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Image courtesy of © Katie Stratman-Imagn Images After the San Diego Padres tied up the Wild Card Series with a win on Wednesday afternoon, the Cubs have officially tabbed Jameson Taillon as the starting pitcher in the deciding Game 3 on Thursday. If that feels a bit underwhelming, well, that’s because it is. That’s nothing against Taillon, whom I like as a pitcher, and about whom I have heard nothing but good things as a human being. It's just that we all thought Cade Horton would be starting one of these three games as recently as one week ago, and another starting pitcher was such an obvious need that Jed Hoyer traded for Jesús Luzardo last offseason—before backing out due to medical concerns. He settled for Colin Rea, instead. I digress. Taillon is our reality, and I try my darnedest to live in the present reality every day. I also try my darnedest to be optimistic, so I am here to point out that Taillon is a good matchup for this Padres lineup. You’ve probably noticed, by now, that five of the typical nine hitters that the Padres pencil in every day (or at least for the first two games of this series) are left-handed. If you’ve followed the Cubs closely over the past few seasons, you might recall that Taillon badly struggled to get lefties out during his first two seasons in a Cubs uniform. With Jackson Merrill, Luis Arraez, Ryan O’Hearn, Gavin Sheets, and Jake Cronenworth all figuring to be in the Padres lineup, that would be bad news for the Cubs. However, Taillon has completely reversed his trend of struggling against lefties this season. All stats courtesy of FanGraphs: Year BA vs. LHH OBP vs. LHH SLG vs. LHH 2023 .266 .340 .514 2024 .254 .303 .428 2025 .191 .249 .361 The reason for this sudden shift? I’ve written about this twice this season already: Taillon has a fancy new changeup that he debuted this season, and it’s turned him into a completely different pitcher against lefties. It’s a kick-change, which emphasizes more vertical movement—more depth. Here is an example of a changeup he threw last season. ZW5QUHFfWGw0TUFRPT1fQmxBQVV3WU1BZ0VBQ3dZQVVRQUFWd1VBQUZoVUFsQUFWZ2RRVlFjQVZ3ZGRVMVFB.mp4 Compare that with one he threw this season, and you can see the difference. bmI4OThfWGw0TUFRPT1fVjFWVlZnVUZCRkFBQUFjS0FBQUhVZzVTQUFOUkFGQUFBVlpUQndVTVUxVlZCd2RU.mp4 This has altered the way that Taillon approaches lefties. Instead of primarily working with a fastball, cutter and curveball, as he did last season, he now primarily throws a fastball, curveball, and the changeup. The change in results on the changeup, from last year to this year, have been staggering: Year BA SLG Whiff Rate 2024 .273 .576 14.8% 2025 .161 .258 36.6% Does this mean that Taillon is going to carve through the Padres' lineup tomorrow? We’ll see what happens. He’ll still have to deal with Fernando Tatis Jr. and Manny Machado at the top of the lineup, the first of whom homered off of Taillon earlier this season, and he wasn’t exactly lights-out against righties this year, either. The veteran right-hander is, at least, uniquely qualified to get through a lefty-heavy Padres lineup, thanks to his new changeup. Be on the lookout for that in the biggest game the Cubs have played since 2018. View full article

Image courtesy of © David Banks-Imagn Images With Justin Steele sustaining an early-season injury and Cade Horton suffering a poorly-timed one last week, the current state of the Chicago Cubs’ pitching staff is not engendering a ton of confidence. Despite this, Tuesday’s 3-1 victory over the San Diego Padres in the playoff opener might have given us a sneak peek into how, exactly, Craig Counsell plans on using what he has... at least to get through the wild card round. There was much talk prior to the series beginning about the Padres’ struggles against left-handed pitchers. As a team, they had a 96 wRC+ against lefties this season, according to FanGraphs. This means they were four percent worse than league average. Against righties, they had a 105 wRC+. That might not seem like a huge disparity, but in a three-game series, every single tiny little edge matters. With Matthew Boyd, a lefty, starting for the North siders, the Padres still decided to roll out a lineup with five left-handed hitters: Player wRC+ vs. LHP wRC+ vs. RHP Fernando Tatis Jr. - R 104 141 Luis Arraez - L 82 113 Manny Machado - R 128 121 Jackson Merrill - L 82 135 Xander Bogaerts - R 114 99 Ryan O’Hearn - L 195 84 Gavin Sheets - L 89 119 Jake Cronenworth - L 116 118 Freddy Fermin - R 8 95 Considering both O’Hearn and Cronenworth have performed very well against southpaws, this might not look like too bad of a decision. Swap in their career platoon splits, though, and a clear picture is painted: Player wRC+ vs. LHP wRC+ vs. RHP Fernando Tatis Jr. - R 137 136 Luis Arraez - L 90 126 Manny Machado - R 128 121 Jackson Merrill - L 81 142 Xander Bogaerts - R 128 111 Ryan O’Hearn - L 78 108 Gavin Sheets - L 56 103 Jake Cronenworth - L 94 116 Freddy Fermin - R 87 90 Mike Shildt is practically telling Craig Counsell how to deploy his bullpen here: right-handers against the top of the order, left-handers against the bottom of the order. There is not a single hitter that has hit above average for their career against lefties in the 6-9 spots. Surprising nobody, this is exactly what Craig Counsell did! Matthew Boyd was removed after exactly two turns through the order, with one out and a runner on first in the top of the fifth. Boyd, it should be noted, was actually decently effective the third time through the order this season. Despite this, it seemed premeditated that Boyd was going to come out once the lineup turned over a third time. It makes a good bit of sense, too. With 13 outs to go, and the top of the order coming up, it aligned all too well for Craig Counsell to use his trusted, leverage arms to get through the remainder of the game. Daniel Palencia took hitters 1-5, then the lefty Drew Pomeranz came in for hitters 6-8. Andrew Kittredge, a righty, came in to retire Fermin, Tatis, and Arraez, and then Keller closed things out against 3-5 in the order. Not a single runner reached base, and in the process, the Cubs grabbed the lead and walked out of Wrigley Field with a win. The only thing that I was surprised to see was Palencia facing Merrill, but he sure made me look silly. How good was he? The question, then, is whether Mike Shildt will do anything different with his lineup in Game 2. The top five in the lineup figure to remain the same. The Cubs have announced Andrew Kittredge as their starter, and I’d imagine he’ll only face Tatis, Arraez, and Machado, with Shota Imanaga figuring to follow to face the lefties thereafter. The more I looked over their options, I don’t know what other choice Shildt has. Nobody is worried about a platoon advantage, or disadvantage, for Freddy Fermin, so he won’t break those lefties up. What options await on the bench? Player wRC+ vs. LHP wRC+ vs. RHP Martin Maldonado 120 32 Luis Campusano 1 -16 Jose Iglesias 92 61 Mason McCoy 47 41 Bryce Johnson 105 156 Campusano, McCoy, and Johnson have combined for 137 MLB plate appearances, so I don’t think the Padres want to rely on them. Martin Maldonado has been one of the worst hitters in baseball this century. That leaves Iglesias, who could play for Cronenworth or O’Hearn, but still, with a 92 wRC+ against lefties, we’re not exactly talking about a world class hitter here. They’re really missing the presence of Ramon Laureano, who hit lefties incredibly well this year. Knowing Kittredge is starting, the Padres could move one of Merrill, O’Hearn, Sheets, or Cronenworth up so that they get to face a righty, but that bumps Tatis or Machado, their two best overall hitters, down in the lineup, which would also be a win for the Cubs. The Padres have no perfect solution here. In Game 1, Craig Counsell had a clear plan and it worked to perfection. Will the Padres try to counter it at all in Game 2? Or will they simply keep rolling with the group they believe is their best overall lineup? View full article

I vividly remember thinking he should have won it! And also meant to include in the article, his 1.084 OPS did lead the team in that World Series.

