Jeremy Tecktiel

Image courtesy of © Matt Marton-Imagn Images When Craig Counsell became the Cubs manager, he didn’t make immediate, significant changes to the coaching staff he inherited from David Ross. In fact, three seasons later, Dustin Kelly and Tommy Hottovy both remain in the lead skill roles they held under David Ross. However, Counsell exercised more freedom with his base coaches, to implement his defensive and baserunning strategy. The dust had barely settled on his first season when he made his first true addition to the coaching staff, going and getting Quintin Berry from his old staff in Milwaukee to be his new third-base coach. Berry’s coaching career started in Milwaukee the day he retired. A journeyman outfielder who played in just 132 big-league games but nearly 1,200 minor-league games, Berry was hired as the Brewers’ minor-league outfield and baserunning coordinator. After two years in that role, he was promoted to the major-league staff as first base coach, where he continued to work on outfield and baserunning until the Cubs hired him to do the same for them. Counsell clearly saw a need to improve the outfield and baserunning in his first year at the helm of the Cubs, and after seeing Berry’s impact in Milwaukee, he made him a priority. When Berry was named first-base coach in Milwaukee, they had just finished 29th in MLB in baserunning runs during the shortened 2020 season. Granted, they were 27th in team sprint speed, but still, that's not the kind of baseball Counsell wanted to play. It was the first year since his very first in Milwaukee that the Brewers finished under .500, and the first time in his entire tenure that his team had been below 17th in baserunning runs. In Berry’s first season on the big-league staff, they jumped to 8th in baserunning runs despite still being one of the slowest teams in the majors. We are seeing a similar impact with the Cubs this year. Of the 12 slowest teams in the major leagues, only the Cubs have positive baserunning runs, and the Cubs are in the top 8 in all of baseball. The Brewers, by comparison, are one of the fastest teams in the majors and are 13th in baserunning runs this season. They did remain a fantastic baserunning team last year, their first year without Berry on staff, but they have fallen off this year. Berry’s impact on outfield defense looks similar. In his first year on the big-league staff in Milwaukee, the Brewers outfield jumped from 14th to 5th in outs above average and were top 3 for his entire tenure, including a pair of top two outfields in his last two seasons. The Cubs, by contrast, were 20th in outfield OAA during that same time period. While they snuck inside the top 10 in Counsell’s first year, they jumped to 2nd after hiring Berry and are currently in 1st this year. While his impact on the outfield as a whole is clearly quantifiable, so is his impact on individual players, especially in the jumps they get. Statcast combines three components to calculate an outfielder's jump. Their reaction, or their first step, is how much ground they gain during the first 1.5 seconds. The burst is the next 1.5 seconds after that, or their acceleration/explosiveness. Lastly, is the route they take to the ball and how direct it is. A look at the leaderboards for each of these three components shows that reaction and burst are much more important to an outfielder's value than their route is. Pete Crow-Armstrong was solid in his first full year in the bigs, but he took the leap to cement himself as one of the best defenders in baseball under Berry. Crow-Armstrong sacrificed some route efficiency to gain more ground with his first step, and it paid off massively. Seiya Suzuki went from a below-average outfielder who served as the designated hitter more frequently than he used his outfield glove the past two seasons to a top-5 right fielder in baseball (depending on the metric you believe) under Berry, by improving his reaction and burst. Suzuki didn’t get faster—actually, he's the slowest he has ever been—but his reaction and burst have taken a large jump in his age-31 season. Although Ian Happ won 4 consecutive gold gloves from 2022-2025, Statcast defensive metrics largely disagree. He earned -7 OAA in 2023 and improved to -1 in Counsell’s first year, before putting up a 0 (average) under Berry in 2025. His jump has improved as well, but unlike Suzuki and Crow-Armstrong, he has done it by improving his routes. How valuable is Berry? He has helped Crow-Armstrong become the best outfielder in baseball. He has helped Suzuki go from a DH to a plus defender in right. He has helped turn the Cubs into the best defensive outfield in baseball. He has helped make the Cubs a top baserunning team despite a slower roster. Add to all of this that the main division rival Brewers have gotten worse at running the bases and playing outfield since Berry left, and Counsell’s first true hire looks like an incredibly impactful net positive for the Cubs. View full article

