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With the baseball season over for the Cubs, it's time to start handing out awards. We'll start with the short season leagues, then the full-season minor leagues, and then the big leagues. The first awards we are going to hand out are the short-season minor-league awards. These awards go to players for their statistics in the Dominican Summer League (DSL) or the Arizona Complex League (ACL). NorthSide Baseball writers voted for these awards using only ACL or DSL stats. It does not include full-season stats. We will highlight the top vote getters, but first we'll note a few hitters who received votes and deserve to be recognized. Others Receiving Votes Alexey Lumpuy, 20 - DSL Cubs Blue - 45 G, .257/.397/.534, 5 2B, 12 3B, 4 HR, 40 R, 19 RBI, 26 BB, 42 K Derik Alcantara, 19 - ACL Cubs, DSL Cubs Blue - 27 G, .344/.418/.462, 5 2B, 0 3B, 2 HR, 17 R, 26 RBI, 13 BB, 9 K Darlyn De Leon, 19 - DSL Cubs Blue - 41 G, .307/.428/.395, 6 2B, 2 3B, 0 HR, 29 R, 7 RBI, 22 BB, 25 K Honorable Mention Edgardo De Leon, 17 - DSL Cubs Red - 48 G, .277/.431/.433, 7 2B, 0 3B, 5 HR, 31 R, 27 RBI, 32 BB, 44 K After signing with the Cubs as an international free agent this past winter, De Leon flashed a good eye at the plate with a 17.7 percent walk rate. He flashed some positional versatility as well, appearing at first base, third base, and in the outfield in the Dominican Summer League. He was second on the team in OPS, which is impressive for someone that is just 17 years of age. Given his performance in his first season in professional baseball, De Leon has established himself as someone to watch going forward. Jose Escobar, 19 - ACL Cubs - 47 G, .303/.435/.465, 4 2B, 5 3B, 3 HR, 35 R, 19 RBI, 30 BB, 23 K Unlike De Leon, this is Jose Escobar’s third year in professional baseball, but his first year as a breakout player. After spending the 2022 season in the Dominican Summer League and the 2023 season in the Arizona Complex League, Escobar impressed about in his 47 games in the ACL this year to get the call up to the Myrtle Beach Pelicans, where he proceeded to hit an impressive .209/.357/.478. Given his age, don’t be surprised to see the young second baseman on some Cubs prospect boards for the 2025 season. Joan Delgado, 19 - ACL Cubs - 53 G, .281/.364/.538, 7 2B, 8 3B, 6 HR, 45 R, 29 RBI, 19 BB, 65 K Delgado, an outfielder from Venezuela, impressed in his first season stateside. An international free agent signee in 2022, Delgado spent his first two seasons in the Dominican Summer League before coming over to the Arizona Complex League for this summer. He’ll have to trim his strikeout rate, which has been well above 30 percent in each of his three professional seasons, but a high strikeout rate is a bit more palatable when it comes with a 10.2 percent walk rate and .538 slugging percentage. I’d look for Delgado to make his debut for the Myrtle Beach Pelicans next summer. Second Place Eriandys Ramon, 21 - ACL Cubs - 47 G, .340/.368/.566, 12 2B, 6 3B, 4 HR, 31 R, 23 RBI, 7 BB, 33 K After posting a .710 OPS in the Dominican Summer League last season, Ramon impressed enough in his 47 games with the ACL Cubs that he was ranked 30th on FanGraphs’ midseason Cubs top prospect list, and also earned himself a promotion to Myrtle Beach to play with the Pelicans. The outfielder posted a .184/.273/.306 line in 110 plate appearances there. At 21, he’s still a little old for A ball, but given that the Cubs only signed him last June, and that he can play shortstop, I’d expect him to remain around the fringes of prospect lists until we see what he can do in a full season in Myrtle Beach next season. Winner Anderson Suriel, 21 - ACL Cubs - 38 G, .344/.416/.680, 12 2B, 3 3B, 8 HR, 26 R, 38 RBI, 13 BB, 30 K Suriel, like Ramon, is old for a short season team. He made his professional debut in the Dominican Summer League in 2021 before heading to Arizona for the 2022 and 2023 seasons, where he posted a .619 and .672 OPS, respectively. In 2024, however, it all seemed to click, leading to eight home runs, which led the team, in just 143 plate appearances. His .680 slugging percentage also led the team, and his 1.096 OPS was the best on the team by .141 points. He finally got the call to Myrtle Beach where he proceeded to hit a less gaudy .245/.351/.367, however, given the less hitter friendly environment of the Carolina League, that was still a line that was 18 percent above league average. As someone that will play first base or corner outfield in the big leagues, Suriel will have to hit, so 2024 was a huge development for him. How do you feel about our selection for Short-Season Minor League Hitter of the Year? How would you rank them? Leave your thoughts below. View full article