Image courtesy of © Jon Durr-Imagn Images In case you missed it, Anthony Rizzo is officially retiring as a Chicago Cub. ESPN’s Jesse Rogers reported that he will be honored during Saturday’s contest against the Tampa Bay Rays and that he will serve as an ambassador for the team going forward. This is something that we should all feel good about when there’s been little to feel good about on the North Side since Rizzo was traded four years ago. The first baseman was the face of Cubs baseball during the most fruitful and successful period of the modern era. It often feels like the ending fell a bit flat—and it did, to be clear. Saturday, however, represents an opportunity to right that wrong. Let’s remember the good times and look back at some of his most memorable moments in a Cubs uniform. Honorable Mentions The 2015 NLDS home run barrage In many ways, the 2015 Cubs were a year early. Sure, they had acquired Jon Lester that offseason, but guys like Kris Bryant and Kyle Schwarber had yet to even make their big league debuts. They were supposed to get a taste of being competitive that year before really hitting the ground running in 2016. Still, they announced their presence in a big way. After knocking off the Pittsburgh Pirates in the Wild Card game, they took down the St. Louis Cardinals in four games in the NLDS thanks to a home run barrage from so many of their young sluggers. Rizzo, of course, played a huge part in that. He hit one bomb during the Game 3 onslaught that ultimately ended with the Cubs launching six home runs, a postseason record that has only since been tied. He also hit the home run in Game 4 of that series that gave the Cubs the lead for good, propelling them into the NLCS. 2016 NLCS Game 6 home run off Clayton Kershaw Sure, the game was already mostly in hand when Rizzo hit this dinger to make it a 5-0 lead, but something about this one always felt symbolic to me. Combine the crowd chanting Kershaw’s name in jest, Kershaw’s frustrated scream, exasperated look, and defeated crouch to the ground, and you have, to me, the one moment where you knew that the Cubs did the darn thing. They made the World Series and took down arguably the greatest pitcher of this generation to get there. 5. The fight against Cincinnati Hindsight is always 20/20. That said, I remember feeling like this game was one where the Cubs had found a leader. It’s cliche, I know, and as a data-first guy, I am always skeptical that something like that can have a profound impact on a team. Still. Something about the way Rizzo was ready to fight the entire Cincinnati Reds team to defend his teammate said something. It felt like a crossroads in the Cubs’ attempt at a rebuild, and knowing what we know now, I think that maybe this was some sort of step in his maturation and development. I also remember thinking that Arismendy Alcantara’s four-hit game on that day was a harbinger of things to come for him. One out of two ain’t bad. 4. The tarp catch and the ledge catch Nothing personified the mid-to-late-2010s Cubs quite like defense. Every time you turned them on, you knew there was a chance to see something new. Whether it be Ben Zobrist and Kris Bryant playing every position, a pitcher in left field, or Javy Baez making ridiculous plays, they always kept things new and interesting on that side of the baseball. Rizzo was, of course, no exception, winning four Gold Gloves in his Cubs tenure, and making plays like these that are still talked about to this day. There are even bobbleheads commemorating each of these two catches. It should be noted, too, that with the extension of the screens (for good reason), we will probably never see catches like this again. 3. Striking out Freddie Freeman Of course. An obvious entrant on this list. You can’t talk about Anthony Rizzo without talking about the fun that he had while playing the game we all love. No moment personified that more than when he managed to strike out Freddie Freeman. It was meaningless, sure, but it was also silly, and helps serve as a reminder that these are all just grown adults playing a game. Rizzo’s unique ability to play with such intensity while also not taking himself too seriously helped endear him to so many fans and made him into the fan favorite that he was. Remember when he offered hand sanitizer to Orlando Arcia in the first game of the COVID-affected 2020 season? Or when he shared orange slices with the team in the dugout like a little leaguer? 2. Home run after a 14-pitch plate appearance on Opening Day 2.0 The date of this home run was June 11, 2021. That probably means little to you in retrospect, but back then, that was Opening Day 2.0 for the Cubs. That meant it was the first day that Wrigley Field was allowed back to full capacity after the COVID-19 pandemic. Sure, this was just a regular season game, but given the circumstances, it felt like more. During a time where we all felt so alone, we all suddenly felt so together, roaring after every foul ball that Rizzo continually hit, coming all the way to a crescendo as he tied the game with a home run in a game that the Cubs would go on to win. 1.The 2016 World Series I am, admittedly, cheating a bit here, and am going to lump a few highlights from the 2016 World Series into one section. But if you haven’t noticed, I lumped other highlights into other sections, too. You try picking only five Anthony Rizzo highlights! While this first particular highlight might have gotten lost to time a bit, it feels fitting that it was Rizzo that got the Cubs on the board in the World Series. After losing a 6-0 shutout that never felt particularly close in Game One, it was Rizzo that gave the Cubs the lead in the first inning of Game Two. As if to say “relax everyone, we’ve got this.” This is another very specific highlight, but it is a double that led to Rizzo scoring the eventual go-ahead run in Game Five of the World Series. I also wanted to use this to mention one of my favorites anecdotes from The Cubs Way by Tom Verducci, a fantastic book about the Cubs’ World Series run that year. You might have noticed him punching the air like a boxer after hitting the double. Well, here is the backstory, via Verducci’s book: ”An hour before Game 5, [Rizzo] broke out his pregame inspirational and comedic presentation, quoting motivational lines from movies with no clothes on. The Cubs won, so Rizzo did it before Game 6, too. They won again, so he did it before Game 7, as well. After batting practice was over, and only an hour before the seventh game of the World Series, Rizzo stripped off all his clothes, cranked the theme from Rocky on the clubhouse stereo one more time, jumped on top of a coffee table, and began quoting lines from the movie and throwing his best shadow-boxing punches. Pitcher Hector Rondon, joining in on the hijinks, picked up an aerosol can of shoe cleaner and sprayed it in the direction of Rizzo’s groin. Startled and angered, Rizzo stopped and yelled ‘What the heck, man!’ He cut the music and stormed off toward the bathroom, where he went into the showers to clean off the spray. ‘I’m thinking, Dang, what’s he doing?’ [David] Ross said. ‘We can’t have this negative vibe right before the game. I go by there. I can tell he’s a little irritated. He is irritated.’ Ten minutes went by. Rizzo finally emerged from the shower. He walked back silently to his locker with a towel around his waist. The room was quiet and uneasy. Ross walked up to Rizzo and broke the silence. ‘Hey! It’s not how many times you get knocked down … it’s how many times you get up!’ Rizzo chuckled. ‘You know what?’ He said. ‘You’re right!’ Said Ross, ‘He rips the towel off, runs up, turns the music on again, and he jumps back on the coffee table and starts doing the Rocky motions again and shadow-boxes.’” Rizzo picked up the boxing stuff, presumably, as a way of showing that the Cubs were never going to give up. In a matter of two pitches, with Andrew Miller and the Cleveland bullpen looming, the Cubs went from down 1-0 to tied 1-1 and with the go-ahead runner on second base, thanks to Kris Bryant and Rizzo. And who can forget about Bryant? I know this is an article about Rizzo, but it’s still difficult to separate the two. They formed arguably the most potent lineup duo in baseball for about a five year stretch. They were seen as incredibly likable teammates and friends, so much so that the Bryzzo Souvenir Company videos became viral hits. All of this brings me to Rizzo’s defining moment as a Cub. The defining picture in Chicago Cubs history is one of Rizzo, arms in the air in jubilation, celebrating the final out of the 2016 World Series. Who better to have the ball in that final moment than the one that touched so many lives through his charitable work for cancer and Lurie’s Children’s Hospital? Who better than the longest tenured of the team’s young sluggers? Who better than the unofficial captain, shadow-boxing, Reds-fighting, fun-having first baseman? View full article

Image courtesy of © Brett Davis-Imagn Images There’s no two ways about it: Willi Castro has drastically underperformed since being acquired by the Chicago Cubs at the trade deadline. It was easy to dream on the utility player being used all over the diamond to give some much-needed rest to the regulars. However, a .159/.205/.246 batting line since joining his new team makes it difficult to justify playing him any more than is absolutely necessary. This particularly stings because it feels like the Cubs have really struggled to build a decent bench for a few years now. During that same timeframe, they have had one of the better and most consistent starting nines in baseball. Take this year, for example. The Cubs have exactly nine position players who have accumulated at least one WAR at FanGraphs. They’re the ones you’d think: Carson Kelly, Matt Shaw, Dansby Swanson, Nico Hoerner, Michael Busch, Ian Happ, Pete Crow-Armstrong, Kyle Tucker, and Seiya Suzuki. Only three other teams in baseball can claim this, though admittedly, a few others will likely reach the mark by the end of the season. The three teams are the Milwaukee Brewers, Boston Red Sox, and the Toronto Blue Jays. At first glance, I’d say that’s not a bad list of teams to be grouped with this season! All of those teams will be playing October baseball, barring a major meltdown. Between those four teams, the Cubs have accumulated the most FanGraphs WAR among their top nine players, and those top nine players have taken the greatest percentage of their team’s plate appearances this season: Team Top-Nine fWAR % of PAs taken by top nine Blue Jays 26.5 77.5% Brewers 24.7 68.7% Cubs 27.1 86.7% Red Sox 23.4 69.8% Frankly, it’s not particularly close, and this chart gives me two takeaways. One is that the Cubs have one of the most productive group of starters in baseball, and they ride those guys hard. The other is that the Cubs have been pretty fortunate in the injury department on this side of the ball. Ian Happ is the only member of the Cubs’ usual starting lineup that has spent any time on the injured list. Have the Cubs struggled in building a bench because they’ve had issues finding good roster fits? Or have they had issues because they simply can’t afford to give any bench players consistent plate appearances thanks to such a productive core group of position players? Which brings me all the way back to Castro. He received just 60 plate appearances in August, the least he has received in a calendar month in two years. It’s really hard to go from being an everyday player, receiving 100 or so plate appearances per month, to a part-time player receiving only 60. Looking briefly at Castro’s batted ball data would certainly suggest he is having issues timing up the baseball. All stats courtesy of FanGraphs: Team Pull% Center% Oppo% With Twins 40.2% 38.4% 21.5% With Cubs 24.5% 43.4% 32.1% Perhaps fittingly, it’s been Castro’s performance against fastballs that has really suffered. Against four-seam fastballs, the utility man had a 141 wRC+ with the Twins. That has fallen to -56 with the Cubs. That is not a typo. Castro has yet to notch a hit against a four-seam fastball since joining the North Siders. There are a few ways you can point your finger in this situation. I don’t care how infrequently he is playing, Castro needs to be better than he has been, even if it isn’t quite as good as he was with the Twins. Craig Counsell could probably do a better job of keeping his bench involved, too. That’s just so hard to do when you have so many productive regulars, and so many unproductive bench guys. Jed Hoyer could probably do a better job of building the bench. The counterpoint to that, though, is that Castro was the theoretical perfect fit. And even that isn’t working. Or, perhaps it’s really hard to be a productive big leaguer with such limited playing time. The most likely explanation is usually a combination of all of those things. With some of the injuries starting to accumulate for the Cubs, and their playoff position looking increasingly secure, perhaps Castro can find a groove with some increased playing time going forward. His presence on this team is invaluable, even if his production has been worth nearly no value thus far; getting him going would give Counsell a 10th guy to rely on, something the Cubs haven't had in quite some time. View full article

