Michael McLoone-USA TODAY Sports The team deployed seven different players at first base in 2023, with Cody Bellinger’s 59 appearances leading the way. On the opposite side of the diamond, Nick Madrigal’s surprising defense led him to 72 appearances, most among the six players to appear there. Given Bellinger’s primary spot on the outfield grass and the minimal offensive upside presented by Madrigal, neither was projected to spend the bulk of 2024 in the same spot. Nevertheless, the Cubs insisted on giving Christopher Morel a shot at third base and acquired Michael Busch from the Los Angeles Dodgers to settle things at first. It was the former’s first opportunity at a full-time defensive home at the top level, while Busch had appeared only sparingly in the big leagues at all. His opportunities had come primarily at second and third base. Offensive profiles probably had a say in the team’s aims for each spot. Each sports an offensive skill set well-suited for one of the corner spots. But each experiment was going to feature its own transitional period. The hope for Morel was that his arm and athleticism would eventually facilitate acceptable defense at the hot corner, especially with Dansby Swanson to his left. Even with some growing pains, the team hoped to see him figure it out. For Busch, it was more a process of elimination, given Morel being better-suited to third based on the two players' arm strength and the extremely established middle infield. I’m probably oversimplifying, but neither move was indefensible, in light of the Cubs’ apparent reluctance to sign Matt Chapman or push for a trade to land someone more established, like Pete Alonso. If they could provide at least some defensive stability, the offense could help to compensate for whatever shortcomings remained. Fast-forward from that spring mindset to July, and most questions seem to have been answered--on opposite ends of the spectrum. Morel has been the worst defensive third baseman in baseball. Among 14 qualifiers, his -6 Fielding Run Value sits at the bottom. Only Boston’s Rafael Devers has a lower Defensive Runs Saved than Morel’s mark, which also sits at -6. Just in case there was any doubt about the more comprehensive metric, Outs Above Average doesn’t like him either. His -8 OAA mark sits not only as the worst among third basemen, but the fifth-worst among 260 qualifying defenders at any position. There was some hope that maybe the eye test was more favorable than the metrics, especially as they were bogged down by his transitional period in April. However, even that can’t save Morel at this point. He’s a fourth-percentile defender, lacking in needed hands & instincts. Maybe they can try it again next spring (or later this summer) in right field, or something. Morel’s woes, though, stand in sharp contrast to his counterpart on the other end of the apron. Busch has not only impressed offensively after a May slog, but has shown quality with the glove at first base. Defensive metrics don’t love first basemen, but Busch has posted the fourth-best FRV at the position (3). For context, Carlos Santana & Christian Walker lead all players at the position, with 5. His OAA of 5 trails only those two, while his 4 DRS are tied for the second-most at the position. The eye test supports such an improvement as well, between picks/scoops and more general fielding tasks, like ranging to his right (and knowing when not to). He’s showcased enough growth that you feel comfortable with him at first base moving forward. That presents a very interesting scenario for the Cubs. As few options as they have at third from a farm perspective, they have even fewer at first. Matt Mervis looks like a Quadruple-A player, and B.J. Murray Jr. is in the midst of a down year. It was Busch or an outside solution. At third, the team could eventually turn to Matt Shaw, so I suppose if you had to choose only one to succeed defensively, you’d prefer it to be Busch. Regardless of all that, though, it’s fairly clear that the defensive outcomes have at least lent some level of clarity to what is needed in the future for this roster. Given Busch’s offensive upside and above-average defense, you can comfortably lock him in at the cold corner for the next few years. Third base doesn’t offer that same luxury. The Cubs will likely have a new player at the position next year. Whether that’s someone like Shaw or an outside solution remains to be seen, but while the context of positional adjustment was similar between Busch and Morel, it’s become very obvious that they're headed in opposite directions. View full article