The underlying numbers say the Cubs should be better than this. Then again, they also said that last year. Image courtesy of © David Richard-Imagn Images To a point, it feels like the 2024 season was almost the exact same story as the 2023 season for the Chicago Cubs. A good April gave way to a very poor May and June. The team clawed back into the Wild Card race with a good July and August, but ultimately ran out of steam in September to miss the playoffs. There was an offense that didn’t hit a lot of home runs, and a pitching staff that was above-average, but plagued by bullpen issues just when they could least afford them. There is one more parallel between the 2023 and 2024 seasons that I feel has flown under the radar a bit: run differential. For the second season in a row, the Cubs are set to underperform their expected record, based on runs scored and allowed, by several games. Last year, the Cubs outscored their opponents by 96 runs. That was more than the Milwaukee Brewers, who won the division, and more than all three of the teams who made the playoffs ahead of them via the Wild Card. From that run differential, they had an expected record of 90-72, seven games better than the 83-79 record with which they actually finished. This year, it’s not quite as dramatic. The Cubs have outscored their opponents by 67 runs. That gives them an expected record of 85-71, which is five games better than their actual record of 80-76. To be clear, the disparity this season is a bit less frustrating, considering the circumstances. The Brewers, as well as all four teams ahead of them in the Wild Card race, have a better run differential. Playing to their run differential would still not have made them a playoff team this year, or at least, it would still only have them scrambling to make up multiple games over the final week. Regardless, this is a trend worth examining. Run differential, while not the end-all, be-all of team quality, can be one of many ways to determine if a team is overachieving or underachieving. This is due to the amount of statistical noise present in a one- or even two-run win--or loss. One really good performance from one player can swing those games. Winning games by four, five, or six runs requires several of those performances, which is where truly elite teams separate themselves from the pack. When discussing run differential, there are three reasons usually given for why a team might overperform or underperform. One is strategic decisions. The Cubs fired David Ross after last year and replaced him with Craig Counsell, who was thought of as one of the best managers in baseball and whose Brewers teams had a history of overperforming their run differentials. Despite this, the Cubs saw no improvement in this area, so I am going to rule this one out, though I do think it begs for a larger discussion over the role a manager has, both in this area and in general. Second would be the bullpen. Believe it or not, the Cubs actually have the 11th-best bullpen ERA in baseball over the past two seasons, according to FanGraphs. They have a better bullpen ERA this season than the Phillies, Diamondbacks, and Orioles, who will all be playing baseball in October, and who are all within two games of their expected record this season. This is not a strength for the Cubs, but over the course of two entire seasons, it has not been a weakness, either. The third reason would be clutch performance. On offense, the Cubs have hovered around the same wRC+ in high-, medium-, and low-leverage situations. Pitching, on the other hand, is a different story: Year and Situation wOBA Allowed 2024 Low Leverage .291 2024 Medium Leverage .309 2024 High Leverage .338 2023 Low Leverage .303 2023 Medium Leverage .312 2023 High Leverage .351 Wow! Cubs pitchers have been considerably worse in high-leverage situations than in low-leverage situations over the past two seasons. It’s kind of weird that this has happened twice, right? If you’re wondering whether or not this is a league-wide trend, it isn’t: per FanGraphs, MLB as a whole posts its lowest wOBA in high-leverage situations. That makes sense. Most of the time, teams use their best pitchers in those spots, to whatever extent they can do so. All of the potential reasons for this type of phenomenon would require another full article. I consider myself to be a pretty practical person. Most studies have shown that the ability to perform in clutch situations isn’t really a thing, so I am unlikely to chalk this up to Cubs’ pitchers lacking some kind of “it” factor. The staff as a whole allowed a .303 wOBA in all situations this year, so I am inclined to believe that if we up this sample size, the wOBA allowed in high, medium, and low leverage situations would all end up at about .303. In the same way that if I flip a coin 10 times and they all land on heads, the odds of my next flip being tails is still 50 percent, I believe this will regress toward normalcy in the future. But, still. It is really weird that this has happened twice. I’ll still say that I think this is most likely luck. However, I do wonder if this tells us something about the Cubs’ lack of top-flight arms. They've lacked the kind of shutdown arms other teams deploy in those big spots, at least for stretches of the last two years. The signal amid the noise here is saying: Invest in more certainty in the bullpen, one way or another. View full article

I’m not ruing the Taillon’s of the world. He was a good signing! I acknowledged as much. My point is that guys like Taillon should be added to take a team from 80 wins to 90, or 90 wins to 100, not from 70 to 80. Retrospectively, that lever was pulled in the wrong offseason. Now we have a situation where the team is going to pay the luxury tax and not make the playoffs, which, whether we like it or not, will most likely affect future spending. That is a failure. And Taillon has two more seasons on this deal at the age of 33 and 34 with velocity that is trending downwards. ZiPS projects him for a 4.41 and 4.51 ERA the next two seasons, respectively. He was added, provided value in the first two seasons, and it was wasted on middling teams.

This is a good point, and one I can agree with. Though the article is written in regards to the Cubs pursuing Anthony Santander instead Juan Soto. I am fully on board with them pursuing a catcher or bullpen reinforcements. Swapping out Bellinger for Santander is just not the move for me.

In my defense, I am not sure I have complained about the slow nature of the rebuild on this site. Regardless, I think people are allowed to change their minds on account of two things: 1. Hoyer is investing in players at the wrong times. Dansby Swanson is a good player, and by $/WAR, was a good investment. Same for Taillon and Suzuki. However, because Hoyer hasn’t added other guys around them, or because there wasn’t MLB ready young talent on the roster, what will theoretically be the most productive years of those guys’ contracts have now been wasted and they’re all on the other side of 30. 2. Clearly, it isn’t working. They’re going to miss the playoffs for the second straight season. Trading out Bellinger/Wisdom for Santander isn’t changing that. It’s just repeating the same mistake from the past couple of off seasons. Falling in love with the 4/$100m contract over the mega deals is exactly how we ended up here. They don’t need more supporting players. They need an all star level player.