Image courtesy of © Isaiah J. Downing-Imagn Images Following Friday night’s win in Denver, Cade Horton is now 6-1 with a 0.86 ERA since the All-Star Game. He’s asserted himself as a clear favorite for the Cubs’ postseason starting rotation and has been a bright spot in an otherwise difficult-to-watch second half for the North Siders. The rookie is also ninth in baseball in WAR in that same timeframe, according to FanGraphs. He’s far and away been the Cubs’ best pitcher for almost two months now. The thing is, he hasn’t quite been the exact same pitcher for this whole period of sustained success: I was long fascinated with Horton’s inability to strike hitters out at the big league level. This is a guy who struck out 190 hitters in 151 ⅔ innings in the minor leagues. If there was one definite ability of his, it was the ability to record a punch out. Yet, for the first 14 appearances of his big league career, Horton just didn’t do much of it. His 17.3 percent strikeout rate over that period of time was just 172nd out of 207 pitchers who threw at least 50 innings. Before I could even figure out what the deal was, Horton suddenly started striking guys out again. It started with six in 5 ⅔ innings against the Reds on August 6. Then, eight in 5 ⅔ innings in Toronto. Three in 2 ⅔ innings in his abbreviated start against the Brewers. And seven in 6.0 innings against the Angels. If we crunch the numbers and do the math, that’s a jump to a 28.3 percent strikeout rate since August 6. That’s in the top 20 percent in baseball, alongside names like Paul Skenes and Blake Snell. More recently, my fascination has shifted to finding the difference between these two versions of Cade Horton. Disregarding his most recent outing in the high altitude of Colorado (where he notched four strikeouts in 5.0 innings), let's split the season into two periods: outings from his major league debut through his August 1 start against the Orioles, and then the four starts following that. The first place I always look when a pitcher is racking up strikeouts is their whiff rate, or the percentage of swings that a hitter takes that result in a swing and a miss. For Horton, it was actually better when he was striking out less guys, going from 27.9 percent to 24.1 percent during his more recent four starts. For the rookie right-hander, it’s actually the swings that hitters aren’t taking that are benefitting him. All stats courtesy of Statcast and FanGraphs: Timeframe Zone% Called Strike % First Strike % 5/10-8/1 50.3% 16.2% 66.1% 8/2-8/28 60.2% 21.5% 75.0% Woah! So Cade Horton is absolutely filling up the strike zone, which is resulting in two things: a whole bunch of called strikes, and he is getting ahead of hitters. For reference, that 60.2 percent in-zone rate, 21.5 percent called-strike percentage, and 75 percent first-strike percentage would all lead the league if it was for the full season. To take this a step further, let’s examine what he is doing differently to right-handed hitters, specifically. To righties, he has started sprinkling in his sinker much more often. He threw it 16.9 percent of the time against righties in his strikeout-heavy stretch, up from 8.7 percent previously. And it’s not just that he is throwing it more, it’s when he’s throwing it. From August 2 to August 28, 28 percent of his first pitches to right-handed hitters was a sinker. Only 11.5 percent were sweepers. Previously, just eight percent of first pitches to righties was a sinker, and 35.5 percent of them were sweepers. It’s somewhat obvious as to why. Only six of Horton’s first pitch sweepers this year have been put in play, but two of them left the ballpark for home runs. That’s usually a pitch you want to throw out of the strike zone to induce a chase. If the youngster’s goal is now getting ahead of the hitter, that’s probably not the pitch to throw in the zone to accomplish that goal. A sinker, on the other hand, if you’re executing it properly, is likely only going to get hit for a single if it's in the zone, or maybe a very-well-placed double. Is this a sustainable way of recording more strikeouts for Horton going forward? This is kind of a cop out answer, but: maybe! Pitchers can succeed and record strikeouts by living in the strike zone this much. Tarik Skubal comes to mind. Then again, he is literally one of the two best pitchers in baseball right now, so that’s a lofty goal for Horton. Regardless, I’d say it’s encouraging that Cade Horton is willing to tinker and make in-season adjustments like this, especially as a rookie. His in-zone rate was back down to 44 percent against the Rockies, and he got a lot less strikes looking, and a lot less strikeouts, as a result. Will we see a return to living in the zone during his next start? View full article

Image courtesy of © Jonathan Hui-Imagn Images Toward the end of April, I examined the early results on the Cubs’ baserunning. Looking at advanced baserunning statistics that early in a season can be a weird exercise. Baserunning stats like BsR at FanGraphs and Baserunning Runs at Baseball Savant can fluctuate wildly based on the opportunities afforded to a team. Both of those stats measure how many runs a team's, or player’s, baserunning has been worth. This can certainly lead to wild variations by month. At the time I wrote that article, the Cubs were off to a great start on the base paths. They were, hands down, the best baserunning team in baseball, and I noted that this was something to track going forward. So here I am, checking in now, almost four months later. Unfortunately, I am here to tell you that the Cubs have most certainly not been the best baserunning team in baseball since that article was published. All stats courtesy of FanGraphs: Month BsR MLB Rank March/April 4.7 2 May 1.7 4 June 2.1 2 July 0.9 12 August -0.4 20 All statistics need context. To some degree, a decline in baserunning value makes sense. I’m not sure if you’ve heard or not, but the Cubs offense has been struggling. Their team batting average in August is .218 and their on-base percentage is .288. Those are both 28th in baseball, per FanGraphs. If a team is getting less hits and on base less, that’s less opportunities for guys to take an extra base, and less opportunity for guys to steal a base. To take that a step further, Pete Crow-Armstrong, who was responsible for a lot of the value early on, has an August on base percentage so minuscule that I won’t even list it here. Still, should it have plummeted this badly? With the more recent struggles, the Cubs are down to third in BsR at FanGraphs with 9.1 runs of value. They are looking up at, of course, the Milwaukee Brewers, who have accumulated 13.6 runs of value on the bases. So, we can chalk some of this up to the general struggles of the offense. But is that really all? Let’s take a look at stolen bases, and caught stealings, by month: Month Stolen Bases Caught Stealing March/April 44 6 May 30 6 June 26 5 July 21 5 August 12 5 Again, to a point, the drop in stolen bases makes sense. They’re getting on base less. Their best and fastest baserunner is getting