Image courtesy of South Bend Cubs | MiLB.com Not to sound like a broken record, but the Chicago Cubs' pitching pipeline is a bit bleak and, until the draft and/or trade deadline, is likely to remain that way. With relatively few standouts, May’s list looks a lot like April’s list, with three of the four pitchers repeating. Without further ado, here are May’s Cubs minor-league pitchers of the month. Ranking Cubs' Best Minor-League Pitchers in May Honorable Mention: Brooks Caple - RHP - Knoxville Caple repeats as an honorable mention this month after earning a promotion from South Bend to Knoxville and not missing a beat. In his five starts in South Bend, he put up a 26:6 strikeout-to-walk ratio in 21.2 innings. In his first four appearances in Double-A, he has 23 strikeouts and just four walks in 20.2 innings of work. His velocity continues to tick upwards since he was drafted, as he now tops out at 98 miles per hour. For a Cubs team starved for pitching at the higher levels, the 6’6” right-hander has forced his way into the at-large conversation. Third Place: Mason McGwire - RHP - South Bend Last month’s winner of this award, McGwire was again very good in five appearances in Myrtle Beach with 27 strikeouts against just five walks in 18 innings of work. McGwire earned a promotion to finish the month with South Bend, where he threw three scoreless innings with six strikeouts and gave up just one hit in his lone appearance. McGwire continues to put up impressive strikeout and walk numbers in his first action since 2024. While only 22, he could force the Cubs hand if he continues to put up similar numbers following his promotion to South Bend. Runner-up: Pierce Coppola - LHP - Myrtle Beach Drafted in the seventh round last year, Coppola debuted with eight innings in Myrtle Beach where he struck out 14 but also walked nine batters. To start this season, he was on the DL. Not the IL, the DL as in the Development List. It appears as though it may have worked based on the early returns. The massive 6’8” lefty made five starts in May and had a nearly 40% k rate in 20 innings while allowing a paltry .167 batting average. The former New Jersey prep standout and Florida Gator still had a walk rate of nearly 15%, far too high, but if he can continue to stay healthy and improve his command, he may make the Cubs an offer they can’t refuse. Winner: Dominick Reid - RHP - Myrtle Beach Reid was runner-up in April but he wins the column this month. Last month, I highlighted the disparity between his first nine innings and his last nine innings; in his five starts in May, Reid resembled the pitcher he was in his first two appearances of the season much more than the three starts to end April. He averaged 5.0 innings per start, a relative rarity in minor-league baseball nowadays. In those 25 innings. he racked up 27 strikeouts against just 8 walks. Reid had one subpar start where he allowed four runs on eight hits and two walks in just four innings. In his other four starts, he turned in 21 innings with 25 punchouts, allowing just two earned runs on nine hits and six walks. After 107.2 total innings in three years in college, Reid is still raw and developing, so inconsistency is to be expected. If he can continue to gain consistency with his breaking ball to go along with his quality changeup, he should continue to emerge as a legitimate prospect for the Cubs. View full article

Image courtesy of © Charles LeClaire-Imagn Images With an ERA over 5.00 and peripherals just as bad, Jameson Taillon has struggled this year. As we get deeper into the season and closer to the trade deadline, the likelihood Taillon’s season can be turned around is one of the most crucial questions the Cubs need to answer. Let’s dig into what has gone most wrong for Taillon this year. Six weeks ago, I covered the decline in fastball velocity and change in arsenal to compensate for it. Taillon’s fastball and sinker both were 0.5 MPH or more higher in May than in April, and his changeup got much better results in May than in April. Yet, it didn’t help. Taillon’s slugging percentage allowed went up significantly in May on fastballs and sinkers. His cutter regressed, and now all of his fastballs and offspeed pitches (4seam, sinker, cutter, change) are allowing a slugging percentage over .600, backed up by peripherals. His breaking stuff (curve and sweeper) has been fantastic in both months this year, but he almost never throws those pitches when he falls behind hitters in the count. Therein lies a larger problem. Last season, Taillon was absolutely incredible when he was behind in the count, holding batters to a .176 batting average and a .361 slugging. Shockingly, he actually was better than when he got ahead in the count, allowing .215 and a .381 slugging. This wasn’t anything he had ever done before and was ripe for regression to the mean—which is exactly what has happened, and then some. He has been absolutely dominant when ahead in the count this year and abysmal when he has fallen behind. Batters are hitting .132/.276 when they fall behind and .303/.645 when they get ahead. In addition to allowing those sky-high numbers when he falls behind in the count, Taillon is running the highest walk rate of his career, at nearly 8%. Taillon, who has never had a first pitch strike percentage under 61.7% and who has never thrown less than 65.7% first pitch strikes in a Cubs uniform, is throwing 56% strikes. He's finished a calendar month with below 50% of his first pitches in the zone just 3 times in a Cubs uniform. Those are August 2025 and April and May of 2026. He's falling behind in counts at a rate he has never done before. When you fall behind in counts, hitters make you pay, and they have made Taillon pay all season long. While he has decreased his fastball usage on the first pitch this season in favor of more breaking and offspeed stuff, he hasn’t been able to throw them for strikes often enough. Taillon’s breaking stuff is in the zone just 36% of the time, and his offspeed just 31% of the time on the first pitch. Even the fastball is in the zone just 51% of the time. Throwing fewer pitches in the zone could work, if you're getting batters to chase more, but batters are just not chasing fastballs or breaking balls on the first pitch from Taillon. One silver lining though: batters are chasing an absurd 54% of offspeed pitches on the first pitch. The bad news is, he throws offspeed just 6% of the time on that first pitch. That leaves us with a pretty clear picture of Taillon in 2026, and why he is getting beat up. No pitcher can survive constantly behind in the count, especially one that lacks premium stuff. Is his lack of first pitch strikes mechanical? There are a few slight differences, so it’s always possible, but nothing truly glaring, and this issue is across the board. A change in approach? I really hope not, it's never really a good idea to throw fewer strikes. A loss in confidence? Perhaps he's trying to be more fine with a loss in velocity. Is this how it ends for the veteran? Anyone’s guess is as good as mine. I think Taillon could benefit from throwing more offspeed on the first pitch, but there is clearly regression coming for the 54% chase rate on offspeed if the frequency with which he throws it increases. It won’t solve all of his problems, but stealing a few more first-pitch strikes is a must if you aren’t going to pound the zone. Getting back to throwing more first-pitch strikes has to be the number one focus for Taillon if he can be counted on to play a role for the Cubs down the stretch in 2026. If he can't get ahead in the count like he used to, the Cubs may need to look elsewhere. View full article

Image courtesy of © Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images In April’s edition of MiLB hitters of the month, Pedro Ramirez took home the top honor and found himself in the big leagues by the end of May. There is almost no chance that latter feat will be repeated this month, but there were some standout performances in the Chicago Cubs' farm system by an almost entirely new list of hitters. Ranking Cubs' Best Minor-League Hitters in May Honorable Mention: Alex Ramirez - OF - Knoxville Once a $2 million signing out of the Dominican Republic by the Mets, Ramirez was released in June of 2025 after his third consecutive subpar season. Ramirez still boasts much of the raw talent that made him a top-five prospect for the Mets; plus athleticism including bat speed, running speed, and arm strength. The question has long been: Can he make enough contact to show off those tools? In April, Ramirez turned in a .243/.304/.344 slash line with a 26% strikeout rate and looked a lot like the hitter the Mets gave up on after adding him to their 40-man roster. Then, the calendar turned to May. Ramirez slashed his strikeout rate in half and hit .368/.398/.563. The 6’4” outfielder is still only 23 years old; if he can sustain that production and prove that he can curb his whiffing habits, he could end up being a valuable signing for the Cubs. Third Place: Cole Mathis - 3B - South Bend Mathis ascended to the top 10 in our top prospect rankings after homering seven times in 14 April games in Myrtle Beach, earning a promotion to South Bend. He narrowly missed this list last month, after nine-game run in South Bend that included hitting safely in six of those contests but also a 35% strikeout rate. Although he missed a week in May, he turned in a quality month worthy of this list. Mathis slashed .280/.377/.560, driving in 14 runs in 13 games. More importantly, he cut his strikeout rate to 26% while maintaining his high 18% walk rate. While he still has more work to do, that is still a big step in the right direction. If he can continue to decrease the punchout totals, the 2024 second-round pick could find himself with another promotion before too long. Runner-up: Kane Kepley - OF - South Bend Kepley did not have a great April, hitting just .220 in 18 games with a 25% strikeout rate in South Bend. Entering the year as the Cubs' eighth-ranked prospect, the 5’8” outfielder has a hit-first profile with