In the sticky, confused web of decisions facing the Cubs this winter, one big-ticket free agent feels like a trap to me. Image courtesy of © Tommy Gilligan-Imagn Images Looking ahead to the looming offseason, the Chicago Cubs have their work cut out for them. While technically not mathematically eliminated from playoff contention, a couple of late-inning losses to the Colorado Rockies this weekend basically sealed the deal: there will be no postseason baseball in Chicago. Last week, I re-examined the Cody Bellinger contract through the lens of the San Francisco Giants awarding Matt Chapman with a contract extension. Basically, if the Cubs were ever deciding between whether or not they wanted to bring back Bellinger last offseason, or pivot and sign Chapman to cover their glaring hole at third base, they picked wrong. This brings me to one player to whom the Cubs have been connected for this coming offseason. Sahadev Sharma has suggested that Anthony Santander might be a good fit for the Cubs. On paper, sure, that makes sense. The Cubs are in need of a bat to solidify their lineup. Santander’s 131 wRC+ would trail only Seiya Suzuki among Cubs players with at least 50 plate appearances. (Hilariously, I applied that threshold only to exclude Christian Bethancourt, who is rocking a 159 wRC+ as a Cub.) His 41 home runs are almost double the next-highest Cub. I hate it. There is one large, obvious reason to disdain the Cubs potentially having interest in Santander: There is a younger, significantly better player, also available in free agency, who plays the same position. I’m sure you’re familiar with the work of Juan Soto. There seems to be no smoke to the Cubs pursuing the superstar right fielder, and recently, MLB.com’s Mark Feinsand said he doesn’t see the Cubs going big enough to sign him. I, along with many other Cubs fans, am tired of a big-market franchise like the Cubs so consistently playing in the middle tier of free agency. To some degree, though, I have simply accepted the fact that the Cubs won’t be a player for Soto. Despite that, I still don’t think Santander makes sense for them. Consider the fact that they already have a right fielder, under contract for two more seasons after this one, whom they moved to designated hitter after a string of very questionable defensive plays. I’m also sure you’re familiar with the work of Seiya Suzuki: PLAYER wRC+ FIELDING RUN VALUE fWAR Seiya Suzuki 132 -2 2.9 Anthony Santander 131 -4 3.1 So, the Orioles’ right fielder is no better with the bat, while being just as bad in the field, while being just as valuable as the Cubs’ current (and likely future) right fielder. All of this also ignores the fact that between Suzuki, Dansby Swanson, Nico Hoerner, and Ian Happ, the Cubs have four positions locked down and anchored to expensive contracts for the next two seasons. Those players are certainly good, but not superstars. Why add another of that player type into the mix? Simply put, the Cubs aren’t one Anthony Santander away from being a playoff baseball team. They don’t need Anthony Santander, because they already have Anthony Santander; he’s just named Seiya Suzuki. I’m concerned that signing the free agent will be repeating the Bellinger mistake from last offseason on an even larger scale. Speaking of Bellinger, this all likely hinges on the former MVP’s contract decision for 2025. It would be a step backward to clear that money off of the books and then immediately replace it with a guy like Santander. All of this is to say that, if it were between signing Santander and doing nothing, I honestly might prefer nothing. At least that gives the team some flexibility going forward and leaves some room for prospects to play. As Mike tells Walt in season three of Breaking Bad, no more half-measures. Now, I am saying this to Jed Hoyer. Give me Juan Soto or some other applicable superstar, or give me nothing. Anything else is a half-measure. View full article

Last offseason, super-agent Scott Boras had several high-profile free agents on the market. Did the Cubs target the right one? Image courtesy of © Charles LeClaire-Imagn Images With the Chicago Cubs now six games out of the final playoff position heading into Sunday’s action, FanGraphs lists their odds of making the playoffs at under one percent. I don’t think anyone can argue with that, either. Not only would they have to pass both the Mets and the Braves, but both teams also hold the tiebreaker over the Cubs, effectively putting the deficit at six games with about 20 remaining. With all of that said, I’d say it’s about time to shift the perspective that I write with. One quick way of doing that is looking into what this team could have done differently, from a personnel standpoint, to have had a better season. This year feels disappointing. However, it’s important to remember that FanGraphs projected them for 82.3 wins to begin with, which is about where they will end up, barring any major winning or losing streak over the last couple of weeks. This team didn’t make the playoffs because they were probably never good enough. Somewhat related to all of this, the San Francisco Giants and Matt Chapman agreed on a contract extension earlier this week. As you might recall, the Cubs were connected to Chapman this past offseason before eventually agreeing to bring Cody Bellinger back. Their interest in Chapman was most likely an insurance policy in case they didn’t come to terms with Bellinger, but at the time, it certainly felt like the Cubs would most likely bring one of the two in to help bolster the lineup. In January, I compared the two players to help understand who might be a better acquisition for the Cubs. It was a fascinating comparison. Bellinger had a fantastic year last season, thanks to overperformance on fly balls. Chapman had a bit of a down year, thanks to underperformance on fly balls. Bellinger got much better results than Chapman, but Chapman had better-expected stats because Bellinger was pulling fly balls while Chapman was not. Ultimately, I concluded that Chapman might be the better investment. Looking at this year, it’s clear the Cubs made the wrong decision here: PLAYER wOBA xwOBA fWAR Matt Chapman .337 .344 4.6 Cody Bellinger .324 .296 1.7 Now, one of the WAR differences is health. Bellinger has had two separate stints on the injured list, resulting in about 100 more plate appearances for Chapman. The offensive results haven’t been drastically different, but Chapman makes up for that in defense, which is a huge part of the equation. With Pete Crow-Armstrong seizing the center field role for the foreseeable future, Bellinger has been playing right field. He has significantly less value in right, where defense isn’t as valuable and better offensive players typically reside. The fit was always a bit tricky with the potential emergence of PCA. Which brings me back to the decision this past offseason to re-sign Bellinger and not bring in Chapman. I’m sure part of that decision was wanting to give a defensive home to Christopher Morel. That did not pay off at all. That ultimately resulted in the trade for Isaac Paredes, which, to this point, has also not paid off at all. The Cubs are 29th in baseball in fWAR from their third basemen this season. The only team worse is the lowly White Sox. The Giants, Chapman’s current team, are second in baseball. I’ll admit, I was happy when the Cubs brought Bellinger back—thrilled, even. Having him back for just one season would give the Cubs an excellent insurance policy should PCA prove he wasn’t ready or would be a bust. I wrote as much here. Clearly, I was wrong, and so were the Cubs. The ramifications of this one decision are fascinating. Christopher Morel would likely still be a Cub in a part-time role. Isaac Paredes would not be on the team. They would probably be closer to a playoff spot. And they might still feel the ramifications of that decision next season if Cody Bellinger opts into his $27.5m salary. The Cubs probably hope he doesn’t. The Giants, on the other hand, gave Chapman a well-earned extension to make sure he’s back. View full article