on base a lot less. What’s more concerning to me is the five times they have been caught stealing. This was a team that was successful in over 80 percent of their steal attempts in every month this season. In August, they’ve been successful just 70 percent of the time. Generally, you want to be successful in stealing a base at least 75 percent of the time to accrue positive value. Everything considered, there’s still no doubt that they have been less aggressive. Offensive struggles or not, this team attempted 36 steals in May (note: I am excluding the 50 attempts in March and April since they played more games in that stretch than any other month). They very well might not even attempt 25 in August. There’s a couple schools of thought here. What it feels like the Cubs are thinking is that baserunners have been such a rare sight! You don’t want to waste them and make an out on the bases. Or, one could argue, that the Cubs need to be pushing the envelope here. You have a struggling offense that hasn’t been hitting for power and they need as many runners in scoring position as possible, even if it means you make a few extra outs on the bases. Regardless, baserunning was something that the Cubs were doing really well during their best stretches of the campaign. It has since become something that they are simply average at. It could be sample size issues. It could be fatigue. It could be an adjustment of their strategy. It could be circumstance. But, regardless of whether or not the offense continues to struggle, it’s something I’d like to see them resume asserting some authority with. View full article

Image courtesy of © David Banks-Imagn Images Opinions will be mixed on Jed Hoyer’s trade deadline activity, or rather, lack thereof. To be clear, I wasn’t a fan of it. Not to mention, it looks even worse now after Michael Soroka got placed in the injured list after just two innings in a Cubs uniform, and after Andrew Kittredge took the loss in last Tuesday’s game, giving up four earned runs and recording just one out. None of that is great. If we’re being entirely honest with ourselves, though, the pitching hasn’t been the issue of late. In the six games since the trade deadline passed, the Cubs have given up zero, four, three, three, five, and one runs. Their team ERA is 2.67, and that’s third in baseball in that timeframe. Yet the team is only 3-3. The pitching hasn’t been the issue. The offense is rocking a dastardly 72 wRC+, an all-encompassing offensive statistic where 100 is considered average, since the start of August, meaning they are 28 percent below league average. That’s 25th in baseball, according to FanGraphs. These struggles start with Kyle Tucker, inarguably the team’s best hitter, who has a wRC+ of just 8 in those six games. But his struggles go back much further than that: Month wRC+ HR March/April 157 7 May 146 5 June 174 5 July/August 91 1 Prior to this blip in July and August, you’d struggle to find a more consistent performer than Tucker. Thanks to his keen eye at the plate, he has such a high floor as a hitter. That hasn’t changed one bit. The slugger had a 14.3 percent walk rate prior to July. He’s actually raised it to 18 percent in the time since. Suffice to say, there’s very little that is different from an approach standpoint. He swung at 18.8 percent of pitches outside of the strike zone during the first three months of the season, and that is down to 15.2 percent since. When it comes to his patience at the plate, Tucker is very much the same player that he has ever been. Much has been made about Tucker’s finger injury sustained on June 1 against the Reds. I’m not sure that I entirely buy that as the reason for his cold stretch. As evidenced in the table above, he went on to have his best month of the season, by wRC+, in June, immediately after the injury. He didn’t really start struggling until July. I would think an injury like that would be evident when you look at a player’s swing speed. Prior to his finger injury, an average Kyle Tucker swing was clocked at 72.1 mph, per Baseball Savant. His average swing has been 72 mph since then. I’m ruling out the finger injury. The one home run on that chart above is what really sticks out to me. Right or wrong, I’ve always felt that power is something that stays relatively consistent. Batting average might come and go month to month, or even season to season, based on some of the breaks that you’re getting. But a home run is a home run. There’s not a lot of luck required in hitting the ball over the fence (barring a very windy day at the Friendly Confines). Balls hit over the fence are typically hit in the air and to the pull side of the field. Tucker’s fly ball rate was a healthy 48.7 percent prior to July. In his more recent rough stretch, it has plummeted to 39.7 percent. Even worse, 32.8 percent of his fly balls were hit to the pull side early on this season. From July onward, only 22.6 percent of his fly balls are pulled. Now, 48.4 percent of his fly balls are hit to center field, the largest part of the ballpark. You probably won’t hit many home runs that way. While Tucker is as complete of a hitter as they come, he’s always done most of his slugging against fastballs. This is typical. Fastballs are straight and easier to hit. That’s baseball 101. Since the start of July, though, Tucker’s performance against fastballs has completely fallen off of a cliff. Month Batting Average Slugging Percentage March-June .309 .556 July-August .148 .222 Performing this poorly against fastballs, and suddenly hitting a lot less balls to the pull side, suggests a timing issue, at least to me. My hypothesis was that if we looked at a spray chart of Tucker’s from July onward, isolated only to fastballs put in play, we’d see a decent chunk of fly outs to deep center field. You be the judge: I don’t know about you, but I see a grouping of five or so balls there that would have been home runs had they been hit to another part of the ballpark. It’s not always this simple. Hitters fly out to the warning track sometimes! But, when a good majority of a hitter's best struck baseballs against fastballs are going to center field (heck, almost to the opposite field), my assumption is you’re having some sort of issue timing the baseball, especially with so few being hit to the pull side. In short, I think that this is good news for the Cubs. A timing issue is fixable. A finger injury is, too, but that requires time, which the Cubs don’t currently have since the Milwaukee Brewers will apparently not lose a baseball game for the rest of the season. Also, since Kyle Tucker might only be a Chicago Cub for a couple more months, it's better if this is a problem he can turn around in short order. Hopefully, he can get back to crushing fastballs so we can all remember his time here a bit more fondly. Or, the Cubs can just extend him. How about both? View full article

