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Thank you! Highly recommend Jason’s piece as well, of course. Welcome to NSBB!

Image courtesy of © Sergio Estrada-Imagn Images Just one week ago, our own Jason Ross broke down a plate appearance that CJ Abrams had against Cade Horton. Jason went pitch-by-pitch, examining what each pitch meant, and what the plate appearance as a whole signified for Horton’s development. I recommend you check that piece out, mostly because it’s a good article, but also because it’s inspired me to write a similar piece about one of Ben Brown’s showdowns against Kyle Schwarber from last week. Specifically, the one where Schwarber launched a home run. Before we jump into the plate appearance, let’s catch you up on where we’re at in the game. The Cubs find themselves in an early 3-0 hole, and the young right-hander is facing the Phillies' order the second time through. The first time he faced Schwarber, he walked him on a full count, throwing five fastballs and one curveball. Now, on to the plate appearance in question, with nobody on and nobody out in the third inning: Not a horrible pitch to start things off with, but also probably not precisely where Brown wanted it. Brown was either trying to sneak a curveball by Schwarber when he was anticipating a fastball for an easy strike one, or he was going for the chase down and out of the zone. The thing is, and Cubs fans are likely familiar with this. Schwarber is a tough player to get a chase from: he has swung at just 20.8 percent of pitches outside of the strike zone, according to FanGraphs. That is 15th lowest in baseball, and for comparison’s sake, the league average is 28 percent. Brown yanking that pitch inside a bit likely eliminated the chance for Schwarber to swing through it. Here’s the next pitch: A changeup, and a beauty at that. You can even see Schwarber give a little nod of approval after taking that pitch for a strike. This is the whole reason I wanted to write this piece to begin with. Since May 19, 7.1 percent of Brown’s pitches thrown have been changeups, per FanGraphs. That might not feel like a lot, but prior to May 19, it was just 2.3 percent, so he has more than tripled his usage of it. He needs a third pitch, and he is, at least, trying to incorporate the changeup more often. That pitch right there is what it looks like when he does so successfully. Now, for the 1-1 pitch: Another curveball, down and out of the zone that the former Cub spits on. Schwarber has now taken two of these pitches, and didn’t look particularly interested in swinging at either one. For someone like Brown, who has historically been a two-pitch pitcher, this puts him in a bind. He’s either not throwing the curveball well enough to get a chase from a guy like Schwarber, or, Schwarber is seeing it really well out of Brown’s hand. Neither is a good sign. According to FanGraphs, Brown is in the zone with his curveball only 43.5 percent of the time, and he gets chases on 40.2 percent of those pitches. He relies on hitters chasing his curveball down and out of the zone, and Schwarber wasn’t biting. This likely left Brown feeling like he couldn’t go to his best pitch. So, what pitch did he throw next? The changeup! Except that this one is incredibly poorly executed, and illustrates that Brown is clearly still very uncomfortable with the pitch. Despite the increased usage, Brown throws his changeup in the strike zone only 39.6 percent of the time, but only induces swings on 10.3 percent of those pitches, per FanGraphs. That’s not great, and looking at the heat map for his changeup this year, it’s clear he has no command of it: Now, Ben Brown is down 3-1. Schwarber wasn’t at all fooled by Brown’s best pitch, the curveball. While he did execute a good changeup on the 1-0 pitch, the 2-1 changeup was entirely uncompetitive. His only options now are to try and get the chase with the curveball again and be ok if you end up walking him, or try to breeze a fastball by him. Schwarber knew this, too, and I am fairly certain you already know he was more than ready for it: Ben Brown is clearly working on incorporating a changeup more often. That is a good thing. This plate appearance clearly illustrates the need for it, and how Brown still has a ways to go with his development of it. The curveball won’t always work against good hitters like Schwarber, and if he isn’t comfortable throwing the changeup, hitters know he has to go to the fastball. That’s exactly what happened here, and the Cubs paid the price for it. View full article

Image courtesy of Kamil Krzaczynski-Imagn Images Back in April, I wrote about Jameson Taillon’s kick change, and how it was looking like it was going to be a game-changer for the veteran right-hander in his age-33 season for the Chicago Cubs. At the time, he had just a 6.06 ERA through his first three starts, and was throwing the changeup a meager 5.8 percent of the time. It was clear he wasn’t fully comfortable with the new pitch just yet, but still, he was getting very positive results the few times he was using it, and based on the pitch movement metrics, it was clear that the changeup was different than the one he was throwing in previous seasons. I jotted down when I published that article back in April to follow up on Taillon and his changeup usage later on in the season. Would he continue using it? Would he continue getting such positive results with it? You may already know this if you’ve been paying close attention, but the answer to both of those questions is a loud and resounding yes. If we use the incredibly arbitrary cut off point of Taillon’s May 20 start in Miami, the changeup is now his second most used pitch: it’s been thrown 17.4 percent of the time since then, barely edging out his slider and curveball. He exclusively utilizes it against left-handed hitters, so the heavier usage of late could be due to him facing more lefties, however, it’s clear he’s now much more comfortable throwing his new changeup. It’s hard to argue with the results. According to Baseball Savant, hitters have hit just .195 against Taillon’s changeup. Batters have missed on 38.1 percent of swings they have taken on the pitch, which is the best among all of his