Cub of Coffee 5/30/24: Cubs 4, Brewers 6
After a rough month, the Cubs’ playoff odds are the lowest they’ve been all season. There are many reasons why, but instead of talking about this specific game, I thought I’d take a broader look at where the Cubs stand in respect to the rest of the league.
Their position players rank 21st in fWAR, and they’re tied for the 21st best offense in baseball. Statcast’s OAA defensive metric has them as the second-worst defense in baseball. Even if you replaced Christopher Morel with an average defensive third baseman they would still be tied for 20th. I went through and compiled a table of where the Cubs’ production at each position ranks out of all 30 teams:
| Position | wRC+ | fWAR |
|---|---|---|
| C | 29 | 30 |
| 1B | 8 | 6 |
| 2B | 11 | 18 |
| SS | 26 | 25 |
| 3B | 22 | 29 |
| RF | 9 | 11 |
| CF | 9 | 9 |
| LF | 13 | 10 |
| DH | 16 | 11 |
I then did a similar thing for the Cubs’ pitching:
| ERA | FIP | fWAR | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Starters | 7 | 11 | 10 |
| Relievers | 25 | 22 | 24 |
| Both | 15 | 15 | 14 |
The Cubs have gotten above-average output from their first basemen, outfielders, designated hitters, and starting pitchers. From the rankings, it’s clear that the infield is a problem (outside of first base), as is the bullpen. Relief help is easy to find at the deadline, but the Cubs need more from their position players. There are reasons to believe Christopher Morel will hit better than he has so far, and it feels like his defense has improved over the season, but he’ll need to continue to get better on both sides of the ball (or at least luckier on offense). Dansby Swanson was a top 5 shortstop in the league last year, but he’s hitting .205/.279/.317 this year and has rated as average defensively. Nico Hoerner hasn’t been as good of a defender this year, either, and has a .429 OPS since returning from a hamstring issue. I would expect both to improve defensively (and Swanson offensively), but they need to turn it around soon.
I’m not sure there’s much the Cubs can do at the moment to address the catching position. It’s been worse than I think anyone expected. There was always the possibility that Yan Gomes would regress as a 36-year-old catcher, but he has just 12 hits, 3 for extra bases, and one walk against 31 strikeouts. Miguel Amaya’s good series brought him up to a 57 wRC+. The Cubs decided to focus on catcher defense after they let Willson Contreras go, but neither catcher has been great defensively, either. Presumably their game calling has something to do with the Cubs’ pitching success, and it’s hard to integrate a new catcher into a team in the middle of the year, but it’s one place where the team doesn’t have an entrenched starter and could improve their roster.
I don’t think the Cubs are actually as bad as they’ve played in the last month. There have been many positive developments this year, too. Unfortunately, they’re not in a playoff spot right now, and they need to play better to keep themselves in the chase.