Image courtesy of © David Banks-Imagn Images Amidst all of the talk over who the Chicago Cubs might trade for before the trade deadline tomorrow, I find myself distracted by Pete Crow-Armstrong. It only makes sense, right? After all, this is the year of Pete Crow-Armstrong. You can point to the offseason acquisitions of Kyle Tucker and Matthew Boyd all you want, but the fact is that the Cubs would still be much closer to the middling team of the past couple of seasons without the sudden, and frankly unexpected, breakout of the young center fielder. You see, in last Tuesday’s win over the Kansas City Royals, Crow-Armstrong broke a record that I wanted to take a second to acknowledge. There was no mid-game ovation for it. There was no score bug signifying the accomplishment. It happened, and just as quickly as it happened, it was just another play in just another regular season game. In fact, Boog Sciambi, the terrific play-by-play voice of the Cubs, barely even interrupted his statement about liking the music on the previously read advertisement to call the play: QndvTWJfWGw0TUFRPT1fQmxWU0FRY0RYbGNBVzFzQlZRQUhCQWRVQUZnQUJsQUFCd2NIVWxGVUF3Y0VVUVFB.mp4 What’s so significant about that catch? Because he had to cover 60ft in 3.8 seconds, that ball had a catch probability of 25 percent, according to Baseball Savant. The first significance of that catch is just how easy Crow-Armstrong makes this stuff look. Most of us probably didn’t think twice about that catch. A lesser center fielder doesn’t get to that ball, or has to dive to even make contact with that ball. The Cubs’ center fielder, though, catches that on his two feet, and as previously mentioned, the play-by-play announcer doesn’t even raise his voice. With a catch probability at 25 percent, that makes that a five-star catch for Pete Crow-Armstrong. This means he now has 13 five-star catches this season, officially breaking the record for the most such catches in a season. Byron Buxton had 12 five-star catches in 2017, and Billy Hamilton had 12 of them in 2016. Buxton, it should be noted, had 1,143 innings in the field in 2017, and 26 opportunities to make a five-star catch. Hamilton had 1,175 ⅓ innings in the field and 22 opportunities to make a five-star catch in his own exemplary campaign. Through Sunday’s action, Crow-Armstrong has just 917 ⅔ innings in the field and 20 opportunities. Let this be a reminder to all of us about what truly makes Pete Crow-Armstrong great: he is a generational defender at a premium position. We can all doubt the validity or sustainability of the offensive numbers. I still do. He swings way too much for me to believe he is as good of a hitter as he has been to this point this season. In fact, we might be seeing his absolute ceiling this season at the plate, and that’s okay. It very well could win him the National League Most Valuable Player award. He doesn’t have to post a 137 wRC+, as he currently has to this point in 2025, to be an incredibly valuable player. He just has to keep racking up five-star catches in center field. And that, I am certain he will do. View full article

Image courtesy of © Jordan Johnson-Imagn Images Last Sunday, in the Chicago Cubs’ win over the New York Yankees, something that almost never happens on a baseball field happened. In fact, I didn’t see the game live, but when I saw this play pop up on the MLB Gameday feed, I made note to go look at the highlight later: Did you notice it? Nico Hoerner swung and missed at a pitch right down the middle of the plate. This happens so infrequently that it almost takes my brain another second or two to process what happened. It’s like Steph Curry missing a wide-open three pointer. My brain sees him go into that shooting motion and it closes the loop for me. That ball is basically already through the hoop. I have seen it so many times. When my brain sees Nico Hoerner start to swing, it assumes the ball is going to be hit in play. This didn’t compute. Hoerner himself even seems a bit perplexed at the result. Take a peak at him right after the strikeout, looking at his bat, examining it, potentially expecting to find a large, baseball-sized hole somewhere on it. Surely, that’s the only reasonable explanation here: For the uninitiated, the Cubs’ second baseman has a strikeout rate of just 7.4 percent this season, according to FanGraphs. That is the second-lowest in baseball among qualified hitters, with only Luis Arraez, who is almost entirely allergic to striking out, sitting in front of him. So, Hoerner striking out at all is rare enough. But wait, there’s more! Not only did he strike out—he did so swinging. His swinging strike rate is a minuscule 4.8 percent. That’s actually only good enough for seventh-lowest among qualified hitters. Still, the league-wide average is 10.8 percent. Of Hoerner’s 28 strikeouts this season, 17 of them were of the swinging variety. Still, we can take this even further, because like an ogre, or an onion, this has layers (shout out my fellow Shrek fans). Not only did Hoerner strikeout on a swing and miss, he struck out on a swing and a miss in the strike zone. Per FanGraphs, the Gold Glover leads all of baseball, Arraez included, at making contact inside the strike zone, doing so on 97.5 percent of swings. He has only swung and missed at a pitch that would have been a strike 19 times this season, according to Baseball Savant, and only one other time has he struck out on such a pitch. It looked like this: That is hardly the same thing. For one, that pitch was almost unhittable, resulting in an emergency swing from Hoerner. Second, it was right on the edge. It might not have even been called a strike had he let it pass by. Which brings me to my last point. Not only did Nico Hoerner strikeout, not only was it swinging, and not only was it a pitch in the strike zone. It was also on a fastball right down the middle of the plate. Nobody misses those pitches. Surely our contact king never would. That’s the most hittable pitch in baseball. This marks the first time this season he has swung and missed on such a pitch, and just the third time in his whole career he has struck out on one. That’s the thing about Nico Hoerner. He doesn’t always make loud contact, but he almost always makes contact... except for when he doesn’t and it leaves my brain scrambling. Quite frankly, I, too, would be checking that bat for holes. View full article