limited power, so his April was a relatively alarming follow-up to an outstanding pro debut in 2025. In May, Kepley thankfully looked more like that 2025 version that the Cubs used their second-round pick on. Kepley hit .304/.438/.451 with 24 walks to just 15 strikeouts and added 15 stolen bases to his ledger. This is Kepley at his best—high average and on-base while providing plus defense and baserunning. Another month like this and he could very well find himself patrolling center field in Knoxville. Winner: Josiah Hartshorn - OF - South Bend The only player to show up on both 2026 editions of this list, Hartshorn got a well-earned promotion to South Bend during the last week of May. The 2025 prep outfielder did not slow down once the calendar turned, continuing to walk more than he struck out in Myrtle Beach before a very impressive six-game run in South Bend to end the month. After his promotion, Hartshorn homered twice and drove in 10 runs and walked as many times as he struck out, all while being more than three years younger than the average age in the Midwest League. Still just 19, Hartshorn is proving he was worth the over-slot bonus the Cubs doled out to keep him away from Texas A&M. View full article

Image courtesy of © Charles LeClaire-Imagn Images Is Ben Brown here to stay? Yes, it has only been four starts and 19 total innings since he moved to the rotation. Still, there are reasons to be very excited. There are the results: a 23/6 K/BB ratio with zero home runs allowed against some quality opponents. Holding those opponents to a .171/.247/.200 slash line is great work, but is it sustainable? In 2024, Ben Brown debuted with pretty impressive results before a stress fracture in his neck ended his season in June. When he came back in 2025, he struggled to find his footing, although his peripheral numbers looked a bit better than his results. His fastball velocity decreased and his breaking ball was dropping almost two inches less. Both were likely due to an increase in his arm angle from 42 degrees to 45 degrees. He just didn’t look like the same pitcher. This season, he looks to have fully rebounded. As Matt Trueblood wrote about Ben Brown, on his re-entry into the Cubs rotation, Brown’s arm angle has lowered. It is now back to where it was in 2024 at 42 degrees. In turn, his fastball velocity jumped back to where it was and he is getting that depth back on his breaking ball. In addition to looking healthy, Brown has improved his arsenal. Much has been written about the new sinker he has unleashed this year, both on this website and others, and it still might not be enough. There has long been a line of inquiry with the right-hander that, in some form or another, went as such: "What if Ben Brown had a third pitch?" Well, we no longer have to wonder. He's got one, and the results have been glorious. Brown’s usage of the sinker and improved arsenal has morphed him from a fly-ball pitcher to a ground-ball pitcher. He has increased his ground-ball rate from roughly 37% in 2024 to 43% in 2025 all the way to 53% this season. He went from the 22nd percentile to 90th percentile in that category in just two seasons. It isn’t just the sinker either; Brown is giving up an average launch angle of three degrees on his four seamer, down from 16 degrees last year and 18 degrees in 2024. Batters are just having a much harder time lifting the ball against Brown. Slugging happens when batters hit the ball in the air and Brown has done an impressive job of limiting that despite allowing exit velocities in the 31st percentile and a hard-hit rate in the 35th percentile. Giving up hard contact matters a lot less when it is on the ground, especially with the way the Cubs play defense. The best part about all of this is that, even if Brown falters in the rotation as he has to turn the lineup over multiple times, the Cubs already know he can dominate in a relief role. No matter what, he'll provide value to this pitching staff. But if he can stick around in the starting five and chew up lots of quality innings... well, the North Siders may be able to stay afloat after all. View full article

Image courtesy of © Matt Marton-Imagn Images With an expected batting average under .200 and an xwOBA under .300, one would think Miguel Amaya is in danger of losing his roster spot, especially with slightly below-average defense at a premium position. While he probably won’t push Carson Kelly to reclaim equal playing time any time soon, though, Amaya is holding his own. He has been 14% better than league average at the plate, despite his underlying metrics. Is it a mirage? Although he only came to the plate 103 times, Amaya was 31% better than league average last season despite walking only 4 times. He had never had a walk rate that low before, but because he combined that with successfully pulling the ball in the air, his numbers didn’t take a hit. In 2026, he has a career-high walk rate (12%), but he's back to pulling the ball in the air less. Is it either/or, or can he do both? In what