Brandon Glick

Injuries are mounting in the minor leagues, though rumors regarding September call-ups have started to make the rounds. View full video

If the Cubs want to make a push towards the playoffs, it has to happen in the next few weeks thanks to a favorable schedule. View full video

The season is hanging by a thread, but thanks to a fortuitous schedule over the next few weeks, the Cubs’ playoff hopes aren’t dead in the water--yet. Image courtesy of © David Richard-USA TODAY Sports As things stand in the National League, the Philadelphia Phillies are barreling toward an NL East crown; the Milwaukee Brewers are mortal locks for the NL Central title; and the Los Angeles Dodgers are probably going to run away with the NL West. Beyond them, the San Diego Padres and Arizona Diamondbacks are jockeying for the first and second Wild Card seeds, and barring an epic collapse, they'll grab them with room to spare. That leaves one playoff spot for the following teams: Atlanta, the New York Mets, the St. Louis Cardinals, the Cincinnati Reds, the San Francisco Giants, and the Chicago Cubs. With a record of 59-63, the Cubs are currently last among that group of fringe contenders, though they’re only 5.5 games behind the Braves, who sit atop the heap. Having to climb past five teams is hard enough in mid-August, and the fact that the Cubs only play the Reds (among the Wild Card hopefuls) from here on out makes their potential playoff push that much more difficult. The math is hard to work out. Even if the Cubs go on a run, it just takes one of those other five squads going on a similar winning streak to keep Chicago out of the Big Dance. According to FanGraphs, the Cubs’ playoff odds sit at a mere 3.6%, and even that number is buoyed by a projected 1.7% chance to steal the division, which seems like an impossibility given the way the Brewers have played this season. Among the quintet above them in the standings, only the Reds have playoff odds in the same neighborhood as the Cubs, currently sitting at 5.3%. However, the Cubs have the benefit of a very light schedule over the next couple of weeks, playing the Toronto Blue Jays and Detroit Tigers at Wrigley, heading out to face the Miami Marlins, Pittsburgh Pirates, and Washington Nationals, and then returning home to face the Pirates at the beginning of September. Each of those teams possesses a record worse than the Cubs' right now, and all of them are well out of the playoff picture. If the Cubs have any plans on making a valiant effort to sneak into the postseason, this is the time for them to do it. The Blue Jays (5th in AL East) and Tigers (4th in AL Central) have had wildly disappointing seasons and sold off at the trade deadline. Over their last 10 games, Toronto is 5-5 and the Tigers are 6-4, while the Cubs are playing even .500 ball. Notably, both are sporting sub-.500 records on the road, which should help the Cubs capitalize on a pair of winnable series at Wrigley Field, where they’ve posted a 32-27 record thus far in 2024. The road trip, thankfully, presents even less threatening teams, which should give Craig Counsell’s team a chance to improve on their dismal 27-36 road record. The Marlins and Nationals are the two worst teams in the NL East, and both are sitting well below .500 at their home parks. Both rank toward the bottom of the league in offense - the Nationals have scored 518 runs (tied for 17th in the MLB), the Marlins have scored 450 runs (29th) - and they’re both bottom-10 in team ERA. The Cubs, on the other hand, rank seventh with a 3.75 team ERA, and they’re only three spots behind the Nationals in runs scored. The Pirates will be the most interesting series of the bunch, as the teams will play three games each at PNC Park and the Friendly Confines. The Cubs are just 3-4 against Pittsburgh this year, though they haven’t played against each other since playing seven times in a 10-day stretch in mid-May. The Pirates have some star power, in the form of NL All-Star starter Paul Skenes, All-Star outfielder Bryan Reynolds and toolsy shortstop Oneil Cruz, though a healthy Cubs roster is still a tier above what the Buccos trot out on the diamond. After this stretch, the Cubs have series with the New York Yankees, Dodgers, and Phillies, though those are sandwiched by 10 games against the Colorado Rockies, Athletics, and Nationals. They don’t have to completely close the gap between themselves and the rest of the Wild Card hopefuls over the next three weeks, but time is running out. The more ground they make up now, the better off they’ll be in the final stretch run at the end of September. The odds are slim, but given where things stood a month ago, at least the Cubs have given themselves a fighting chance. There’s more than just pride on the line in this final month and a half in the 2024 season, which is a win in and of itself. This hasn’t been the year fans were hoping for, but the year isn’t over yet. View full article