As the Chicago Cubs continue their plight in the National League playoff picture, the conversation has somewhat naturally shifted to the buy/sell concept for next month’s MLB trade deadline. Image courtesy of © Kamil Krzaczynski-USA TODAY Sports There is, of course, the discussion as to whether the Cubs even have players of enough value worthy of selling. Given the volume of underperforming players on the roster, it's not an entirely unreasonable opinion. Those worth moving at the deadline are more likely to be players the team prefers to keep in the longer term, anyway. But as the chatter started to pick up, the internet latched onto one of the team’s higher-profile names to garner a reasonable return: Nico Hoerner. Hoerner was previously seen as something of a building block for the “next great Cubs team,” with the team signing him to an extension last March. That deal runs through 2026 with an AAV of just under $12 million. While the deal might’ve told us something about how the Cubs view Hoerner in the general context of their future, it’s also not one that would be too cumbersome for another team to take on in a trade, either. In pondering the idea of a Hoerner trade, it’s not so much wondering what a return would look like but whether the time is right for such a move. While Hoerner has worked his way back from a tough start on the defensive side – his Fielding Run Value has run up to 2 since it was on the other end of that threshold to start the year – the offense hasn’t been there in the way that we might’ve hoped. He’s at a wRC+ of 98 for the year and is still in the throes of his worth month. That figure stands at 79 for June. There are caveats, though. At the same time, the broad output looks pretty similar to what we’ve seen before. His strikeout rate is just 10.4 percent, while his walks are up a touch, at 9.4. He’s still reaching base at a reasonable .336 clip, too. He isn’t making as much quality contact, which is holding his average down, but it’s not as if he’s fallen off a cliff in the way that, say, his middle infield partner has. The bat is one of contact and on-base, with not much else. As long as the defense is there, he has just enough value, given the offensive skill set, to be a desirable player at the keystone (or perhaps even shortstop) for prospective teams. It’s not as if the team would be selling low on Hoerner at this juncture. He’s largely the same player, just with a little less luck, given the decline in contact quality. As such, it’s not as if the return would be anything earth-shattering in the first place. The return now is probably what the return would’ve been before. Whether this is a move the Cubs should explore is another thing entirely; it seems likely that a trade of Hoerner would be about opening up an infield spot for a rising prospect more than anything. Matt Shaw & James Triantos might offer more upside with the bat than Hoerner provides. While the team will likely seek to get Shaw in at third base in the somewhat near future, Triantos is more limited. If it’s not second, it’s an outfield corner, where the team has even less wiggle room for future personnel. I suppose it’s also possible (though far less likely) that the team shifts Michael Busch over to the keystone, a position at which he does have some experience, in pursuit of a legitimate power bat at first base. A trade of Nico Hoerner wouldn’t be about continuing to stock the farm system. It would be about logistics. It would make things a bit easier to manage the next wave of prospects or move others around should they get some impact offense into the mix. Is a trade for the sake of logistics a desirable thing? Probably not. Especially when discussing a player as steady and likable as Hoerner. But the team is in the position that they’re in, with very few trade options to show for it. This means that, at least among the fans, this chatter isn’t going away anytime soon. View full article

One way or another, change is coming for the 2024 Chicago Cubs. Their struggles this season are going to force the issue. The team has a loaded farm system. Can their reinforcements come from within? Should things continue at their current pace, the Chicago Cubs are going to find themselves in a weird sort of purgatory as the trade deadline approaches. They're not necessarily bad enough to sell. They're certainly not good enough to buy. With the former, you wonder which of their underperforming players from either side of the ball would even fetch a decent return. If the latter somehow occurs, is the front office willing to send away upper-tier talent in pursuit of meaningful change? It's all hypothetical, but there’s a certain murkiness to this team’s future now, both in the short and in the long term. But there’s also an additional component to this discussion to keep in mind. That vaunted farm system that we’ve heard so much about this year has some talent hitting the upper minors, and could soon be banging on the door of the big leagues. From an offensive perspective, it’ll be an interesting situation to navigate. As far as the hitters go, there are a few names we could see touch the