pitches. This has allowed the Florida native to neutralize left-handed hitters in a way we just haven’t seen since he has joined the North Siders. As you might recall, an inability to get lefties out was a big reason why he struggled so much in his first season in blue, and while he was better last season, he still wasn’t great at it. All stats courtesy of Fangraphs: Year BA against LHH OBP against LHH SLG against LHH 2023 .266 .340 .514 2024 .254 .303 .428 2025 .179 .225 .375 This is a huge reason for the incredibly successful season that Jameson Taillon is having to this point. From our arbitrary starting point of May 20 and onward, he has a 1.91 ERA, and the Cubs have won all five games that he has pitched. He's been a consistent, quality start machine all year, and his newfound success against opposite-handed hitters is a big reason why. In case you need any more convincing, enjoy this clip of Taillon striking out Riley Greene with his new toy. View full article

Image courtesy of Darren Yamashita-Imagn Images Roughly four years ago, the Chicago Cubs did the unthinkable. By trading away Anthony Rizzo, Kris Bryant, and Javier Baez at the trade deadline, they signaled the end of an era, and the ushering in of a new one. That is to say nothing of the fact that they traded away some fan favorites. Anthony Rizzo felt like the Ernie Banks of this era. Kris Bryant was the best player, and MVP of the whole league, on a World Series-winning team. Javy Baez consistently left fans wondering what kind of incredible feat he would pull off next. Now, we’re more than officially into the new era of Cubs baseball, and I want to talk about the player that Baez was traded for, Pete Crow-Armstrong, who has suddenly developed into the Javier Baez of the new era. Of the many things that Baez was known for, one was swinging at basically anything that came anywhere close to the strike zone. I mean, how often do you see something like this? The crazy thing is, while El Mago most certainly had a propensity for swinging at almost anything, if you look at their individual swing rates, Crow-Armstrong somehow makes Baez look like Juan Soto. Statcast tracks swing rates from 2007 onward, and here are the five highest overall swing rates Cubs players have posted in an individual season since then. O-Swing % is how often a player swings at pitches outside of the strike zone, while Z-Swing % is how often a player swings at pitches inside of the strike zone: Player Year O-Swing % Z-Swing % Swing % Pete Crow-Armstong 2025 45.2% 77.3% 60.9% Javier Baez 2018 42.5% 76.6% 57.8% Alfonso Soriano 2007 43.5% 75.7% 57.4% Javier Baez 2017 41.3% 72.6% 56.1% Alfonso Soriano 2011 43.4% 69.2% 55.4% All in all, this is not horrible company to be in, as Soriano and Baez were both key cogs in some of the most successful Cubs teams this century. The bottom line, though, is that Pete Crow-Armstrong is currently on pace to post the most free swinging season for the Cubs since 2007, when MLB started tracking such metrics. How does this stack up to other players on other teams? Glad you asked! If the season ended today, the young center fielder would have the sixth-highest swing rate since 2007: Player Year O-Swing % Z-Swing % Swing % Ivan Rodriguez 2007 50.1% 75.0% 63.3% Delmon Young 2007 46.5% 80.1% 62.2% Ezequiel Tovar 2024 44.8% 80.3% 62.0% Hanser Alberto 2020 50.4% 74.1% 61.7% Ceddanne Rafaela 2024 46.3% 77.4% 61.5% Pete Crow-Armstrong 2025 45.2% 77.3% 61.5% This, admittedly, is much worse company to keep, and none of these players posted an above-average year at the plate during the seasons in question. Not only is Crow-Armstrong currently having the "swingiest" season in Cubs history, he could potentially have the swingiest season in baseball history. Again, note that this has only been tracked since 2007. Sure, 1.8 percentage points might feel like a lot to make up at this point, but that swing rate has been trending up since around the end of April (graph courtesy of Fangraphs😞 The bad news, and I included it in the graph here, is that pitchers are catching on, and simply starting to throw him way less pitches in the strike zone. That is what the blue line labeled Zone% represents: the percentage of pitches he has seen that were thrown in the strike zone. The good news is that in Saturday’s win over the Reds, the speedy outfielder drew two walks for the first time in his career. They were both on four pitches, and none of those pitches were particularly close to the strike zone, but, hey, baby steps, right? To put a nice little bow on this, Pete Crow-Armstrong is suddenly becoming the Javier Baez for this new era of Cubs baseball, but he has somehow been even more Javier Baez than Javier Baez. Incredible defensive play? Check, and the metrics would say he’s better than Baez. Always up to something on the basepaths? Check, and the metrics would also say he’s a better baserunner. Swinging at everything? Check, and even more so than El Mago ever did. And now, for the ultimate measure: am I now planning bathroom breaks and other periods of time away from the television, around his plate appearances, making sure I always get to see them? Yes I am. Is that for better or for worse? Most of it is for the better. As for the high swing rate stuff, I am not sure! Consider me skeptical that Crow-Armstrong can continue producing offensively at this pace while swinging as often as he has — it's simply not sustainable against major league pitching. Yet somehow, it’s working so far. So, let’s just relax and enjoy the ride. View full article

I do think that bunting could be a legitimate part of his game. It needs to be applied in better situations than this, though. Which I know you’re agreeing with anyway. A couple of points on him bunting, in general: 1. He has laid down eight total bunts this season, but three of those went for sacrifices. So technically a few more than five, but only five count against his batting average. 2. If it is going to be a legitimate part of his game, he needs to be better at it. Even if he maintains the .400 batting average, that would put him in a three way tie for 10th out of 15 hitters who have laid down at least five bunts. The league as a whole is hitting .514 on bunts.