The Cubs looked like they were back before the All-Star break. Now, not so much. View full video

If the Cubs sell at the deadline, which players are most likely to be shipped out of Chicago? View full video

The Cubs will likely sell, but does that mean they should host a firesale? View full video

After being sidelined by a back injury to start the season, Jameson Taillon had a relatively brilliant first half. If there’s any hope of the Cubs completing the playoff push on which they fell short last year, they’ll need their $68 million pitcher to be even better. Image courtesy of © Jeff Curry-USA TODAY Sports Here’s a fun fact: the Cubs currently have five players on the roster playing on a contract worth more than $60 million. Three of them (Ian Happ, Seiya Suzuki, Cody Bellinger) make up the starting outfield triumvirate, and another is the seven-year, $177 million deal World Series champion Dansby Swanson signed before the 2023 season. Only one of those contracts is held by a pitcher: starter Jameson Taillon. In the Cubs’ long history, only 10 players (and just four pitchers) have signed a larger contract with the North Siders than Taillon’s four-year, $68 million pact. As the de facto third starter behind Justin Steele and Shota Imanaga (and ahead of Javier Assad and Kyle Hendricks), Taillon represents an important piece of the Cubs’ roster, especially with the young trio of Jordan Wicks, Hayden Wesneski, and Ben Brown all on the injured list. Taillon was the Cubs’ biggest pitching addition in the 2022-2023 offseason, signing a four-year deal to serve as a mid-rotation arm--and as insurance, in case of Marcus Stroman opting out of his contract and departing in free agency. In retrospect, his first season in a Cubs uniform wasn’t as bad as it often felt. His 4.84 ERA was a pretty big jump from a 4.00 mark for his career, but that was due to an extraordinarily slow start wherein the righty posted a 6.93 ERA in his first 14 appearances. Taillon still managed to throw 154 ⅓ innings last season, which ranked second on the team behind only the staff ace, Steele. Then, Taillon got hurt early in Spring Training, dealing with a back strain (the same injury that knocked Patrick Wisdom out for the same time frame). He was out for a month, returned to pitch in two rehab starts, and then made his season debut in late April. It was a rushed rehab schedule, but the Cubs needed quality innings ASAP and hoped Taillon would be the one to provide them. Well, so far, so good, on that front. Through 16 starts in 2024, Taillon has a 3.10 ERA and 3.80 FIP in 93 innings pitched, averaging a healthy 5.8 innings per start. His 7.3 K/9 is lower than last year’s 8.2 figure, though he’s improved upon his walk rate, allowing nearly one fewer free pass per nine innings compared to 2023. He’s pitching to contact more in 2024 than he did in his debut season with the Cubs, though that’s where the stats begin to betray his results. Jameson Taillon, Cubs Performance Stat 2023 2024 BABIP .292 .281 Left On Base% 64.6% 75.7% Ground Ball % 37.9% 36.6% HR/FB% 13.4% 9.3% 4-Seam Velocity 93.8 MPH 92.7 MPH That LOB% is more in line with his career norms (73.1%), but it’s still a higher-than-average figure that will likely regress at least a little in the second half of this season. His BABIP mark is well below his .293 career average, and will likely regress as well. For Taillon to carry over his effectiveness from the first half, he’ll have to do a better job of limiting baserunners, be it by way of the strikeout or by inducing soft contact. However, that’s going to be difficult to do with a fastball that’s down a tick this season, and which is well below the 95.0-MPH average he had earlier in his career with the Pittsburgh Pirates and New York Yankees. In terms of positive regression, his current ground-ball percentage is the second-lowest rate of his career, and should increase if Taillon reemphasizes his sinker (career-low 7.9% usage this season) in the second half. At least, that’s what the Cubs are hoping will happen, since his home run per fly ball rate is by far the best of his career and significantly below his career average of 12.1%. Assuming Taillon isn’t so lucky with fly balls in the dog days of summer, he’ll need to pitch for more ground balls and play into the hands of the Cubs’ gold glove infield defense. None of this is meant to spell doom for the Cubs’ most effective righty starter, but it should be a reminder that even the best part of this roster - the starting rotation - isn’t without flaws. Chicago absolutely needs him to continue nailing down every fifth day if there’s hope for even a semi-competitive August and September. Taillon has the talent to do it, even if he’s fending off a mounting injury history, Father Time, and waning stuff. It’s hard to believe given the size of his contract, but Taillon was the Cubs’ unsung hero during an uneasy first 100 games. If the next 60 or so prove to be more prosperous, Taillon will likely have had a big part in it. View full article