field at Wrigley before 2024 draws to a close. The most logical names in such a discussion include Owen Caissie, Matt Shaw, and Moises Ballesteros. They represent three of the team’s top five positional prospects. They’re exciting names, to be sure. But they aren’t the only ones. Brennen Davis still exists in Iowa. James Triantos shouldn’t be completely ruled out, either, as he's thriving in Double-A Tennessee. A quick rundown: Caissie isn’t posting quite the gaudy power numbers that he did last year, but he’s still balancing a strikeout rate around 28% with a walk rate around 15%. He’s added a few steals. Matt Shaw came out hot, hit a lull, and has since regained steam. He’s reaching base at a .358 clip, with 10 homers and 17 steals thus far. He could jump up to Iowa soon. Ballesteros has already made his move up a level, after posting a 154 wRC+ in Tennessee; he’s hitting .350 in 20 plate appearances since arriving in Iowa. Davis has had awful batted ball luck (.212 BABIP) to go along with his consistently awful injury luck (only 36 games played), but has been much better than some of the numbers may indicate. He features a .314 ISO across 136 trips to the plate. James Triantos isn’t walking as much this year, but is still hitting .309 and striking out only 10 percent of the time. He has 25 steals, too. Those five names have at least plausible potential to reach the top level this year, and they offer the most intrigue of anyone in the system. Among other names, BJ Murray Jr has struggled. Kevin Alcántara is only just about to return to game action after a two-week absence. Jefferson Rojas is still a long way off. Luis Vázquez has already made his debut, and could come back as a supplementary glove for the infield at some point. Each of the five names above, though, presents interesting positional context and could have a significant bearing on how close to reality their Wrigley Field arrival may actually be. If we’re going for pure logic, Ballesteros represents the most straightforward addition. Miguel Amaya has been well below average on both sides of the ledger, while Tomás Nido only offers so much upside. Ballesteros has the potential to be a massive offensive upgrade if he can handle upper-level pitching, while not presenting much of a dropoff behind the dish. His biggest weakness there is in controlling the running game, which isn’t unusual, given how Cub catchers have fared in that aspect this year. Continuing to go by order of logic, Shaw comes next. If the team is still unhappy with Christopher Morel’s defense at third (and you'd hope they are), Shaw could present more stability there. He’s played 37 games at the position this year, after only three in 2023. From a lineup perspective, you’re bumping Morel back to DH and likely improving team defense as a result. Such a promotion would mean Shaw either skipping a level or enduring a very short stint in Iowa. That’s not entirely out of the question, given just how dominant his hot stretches have been this year. From there, things become less clear. Short of a trade somewhere, the path is much more clouded for the two outfielders. The team has Ian Happ, Pete Crow-Armstrong, Cody Bellinger, and Seiya Suzuki entrenched in the outfield. Mike Tauchman should be, too, in about three weeks. While Caissie and Davis offer really interesting upside, it’s hard to imagine space for them on the roster as currently constructed--even with the designated hitter slot theoretically open. The same could be said of Triantos. The idea of a Nico Hoerner trade is something I’ve seen floated on social media, given the team’s overall lack of quality trade candidates. But just a year removed from an extension and in the midst of a below-average 2024, it’s hard to envision a move. Triantos has appeared on the outfield grass sometimes. But even then, we’re looking at the same issue with which Caissie and Davis would be confronted. Of course, like Shaw, Triantos has another level of minor-league ball he could work through if the team is hellbent on some sort of promotion. Ultimately, that means that if we’re attempting to project Cubs prospects who could factor into the second half, we’re likely looking at Moises Ballesteros or Matt Shaw given the context of the roster. Each offers the most straightforward option, with Amaya taking a backseat or Morel heading back to full-time DH duties. Either one would be a move that could be made without upsetting the current roster construction. At the same time, the construction could end up looking quite different in the coming weeks. Perhaps the Cubs make a move with the idea of opening up some space for prospects like Caissie, Davis or Triantos. Overall, though, it’s difficult to get too razzed about the idea of one of the Cubs’ top hitting prospects making their Wrigley Field debut before 2024 runs out. It just doesn’t appear to be in this front office’s nature to promote aggressively. That might end up making someone like Davis or even Murray Jr most likely, depending on how the team approaches the deadline. The next month of play and the team's choices about their future will determine who could and should come up once we hit the later stages of the summer. View full article