appears to be a response to the loss of bat speed he's suffered, Amaya has swung a lot less frequently this year than he did in 2025. While cutting his chase rate from 36.8% to 27% is great, it has also come with cutting his swing rate at pitches in the zone by a similar percentage. Well, maybe that means he is taking more pitches around the edges, right? Here's his swing rate by pitch location for 2025: And here's the same image for 2026: As you can see, Amaya stopped swinging at pitches right down the middle, or “meatballs” as Statcast classifies them. In short, this is likely why his expected numbers are as low as they are. Those are pitches in the highest run value location, and Amaya is only swinging at 54% of them. Out of 337 hitters that have at least 75 plate appearances this year, that is good for 330th. Another factor that is causing the difference in his underlying statistics is his contact quality. That's not surprising, once you consider that he's swinging in areas of the zone where one is less likely to barrel it up. There was ways to find hits with swings at pitches on the edges, but the damage comes mostly when you pounce on a mistake. Not quite organized in his understanding of the zone this year, Amaya isn't doing that. Put it all together and it looks like he is struggling to adapt to this new, more passive approach. To be clear, sporting a .728 OPS as a backup catcher is a good thing. But his underlying metrics portend a regression to the mean is coming for Amaya. Correcting his contact quality and getting back to pulling the ball in the air depends on attacking pitches that permit those results, so if Amaya wants to fight off regression, the easiest path is to start swinging at those meatballs. View full article

Image courtesy of MiLB.com The cupboard is not quite stocked with pitching for the Chicago Cubs. Per Baseball America, just five pitchers rank among the top 20 prospects for the Cubs, with just one in the top 12. Brandon Birdsell (14th), is not expected to pitch this season after elbow surgery. Jaxon Wiggins (third) hit the IL on April 15th with elbow soreness. No one on the following list is in the upper minor leagues, so this is a system that will require patience on the pitching side. With April officially in the books, which prospects stood out and increased their stock? Honorable Mention: Brooks Caple (RHP) — South Bend Taken in the ninth round in 2024, Caple made his debut in 2025 with a good seven-start stretch in Myrtle Beach before getting promoted to South Bend and turning in 14 starts to finish his season. Back to South Bend to start 2026, Caple had a quality month on the bump. In his four April starts, Caple posted a 24-to-3 strikeout:walk ratio while limiting opponents to just six runs on 12 hits in 18.2 innings. Near the top of the Midwest league in WHIP and strikeouts, Caple has both increased his strikeout rate and lowered his walk rate, an excellent combination. Third Place: Edwardo Melendez (RHP) — Myrtle Beach An older international signing at 20 years of age out of the Dominican Republic, Melendez made his debut stateside in 2025 with stops in Arizona and Myrtle Beach after a year in the Dominican Summer League. While consistently posting high strikeout numbers and limiting hits, Melendez has paired that with extremely high walk rates that led to unimpressive box score lines. He looks to have potentially unlocked something so far in 2026 as he walked just seven in his 15.2 innings between the bullpen and the rotation in Myrtle Beach, a huge improvement. That, combined with 23 strikeouts and just seven hits allowed, has led to a 1.15 ERA in April for the 22-year-old that should open some eyes. Runner-up: Dominick Reid (RHP) — Myrtle Beach With Jostin Florentino (15th) and Kaleb Wing (17th) not yet debuting in affiliated ball this season, the only Cubs top-20 prospect entering 2026 to qualify for this list winds up the runner up. Drafted in the third round of last season’s draft out of Abilene Christian in Texas, Reid did not make his professional debut until this season. Starting the season in Myrtle Beach, Reid made five starts for the Pelicans in April. In 18.1 innings, he struck out 21 while allowing 10 runs on 19 hits and 7 walks. Reid opened the season with nine scoreless innings with 10 strikeouts against just one walk. The average ERA in the Carolina league is 5.38, so his 4.91 ERA looks better with that context. The hope is that as the season progresses Reid can settle in a bit and find the middle ground between his first nine innings of the month and the last nine innings. Winner: Mason McGwire (RHP) — Myrtle Beach You may have heard, Mark McGwire’s son is racking up strikeouts on the mound for the Cubs. An eighth-round pick out of high school in 2022, Little Mac is pitching for the first time since 2024 due to injuries, and he is turning some heads. He started the month in the bullpen and finished with two starts, striking out 18 and allowing just two runs on five hits in 12 innings. His velocity looks to be up higher than it was pre-injury and he has doubled his strikeout rate and cut his walk rate in half in his return to the mound. While the 22-year-old looks to be years away from Wrigley, the thought of Big Mac’s son pitching in Cubbie blue is pretty entertaining. View full article