In a disappointing first half for the 2024 Chicago Cubs, their new southpaw stud truly did shine brightly, and his All-Star selection was more than compulsory; it was well-deserved. Image courtesy of © Kevin Jairaj-USA TODAY Sports To be sure, a few players on the roster have done good work thus far, even as the Cubs have trudged out to a NL Central-worst 47-51 record to start the season. Three everyday hitters (Michael Busch, Seiya Suzuki, Ian Happ) have an OPS above .800. Tyson Miller has been electric out of the bullpen since coming over via trade in May, and Javier Assad and Jameson Taillon have both pitched to sub-3.30 ERAs in 85 or more innings this season. Any of them would have been worthy All-Star candidates, though the Cubs’ painful-to-watch May and June pretty much sunk the team’s fringe candidates' chances of garnering enough votes to appear at the festivities. The team’s true snub is Justin Steele, who (despite missing a month of action thanks to a hamstring strain suffered on Opening Day) has pitched to a sterling 2.71 ERA in 86 ⅓ innings of work. He’s pitching deep into games (averaging greater than 6.0 innings per start), has the lowest WHIP of everyone in the rotation (0.95), and has the second-most strikeouts on the team (81). If 2023 was his breakout year, he’s corroborated his status as an “ace” this year. While Steele won’t be making his second consecutive appearance at baseball’s mid-season concelebration, another lefty starting pitcher from the Cubs will make his All-Star debut. And it’s not Drew Smyly. Shota Imanaga has been tremendous this season, leading the team in innings (97) and strikeouts (98) while functionally serving as the Robin to Steele’s Batman. Through his first 17 MLB starts, Imanaga has been worth 2.0 WAR, posted a nearly-identical FIP (3.28) and ERA (2.97), and been 42% better than the average pitcher by ERA+. When the Cubs signed Imanaga to a (complicated) four-year, $53 million contract this winter, even the most naïve of optimists could hardly have imagined his Stateside debut going much better. Among National League pitchers, Imanaga ranks 16th in strikeouts, despite finishing the first half with the 30th-most innings. His ERA would rank sixth, if he had a few more innings under his belt to qualify. He’s tied for fifth with 11 quality starts. And, just for good measure, he’s tied with many pitchers for seventh in the NL, with two successful pickoffs. By just about all accounts, Imanaga is a worthy All-Star representative, even if his selection was mandated by the league's rule that every team have a delegate. There are flaws to point out in the 30-year-old’s game. He’s virtually reliant on just two pitches, and he remains as susceptible as expected to the long ball, having given up 12 home runs already this year. Three times this season (all since May 29), Imanaga has given up multiple round-trippers in a single game. Unsurprisingly, those three games all ended in losses, with two accounting for the only two losses on his otherwise pristine 8-2 record. There’s time to sort all that out, though. The Cubs appear ready to make a spirited push ahead of the trade deadline (despite my own willingness to throw in the towel after suffering through two months of unwatchable baseball). To do so, they’ll need to come out of the All-Star break blisteringly hot, like they did a year ago, which will need to be fueled by more of the same dominance from a starting rotation that has done so much heavy lifting already in 2024. What Imanaga’s been doing thus far has been working, and as long as he can continue to mask his deficiencies while the Cubs are in the Wild Card hunt, an overhaul to his repertoire can wait. The next few days are a chance to breathe for the Cubs, who will need to muster all the courage and willpower they can to undo the damage that was done in May and June. However, in between our collective meditation sessions, let’s make sure to properly celebrate 2024 All-Star Shota Imanaga. View full article