Thanks! Personally, I’d tend to chalk up Nico’s RISP batting average as sample size that would average out over time. However, I had no idea he was hitting that well with RISP, and you make fair points!

Image courtesy of © Katie Stratman-USA TODAY Sports Last Wednesday, with two on, two out, and the Cubs trailing by two in the bottom of the sixth, Pete Crow-Armstrong stepped to the plate. This was a fantastic opportunity for the North Siders, who were going for the sweep against the Miami Marlins, to scratch a few runs across the board and get back in the ballgame. Except that Crow-Armstrong, who, through Saturday’s games, has been the 19th best qualified hitter in baseball by wRC+, bunted. He did succeed in doing so, despite it being a terrible bunt, thus loading the bases for Nico Hoerner. For what it’s worth, and you likely already know this, Nico Hoerner struck out to end the inning, and the Cubs went on to lose the game, 3-1. The end result is somewhat irrelevant. Hoerner could have hit a grand slam there, and I’d probably still be writing this article. For me, the ends don’t always justify the means. In this case, they did. I am here to talk about one of the Cubs’ best hitters deciding to bunt with two on and two out while down two runs. I have been here before with the young center fielder. On August 1 of last year, I wrote an article pleading with him to stop bunting so much. Through that point of last season, Crow-Armstrong was hitting just .222 on 13 bunt attempts, which was the worst mark in baseball of anyone that had put down at least 10 bunts. He has been considerably better since. He had a .625 batting average on bunts in August and September of last season, according to Baseball Savant. He also had four sacrifice bunts, which of course, don’t count against his batting average. I’m not sure it’s fair to ever give Crow-Armstrong a sacrifice bunt, because every bunt he lays down is an attempt at a hit. If it ends up as a sacrifice, that is simply a positive consequence. That being said, I’ll be nice and not knock him for it. This year, he’s hitting .400 on five bunt attempts, with three sacrifices. Hooray! I would have been thrilled with that last season. Now, I'm not, mostly because Crow-Armstrong is a good hitter these days. A flawed one, sure, but the current results can’t be argued with. Back to Tuesday night’s decision to bunt. In deciding to bunt, he took away any chance that he had to drive in a run. The best-case scenario that he created for himself was for the Cubs to end up with the bases loaded and two outs. Using the Win Probability Added (WPA) Inquirer at FanGraphs, we can calculate the average WPA that Crow-Armstrong was providing by bunting, or by swinging away. For example, if he bunts, we can assume that would result in a single 40 percent of the time, and an out 60 percent of the time, since he is hitting .400 on bunts this season. The Cubs would go from a 24.7 percent chance of winning with runners on first and second with two outs, to a 29.9 percent chance of winning with the bases loaded and two outs, a 5.2 percent difference. He has a 40 percent chance of creating that 5.2 percent difference, so if we multiply those two together, we get 2.1 percent. But he also has a 60 percent chance of making an out, and in this case, an out would drop the Cubs’ win probability by 6.6 percent. Multiply those together, and we get -4 percent. If we subtract that from our first number, we get -1.9 percent. This means that, with Pete Crow-Armstrong squaring to bunt in that situation, he is subtracting 1.9 percent from the Cubs’ win probability, on average. Now, let’s run that same calculation, for this particular scenario, based on his full season statistics. Let’s also assume a single scores one run, and a double scores two: Event % chance of happening WPA added or lost Average WPA added or lost Single 13.51% 13.4% 1.8% Double 5.95% 30.6% 1.8% Triple 0.54% 31.4% 0.2% HR 6.49% 45.9% 3% BB/HBP 5.41% 5.2% 0.3% Out 68.11% 6.6% -4.5% Total 2.6% Adding all of that up, and we can see that an average plate appearance from Pete Crow-Armstrong in that situation would result in 2.6 percentage points of win probability added. A much better figure than the average bunt, which as we saw above, would result in a 1.9 percentage point loss in win probability. Is this logic perfect? No, and I can mention the variables that this does not address, some of which support the bunt, and some of which do not: The next batter was Nico Hoerner, who is a decent player and has been a roughly league average hitter for several seasons now. He is also one of the Cubs’ worst hitters. It’s not like Kyle Tucker was due next. A single will not always score one run, and a double will not always score two. The pitcher was Calvin Faucher, an above-average relief arm. Perhaps Crow-Armstrong didn’t like the matchup. There is some very small chance that the Marlins throw that ball down the right field line and the Cubs score two runs on the bunt, especially given the weather conditions at the time. I am assuming there is a zero percent chance of that happening in the above calculations. I don’t think any of that is bridging the gap between average WPA on a bunt vs. swinging away, though. Ironically enough, Pete Crow-Armstrong stepped to the plate with two on and two outs in a tie game on Friday afternoon against the White Sox. He swung away, and deposited the ball into the right field bleachers, giving the Cubs a 5-2 lead that they would never look back from, adding 26% to the Cubs’ win probability. Hopefully he learned his lesson. Pete Crow-Armstrong is just a good hitter now. Period. He’d do well to remember that. View full article