Image courtesy of © Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images With April officially in the books, let’s take a look at some of the Chicago Cubs' top performing hitting prospects through the first month of the 2026 season. Honorable Mention: Josiah Hartshorn (OF) — Myrtle Beach Drafted as a sixth-rounder out of powerhouse SoCal high school Orange Lutheran, Hartshorn did not play last year after being selected, so 2026 is the first look we get at the outfielder the Cubs went well over slot to sign last year. The good news: He hasn’t disappointed. He is slashing .263/.429/.438 through 22 games while being 1.5 years younger than the Carolina League average. What is most promising is he is doing this while walking more often than striking out. Third Place: James Triantos (2B) — Iowa There really is not a way to sugar coat it, 2025 was a rough year for Triantos. The 2021 second-rounder motored through the minors to make his debut in Iowa in 2024 at just 21, performing well at the highest level of affiliated ball in a 26-game sample. Triantos played all of 2025 at the Triple-A level, but turned in a career-worst season in all three slash line categories. Still just 23, he has rebounded very well in Iowa in 2026, turning in a .305 batting average and .348 on-base percentage that is much more in line with his previous performances. The .467 slugging percentage would also be the highest of his career in full-season ball; his four home runs in just 26 games look very promising for a hitter that has never hit more than seven homers in a full season. Runner-up: Jefferson Rojas (SS) — Knoxville A staple on most Top 100 prospect lists before the season, Rojas started the year in Knoxville after debuting there for 39 games to end 2025. His first taste of AA was a bit of what you’d expect from a 20-year-old at the level, but it seems like this time around he feels much more comfortable. Although he is running a higher strikeout rate and lower walk rate than in previous years, the aggressiveness that implies has led to a .547 slugging for a hitter who has previously hovered around the .400 mark. He went from an extra-base hit every four games to one every other game. That is a pretty good start to the season! Winner: Pedro Ramirez (2B) — Iowa Pedro Ramirez had the best month of any Cubs prospect in April. He slashed .310/.385/.595 with eight home runs and 11 stolen bases in Iowa as a 22-year-old while splitting his time between 2B and 3B. Signed out of Venezuela in 2021, the diminutive utility man has climbed the ladder one rung at a time, spending full-seasons in A, A+, and AA in 2023, 2024, and 2025, respectively, before tackling AAA in 2026. Four years younger than the average Triple-A hitter, he is turning in his best year yet in all three slash categories. Like Jefferson Rojas, he has traded in a slightly higher strikeout rate for a large increase in slugging. He has had 30, 30, and 33 extra-base hits in each of the last three full seasons; in 2026, he has 16 in just 29 games. A switch hitter who provides speed and defensive versatility is a profile that already carries a lot of value. If Ramirez can maintain his improved slugging numbers, he could be an All-Star in the big leagues. View full article

Image courtesy of © Kamil Krzaczynski-Imagn Images Moises Ballesteros entered 2025 as a top prospect who had already performed at the Triple-A level at 20 years of age and looked primed to make an impact with the big-league club. After a very brief and less-than-stellar debut in May, he rejoined the club in September and put together a .999 OPS that convinced the Chicago Cubs to put him on the playoff roster. It figured that he would heavily factor in to the Cubs' plans in 2026 and beyond, and so far he is doing just that. Ballesteros was known as a bat-first prospect with a contact-oriented, all fields approach and he largely performed as such in September of last year. With Carson Kelly and Miguel Amaya in the fold again, he went into the offseason knowing that his clearest path to playing time might be as DH and made some clear changes in an attempt to win that job. First, he increased his average bat speed by 1.6 mph, up to 74.3 mph. Great work! Swinging the bat faster generally leads to higher exit velocities, which is exactly what has happened this year as Mo’s average exit velocity has leapt from 89 to 93. The major league average on balls with an 89-mph exit velocity is .227; on balls with a 93-mph exit velocity it is .260. For a guy who was already sporting an OPS that was 52% better than league average, that is an extremely valuable change. But it appears Ballesteros did not stop there. While we can certainly attribute some of the EV increase to the bat speed increase, it