The 2024 Chicago Cubs have been unexpectedly bad, and the prospects for the near future are dim. Here's the thing: that's not even the worst news. They're also a bore. First, a disclaimer: I’m going to take off my objectivity hat to which I typically try to cling and instead take more of a personal approach here. I am not oblivious to the trajectory of the Chicago Cubs, as currently constructed. They were never a legitimate title contender, even if a National League Central crown appeared to be in reach from the outset of 2024. It was a team that neglected to improve where they likely needed to, instead choosing to rely on upside and a team-wide uptick in performance in order for meaningful improvement to occur. That conservatism (and the resulting mediocrity) has led the majority of the fanbase to frustration. If you’ve spent even 60 seconds on social media somewhere in the month of June, that’s an obvious statement. There are multiple team aspects to which we can point to gather up enough shortcomings, in discussing why this current club needs to scramble just to avoid spending extended time in last place in a relatively mediocre division. That, however, is not my purpose here. Instead, I have just one primary criticism to share surrounding the 2024 Chicago Cubs: they’re boring. While technically alive, I was too young to actually comprehend the success of the Chicago Bulls in the 1990s, until the tail end. That means that, at 34 years old, my sports fandom has been fraught with disappointment. A roughly five-year stretch of hockey (prior to my abandonment of the Chicago franchise and sport at large stemming from their own cultural rot) and 2016 represent the only championship joy I have experienced to date. It's not as if I'm naïve in thinking that your team of choice must only win championships to be enjoyed. You can find something to like in even the worst of teams. Certain aspects of the game, personalities involved, and hope for the future offer at least some reason to engage positively with teams that are subpar among their league counterparts. With each passing day, though, I am becoming more unsure that the 2024 Cubs are offering much in any of those respects. Frustrations abound for an underperforming team. But it’s not as if we haven’t experienced bad Cubs teams in the last handful of decades. There have been… many. Even the worst of teams, though, featured at least a few reasons to engage. The 2012 Cubs lost 101 games. They also featured 32 homers from Alfonso Soriano, 183 hits from Starlin Castro, stellar defense from Darwin Barney, and a young Anthony Rizzo cracking into the big leagues. They lost 96 in 2006, but had 38 homers from Aramis Ramírez and 58 swipes from Juan Pierre. Carlos Zambrano pitched to a 3.41 ERA and won 16 games, and he hit six home runs that year. The 2002 campaign – wherein they lost 95 – featured a 49-homer season from Sammy Sosa and another 59 combined from Fred McGriff & Mark Bellhorn, plus Mark Prior's rookie showing. Those teams had standout performances. They had personality, even if the wins didn’t manifest along with those components. Perhaps most importantly, they offered some hope for the future. The 2002 and 2006 teams each improved by roughly 20 games the next season. The teams following 2012 didn’t feature the same leap, but did have Theo Epstein and a coherent plan at the helm. These 2024 Cubs are offering us very little on any of those fronts. Moments of excitement have been fleeting, at best, this season. Michael Busch had a nice stretch. Ian Happ did, too. In fact, both of them are still in one. Shota Imanaga came flying out of the gate. Again, though, nothing has been sustainable. The most exciting things to take away from this year’s team have been…their approach in April? Maybe? Which is also to say that this team doesn’t do anything loud. Twenty teams make hard contact more consistently than the Cubs. They’re in the bottom 10 of the league in ISO. On the mound, they’re bottom of the league in average velocity. It’s hard to get the type of impact performance that even those bad teams had, when your roster is comprised of just-ok parts. What entertainment value are you getting when the whole ship is built out of “steady yet unspectacular”? Especially when “steady” has yet to truly manifest. Furthering things is that it’s a stoic group. I’m not sure if that’s by design, but it’s simply devoid of front-facing personality. Dansby Swanson, Ian Happ, Cody Bellinger, Nico Hoerner, Michael Busch, Justin Steele, Jameson