Image courtesy of © Darren Yamashita-USA TODAY Sports It was just two seasons ago when Julian Merryweather was arguably the most valuable relief pitcher on the Cubs. After an injury marred 2024 season, his performance in 2025 has been subpar, to say the least. His more recent struggles came to a head this past week, when he posted back-to-back two-run outings against the Mets and Marlins. Is there any reason for fans to panic about the veteran right-hander? In short, yes. Entering Saturday’s action, Merryweather’s 4.76 ERA is actually better than his 5.20 xERA, and right on par with his 4.75 FIP. Both of those numbers would suggest that he has been as bad as his ERA would indicate. Let’s take this one step further. Why has his performance suffered? The first and most obvious place to look is in his strikeout rate. In the 2023 season, Merryweather struck out 32.3 percent of the hitters he faced, which was 16th in baseball among 162 qualified relievers, according to FanGraphs. This year, his strikeout rate has plummeted to 18.2 percent, which is 147th out of 188 qualified relievers. Merryweather succeeded in 2023 with a simple approach. He had two plus-pitches, a four-seam fastball and a slider, that he was capable of throwing in any count, in any situation. The fastball at the top of the zone tunneled well with the slider at the bottom of the zone. With the fastball averaging 98.1 mph two seasons ago, you had to be ready for that while also protecting against the slider, thus creating swing and miss with the breaking ball. Here’s his performance on each pitch from the 2023 season, compared to this season, and I trust you can spot the differences. All stats courtesy of FanGraphs: Velocity (mph) wRC+ O-Swing% SwStr% 2023 Fastball 98.1 132 21.8% 8.2% 2025 Fastball 96.0 170 20.7% 3.4% 2023 Slider 86.9 60 37.2% 20.2% 2025 Slider 84.6 54 28.7% 10.9% Hitters still, mostly, can’t hit the slider well. They’re just chasing less, and as a result, swinging and missing at it a whole lot less. This is probably due to the two mph decline in velocity across the board. Hitters have a fraction of a second more to decide if the pitch is a slider or a fastball out of Merryweather’s hand, and that fraction of a second is making all the difference. Within that vein, I have good and bad news. His velocity has been slowly declining all season, with both his fastball (94.8 mph) and slider (83.7 mph) velocity hitting a season low in his outing against the Marlins last Tuesday. Frankly, I expected we’d see an injury list placement after that, but instead we have good news: he rebounded to average a season high 97.2 mph on the fastball in his scoreless outing against the White Sox on Friday: In 2019, Driveline Baseball found that adding one mph to a player’s fastball velocity could be worth as much as .25-.35 in WAR in one season. In 2023, Julian Merryweather was worth 0.8 WAR on FanGraphs. Applying this logic, him losing two mph on his fastball might cost him just about all of his value, and that sure is what it feels like at this point. For now, let’s hope that the added velocity in his most recent appearance is a sign of more things to come. Otherwise, there might not be much good weather on the North Side when Julian Merryweather comes into the game. View full article

Image courtesy of © David Banks-USA TODAY Sports In case you missed it, last week I took a look at the historic start to the season that the Chicago Cubs have had on the bases. If you haven’t read that yet, I recommend doing so. In summary, they very well could break the modern franchise record for stolen bases in a season, and by FanGraphs’ Baserunning Runs (BsR) statistic, they are on pace to be one of the best baserunning teams of all time. Originally, I intended to take a look at Pete Crow-Armstrong’s production on the bases within my article last week. Turns out, I had so much more to say about him that I didn’t even think I could fit it all into one article. Let’s start with the most obvious stat, again: stolen bases. With 12 stolen bases in 33 games, the young outfielder is on pace for 59 stolen bases on the season. No Cub has stolen more than 58 bases since Billy Maloney in 1905. The most any Cub has had in a single season in franchise history is 84 by Bill Lange in 1896. Juan Pierre stole 58 bases for the Cubs in 2006, which is the most for the Cubs in a single season in modern history. That’s the real number that PCA is chasing here. That said, I’m not taking 84 off the table for him. Now, let’s look at BsR. Crow-Armstrong leads baseball with 2.8 BsR, just a hair above Byron Buxton, who sits at 2.7. This puts him on pace for about 13.75 BsR for the season. As a reminder, FanGraphs does not recommend looking at BsR prior to 2002. The highest single season