“As Cubs fans, it’s easy to fall back into the ‘Lovable Losers’ mantra. It’s a moniker that followed the franchise and its dedicated fanbase for over a century. And since the departure of the curse-buster himself, Theo Epstein, following the pandemic-shortened season in 2020, the Cubs have resumed their place among the hierarchy of baseball’s most prolific sellers.” Image courtesy of © Mitch Stringer-USA TODAY Sports I wrote that exact introduction nearly a year ago, as the prelude to my first-ever article for North Side Baseball: “The Value of Buying Even When You’re (Probably) Not Going to Win the World Series”. The Cubs would prove me prescient in the days that followed, as the team scooped up Jeimer Candelario and José Cuas ahead of the trade deadline in an attempt to merely get the team playing meaningful games in September again. Though they would end up collapsing and fell short of the postseason, it was still nice to see the Cubs choose a path with conviction. Now, a year later, I call upon the Cubs again to choose a path, though a far less enjoyable one. As I wrote last week, the Cubs’ hesitancy to spend in free agency this offseason has led them down a far less prosperous road this season. Still saddled in last place in the NL Central and double-digit games behind the first-place Milwaukee Brewers, the team simply isn’t built to overcome deficits, either in the games they play or in the standings. As the season has worn on, it's become clear that this iteration of the Chicago Cubs won’t be sniffing the postseason. So, then, it’s intuitive that the team spends the remainder of the year doing whatever it can to bolster its chances in the seasons to come. If that means trading away fan favorites and tanking for a higher draft pick, then so be it. We should all be used to it by now. At this point, Cody Bellinger is all but certainly a goner. The reigning NL Comeback Player of the Year may be one of the few consistent bats in Craig Counsell’s lineup, but that also means he’ll be one of the team’s most valuable pieces on the trading block. Though he hasn’t matched last year’s tremendous effort, his .738 OPS and lasting ability to play quality defense at first base and all three outfield spots should make him a seamless fit for any contender needing a left-handed bat. If they can, the Cubs will also look to dump Jameson Taillon and his hefty contract on another squad. The right-handed starter was disastrous at the start of his Cubs’ tenure, but he turned things around in the second half of 2023. This year, he’s pitching like a frontline starter, with a sub-3 ERA in 81 1/3 innings pitched and a FIP of 3.80. If teams are convinced his turnaround is for real, then Taillon and his remaining 2.5 years of control could bring a significant asset back to Chicago. The third-longest tenured player on the roster, Nico Hoerner, is also a name being floated around the rumor mill. He has two and a half years left on the contract extension he signed last spring, at a relative pittance compared to other players of his ilk ($11.5 million salary this year and next, $12 million salary in 2026). Attaching his Gold Glove defense and speed to the offensive player he was last year (.729 OPS) rather than this year (.667 OPS) yields a profile that’s bound to generate a lot of trade interest, especially given that Hoerner just turned 27 in May. Beyond those three, the list of potential Cubs trade candidates is long. If the team is looking for a quick turnaround in 2025, then the team may opt to hold onto their long-term assets, while trying to fetch a price for some usable (if underwhelming) ancillary players like Patrick Wisdom and Héctor Neris. If the team is committing to a longer retooling window, then perhaps Ian Happ, Seiya Suzuki, Christopher Morel, or Javier Assad should be on the market. And if the Cubs are ready to take a sledgehammer to the monument of mediocrity they’ve built over the last five years, then everyone not named Justin Steele or Shota Imanaga should probably start buying extra luggage, just in case. Of course, trading any combination of players this year in the name of tanking doesn’t guarantee the Cubs anything, like it did in the past. The new MLB Draft Lottery ensures that even teams that sell out for losses won’t always be rewarded for their “efforts”. The Cleveland Guardians, who finished last season with a middling-but-not-terrible 76-86 record, beat the odds at the 2023 Winter Meetings, claiming the first overall pick in this month’s draft despite having just the ninth-best odds to do so (2.0%). As it stands, there are currently five teams with a worse record than the Chicago Cubs: the Los Angeles Angels, the Oakland Athletics, the Miami Marlins, the Colorado Rockies, and the historically bad Chicago White Sox. The Cubs likely have too much talent and too much of a cushion to fall beneath any of those teams in the standings, but even if they let the Angels usurp them, their odds to “earn” the first overall pick still won’t be favorable. The three worst teams by record share an equal 18.3% chance to get the top slot, followed by the fourth-worst team’s 14.7% odds. Every team after that has odds below 9.0%. Still, it would be a waste to not at least try. There’s no use trying to outrun the treadmill of mediocrity the North Siders find themselves stranded on. They have some valuable players who could bring back a couple of interesting prospects in a trade, and selling at the deadline could give them better odds at winning the draft lottery. At the very least, losing more would insulate them from falling too far in the draft order. To put it plainly, these 2024 Cubs probably aren’t going to snag the first overall draft pick. It’s more likely than not that they’ll be picking outside the top five again. But maybe, with a few small subtractions from the roster, they can back their way into a premier selection. Hell, if Bellinger and Hoerner are shipped out, maybe they can luck their way into their highest selection since taking Kris Bryant No. 2 overall in 2013. Failing that, though, it would just be nice to see the Cubs admit they aren’t good enough, and that they need to do better going forward. On the brink of success lies the precipice of failure. Trying to make this season more than it is could steer the team right off that cliff. They need to rein themselves in and look for another way forward. View full article