Image courtesy of © Gregory Fisher-Imagn Images I’m fairly certain that a relief pitcher is already on the trade deadline shopping list for the Chicago Cubs. However, after a couple of worrisome performances from Brad Keller, should the North Siders place an even greater emphasis on trading for some help? After a stellar first three months of the season that saw him post a 1.91 ERA and an almost equally good 2.45 FIP, Brad Keller has had a rough start to July. Since the first of this month, the veteran righty has a 14.54 ERA and a horrid 12.32 FIP. This is after allowing just one earned run from April 25 through July 4. All seven of the runs he has given up in July came in two outings. Keller has been such an integral part of a bullpen that has really carried the Cubs through June, when the bats cooled off a bit. Is this going to be a cause for concern going forward? The first thing I think when I see a reliever suddenly start giving up runs is that his velocity is down. The good news here is that it’s not. For the season, Keller averages 97.1 mph on his fastball, 96.6 mph on his sinker, 87.0 mph on his slider, and 92.4 mph on his changeup, according to FanGraphs. In his two subpar outings this month, he was almost right on those figures, give or take a couple of tenths of a mile per hour. Velocity is not the issue. Is his pitch movement worsening? According to Stuff+, which evaluates the overall physical characteristics of a pitch, with 100 being average, that’s also not the case. Keller has a rating of 105 prior to July, and it’s been 100 since. A decline, sure, but not necessarily a drastic or terribly concerning one. Let’s go back to the bad outing last week against the St. Louis Cardinals. Keller got Willson Contreras to lazily fly out to start the inning. Then, Alec Burleson cut into the Cubs’ lead with a home run to center field: OHl3NVBfWGw0TUFRPT1fVTFSWlZsWlFCRkVBRGdZSFVBQUhBRkJYQUZnTkFBQUFVVlVFQ0ZFTkJWY0hCMU5R.mp4 High fastballs aren’t always a bad thing—if you have a fastball that rises a lot. The issue here is that Keller has one of those cutting fastballs that the Cubs have become so famous for, and he typically tries to keep it lower in the zone. In fact, per Baseball Savant, hitters are slugging .786 on Brad Keller fastballs in the upper third of the strike zone. Whoops! After the home run, Thomas Saggese reached his bat out and singled to right field on a pitch that was going to bounce in the dirt, and that had an exit velocity of 64 mph. Then, Lars Nootbaar had a bunt single. After that, Nolan Gorman had a ground ball single. Then came the big blow: OHl3NVBfWGw0TUFRPT1fVjFOUlhWUUNVbFlBV1ZWUUJBQUhWd05lQUFBTUJWQUFBVkJRVkZaUkIxQmNBQUJU.mp4 I don’t even think I need to tell you that that is not where Keller wanted to throw that pitch. Here’s Keller’s heat map for sliders to right-handed hitters this year: Keller, like almost every other pitcher, goes down and away with his slider. His pitch to Yohel Pozo was… not down and away. He missed his spot. Badly. Fast-forward to this past weekend against Aaron Judge, and this might look familiar: A fastball up! I have a huge issue with throwing a fastball to Aaron Judge while up 0-2 in the count in a five-run game, too, but that’s not the thing this article is tackling. If you look at where Carson Kelly sets up, it’s clear that they wanted this pitch way up and out of the strike zone, likely to set up the slider. Keller missed his spot. Again. And paid the price. Again. So what does all of this mean? You are free to interpret that in your own way. Me personally? I feel a tad better about Keller’s struggles this month after this. He made bad pitches to Gorman, Pozo, and Aaron freakin’ Judge, and in between Gorman and Pozo, he had a whole lot of unfortunate luck. Pitchers make mistakes. These weren’t the first ones Keller has made this season. They’re simply the first ones in a while that were punished for home runs. Actually, they are the first three home runs he has given up all season. Relief pitchers are, unfortunately, volatile like that. Their sample sizes are so small, and suddenly, a couple of bad outings, and their ERA balloons. Keller probably won’t continue to be the sub-2.00 ERA pitcher he was for the first three months, though I do still expect him to be a solid contributor for the bullpen going forward. The velocity and stuff are still there. He simply had a couple of bad outings and made a few bad pitches. All easily correctable things—we hope. View full article

Image courtesy of Thieres Rabelo After scoring nearly six runs per game, second in all of baseball, over the course of the first couple months of the season, the Chicago Cubs’ offense came back down to earth a bit in the month of June. They scored about 4.5 runs per game, which was exactly average, 15th in baseball. That doesn’t mean there weren’t still performances to celebrate. Certain players kept the Cubs afloat while others regressed to the mean. Let’s take a look at North Side Baseball’s Cubs Hitter of the Month for June. Honorable Mention Reese McGuire (.244/.279/.488, 3 HR, 7 R, 6 RBI) The Cubs were probably worried about the production from the catcher position cratering when Miguel Amaya went down with an oblique injury at the end of May. And it has, though not because of McGuire. He’s actually been the one keeping them afloat. Carson Kelly struggled in June, to the tune of a 62 wRC+ (an all-encompassing offensive stat where 100 is average), according to FanGraphs. While McGuire’s batting line was good for a 112 wRC+, just a hair above league average, it’s been incredibly valuable given how unexpected it was. That alone deserves a shoutout. Will it continue? Probably not. But it might not have to for much longer with Amaya hopefully returning from his injury in July. Regardless, McGuire has filled the third catcher role with aplomb and deserves his flowers for seamlessly stepping in and replacing a crucial player. Third Place Ian Happ (.208/.298/.481, 9 HR, 16 R, 22 RBI) Happ’s overall slash line leaves a bit to be desired here, thanks to the drop in batting average, but his nine home runs led the team, as did his 22 RBIs from the leadoff spot. In a 19-game stretch from June 5 to June 25, Happ slugged all nine of those home runs and posted a .960 OPS, seemingly carrying the Cubs’ offense in the process. He was named the Cubs' Player of the Month for a reason. You can read more about Happ’s hot month from our own Matthew Trueblood. Second Place Kyle Tucker (.311/.404/.578, 5 HR, 18 R, 13 RBI) It certainly doesn’t feel like Tucker had a great month, yet he still somehow posted a 173 wRC+, his highest in any individual month so far as a Cub. He also posted his highest BABIP (batting average on balls in play), suggesting there might be some luck involved, but he is more than living up to the pre-season hype. As a matter of fact, the deeper you look into the numbers, the more confounding they get. He walked 12.5 percent of the time in June, the lowest in any month as a Cub, and struck out 19.2 percent of the time, the highest in any month. Both of those numbers are still really good, just not necessarily