mark since then was Mike Trout, who had 14.3 BsR in 2012. The highest for a Cub? Pierre, again, with 8.0 BsR in 2006. History is well within reach here as well. Baseball Savant breaks a baserunners value down a bit further. For what it’s worth, they actually rate PCA as the third most valuable runner in baseball this season, with Corbin Carroll and the aforementioned Buxton ranking ahead of him. Specifically, he’s been worth two runs via stolen base attempts, which is third in baseball, and one run via extra bases taken, which is 12th. This is the part where I tell you that PCA could be even better. There’s a case to be made that he should be even more aggressive than he has been. He’s only been caught stealing once, a paltry figure juxtaposed against those 12 successful attempts. In addition to that, he sits in 12th in runs via extra bases taken partially because he has only attempted to take an extra base seven percent of the time more than the average player. Corbin Carroll, who leads baseball with two runs gained via extra bases taken, is at 23 percent. It should be noted, this is all circumstantial, and to a degree, based on the opportunities that you get. For example, in this particular play, he accrued -0.19 runs for holding at third. Not only was this a tough read, but with no outs and the bases loaded, this was probably the right decision. He ended up scoring on an Ian Happ sacrifice fly, anyway. To wrap up two straight weekends of me throwing a whole bunch of numbers at you: the Cubs are a really good baserunning team. If they continue at their current pace, they very well could end up being one of the best baserunning teams not just in franchise history, but potentially baseball history, too. Pete Crow-Armstrong is, of course, at the forefront of this success. If he continues at his current pace, he would also have one of the best baserunning seasons in both franchise and baseball history. The team and PCA may or may not continue this pace, but I am at least looking forward to watching this unfold the rest of the season. View full article

The Chicago Cubs are off to a historic start to the season on the base paths. Exactly how historic are we talking? Image courtesy of Matt Dirksen/Chicago Cubs/Getty Images The Cubs have been a good baserunning team for quite a while now. Two seasons ago, they ranked eighth in baseball in FanGraphs’ baserunning runs above average metric (or BsR, for short). Last year, they were fifth. This past offseason, the Cubs hired Quintin Berry away from the Milwaukee Brewers to serve as their first-base coach. Our own Matthew Trueblood wrote about this at the time, theorizing that this might have a huge influence on the already good defense and baserunning of the Cubs. I am not sure if we want to call it the Quintin Berry Effect, or call it a new organizational philosophy. Regardless, it’s paying off handsomely. By stolen bases and the aforementioned BsR stat at FanGraphs, the Cubs are one of the best baserunning teams not just this season, but of all time. Let’s start with this season. The Cubs lead baseball with 44 steals. The next highest is the Milwaukee Brewers with 36. The Cubs have only been caught six times, too, so it’s not as if they’re accumulating steals due to reckless aggression. Arguably, they should be stealing more often given that success rate. They also lead baseball with 5.0 BsR. The next highest is the Mets at 3.6 BsR. The Cubs also lead in Baseball Savant’s baserunning run value. Any way you slice it, this is the best baserunning team in baseball. So, how does this compare to the best teams ever on the base paths? Having stolen 44 bases through 27 games heading into Saturday’s contest, the team is stealing 1.63 bases, on average, per game. Over a 162-game season, that would come out to 264 steals. The franchise record of 382 by the 1897 Colts, led by Bill Lange, who stole 73 bases, is likely out of reach. Fun fact about Lange: he went on to retire from baseball because his father-in-law would not allow his daughter to marry a professional baseball player. Back to the topic at hand, should the Cubs continue their pace and steal 264 bases this year, that would be the most in a season for the franchise since 1906. As a matter of fact, no team in the past 100 years of the franchise has even eclipsed 200 steals in a season. Their pace could slow considerably and the Cubs would still set the modern franchise record for steals in a season. As for BsR, prior to 2002, it was only based on stolen bases and times caught stealing, so FanGraphs cautions against using the stat prior to then. You can read more about the metric here. Having been worth five runs in 27 games, the team has accumulated 0.19 runs on the bases per game. Over 162 games, that comes out to 30 BsR for the season. That would obliterate the franchise high since 2002, which is 15.1 BsR by the Kris Bryant-led 2015 team. Only one MLB team has eclipsed 30 BsR in a season since 2002, and that was Carl Crawford’s 2010 Rays, who put up 37.6 BsR. The next highest is the 2008 Phillies with 23.6 BsR. Again, they could fall behind the pace that they have set and still end up being the second-best baserunning team by BsR since 2002. It’s worth acknowledging that the baserunning environment is different across baseball. Stolen base attempts are up over the past few seasons due to a limit on pitcher disengagements and larger bases, thus shrinking the distance between each base. The Cubs, with players like Pete Crow-Armstrong, Nico Hoerner, and Kyle Tucker, are uniquely built to take advantage of this. Can they keep up this rapid early season pace? Will they be considered one of the best baserunning teams of all time? I look forward to following this for the rest of the season. History or not, I will surely continue to enjoy the baserunning exploits of the mad-dashing 2025 Chicago Cubs. View full article