The Cubs are bad, and one extra move this past offseason wouldn’t have changed that. Being more aggressive in building a competitive team, though, would have at least given fans hope that another rebuild isn’t on the horizon. Image courtesy of © David Banks-USA TODAY Sports I won’t belabor what’s going on with the Cubs right now. The team stinks. They’re the worst team in the NL Central, a whopping 13 games behind the division-leading Milwaukee Brewers and one of just three teams in the National League that has yet to reach the 40-win threshold. If this were 2022, or even 2023, I could make the case that this prolonged midseason tank job was simply a necessary evil--a means to an end. The team, at some point, needed to reset after the Great Chicago Fire Sale of 2021, and losing massive heaps of games to get higher draft picks and trade veterans for prospects was just a (painful) part of the process. This is 2024, though. That reset was supposed to have already happened. The Cubs bought at last year’s trade deadline, bringing in the since-departed Jeimer Candelario and the since-DFAed José Cuas. They went into September with playoff odds as high as 90%. What followed was a collapse that cost David Ross his job as manager, but the foundation was set for the team to exit “The Rebuild 2.0” and enter legitimate contention again for the first time since 2018. The Jed Hoyer-led front office began the offseason with a bang, poaching manager Craig Counsell away from the rival Brewers in a move that showed the Cubs were ready to flex their financial muscles again. They simply bullied the small-market Brew Crew, signing Counsell to a record five-year, $40 million deal, and it appeared the Cubs were going to leverage the Chicago market and go big during a crucial offseason. And then… crickets. By the time New Year's Day rolled around, the Cubs were the only team in the entire league to have added zero players to their major-league roster. They broke that pathetic streak by claiming catcher Brian Serven off waivers from the Colorado Rockies, but he was designated for assignment before January even ended. It was only when they signed international free agent Shota Imanaga and completed a trade for Michael Busch and Yency Almonte that the acrimonious bickering from fans quieted. Yet, instead of compounding those moves by signing one of the other remaining free agents, the Cubs fell silent again. Eventually, the team would sign reliever Héctor Neris and finally end their winter standoff with Cody Bellinger, but the biggest moves were the ones the team didn’t make: third baseman Matt Chapman and starting pitchers Jordan Montgomery and Blake Snell were all available deep into the offseason. Despite having a need for each of those players, the Cubs sat out the proceedings because they wanted to stay beneath the luxury-tax threshold. Again, none of those players individually would have salvaged this dismal 2024 season. Chapman has had a strong season, posting 3.0 WAR for the San Francisco Giants on the strength of his tremendous defense (which the Cubs are sorely lacking at the hot corner), though his OPS+ stands at just 111 through Jul. 3. Montgomery has pitched to a terrible 6.44 ERA in 65 2/3 innings for the Arizona Diamondbacks, and has actually been worth -1.2 WAR thus far. Snell has somehow been even worse, posting a 9.51 ERA in 23 2/3 innings while dealing with a series of injuries. This isn’t some retrospective on a failed offseason in which the Cubs simply lacked the gusto to make the one move that fans were clamoring for. It is an indictment of Hoyer and the Rickettses, for failing to take advantage of the Cubs’ financial edge over their NL