Taillon. The list goes on. A lot of guys who don’t display emotion for the better part of their daily contribution. As someone who isn’t outwardly demonstrative, I understand. As someone who wants to be entertained, though, I crave more. It makes their struggles more frustrating when it feels (however illusory the feeling) like a little more edge could change things for the better. More than anything, this team is maybe lacking in vision. Much more than the handful of good performances we saw in 2012 and 2013, what those teams had over this one was the fact that they were part of a well-understood, publicly-acknowledged rebuild. Spending those years thinking about trades and tracking other teams' farm systems was made easier by the fact that doing those things was the plan, all along. This team fell face-first into a similar position, which feels much more like 2002 or 2006, without the fun. They paid a manager $40 million and then sat on their hands. They have an upper-tier farm system, but appear terrified to use it, whether by pushing their talent to the top level or utilizing it within the trade market. Now, obviously, I have no insight as to what’s happening behind the scenes. But there’s a perception of Jed Hoyer here that is rapidly developing, and it isn’t one working in his favor. None of this is to say that we couldn’t witness a boost in watchability from these Cubs. Imanaga, prior to his struggles, was full of energy on the mound. Christopher Morel possesses it, when he isn’t struggling. Pete Crow-Armstrong contains entertainment upside in league with Javier Báez. But that can’t be realized when the team is mired in its collective woes in the way that it has been going back to mid-May. Nor is it to say that, as a fan, I don’t care if the Cubs win games or not. My preference in that respect is always that the players play well, and the team wins games. But in the interim, I need something to look forward to. I value my time. I also don’t want the perception to be that I am stripping these players of their humanity in that they’re here merely for my amusement. I understand the nature of struggle in sport and the psychological factors that exist therein. This isn’t about the Cubs as individual players; this is a critique of the Cubs' operating on an organizational level. At that level, their goal should be to get fans and followers to invest--invest their time, their emotion. What incentive is there to invest, given the absence of key factors that even those bad teams had? I don’t need them to be good. I just need them to be interesting. View full article

The Cubs' richest recent player investment has had a tough season, but he's coming out of his funk a bit during June. Could it be that he was at less than 100 percent during his toughest times? Image courtesy of © Kamil Krzaczynski-USA TODAY Sports When the Chicago Cubs signed Dansby Swanson in the 2022-23 offseason, they did so knowing that he didn’t possess the offensive upside of his free agent counterparts. However negligent pursuing defense and unquantifiable character traits over clearly (and, probably, vastly) superior hitters might’ve been, it’s not likely they expected this poor a performance from him with the stick this early in the contract. That's because Swanson hasn’t been this bad for this long before--at least not since he stabilized as an offensive performer, somewhere in 2019. That year was when he established himself after a rapid ascent to the big leagues. He posted wRC+ figures of 63 & 79 in 2017 and 2018, respectively, with the 91 in 2019 representing his establishment. He’s produced above-average wRC+ figures since, with the exception of a 99 blip in 2021. So when we think about stretches where he’s been as bad as he has for virtually all of 2024, it becomes very difficult to find a comparison. It's that very “breakout” season, though, that provides us with something we can compare to. Even after establishing himself as an elite defender who hits enough, Swanson has had month-to-month stretches of volatility, but August and September of 2019 give us a precedent for this sort of prolonged slump. Perhaps there’s some sort of information we can glean, to find answers as to how Swanson can crawl out of what is threatening to become a season-long funk. The last stretch this brutal for Swanson really started in July of that 2019 campaign. He ran an 84 wRC+ that month, before going for figures of 36 and 52 in the final two months. His final figure for the second half was just 55. Looking at the second half as a whole, he struck out at a 29.7 percent clip while hitting just .204 and posting a .315 on-base percentage. His ISO was only .049. That’s all even with a very respectable .312 BABIP. Let’s dig a bit deeper. In August and September of that season, he made only one piece of hard contact on a non-fastball. Other than that, offspeed