I think the point you (and Jason) are making re: Morgan and Pearson is a fair and comforting one. HOWEVER, those were two guys Hoyer had identified that can help the team, and they have done exactly the opposite. One hallmark, in my opinion, of Hoyer’s bullpens is that they do, eventually, wind up being halfway decent. The road to getting there is always super bumpy, though, and in the case of 2023 and 2024, was the difference between them making and missing the postseason: 2023 first half ERA: 4.01 2023 second half ERA: 3.67 2024 first half ERA: 4.01 2024 second half ERA: 3.51

The Cubs bullpen is going to be better this year. Right? Image courtesy of © Denis Poroy-Imagn Images If you don’t think too hard, the early season bullpen blow-ups between this year and last start to blend together a bit. There was one in Arizona this year. There was one in Arizona last year, too. There was one in San Diego both this season and last, as well—and they all came in April. While we were all complaining to each other in the North Side Baseball Slack group during the Diamondbacks’ 10-run inning the other day, Brandon Glick wondered when the last time the Cubs even had a good bullpen was. Well, the answer is that it’s been a while! Just how long? Take a look at this table, with all stats courtesy of FanGraphs: Year ERA (MLB rank) FIP (MLB rank) fWAR (MLB rank) 2025 5.58 (29) 4.58 (24) -0.1 (24) 2024 3.81 (12) 3.94 (17) 2.9 (20) 2023 3.85 (13) 4.05 (12) 4.0 (17) 2022 4.12 (21) 4.32 (28) 0.6 (28) 2021 4.39 (21) 4.48 (22) 1.9 (21) 2020 4.38 (13) 4.45 (15) 0.7 (19) 2019 3.98 (8) 4.54 (16) 1.3 (20) 2018 3.35 (2) 3.88 (9) 4.5 (11) 2017 3.80 (6) 4.08 (13) 4.4 (11) 2016 3.56 (8) 3.87 (14) 2.7 (21) 2015 3.38 (8) 3.37 (1) 4.6 (5) That’s a whole lot of Tums. While the bullpen hasn’t been terrible for the past two seasons, it certainly hasn’t been reliable. The previous two campaigns were pretty dreadful, and this year has been a train wreck to this point. During the club’s last competitive window, from 2015-2019, the bullpens were generally good. As you might recall, those teams were known for their defense, and the disparity between the bullpen ERA and bullpen FIPs would suggest a bit of overperformance there. However you slice it, though, it's been a while since this team's relief corps was consistently excellent over a full season. The Cubs have not had a top-10 bullpen, by ERA, since 2019. They have not had a top-15 bullpen, by FIP, since 2018. They have not had a top-10 bullpen, by Fangraphs WAR, since 2015. Notably, Jed Hoyer took over for Theo Epstein as president of baseball operations after the 2020 season. In the four-plus seasons since, the Cubs have not fielded a bullpen in the top 10 in any of these metrics, despite attempting to be competitive for (arguably) all but one of those seasons. From 2021 through 2025, the Cubs’ bullpen is 16th in ERA, 22nd in FIP, and 24th in WAR. I knew it was bad, but I didn’t realize it was quite this bad. Every fan thinks their team’s bullpen stinks. We have a tendency to remember the games that are lost in the late innings, when victory was oh-so close. By contrast, we gloss over early leads that were simply preserved. It's not in your head this time, though. Cubs relief units have been mid for several years. I think, by now, it’s fair to wonder: is this something that Jed Hoyer is capable of addressing? Should he be making a greater point to sign higher-leverage arms in free agency? Has this regime not been good enough at identifying talent to pitch the late innings? It seems as though the organization has done a poor job, at the very least, of developing the young, hard-throwing hurlers who power so many of the pens that outperform them. One thing is for certain: it needs to be better. View full article

The Cubs have avoided worst case scenario-type injuries for a while. Now, it’s time to find out what they’re made of. Image courtesy of © Jerome Miron-USA TODAY Sports In case you were in a week long slumber, you likely know by now that Justin Steele will miss the rest of the season after undergoing elbow surgery. While not officially the dreaded Tommy John surgery, the Cubs did describe the surgery as a revision repair of the left ulnar collateral ligament, according to Jordan Bastian. In case you were in an even longer slumber, pitching injuries as a whole have increased dramatically over the past 20 years or so. Per a report published by Major League Baseball after last season, Tommy John surgeries among major and minor league players increased from 104 in 2010 to 314 in 2020 and 281 in 2024. In 