Brandon Glick

With Jordan Wicks now hurt, Kyle Hendricks now has one more chance to redeem himself. Brandon and Ethan discuss the Cubs' never-fully-healthy rotation. View full video

Someone has put a hex on the Cubs' closer gig this year. Brandon and Ethan discuss what Counsell can do in the ninth inning with Neris struggling so badly. View full video

Yan Gomes has been DFA'd by the Cubs, with Thomas Nido taking his place. Brandon and Ethan discuss the Cubs' catching situation in the present and future. View full video

Alexander Canario is on another heater at Triple-A, but he remains blocked at the major league level. Brandon and Ethan discuss what comes next for the powerful outfield prospect. View full video

With Ben Brown injured, Jordan Wicks is back in the rotation. Brandon and Ethan discuss the five arms trying to save the Cubs' season. NOTE: Wicks is expected to head to the IL after exiting his last start with an injury. View full video

Mere days after sparking controversy in New York, Jorge Lopez has signed with the Cubs. Brandon and Ethan discuss what he could bring to Chicago. View full video

The Tennessee Smokies' catcher is having another great season, though his bat is far ahead of his glove. Brandon and Ethan analyze Ballesteros' rapidly ascending prospect stock. View full video

It's June, and that means the hot stove is getting hotter. Brandon and Ethan take a look at a couple of notable names who could help the lineup during the dog days of summer. View full video

After a grueling slate in May, the Cubs get to feast on some bottom feeders in June. Brandon and Ethan break down the Cubs' upcoming schedule. View full video

After a hot start to the season in April, the Cubs struggled badly this month as they dealt with injuries and underperformances up and down the roster. Nevertheless, a few hitters held their own and deserve to be praised for holding down the fort while the team collapsed around them. It was a ROUGH month for the Cubs hitters in May - not one single player on the team posted an OPS above .800 (Cody Bellinger reached exactly that mark). Christopher Morel led the team in home runs with six, though he supplied an ugly .183/.319/.387 slash line in 93 at-bats. The Cubs had more batters post an OPS below .600 (eight) than players with an OPS above .700 (six) last month. So… yeah. We’re not exactly picking from the hottest bunch in the world. Yet, the show must go on, and at least a couple of hitters provided a glimmer of hope in the barren offensive wasteland that is the 2024 Chicago Cubs. These are North Side Baseball’s top Cubs hitters from the month of May. Honorable Mentions 3B/1B Patrick Wisdom: 43 ABs, .233/.306/.442, 114 OPS+, 2 HR, 6 RBI In case you didn’t believe me when I said it was a slow month for the bats, may I present Patrick Wisdom as one of the Cubs’ five best hitters last month. That’s not to take anything away from the lefty-crushing corner infielder, but given his relatively small sample size and limited contributions besides his home run power, Wisdom’s placement on this list is more of an indictment of the roster than praise for the 32-year-old. Nevertheless, the Cubs need him to continue producing while playing the weak-side of the first and third base platoon, lest they have another black hole in their lineup. 1B Michael Busch: 72 ABs, .208/.337/.375, 106 OPS+, 2 HR, 6 RBI Last month’s hitter of the month, Busch was solid when called upon in May. His power took a nosedive compared to April, though even that month’s surge was fueled by a ridiculous five-homers-in-five-games stretch. Notably, Busch’s OPS is 215 points higher in wins than losses - when he plays well, the Cubs tend to follow. April's Top 3 Cubs Hitters of the Month #3 2B Nico Hoerner: 84 ABs, .250/.351/.393, 116 OPS+, 2 HR, 8 RBI Nico Hoerner going down with injury at the same time as Dansby Swanson is where I trace the Cubs’ profound offensive struggles back to, but ever since returning from left hamstring tightness, he’s been the same excellent second baseman Cubs fans know and love. Hoerner is back to stealing bases (five in five attempts last month) and hitting for a bit of power. His defense has been sterling yet again. On a team full of struggling players, Hoerner’s consistency has shone through like a ray of light in the darkness. A fun fact for those who enjoy lineup composition debates: when leading off a game for the Cubs, Hoerner is slashing .385/.407/.654 in 27 plate appearances. #2 OF Ian Happ: 91 ABs, .231/.317/.462, 122 OPS+, 5 HR, 12 RBI Happ started out frigid this season, posting a .647 OPS in March/April and struggling even worse in the first 10 or so days of May. Starting on May 16, though, Happ has been on one of his patented heaters. All of his home runs this month came after that cutoff date, and he got on base at least once in all but three of the games he’s started since then. In pure Happian fashion, most of that damage came against the Reds and Pirates, but the opponent doesn’t matter when a team is struggling this badly across the board. If this award were just focused on the past two weeks, Happ would have won this competition running away - he’s lifted his season OPS by more than 50 points in that span. #1 OF Cody Bellinger: 93 ABs, .290/.327/.473, 128 OPS+, 3 HR, 9 RBI Despite going on the IL with broken ribs late last month, Bellinger returned looking as healthy and spry as ever. Strong defense, a consistent plate approach, and being a genuine threat in the lineup has made Bellinger by far the team’s most important hitter heading into June. If he can supply a little more over-the-wall pop as the weather heats up, Bellinger will have a chance to match last season’s impressive 134 wRC+ (he’s up to 118 as of June 1). Interestingly, Bellinger has been much better away from Wrigley Field this season: his batting average (.286 on the road, .228 at home), OPS (.814 to .738), and OPS+ (136 to 106) are far better in opposing team’s ballparks this season. Not the most exciting statistics for Cubs hitters in May, but what do you think of this ranking? Are these the correct choices? View full article