He's been through a lot to get this far, and he finds success in a much more interesting way than many of his contemporaries. Image courtesy of © Jeff Le-USA TODAY Sports The second-half success of the Chicago Cubs bullpen has been much discussed--as it should be. Their 2.55 second-half bullpen ERA leads baseball. Their 1.9 Fangraphs WAR is fourth. Jorge López and Tyson Miller have been fantastic additions, and Porter Hodge looks like a good, dependable, homegrown arm. There’s been one other, less heralded hurler who has helped the team fortify their relief corps, too: Ethan Roberts. Roberts had been something of an afterthought, after making the Opening Day roster two seasons ago and succumbing to Tommy John surgery just 7 ⅔ innings into his major-league career. After taking 2023 off to rehab, he’s back in 2024, contributing 12 innings to the major-league bullpen to this point. While 12 innings aren't much to go on, the bespectacled righthander has allowed just one earned run in those frames--the glasses, and also the innings. But frankly, I am not even here to talk about Roberts’s success, and whether or not it will continue. I am simply here to talk about how fun he is to watch. At 5’10” and 180 pounds, he doesn’t look like a typical major-league pitcher. This already endears me to him. I’ve always found satisfaction in athletes who succeed despite what many would consider an undersized frame. Of course, if someone is that small, they probably aren’t throwing especially hard. Roberts doesn’t, which I also take satisfaction in, in the era of so many high-velocity fastballs. Among 652 pitchers who have thrown at least 100 pitches this season, Roberts’s average pitch velocity of 84.3 mph is 630th, according to Baseball Savant. A flamethrower, he is not. Apart from a four-seam fastball that he has thrown just nine times all season, Roberts is primarily a two-pitch pitcher. Per Baseball Savant, he features a cutter that he throws 34.7 percent of the time, and a sweeper that he throws 61 percent of the time. Throwing a sweeper that often is already an anomaly. As a matter of fact, only one pitcher, Bailey Horn, has thrown a sweeper more often this season. Not only does Roberts throw his sweeper often, he also gets a ton of movement on the pitch. It drops 3.6” more than the average sweeper at a similar velocity. That’s 18th of 110 pitchers who have thrown at least 100 sweepers. Where this sweeper really shines, though, is in the horizontal movement. Roberts’ sweeper has 4.9 more inches of break than the average sweeper at a similar velocity. This leads all of baseball. In fact, the next-closest pitcher, Greg Weissert, is at 4.4”. To better visualize this, here is a chart of all 110 of those sweepers from Baseball Savant. The horizontal movement relative to the average is on the x-axis, and the vertical movements is on the y-axis. Roberts’s sweeper is the dot that I circled on the far right: Let’s combine everything. Roberts throws his sweeper more than almost every other pitcher in baseball. It has more horizontal movement, adjusting for certain factors, than any other sweeper in baseball. In what’s been a mostly joyless Cubs season, I have taken some joy in seeing Roberts spin his sweeper up there and watching hitters try to hit it. Here’s Addison Barger coming up completely empty on a beautifully located back-foot sweeper: anEyMmdfWGw0TUFRPT1fVndrREJsRlJVUU1BQUZzTFhnQUFVZzVSQUFBSFYxSUFCVlJVQWdzTUNGQUFWbEZm.mp4 Here he is getting a sword out of Brandon Crawford on another beautifully located two-strike sweeper: NjROOHZfWGw0TUFRPT1fVjFSU1hWWUZVMUVBQ0ZvRUJRQUFCVk5VQUZsVEIxVUFVd0ZUVkFFRVZWVlhVd0ZR.mp4 To be clear, all of this alone doesn’t make Roberts a successful major-league pitcher. His wOBA allowed and his whiff rate on the sweeper are only slightly above-average. But when executed, it works, and it is just an absolute joy to watch happen. Despite his size, and despite his lack of velocity, Ethan Roberts is here and succeeding in the major leagues. I’m not sure if it will continue. He has some favorable peripherals, and some unfavorable ones. Whether he sticks around or not, I have thoroughly enjoyed watching him come in and spin wiffle balls up there. Seeing guys pump 100-mph fastballs is a lot of fun. Watching Ethan Roberts pitch is just as much so. View full article