and breaking pitches ruled him. He whiffed at roughly 42% of breaking pitches and exactly half of his swings at offspeed stuff. His overall swing rates were within his normal band for that season, but he plunged to a contact rate of barely 70%. It was just a lot of whiff, when he wasn’t making higher-than-usual groundball contact. Swanson hasn’t been quite that bad in 2024. Sure, a wRC+ of 81 isn’t what you want from perhaps your highest-profile player. But it’s been even worse within. In May, he was at just a 40 wRC+ and fanned at a 28% rate. His ISO was just .086. His overall first-half numbers feature a slash with a .208 average, a .286 OBP and a .134 ISO. Again, not quite as bad, but his longest stretch of well-below-average production since late 2019. Of course, there’s a giant caveat within that 2019 stretch that I have neglected to share: He was working through a heel injury. He missed time, and then continued to have it nag him through the end of the year. Up to that point, he was having a genuine breakout season, which brings us to a relevant question: how much of Dansby Swanson’s current performance can we attribute to the knee injury for which he spent time on the IL last month? It was characterized as a right knee sprain coming off a slide into second base. This is my entirely backdoor way of trying to find a little bit of optimism with regard to 2024 Dansby Swanson. As outsiders, we have no way of knowing the extent to which the knee was bothering him. But thus far in June, he has looked… better. Through a shade over 50 plate appearances, his wRC+ is at 103 for this month. His strikeout rate has been cut from 28.1% in May to just 19.0% in June, while his walks are back up a touch, to 10.3%. His ISO is up at .196, the highest of any month to this point. He’s still hitting the ball on the ground far too much (60.0 GB%), but whiffs are down and balls in play are up. That’s a start. It’s easy to lose the uptick in performance within the broader context of Swanson’s own struggles and those of the team at large. But it’s at least becoming fairly clear that the weeks surrounding his IL stint were absolutely impacted by the knee injury, given the parallels to the heel in 2019. He has a long way to go to reestablish some value as a member of this Cubs’ lineup, but the reality is, so do the eight guys around him on any given night. What we have for now, at least, is at least some semblance of optimism. View full article

After too long a time with too little offensive production and too little control of the running game on the part of their catching corps, the Cubs took action Wednesday. Will it be a sufficient change? Image courtesy of © Gregory Fisher-USA TODAY Sports We’re inside of six weeks until the MLB trade deadline, and social media is abuzz with all the theoretical names the Chicago Cubs could pursue before then. Danny Jansen & Elias Díaz have been heavily mentioned in that discussion, given the absence of any offensive contributions from behind the plate. While something like that could come to fruition before Jul. 31 (even with teams’ general apprehension for trading for catchers in-season), the organization has at least made a move in the interim. It was announced Wednesday that the team designated veteran catcher Yan Gomes for assignment and signed former New York Mets catcher Tomás Nido to a major-league deal. Nido will step in to serve as backup to Miguel Amaya. While it’s an unfortunate end in the organization for a player who was (by all accounts) well-respected in the clubhouse, it’s hard to argue against any justification for the Gomes DFA. Already a light-hitting player at the position, Gomes was in the midst of his worst offensive season. Approaching 100 plate appearances, he had posted a wRC+ of only 17, while slashing only .154/.179/.242 and striking out almost 38 percent of the time. Those are eye-poppingly bad numbers, obviously. Not that we should expect Nido to come in and right the ship in matters of offensive production at the position. He sports a career wRC+ of 56, a career ISO of .099, and he probably doesn’t walk enough (4.2 career BB%) to compensate for how much he strikes out (25.7%). In matters of the stick, he’s essentially a wash with Gomes (and 2024 Miguel Amaya, for that matter). But what Nido brings to the table is a defensive boost behind the plate. The typically steady glove of Gomes was experiencing a fairly notable decline on the defensive end, too. Baseball Prospectus had his comprehensive Catcher Defensive Adjustment at a -5.8 for the year. That ranked 81st among 82 catchers. His Deserved Runs Prevented sat at an identical figure, ranking 82 out of 82. That’s a product both of framing issues – wherein Gomes also sat at the bottom of the leaderboard (-0.018 Called Strikes Above Average) – and problems controlling the run game, where Gomes was 57th in Swipe