doesn’t explain the entirety of the jump. Swinging fast is good, but swinging fast and on plane is even better. What do I mean by on plane? Every pitch thrown from the mound has a descent angle towards the plate. Most pitches are between -5 and -20 degrees, breaking balls obviously being steeper than fastballs. Every swing has an attack angle (yes, John Smoltz, every swing ever). Hitters want to make as flush contact as possible, so they want to match the descent angle by swinging with an attack angle of between 5 and 20 degrees to give themselves the best opportunity to find the barrel. A lower attack angle swing is likely to lead to a ground ball; a higher attack angle to a fly ball. Ballesteros had an average attack angle of 5 degrees last year, right at the bottom of the range. This is likely what led to a 62% ground ball rate, not where he wants to be as someone with 1st-percentile foot speed, regardless of how hard he is hitting the ball. This season, he has increased his average to 8 degrees. Three degrees may not seem like a lot, but Statcast tracks the percentage of time a hitter swings between 5 and 20 degrees as ideal attack angle%, and boy does Ballesteros' year-over-year difference stand out. In 2025, he was in the ideal attack angle range just 46% of the time; in 2026, that number has exploded to 65%. So, not only is he swinging harder, he is on plane with the incoming pitch more frequently, leading him to hit it in the air 60% of the time. So, he is swinging faster and hitting the ball flush and in the air more frequently, leading to the aforementioned jump in EV. It doesn’t seem to be a fluke either. The biggest driver behind the increase in his ideal attack angle% looks to simply be an intent to catch the ball out front of the plate, as he has moved his intercept point almost six inches, from 4.5 inches deep to about an inch in front of the plate. A swing will have a higher attack angle towards the finish and catching the ball out front has allowed Ballesteros to make more contact when his swing is at a higher attack angle. In simpler terms, he is trying to pull the ball in the air and it is working. There is one other left-handed hitter in 2026 that swings the bat at 74 mph or higher and remains in the ideal attack angle range at least 65% of the time: Kyle Schwarber. That is mighty fine company to keep for a 22-year-old trying to stake his claim to the DH role on the North Side. View full article

Image courtesy of © Matt Marton-Imagn Images Jameson Taillon is not off to the start the Chicago Cubs had envisioned. A free agent at the end of the year, Taillon’s importance to the team's playoff hopes greatly increased with the early season injuries to Matthew Boyd and Cade Horton, the latter of which is of the season-ending variety. Is it time for the Cubs to worry about Taillon? Entering the fourth and final year of the $68 million contract he originally signed, Taillon has been a steady presence in the rotation over the past two years after a below-average first season in Cubbie blue. Steady is important! Taillon has always been a strike thrower and he is throwing in front of a defense that has been excellent the last two years, a combination for success. The defense still looks to be a top unit, so what's changed in 2026 that's led to his 4.86 ERA and 6.28 FIP? On the surface, the answer is pretty glaring. He has given up a league-leading five home runs so far this season. You can’t rely on your defense if they don’t have a chance to make a play. While three of those home runs came against the Pirates with the wind blowing out, Statcast has him at 4.7 expected home runs, signaling that we can’t necessarily blame the conditions. So. what is behind this trend and can he reverse it? This answer here also seems to be pretty glaring: a fastball that is down almost 1 mph from last season. He is getting less whiffs on his fastball than he ever has and is sporting an alarming .722 slugging percentage against it, backed up by a .809 expected slugging. While he has slightly increased his velocity each start, history suggests that he is not generally a pitcher who eases into the season and gains more velocity as he goes. He has generally shown his top velocity early on, so expecting him to bridge the gap as the season progresses is a dubious proposition at best. If he can’t gain that velocity back, where does he go from here? Luckily, Taillon seems to understand the need to change the way he attacks hitters based on his diminished velocity, as evidenced in his pitch usage. Last year, Taillon primarily used three pitches against both right-handed and left-handed hitters. Against righties, he primarily used his sweeper (32%), four-seamer (31%), cutter (23%); against lefties he was all four-seamer (44%), curve (24%), change (20%). In 2026, he has the same three-pitch mix against right-handers, but he has altered the usage; he has thrown cutter (31%), sweeper (29%) and 4Seam (28%). Against lefties, he has expanded his pitch mix to include the cutter (23%). Clearly, he has intentionally been throwing a lot less four-seamers and a lot more cutters, especially to lefties. The cutter has been dominant so far in 2026, generating a .071 batting average and .286 slugging against. Throwing that in place of his primary heater is probably a good idea, so why are the results less than stellar? Well, right-handed hitters slashed .258/.281/.492 against him last year, while lefties slashed .191/.249/.361, thanks to a new look kick changeup that dominated them to the tune of .161 batting average and a .261 slugging percentage while being responsible for just one home run. The early returns this year on the changeup are much less impressive: a .400 batting average with a 1.000 slug against with two home runs against in just 37 pitches. What changed (forgive the pun)? It looks like a drop in vertical break may be the culprit. Getting that back to his 2025 standard would be a good proxy for additional velocity, if we're to assume he can't repair both at the same time. The book on Taillon has always been about limiting homers and finding a way to stifle lefties. He found the recipe to success down the stretch last year, and a return to to form would be a huge boon for a Cubs team currently ailing in the rotation. View full article

Image courtesy of © Matt Marton-Imagn Images Earlier this week, our Matt Trueblood took a look at how a change in stance has allowed Nico Hoerner to tap into more practical power. However, Hoerner is not the only Chicago Cub in 2026 who has bucked conventional trends yet produced much better results based on a stance change. Enter Matt Shaw. The 2025 version of Matt Shaw was a below-average hitter, as a quick look at his Savant page would tell you. Going into the offseason, he had significant work to do to remain in the Cubs' plans in 2026 and beyond. A third baseman with third-percentile exit velocity and 16th-percentile bat speed is no one’s ideal corner infielder. When the Cubs signed Alex Bregman, Shaw was ticketed for a utility role. To say he has embraced that role would be an understatement, but not necessarily in the way you might expect. High offensive expectations generally come with playing the hot corner, regardless of size (see Bregman, Alex). Shaw spent last year trying to fill those expectations. He pulled the ball at a 40.9% clip, including 21.8% of the time in the air. Those are quality numbers, unless your bat speed is below average, which Shaw’s was at just 69.6 mph. At that level, pulling the ball in the air is going to lead to some very low xBA and xSLG figures. Shaw’s offseason plan could have consisted of a lot of work on his bat speed, and many players would have taken that path as bat speed and EV numbers have become highly valued in front offices. Shaw, however, chose an alternative route. In fact, he chose the opposite route. Instead of trying to force his way into the Cubs' plans by swinging faster, the former top prospect has made some slight tweaks and leaned into what defined his profile as a first-round draft pick: his hit tool. As a prospect, Shaw was known for his knack for finding barrels while limiting strikeouts, a very valuable combination. In 2024, Baseball America said as much: “His quick hands, strong forearms, and exceptional barrel accuracy allow him to consistently drive balls hard to all fields.” Yet that wasn't the Matt Shaw the Cubs got in 2025. With his pull rate of nearly 41% and a 21.5% strikeout rate that was considerably higher than in the minor leagues and in college, he looked like a different player altogether. This could very well be due to the difficulty jump to the major leagues, but a 63rd-percentile whiff rate hints otherwise. It could also be due to a change in approach at the big-league level, namely trying to pull the ball in the air and be a slugging corner infielder. The evidence from the early returns on the 2026 season point to the latter. Shaw has moved back in the box more than three inches; only a dozen players are deeper in the box in 2026 than him. That depth has in turn moved his intercept point of the ball back nearly five inches, from 1.9 inches in front of the plate to -2.7 inches in front of the plate. Instead of spending the offseason swinging faster and catching the ball out front, he is letting the ball travel deeper and trusting his barrel accuracy to produce higher EVs. These changes have completely transformed his profile from last year. His pull% has plummeted to a sub-30% mark and he is back to spraying the ball all over the field. In fact, his intercept point looks eerily similar to Luis Arraez, as does his batted ball profile, but with 5 mph more bat speed than Arraez. If that sounds like an unfortunate comparison, think of it like this: Shaw is performing like three-time batting champion Luis Arraez, but with more pop, 90th-percentile sprint speed, and far better defense. That sure sounds like the prospect the Cubs expected to get, and this development should have them very excited for the future. View full article