2005, pitchers spent 3,940 days on the injured list due to elbow injuries and 2,634 days due to shoulder injuries. Those numbers were 12,185 and 5,445 in 2024, respectively. While the Cubs haven’t been immune to starting pitcher injuries over the past five years, they have certainly managed to avoid it more so than almost any other team. In fact, according to Roster Resource’s injury report on Fangraphs, the Cubs are one of three teams, along with the Angels and Phillies, to have no recorded Tommy John surgeries to major league starting pitchers since 2020. To be clear, the Cubs haven’t avoided long-term starting pitcher injuries entirely. Notably, they lost Kyle Hendricks to shoulder surgery in 2022, lost Marcus Stroman for six key weeks in 2023, and were without Ben Brown and Jordan Wicks for long stretches of last season. Even with those, they were one of five teams to have five starting pitchers make 20 starts in 2024. They were one of seven teams to do so in 2023. They are the only team to do it in both seasons. For the most part, the Cubs have completely avoided major injuries to key members of their starting rotation. This is a feature of the fact that the Cubs have consistently fielded a starting rotation of, mostly, soft tossers. Intentionally so, I believe, to limit injuries like this. According to Fangraphs, starting pitchers for the North Siders have thrown fastballs at an average of 92.1 mph from 2023 to 2025. That is last in baseball. This isn’t just the Kyle Hendricks effect, either. The team is 28th this season. That same MLB study from above also concluded that velocity is a large factor in the uptick of pitcher injuries. The bug is that it has limited the ceiling of that group just a tad. While the Cubs have gotten good results out of their rotation, they’re just 26th in strikeout rate from 2023 to 2025. They’ve relied a lot on solid up-the-middle defense from Dansby Swanson, Nico Hoerner, and company. The other bug is that we haven’t seen how Jed Hoyer responds to a back-breaking injury like Steele’s. He’s never had to replace a starting pitcher like that, on the fly, in the middle of a season where the team fully expects to, and frankly, should, make the playoffs. It should be noted, this type of thing doesn’t cripple good organizations. It would take me several more paragraphs to rattle off the number of starting pitchers the Dodgers have lost to injury over the past few seasons. The Brewers have been without Brandon Woodruff for much of the past two seasons and still managed to win the division in both years. Plan A is officially out for the season. It’s finally time to evaluate Jed Hoyer’s plan B. View full article

A few years ago, the sweeper took MLB by storm. Last year, it was the death ball. Now, the kick change is all the rage. Image courtesy of © Matt Marton-USA TODAY Sports An early season peak at some of Jameson Taillon’s pitch data suggests a different, more effective pitcher. His overall Stuff+, a metric that evaluates the quality of a pitch based on its physical characteristics like velocity and movement, has bumped from 93 to 97, with 100 being average, according to Fangraphs. A four-point increase might not seem like a lot. But his Location+, which measures a pitcher’s ability to put pitches in the “correct” place, also rose from 107 in 2024 to 112 this year. These two numbers in conjunction form Pitching+, an overall evaluation of a pitcher’s raw pitch characteristics and execution. That has jumped from 100 in 2024 to 110 in the young 2025 season, with 100, again, being average. Here’s Taillon’s Stuff+ ratings, by pitch, in the 2024 season vs. the 2025 season. All stats courtesy of Fangraphs: Year Stuff+ Fastball Stuff+ Sinker Stuff+ Cutter Stuff+ Slider Stuff+ Curveball Stuff+ Changeup 2024 80 80 95 119 103 81 2025 94 97 96 116 93 99 We see a meaningful bump in three pitches: the fastball, the sinker, and the changeup. In short, I do believe that the veteran right-hander has made meaningful changes to each of those pitches. For the sake of this article, though, we’re going to focus on the changeup. Why the changeup? Because the kick change, that’s why. Eno Sarris specifically referenced Taillon throwing the kick change in his article on the topic last week. I made note to pay close attention to this in his start against the Athletics last week, and sure enough, after spinning one off to the very first batter of the game, Lawrence Butler, it was pointed out by Boog Sciambi that Taillon was throwing the kick change this year. What is the kick change? It’s a variation of the changeup where the pitcher essentially spikes the right side of the ball upon release rather than spiking straight down or coming on top of the ball. I’d recommend reading Sarris’ piece above, or watching this video if you have six minutes of time: Side note: you will notice that the video is from Tread Athletics. Remember that the Cubs hired Tyler Zombro, who had previously worked for Tread, as a special assistant this offseason to help with their pitching development. To this point of the season, Taillon has thrown only 15 changeups, but he threw seven against the Athletics after throwing four against the Diamondbacks in his first start this season (a number he matched in his start against the Rangers), so this could be something he is slowly gaining comfort with. Looking into Taillon’s pitch movement on the changeup last season vs. this season—it’s clear to see that the pitch is different. All stats courtesy of Baseball Savant: Year Vertical Drop Horizontal Break 2024 27.0” 14.2” arm-side 2025 30.0” 15.5” arm-side Added vertical drop is typically what you see when someone implements a kick change. In addition to the three inches of drop that Taillon is getting there, he is also getting an additional inch-plus of arm-side run on the pitch. Here is a Taillon changeup from his final start of last season. This one had 27” of vertical drop and 14” of arm-side break, a perfectly average changeup by movement for him last season: https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/sporty-videos?playId=70eff18c-47e7-4229-84cf-a824953a6d60 And here is one from last week’s start against the Athletics that had 31” of vertical drop and 21” of arm-side run, movement numbers he rarely ever came close to in 2024, and it induced a ground-ball double play. This perfectly illustrates the potential of the pitch: https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/sporty-videos?playId=c4992c61-45a5-3336-9b5e-85ccad042478 For those that don’t remember, Taillon struggled mightily against lefties in his first season with the Cubs. They hit him for a .363 wOBA. He dialed it back a bit last year, but left-handers still managed a roughly league-average .317 wOBA against him. This year, he has faced 29 lefties and held them to just a .279 wOBA. It’s actually righties that have hurt him this year, though I am confident that will even out in time. I am not saying this is purely a result of the changeup, but I am sure that it is a factor. Changeups tend to be effective pitches against opposite-handed hitters. Early season stats can always be a bit wonky, sure. They can also give us things to watch for going forward. Next time Jameson Taillon takes the mound, pay close attention to the changeup. How much is it moving? Will he start throwing it more often as he gets more comfortable with it? Or is this simply an early season fad? View full article

There's a new craze sweeping the baseball nation. Get the weight closer to your hands, boys. The future is here, and it's shaped like a bowling pin. Image courtesy of © Allan Henry-Imagn Images The New York Yankees made headlines this weekend after they hit 15 home runs in their opening series against the Milwaukee Brewers. The headlines were both because those dingers tied the record for the most in a team’s first three games in MLB history, and because some of them were hit using new, torpedo-shaped bats. It turns out that the Cubs just might be using them, as well. I was fortunate enough to miss the Cubs’ bullpen meltdown on Sunday afternoon, though I did, for whatever reason, subject myself to the highlights later that night. When watching the highlights, I noticed that Dansby Swanson’s bat certainly looked to have that same, slightly different shape that we saw in some of the Yankees' pieces of lumber over the weekend: For reference, here is Swanson’s bat from a game from last season: It was all but confirmed Monday, when an article in The Athletic chronicled the rise of this new weapon in the war between pitchers and hitters: ”’It seems to be like it’s making its way around MLB,’ said Los Angeles Angels infielder Nicky Lopez, who spent spring training with the Chicago Cubs, where he said they utilized the bats as well.” What’s the big deal with these bats? Instead of the thickest part of the bat being up toward the end of the bat, the thickest part is slightly closer to the handle, where certain hitters tend to make contact with the ball most often. Here is a picture of a torpedo bat above a more standard bat: The Athletic did some further reporting, and discovered that these bats were the idea of Aaron Leanhardt, a former MIT physicist who worked for the Yankees before taking a job with the Miami Marlins for this season. They also reported that these bats are legal, under the league's (surprisingly lax, for some) rules about the dimensions and shape of the bat. One would think the results of something like this would show up in a statistic like exit velocity, but unfortunately for Swanson, that has not been the case so far. His 88.1 mph average exit velocity so far this season is slightly down from 89.4 mph last season, and his 41.2% hard-hit rate is a tick down from 42.7% last season. Still, it’s way too early to measure the results. It looked like Swanson wasn't even using the tapered stick when he hit his home run Monday night, but maybe that was just an adjustment based on what type of stuff he expected to see from each pitcher he faced. Personally, I think that something like this would make a negligible difference, and if the difference does turn out to be that great, everyone will be swinging these bats within a couple of months, anyway. Either way, it’s nice to see the Cubs being an early adopter of something that could help them win baseball games. Their bats, in whatever shape, delivered plenty of loud contact Monday night in West Sacramento. View full article