Rate Above Average. Nido isn’t elite by really any standard. But at the very least, you’re getting a steady dose of mid, as opposed to one of bad. His -0.2 CDA ranks 49th among that group and the same number in DRP is 50th. While he doesn’t have the control over the running game in outright preventing attempts (below average Takeoff Rate Above Average), he’s at least adept at stopping them with an above average SRAA. He does that while being almost exactly average in the framing game. It's also worth noting in all of this that in addition to being a significant upgrade over Gomes – on probably both sides of the ball at this point – Nido is also a rather sizeable upgrade over what we’ve seen from Miguel Amaya on the defensive side. It’ll be interesting to see if Nido starts to creep into the starter’s time, given the stability he appears to offer from a defensive perspective. Again, we’re not talking about a massive shakeup. It’s not a Jansen or Díaz type of move that could yield genuine impact. But it was a necessary one. Gomes was providing so much negative value in multiple facets that something like this became necessity. That steady dose of mid I mentioned earlier does sound pretty nice at this point, after all. View full article

The Chicago Cubs need a jolt--a powerful and sudden but lasting injection of offensive firepower, preferably from a dynamic young hitter. And there's some good news on that front. Image courtesy of © David Banks-USA TODAY Sports Any good feeling about individual hitters in the Chicago Cubs’ lineup has been fleeting. We had early plate discipline from Christopher Morel. We had early power from Michael Busch. We have individual moments from Seiya Suzuki. We have a recent power surge from Ian Happ. But none of it has been sustained. Stretches of complete silence from the collective lineup has fed into myriad questions about the on-field product, and (by extension) the organization as a whole. Maybe Busch is starting to give us something a little more permanent. It was fairly surprising to see the Cubs hand the keys to first base over to Busch so early. Even with a high-upside bat, there was very little ground to stand on, in terms of major-league success. Nevertheless, upon his acquisition from the Dodgers, there he was: entrenched in a position that carries a fair bit of prestige in organizational history. The early returns reflected the faith from the Cubs’ brass. He hit .266 in the first month of the year, while reaching base at a .333 clip and notching a .234 ISO. (For you math whizzes, that means he slugged .500.) He made hard contact at a 37.1-percent rate and kept the ball off the ground, on his way to a wRC+ of 133. Then, May happened. Last month, Busch’s wRC+ dropped to a 106. He was still above-average, sure--but only technically. He struck out at an even higher rate (37.2%) and didn’t feature the power to compensate like he had in April (.167 ISO). While he was able to garner the free pass on a more consistent basis (15.1 BB%), his quality of contact slipped, and he put the ball on the ground half the time. The impact just wasn’t there. The June version of Busch, however, seems to have struck some sort of balance in providing regular value to the lineup. The power hasn’t returned. In fact, his .147 ISO this month is his lowest yet. But everything else is starting to look promising. Busch’s walk rate has maintained. More importantly, though, whiffs are down significantly--particularly against fastballs, where he’s cut the Whiff% from 31.8% in May to just 18.2% in June. He’s cut offspeed whiffs down almost 10 percentage points, too. Subsequently, the strikeout rate is down (25.0%) and more balls are being put in play. The quality of contact is back up to snuff, and the ground balls have come back down. (Er, you know what I mean.) It’s all fed into a line that features a .324 average and .425 on-base percentage. One imagines that much of the uptick in production is due to Busch gaining (re-gaining?) a command of the strike zone. His chase rate, particularly against breaking and offspeed pitches, has plummeted. That’s forcing pitchers to come into the zone more often, leading to the above factors improving for Busch. Ideally, this will eventually lead to an organic return of the power numbers, as well. We're already seeing some evidence of that this week. Given the volatility of pretty much every Cubs hitter on a month-to-month basis this year, it’s hard to put too much future stock into the developments from Busch. But there’s an optimistic read here that says Busch came out hot; the league adjusted; and Busch adjusted back. If this is a sustainable version of Michael Busch, than he might just be every bit the guy we thought we saw back in April. Of course, in order for that to mean anything in 2024, a couple of his teammates have to come along for the rise. View full article