At long last, May is over. And yet, the Cubs’ problems still persist, as Cade Horton is out with a lat injury. At least Ian Happ is swinging a hot stick at the plate. Image courtesy of © Melissa Tamez-USA TODAY Sports The Cubs went 10-18 last month. I’m not sure about you, but watching the Cubs go from a war for first place in the NL Central to fighting to stay around .500 has not been fun. The pitching, particularly from the young arms in the rotation, has remained excellent this season, but the bats reached another level of ice cold in May. We trudge forward nonetheless, but the season is slipping away before our eyes. As usual, we’ll focus exclusively on baseball in this edition of MMNS. Let’s dive right into things. Let’s get it out of the way up top: thank goodness May is over. Things got BRUTAL down the stretch of last month, and the Cubs immediately responded to the calendar flipping by putting up seven runs against the Reds on Saturday. The schedule is starting to ease up on them (White Sox to start the week!), so hopefully, the offense can continue to climb out of the abyss they’ve dug for themselves. The lineup will do that by getting superstar-level contributions from its best players. Ian Happ isn’t always thought of that way, but he’s performed like it the last few weeks. Over the last two weeks, Happ lifted his season OPS from .674 to .702. His power has awoken now that he’s playing some division rivals (namely the Reds), and he’s inarguably the hottest hitter on the team. Hopefully, guys like Seiya Suzuki and Dansby Swanson (who hit home runs in the Cubs’ win on Saturday) can return to form and offer much-needed support for Happ, Cody Bellinger, and Christopher Morel. On the flip side of Happ, Nick Madrigal has drawn the ire of nearly every Cubs fan who’s paid attention this year. The team finally capitulated to the raucous call of the Wrigley faithful by sending him to Triple-A Iowa, recalling old friend David Bote to take his place on the roster. Madrigal’s time in Chicago may be up at this point. His StatCast chart is plain ugly. He’s always had one blue-chip tool - his contact rate - and his defense has been solid the last couple of years, but he hasn’t improved much in his time with the Cubs. Some tough news: Cade Horton, the Cubs top prospect now that Pete Crow-Armstrong has graduated, is out with a lat injury. He was placed on the seven-day injured list this weekend. Some fans may remember when Adbert Alzolay went down with the same injury in 2018 (when he was one of the Cubs’ best pitching prospects) and missed the rest of the season. That’s a worst-case scenario outcome, but with how little is known about Horton’s injury, caution is the only approach worth taking. The Cubs’ rotation has been the most consistent piece of the team all season long, so Horton’s absence won’t be season-ending for the major league team by any stretch. Still, Horton is knocking on the door of The Show, and it’s tough for an injury to interrupt his development at Triple-A Iowa. Ben Brown played Jekyll and Hyde this week, throwing seven no-hit innings against the Brewers before getting lit up by the Reds on Sunday for five runs in five innings. Bumps in the road are expected for the young starting pitcher, and the fact that his strikeout numbers continue to impress (ten against the Brewers, six against the Reds) is a good sign. He’s earned himself a long leash in the rotation, and Brown’s emergence is a godsend in the wake of the Horton news. And last but certainly not least, everyone’s favorite umpire, Angel Hernandez, has officially “retired.” Hernandez didn’t exactly leave the game on his own terms, as he reached a financial settlement with Major League Baseball and the umpires union that led to his exit. In other words, the league was so desperate to get rid of Hernandez that they are paying him not to umpire games. There isn’t a single fan, player, or coach that will miss the most notorious official in the game. Hernandez’s biggest flaw wasn’t that he was a terrible umpire (which he was) but that he wanted the game to be about him. He thrashed the integrity of baseball with his fragile ego, constantly trying to thrust himself into the center of the action. His short fuse will live on in infamy, but his desire to be the star of the show earned him his ignoble distinction of “Worst Umpire in Baseball.” Everyone has their favorite reaction to one of Hernandez’s patented blown calls, though the one that lives rent-free in my head is the incorrect third-strike call to Kyle Schwarber in an April 2022 game against the Brewers. You can even see Josh Hader smirking as he turns to the infield, knowing that the pitch was well off the plate (and, I’m sure, he was enjoying Schwarber’s reaction like the rest of us). That’ll wrap it up for this week, folks. The floundering North Siders are off tonight, and then they’ll host the historically bad Chicago White Sox for a two-game, crosstown series. They also get the Reds again after that, heading to Cincinnati for a weekend set. In no uncertain terms, the Cubs have to go 4-2 or better this week against that pair of last-place teams. The May swoon is over, and June has to bring better fortunes if the team is going to compete past the All-Star break this year. Have a good week, everyone! Go, Cubs, Go! View full article

The Cubs' young starting pitchers have been brilliant this season, but Ben Brown has arguably been the best of the bunch. Brandon & Ethan break down how the two-pitch pitcher is succeeding at the MLB level. View full video