for someone with Tucker’s baseline. The first thing I think when I see that high batting average and BABIP is perhaps he started hitting more line drives. That is also not the case. In fact, his line drive rate fell precipitously, from about 22 percent in the first couple of months to 15 percent in June. His ground ball rate was up to 35.7 percent in June, and he hit a likely unsustainable .320 on those ground balls. He hit just .196 on ground balls in March, April, and May combined. But we shouldn't be all doom and gloom in a piece celebrating his success. As they say, great hitters find a way to succeed, and Tucker did just that. The Cubs should be glad to have him, and they should extend him so they can have him for even longer. Winner Michael Busch (.309/.385/.617, 7 HR, 13 R, 19 RBI) I’ve been trying to figure out the best way to write about this for a while now, so I’ll just go ahead and do this here: Michael Busch is trimming his strikeout rate, and it is doing wonders for his production. Busch’s strikeout rate of 28.6 percent last season was 11th worst in baseball. This season, he’s down to 21.9 percent, and in June, he struck out just 15.4 percent of the time. His swinging strike rate for his career sits at 11.3 percent. In June, it was just 7.3 percent. If the second-year first baseman maintains the decreased strikeout rate, months like this might just become the norm for him. His BABIP was right on par with his career number. He’s just putting the ball in play that much more often, reaping the rewards of it. What do you think of our list? Are there any other Cubs hitters you'd want to award for June? Let us know in the comments! View full article

Image courtesy of © Darren Yamashita-Imagn Images After his recall from AAA Iowa, Matt Shaw briefly looked like he was starting to figure things out. His first game back with the big league club was on May 19. From then through June 7, he hit .339/.379/.500, good for a .879 OPS. Since then, he has been so putrid that I am starting to wonder if the Cubs have a legitimate Matt Shaw problem. In 41 plate appearances, he has just four hits and one extra-base hit, giving him a slash line of .105/.171/.132. This would be easy to forgive if the under-the-hood metrics looked better. The issue is: they don’t. Shaw has the lowest average exit velocity of any big league hitter that has at least 100 batted ball events, according to Baseball Savant. Exit velocity isn’t everything, but when it’s that low, we’re usually talking about a light-hitting, defense-first, utility type of player. Like, for example, Caleb Durbin, who sits just above Shaw on that leaderboard. For anyone that has routinely followed my writing, you might know I enjoy blind player comparisons. So, let’s do one here, in an attempt to illustrate how concerning Shaw’s current offensive profile is. All stats courtesy of Baseball Savant: Player Average Exit Velocity GB% FB% LD% Pull% Straight% Oppo% Shaw 82.4mph 44.6% 17.4% 28.1% 33.9% 30.6% 35.5% Mystery Player 87.3mph 46.6% 23.3% 24.0% 37.4% 35.9% 26.7% The "Mystery Player" in this instance probably isn’t a power hitter; they don’t hit the ball very hard, they hit the ball on the ground a lot, and aren’t a heavy pull or fly ball hitter. For reference, the league as a whole hits 38.8 percent of balls to the pull side this year, and 26.4 percent of balls in play have been fly balls. This appears to be a slap hitter, aiming for doubles down the lines rather than home runs. Turns out, Mystery Player is someone that Cubs fans are intimately familiar with: Nico Hoerner. Hoerner is not at all a power hitter, but compare him next to Shaw like this and suddenly, he almost looks like one! This isn’t an insult to the Cubs’ second baseman. To be clear, I love Nico Hoerner, and I love watching him play baseball. He’s posted three-straight four win seasons, per Fangraphs, and has a really good shot at a fourth this year. Hoerner succeeds for three reasons: he is arguably the best defender in baseball at second base, he is an elite baserunner, and his bat to ball skill is bested only by Luis Arraez. He might not hit for power, but he’ll always run a batting average well above league average just because he puts the ball in play almost every time up there. Shaw might be a decent baserunner, and he has improved defensively, but Nico Hoerner he is not. After all, Shaw is a guy that slugged 21 home runs in the minors last year. Hoerner topped out at three in the minor leagues and 10 in the majors. Take one glance through Shaw’s page at Baseball Savant, and it’s easy to see where a huge part of the issue lies: he is hitting .106 on fastballs with just a .206 wOBA (wOBA is an all-encompassing offensive statistic where roughly .320 is considered average). Both of those numbers are in the bottom-10 among all qualified big league hitters. Taking a look at where Shaw is being pitched in the month of June, and the issue becomes even greater: I am not a major league pitcher, in fact, I am far from it. But that big red dot that sits in the upper and inside part of the strike zone looks like somewhere I’d want to throw a fastball to someone I didn’t think could catch up to it, resulting in the low exit velocity and pull rate numbers from above. Here’s one example from just this past weekend. Shaw gets a 2-2 fastball on the inner part of the plate. While he almost drops it in front of the right fielder for a single, most hitters aren’t making a ton of money off of line drives at 83 mph off the bat. The best case scenario for that ball is a single. The result there looks very, dare I say… Nico Hoerner-ish. I don’t want to be all doom and gloom, but the Cubs have a very tough line to toe here. Lucky for the team, they can afford one lineup spot of subpar production since they are getting so many contributions from just about everywhere else. Shaw is their number one prospect, and sometimes, development needs to happen at the big league level. It took a year and a half for Pete Crow-Armstrong to figure it out, and he has figured it out in a big way, it seems. On the flip side of things, the Cubs are a team looking to compete right now. They have the fourth best record in baseball, and could easily rocket up to number one with a decent week — they have the second best run differential in MLB. All numbers point to them having a legitimate shot at a World Series. A team like that cannot afford to field a complete zero at third base, and it’s legitimately concerning that he can’t seem to be able to consistently hit a big league fastball. Their number one need is still on the pitching side of things, but if Matt Shaw doesn’t start to turn things around fast, the Cubs might need to look to replace him at next month’s trade deadline, at least for the remainder of this season. View full article