Because of the defense, PCA is arguably already a more valuable player than Tauchman, and I don’t think the bat will get any worse. If the fate of next year’s team is Tauchman in CF every day, then next year’s team won’t be competing for the playoffs anyway. He likely wouldn’t bring back anything crazy valuable NOW, but Fernando Tatis and Yordan Alvarez weren’t crazy valuable when they were traded for a post-prime James Shields and Josh Fields, respectively. Obviously, that has a small chance of happening, but the Rays adage is that you have to extract the most value out of every player, from roster spot #1 to roster spot #26, and I’d agree with Trueblood that the Cubs didn’t do that here.

He did have a 114 wRC+ in April in a tiny sample size. It could be an ebb and flow but it also feels consistent with what he needs to do to be a productive big leaguer.

The counterpoint to this would be: 1) the swinging strike rate is a LITTLE bit better in the second half at 13.7 percent, and is down to 11.2 percent in August. 2) the walk rate is low, however, it is a function of him both getting so many pitches in the zone and swinging at so many pitches in the zone. In the second half, that strategy has resulted in better production, so until the hits stop coming, I won’t be too worried about it.

A couple of weeks back, I was fortunate enough to attend all three Cubs games in Cincinnati. Pete Crow-Armstrong notched two hits in 12 plate appearances, which, in that admittedly small sample size, was good for a brutal 10 wRC+. With that said, is Crow-Armstrong turning a corner at the plate? Image courtesy of © David Banks-USA TODAY Sports To my mostly untrained eye, Pete Crow-Armstrong's plate appearances seemed different for the former top prospect. More importantly, they seemed different in a good way. He was driving the ball to the outfield much more often. The contact quality from those three games would back up that thought. He had a 92.7 mph average exit velocity and 55.6 percent hard-hit rate, according to FanGraphs. Those are significant improvements on his numbers for the full season: an 88.9 mph average exit velocity and a 36.0 percent hard-hit rate. Admittedly, I haven’t been able to watch a ton of Cubs baseball since. Between the Olympics, an out-of-town trip, and otherwise doing activities that are better for my mental health, I didn’t have a chance to sit down and watch a full Cubs game until the Cleveland series this past week. Of course, I follow closely from afar, and while PCA’s raw numbers don’t back it up quite yet, he has been a different and much better hitter since the season flipped to the second half. K% BB% wOBA xwOBA Exit Velocity PCA First Half 25.9% 4.6% .255 .249 87.3 PCA Second Half 15.7% 2.4% .278 .319 91.6 By xwOBA, he has been a league-average hitter! Not only that, but he has trimmed the strikeout rate considerably, and he is hitting the ball more than 4 mph harder, on average, than he was in the first half. This is a huge development for a guy who has been one of the most valuable defenders in baseball. So, where has he made improvements? If someone is cutting their strikeout rate almost in half and improving contact quality in the process, the first thing I assume is that they are being more selective with their swings. O-Swing % Z-Swing % Contact % First Half 43.4% 72.6% 74.5% Second Half 40.6% 76.9% 77.3% So, he is making better swing decisions, leading to more contact and fewer called strikes. His called strike rate in the first half was 11.5 percent. In the second half, it’s down to 7.4 percent. Not only does swinging at better pitches mean you’ll strike out less, but typically, the balls you put in play will be hit a lot harder, which lines up with what we’re seeing out of PCA here. Let’s take this one step further. Pull% Pull xwOBA Center% Center xwOBA Opposite% Opposite xwOBA First Half 51.7% .348 25.4% .275 22.9% .249 Second Half 36.8% .407 45.6% .417 17.6% .207 To me, this looks like someone making a concerted effort to use the whole field and not just be a dead-pull hitter. Sure enough, on Friday afternoon, Crow-Armstrong launched his fifth home run of the year, and it was to center field: In my writing, I try to stick to statistics and facts. I stay away from hitting and pitching mechanics because, frankly, I am not an expert in that area, and the Cubs employ multiple people who are. If you rewatch that video, try to do so while remembering what PCA’s swing looked like in the first half. Here is a still photo from that home run yesterday (second picture) and another one from one of his first games with the big league club (first picture). Both of these pitches resulted in home runs, for what it’s worth: First, he has a higher leg kick, has adjusted his hand position a bit, and is standing closer to the plate. More significantly, though, is how he has closed off his stance. In the first picture, you can see his back knee behind his front leg. In the second picture, you cannot see the backside of his back leg. To me, this is a clear sign that he is showing more willingness to use the whole field, which is demonstrated in his much better contact quality with center field. Things haven’t always been pretty for Pete Crow-Armstrong this year. He was thrust into a spot on the major league roster out of necessity and, frankly, before his bat was ready for it. Sometimes, players have to develop at the big league level rather than in the minors, and this is what we’re seeing from PCA here. After yesterday’s bomb, his wRC+ in August is up to 138. The raw numbers are slowly starting to back up the increased contact quality. Seeing continued success out of the youngster will be the most important thing for the Cubs over the season's final six weeks, whether playoffs or not. View full article