Central compatriots. It is a simple decree that Hoyer hasn’t gotten the job done since taking over for his mentor, Theo Epstein, in 2020, and that his seat should be as warm as any executive’s in the sport. The Collective Bargaining Agreement is meant (in part) to act as a set of guardrails, to protect players, owners, and, ideally, the long-term parity of baseball. Within that lengthy legislation is a set of clauses specifically designed to level the playing field between the two prevailing classes of MLB franchises: the big-market teams and the small-market teams. Dive into the nitty-gritty of the details if you like, but the most important thing to highlight is that small-market teams receive a collection of assets to help them compete with the (should-be) freer spenders of the league. Those assets include, but are not limited to: competitive-balance picks in the amateur draft, extra cap space in their international signing bonus pool, and revenue-sharing dollars. Not all of the compensatory allowances are directly funneled into the baseball operations side of a franchise; there have been many reports of small-market owners simply pocketing their slice of the revenue-sharing pie. Regardless, the reason those teams get these accommodations in the first place is because of the hypothetical difference between their payrolls, and the payrolls of teams like the New York Yankees, Los Angeles Dodgers, and Cubs. Spending doesn’t guarantee anything (the 2023 Mets and Padres could host a seminar on that topic), but it does create a floor. The more money allocated to the payroll, the better the players on the team will be. Inexpensive young talent will always be the lifeblood of the sport, but established veterans capable of producing at a consistent, All-Star level are required to navigate the tumult of an entire season, regardless of their cost. Thus, small-market teams field competitive rosters by leveraging their additional resources on the prospect side of things, and big-market teams do so by spending money on players who have already established themselves. In effect, the Cubs are actively putting themselves at a disadvantage by not outspending their rivals to a degree commensurate with their financial advantages. Some will be quick to point out that the Cubs do spend more than their rivals. Their payroll of roughly $227 million ranks seventh in MLB, and is more than $50 million more than the NL Central’s second-ranked team, the St. Louis Cardinals. The Brewers’ payroll is less than half of that of the Cubs, coming in at just $107.7 million. And that’s where the Cubs have failed. That allocation of resources clearly has not been wise, but it’s the team’s willingness to spend up to the brink of the luxury tax ($237 million for the first apron) without exceeding it. The Ricketts have quite clearly set a mandate that the Cubs remain below that figure, and Hoyer has found himself hamstrung by poor financial decisions he’s made in the past. The best big-market teams spend a lot of money on the best players. The Dodgers and Yankees are the obvious examples. Some big-market teams continue to just spend money until they get things right, like the Steve Cohen-era Mets have. And some big-market teams are simply content with pretending they belong in that exclusive club, like the Cubs are. These Cubs are not lovable. They are just losers. And when they sell this month - fire sale or not - we’ll know why. View full article

We're at the halfway point of the season, and the Cubs look like they've already thrown in the towel. View full video

In what's become a common theme for the Cubs this year, another starting pitcher has gotten hurt. View full video