Minor league relievers don't get enough press but often become vital pieces in the MLB bullpen down the road. Here are the Cubs' best minor-league relievers of July. Honorable Mention LHP Angel Hernandez - Myrtle Beach Pelicans - 4 G, 0.73 ERA, 0.730 WHIP, 12 ⅓ IP, 4 H, 5 BB, 20 K Hernandez spent the entire 2022 and 2023 seasons with Myrtle Beach to much worse results. After posting a 5.79 ERA in 2022 and a 4.14 ERA in 2023, he started the 2024 season in South Bend, which was borderline disastrous. He gave up 19 earned runs in just 12 ⅔ innings, mostly thanks to a lack of control: the young left-hander walked 23.9 percent of the hitters he faced. This is something he has always struggled with. His walk rate hovered around 18 percent during his past two seasons in Myrtle Beach. Upon returning to the Pelicans in mid-May, his walk rate dropped to 14.2 percent through the end of June, and in July, it went down to 10.87 percent. That’s still high, but not the end of the world for someone who also rocked a 43.48 percent strikeout rate that same month. At 24, he’s old for his league, but perhaps he has finally figured this out, and a promotion is in his future. Top Three Relief Pitchers for July 2024 3. RHP Sam McWilliams - Iowa Cubs - 8 G, 1.64 ERA, 1.273 WHIP, 11 IP, 5 H, 9 BB, 13 K McWilliams, for those unaware, is an incredible story. You should read the Des Moines Register’s full account of it, but in short, he had retired from professional baseball after bouncing around the minor leagues from 2014 through 2022. He was working as a salesman, and when a friend asked him to fill in and play in an exhibition game in the Mexican Pacific League, McWilliams obliged and eventually made his way back to the minor leagues with the Cubs. His full-season numbers aren’t impressive: a 6.67 ERA in 58 innings pitched. A 13.6 percent walk rate hasn’t helped. However, in July, it clicked for McWilliams. He was still walking a lot of hitters, but hitters managed just five hits, all singles, against him in 46 plate appearances. The 32.1 percent strikeout rate for the season suggests that the stuff is there, and in their midseason prospect update, Fangraphs even slapped a 35+ future value on him and ranked him the 33rd-best prospect in the organization. Let’s hope for more months, like July, when it all comes together. 2. LHP Mitchell Tyranski - South Bend Cubs - 7 G, 0.82 ERA, 0.546 WHIP, 11 IP, 4 H, 2 BB, 9 K The Cubs signed the former 12th-round draft pick of the Dodgers in late April and immediately moved him from Myrtle Beach to South Bend after just one appearance. Tyranski had issues limiting walks and home runs in his first couple of months with South Bend, allowing four home runs and a 12.79 percent walk rate. In July, though, the former Michigan State Spartan basically cut all of that out. His walk rate dropped to 5.13 percent, and he did not allow a single home run. Couple that with a still decent 23 percent strikeout rate, and Tyranski had the best month of his brief Cubs tenure. 1. RHP Nick Hull - South Bend Cubs - 7 G, 1.26 ERA, 0.977 WHIP, 14 ⅓ IP, 6 H, 8 BB, 21 K The 2022 draft pick out of Grand Canyon has had a mid-season renaissance for the South Bend Cubs, culminating in a July performance that is probably the best month of his young professional career. Hitters hit just .122 against him, mostly thanks to a 35.59 percent strikeout rate. That bump in strikeout rate is particularly notable because Hull has never been a huge strikeout guy, at least to this extent. Last season, his strikeout rate in Myrtle Beach was 24.4 percent and 16.9 percent in his brief cameo in South Bend. His previous career high for a month was May of 2023 when he struck out roughly 30 percent of the hitters he faced. Congrats to Nick Hull on a great month of July. The elevated strikeout rate is certainly something to monitor for his career going forward. View full article

Pete Crow-Armstrong is really, really fast. But when compared to the fastest in the world, how fast is he? Image courtesy of © Darren Yamashita-USA TODAY Sports If you’re anything like me, you’ve been watching the Summer Olympics for the past week or so. I’ve found myself enjoying the brief respite from the Cubs continuing to tread water by watching Olympic swimmers who are doing nothing but treading water when they’re in the pool. Of course, there is one obvious Cubs connection here. For those who are unaware, Dansby Swanson’s wife, Mallory Swanson, has scored three goals for the United States women’s national soccer team as they continue their quest for a gold medal. While watching the start of the track and field events, I couldn’t help but wonder how Pete Crow-Armstrong would fare in a sprint against the top talent in the world. PCA is one of the fastest guys in baseball, and watching him sprint around the bases resembles Noah Lyles running 100 meters on a track. Statcast’s sprint speed statistic can do much of the heavy lifting for us here. This stat is listed in feet per second and measured during the player’s fastest one-second window on any individual play. According to Baseball Savant, PCA is fifth in baseball in sprint speed at 30.1 feet per second. Saturday morning was the preliminary and first round of the Olympic men’s 100-meter race. Since he’s the most known American athlete in this event, we’ll continue to use Noah Lyles as a measuring stick. He ran 100 meters in 10.04 seconds, though according to Sports Illustrated and some of his comments after the fact, he may have been holding back somewhat. To Lyles’ credit, his fastest time is much better, at 9.81 seconds. Ok, let’s do some math! One hundred meters is about 328.084 feet. If Crow-Armstrong runs at about 30.1 feet per second, 328.084 divided by 30.1 is 10.90 seconds. PCA would run the 100-meter dash in roughly 10.90 seconds. But hold on, not so fast! Pun intended. You might have noticed in the explanation that Sprint Speed is calculated as a player’s “fastest one-second window.” This is taken directly from the explanation on Baseball Savant. So, by my logic, not only would Noah Lyles still beat Crow-Armstrong by quite a bit in a 100-meter race, but Lyles’ time factors in the time it takes him to hit top speed, while PCA’s time assumes he is running at his top speed the entire time. This might seem picky, but every little bit counts when talking about a race that usually takes about 10 seconds to finish. Statcast also has running splits listed on Baseball Savant. It takes the rookie center fielder about 50 feet to reach his top speed of 30.1 feet per second. At this point, 2.42 seconds have already elapsed, on average. So he would still have about 278 feet to run, and if we assume he runs it at 30.1 feet per second, he would run that final 278 feet in about 9.24 seconds. Add the 2.42 seconds it took him to get to top speed to that, and you get 11.66 seconds. The other factor here is that he might hit a higher top speed than 30.1 feet per second if he knew he was running 100 meters in a straight line rather than shifting directions every 90 feet. But remember that sprint speed is calculated at the player’s fastest one-second window in a given play, so I am comfortable saying that it might help his time, but not by a ton. I’d venture to guess PCA would clock in somewhere in the 11.40-11.60 range on a 100-meter dash. In round one on Saturday, only the slowest finisher recorded a time in that range, and he was so far behind the rest of the field that I’d assume it was an anomaly for him. Of the 69 athletes who completed round one (three were disqualified), he was the only one who recorded a time greater than 11 seconds. So, PCA is fast. Really fast. But he’s nowhere near Olympian level fast. If you were curious, Lyles averaged 32.68 feet per second in his run this morning, significantly faster than Bobby Witt Jr.’s baseball-leading 30.4 feet per second figure. We’ve seen fast players like Terrance Gore stick around and end up on playoff rosters every year with one role: pinch runner. Would anyone bite if Lyles were to make himself available to baseball teams every August to fill the pinch runner role? Given PCA has yet to be caught stealing this season, I just cannot see anyone being able to throw him out. Imagine the viral potential of Noah Lyles pinch running as the winning run in the bottom of the ninth of a playoff game. Alas, it will never happen because Noah Lyles is incredibly successful in a different sport. But a guy can dream. If you tune in to watch any Olympic action, allow this to serve as a reminder of how impressive the physical accomplishments of these athletes are. If you think PCA is fast, Noah Lyles, and anyone else competing in the men’s 100-meter dash, would make him look slow. View full article

Ha - no offense taken. Let me try again. He’s not succeeding at it because it isn’t surprising to anyone. It isn’t surprising to anyone because he’s doing it way too often. He’s doing it way too often because he isn’t performing at the plate. Bunting so often is not helping his performance at the plate, nor is it helping his development. I am sure it can turn into something of a weapon for him, to whatever extent a bunt can be a weapon for an offensive player. But right now, it’s not working, and he needs the reps at the plate. That picture in particular is just an example of how easy he is to defend right now. He’s the winning run in the bottom of the ninth, and the Brewers are defending him as if he were a pitcher at the plate. He’s on pace for 37 bunts per 600 plate appearances. Nobody has done that since Billy Hamilton. He shouldn’t be this desperate at the plate.

When executed well, the bunt is one of the most exciting plays in baseball. When not executed well, it's infuriating. Image courtesy of © Katie Stratman-USA TODAY Sports Bunting for a hit is awesome. As someone who grew up as a very undersized but fast baseball player, I have always appreciated the art of a good bunt. You should be trying to get on base any way you can, and something about a professional player laying down a bunt to claw their way to first base never fails to put a smile on my face. Now, as baseball becomes more focused on power and strikeouts rise, I also find myself enjoying the chaotic nature of a bunt for a hit. You might see a perfect bunt placed right where the defenders aren’t. You might see an awesome play by a third baseman to record the out. He also might chuck the ball down the right-field line, resulting in complete bedlam: Pete Crow-Armstrong's Bunt Scores Michael Busch"> This brings me to the bunter in that highlight and the bunter in question: Pete Crow-Armstrong. When does bunting go too far? When is someone bunting too often? Allow me to share a screenshot with you from the Cubs’ 1-0 loss to the Brewers coming out of the All-Star break: PCA was the winning run in the bottom of the ninth inning, yet the Brewers were defending against a bunt. To clarify, he never squared around to bunt in this plate appearance, so perhaps the issue is more about how helpless he has been offensively than him bunting too much. He has hit two ground balls to the opposite field this season, so the Brewers might as well stick Joey Ortiz that close to the plate to defend against a possible bunt because there likely isn’t any other batted ball going that direction. He is way too easy to defend. Part of the reason that bunts are successful is because they are surprising to the defense. The Brewers weren’t going to be surprised here. The Cubs’ rookie center fielder has come to the plate 195 times this season. He’s either struck out, walked, or been hit by a pitch 63 times, so 132 of his plate appearances have resulted in him swinging and making contact with the ball. According to Baseball Savant, he’s bunted 13 times. Almost 10 percent, 9.8 percent, to be precise, of PCA’s balls in play this season have been bunts. On one hand, one could argue that this is great! Crow-Armstrong is incredibly fast, and as I’ve already discussed, I love watching players do anything they can to get to first base, especially when they aren’t a huge home run threat. On the other hand, he’s not very good at it! Four of those 13 bunts have been a sacrifice bunt. He has just two hits on the nine bunts that weren’t recorded as a sacrifice. That would be a .222 batting average and a .222 slugging percentage since you’re setting your ceiling at a single when you attempt to bunt for a hit. Those numbers rank very poorly when you compare them to everyone else who has laid down more than ten bunts so far this year, all stats per Baseball Savant: Player Number of bunts Batting average on bunts Jacob Young 21 .533 Michael Siani 17 .500 Pete Crow-Armstrong 13 .222 Jake McCarthy 11 .375 Johan Rojas 11 .333 Michael A. Taylor 11 .286 Brice Turang 11 .429 Blake Perkins 10 .500 Jose Caballero 10 .375 This list is about what you’d expect. It's not exactly a murderers' row of power hitters, but mostly a list of smaller, quicker guys willing to do whatever it takes just to get to first base so those big power hitters can drive them in. As a matter of fact, Turang and McCarthy are the only two players listed here who have been above league average with the bat this season, and Turang is the only one with the prospect pedigree that PCA does. In a season that has otherwise been devoid of excitement, Pete Crow-Armstrong’s continued development might be one of the only things that will keep bringing me back to my television screen daily. This is a guy who was an above-average hitter at every level in the minor leagues. As fans, we all want to see him swing the bat so we can hopefully see him evolve into at least an average offensive player. Given his elite defense in center field, that might be all he needs to become an All-Star. I know it’s been a struggle for him so far in the majors, and his .222 batting average on his bunts is higher than his season average of .180, but keep in mind, he can’t get anything more than a single on a bunt. He has a .196 wOBA on bunts this year, vs. an overall wOBA of .231. It hasn’t been effective. Are we already at the point where he feels the need to bunt for a hit at the same rate as low-offense players like Michael Siani? At the very least, if he is going to bunt so often, could he at least be better at it? View full article

Believe it or not, the Chicago Cubs’ bullpen has been seeing drastically better results since the calendar turned to June. Image courtesy of © Darren Yamashita-USA TODAY Sports From the beginning of the season through the end of May, the Cubs’ bullpen ERA of 4.61 was 27th in baseball. Since then, however, their 2.92 ERA is fourth. It feels like this has gone mostly unrecognized, probably because it hasn’t resulted in more wins, save for that nice little stretch to end the first half of the season. There are multiple reasons for this resurgence. Frankly, the biggest reason might just be plain old luck. FanGraphs said the Cubs’ bullpen FIP before June 1 was 4.14. Afterward, it’s 3.77, which would suggest that the group is not as bad as it was for the first part of the season, but also not as good as it has been lately. Another reason is the emergence of Porter Hodge. The former 13th-round pick was fast-tracked to the big leagues when it was obvious the bullpen needed reinforcements, and since his debut on May 22, his 0.5 FanGraphs WAR is the best amongst the group. He’s pitched to a 2.16 ERA and has a 2.25 xERA and 2.27 FIP to support the good results. According to Baseball Savant, Hodge primarily features a fastball in the mid-90s, and he throws roughly 70 percent of the time. He supplements that with a sweepy slider that he throws the other 30 percent of the time. I wouldn’t say he has swing-and-miss stuff, at least not based on early results: his 11 percent swinging strike rate is 179th among the 330 relievers that have thrown at least ten innings, per Fangraphs. His 27.7 percent strikeout rate is above the league average of 23 percent for a reliever, but not incredibly so. Mason Miller, he is not. Where the rookie reliever really succeeds is on pitches in the strike zone. Five hundred twenty pitchers have thrown at least 200 pitches this season. Hodge has allowed a .206 xwOBA on pitches in the strike zone, which puts him fourth among that group of 520 pitchers. Speaking of Miller, he is one spot above Hodge with a .205 xwOBA allowed on pitches in the zone. Any time you can be compared to arguably the best reliever in baseball, it’s a good sign. This is where Hodge’s fastball shines. He’s allowed a .201 xwOBA on fastballs in the zone, which is eighth in MLB. Matthew Trueblood previously alluded to how difficult Hodge’s fastball would be to hit, which is exactly what is playing out. With very little horizontal movement in addition to some added drop, the rookie out of Salt Lake City has a very unique fastball that is a little similar to someone else we are all familiar with, but at a higher velocity: Player Vertical Movement vs. average (inches) Horizontal movement vs. average (inches) Velocity (mph) Porter Hodge -2 -8 95 Justin Steele -2.9 -6.4 91.7 He isn’t doing it with just the fastball, either. He’s allowed a .225 xwOBA on breaking balls in the zone. That figure is a slightly less sterling 71st in baseball. However, hitters are whiffing at 35 percent of those pitches, which is 14th. The concern with Hodge upon his call-up was whether or not he would throw enough strikes. He was walking 15.8 percent of hitters in AAA this season, and he’s dropped that to a much more manageable 10.8 percent in the big leagues. His zone rate has gone up, but only slightly: he threw 47 percent of pitches in the zone in AAA, and he’s up to 52.5 percent in the majors. Where we’re really seeing a difference is in swing rates. In MLB, hitters are swinging up 67.4 percent of pitches in the zone. In Triple-A, that figure was just 54.4 percent. Hitters aren’t getting results in the zone, so you have to wonder if they’ll just start swinging at those pitches less and make Hodge throw a strike more than once or twice. Regardless, it’s clear that the stuff is there and is big-league caliber. We’ll have to wait and see if the walk rate stays down. But for now, any way you slice it, and anywhere he throws it, hitters just cannot square up Porter Hodge. View full article