After a terrible time in California, the Cubs return to the Midwest tonight, taking on a Brewers team that continues to dominate Chicago’s National League ballclub. One game past their season’s halfway point, the Cubs trail Milwaukee by eleven in the loss column. They sit in last in the National League Central and 13th in the National League, five losses behind playoff position. It is going badly.
Yesterday morning, it was going even worse. Yesterday, the Cubs were seven games below .500. Today, the number’s down to six. It’s a small difference, but it’s meaningful. It changes the pace at which the Cubs need to win to have a good playoff chance from roughly a 98-win pace to roughly a 97-win pace.
That’s some loose estimating, and it’s possible I’m being too bullish on the rest of the National League. But the Cubs’ playoff probability sits at 11.7%, and from my best visual estimate of the FanGraphs distributions, the Cubs finish with 86 or more wins in a little more than ten percent of simulations. There are undoubtedly simulations where they win 87 games and miss the playoffs or win 85 and make it, but 86 wins seems like the best target number we can estimate right now. The Cubs need to go 48–32 from here to reach it. That’s a 97-win pace.
The Cubs do have the second-easiest schedule from this point onward of anyone in the National League. That can’t hurt, and is part of why the probability is as high as it is. Unfortunately, the schedule isn’t particularly easy between now and the trade deadline. The only series against a total non-contender comes against the Angels, the best of the total non-contenders. The Cubs have to play six games against the Brewers, four against the Cardinals, and a combined six against the Phillies and Orioles. Besides the Angels, the only opponents between now and the end of July who currently sport a losing record are the Diamondbacks and the Reds. Each enters the weekend ahead of the Cubs.
We could get nittier and grittier, but it would come back to a consistent theme: The Cubs need to be better. Better at the little things. Better at the big things. Better up and down the lineup, better throughout the bullpen, better in the no longer lucky bottom of the rotation. Come Monday, perhaps we’ll be talking about Jed Hoyer’s job security and whether that might impact how aggressive he gets in the trade market with his stockpile of prospect capital. For now, though, the Cubs need to be better. They need to win the weekend.
Games:
- Friday, 7:10 PM CDT: Cubs at Milwaukee (Marquee/MLB Network)
- Saturday, 3:10 PM CDT: Cubs at Milwaukee (Marquee/FS1)
- Sunday, 1:10 PM CDT: Cubs at Milwaukee (Marquee)
Jameson Taillon opposes Colin Rea tonight, and the Cubs are still an underdog, which says a lot about the state of the lineup and bullpen.
Tomorrow, Justin Steele opposes Tobias Myers, and that’ll be closer to a coin toss, but depending on health and bullpen usage, the Cubs could still find themselves punching upwards. Myers hasn’t been as good as his 3.12 ERA, but he’s been competent.
Sunday’s the especially tough one. Kyle Hendricks squares off with Freddy Peralta. Peralta is himself—a strikeout wizard who keeps contact quality poor. Hendricks might be himself? It’s been five good outings in a row now, the last two of them starts. He has a 2.22 FIP over his last 21.1 innings. It’s a selective sample, but it’s a pretty good one. At least there’s that.
Moves/Injuries:
- Javier Assad’s onto the IL with a “right forearm extensor strain.” There isn’t much clarity on his timeline, but he’s out until at least the All-Star Break, moving Hayden Wesneski into the rotation for the foreseeable future.
- The Cubs signed Vinny Nittoli in conjunction with the Assad move, shifting Yency Almonte to the 60-day IL to make 40-man roster room. (Almonte had a setback.) But then today, with Keegan Thompson moving to the IL with a fractured rib (!), Nittoli was designated for assignment while Jorge López got the call-up. Ethan Roberts has also been recalled from Iowa.
Thoughts on coaching:
- Good on Ian Happ for the big home run yesterday, but his attempted steal of third on Wednesday was a bad moment. It doesn’t sound like it was his idea, but it was a bad moment. My assumption is that Craig Counsell is encouraging the two-out steal of third as some sort of attempted psychological spark, but it clearly hasn’t worked, so why keep doing something so high-downside and low-upside? It was fine for a series. It’s been going on for five. And yes, doing a double-steal like that one makes more sense when trailing by one, but it’s all gone too far. If you want to stop shooting yourself in the foot, stop firing a gun straight down at the ground.
- The Imanaga/Busch miscommunication yesterday was also maddening, yet another glaring instance of that failure to do the little things. Craig Counsell is not the reason this team is bad. But this tendency reflects poorly on him, and with six seasons of evidence suggesting coaching issues up and down the organization, the Epstein–Hoyer regime probably isn’t getting a hard enough time for its personnel moves off the field. We’d all love to have signed Shohei Ohtani or enjoyed a Tanner Houck-level breakout, but the coaching hires may have been a bigger issue than player acquisition these last six years, despite players generally being thought of as vastly more important than their coaches.
Speaking of Pace…
The White Sox are on a 43-win pace, and they should theoretically get worse after the trade deadline. Are they this bad on paper? No. They’re a 68-win team on paper. That’s the sum of their parts. Have they earned this record? Kind of. Their Pythagorean Win–Loss is only a game better than their real record, but BaseRuns says they’ve missed out on five wins because of luck, and when you’ve only won 22 games, five missed wins is a ton. They did beat the Braves yesterday in that rain makeup, getting a nice little bullpen game to best old friend Chris Sale, but the team continues to wait for the trade market to heat up. I would fire Pedro Grifol if I were them, but that’s been true for a long time.
Games:
- Friday, 6:10 PM CDT: White Sox vs. Colorado (NBC Sports Chicago)
- Saturday, 1:10 PM CDT: White Sox vs. Colorado (NBC Sports Chicago)
- Sunday, 1:10 PM CDT: White Sox vs. Colorado (NBC Sports Chicago)
A kids table weekend. Garrett Crochet goes on Sunday.
Moves/Injuries:
- Not a single one! All week. Fascinating. A paragon of stability.
The Sky Are Not That Hot
It was looking good for a minute there, but the Aces remain the Aces and the Sky are indeed the Sky. Not a bad loss last night (and always fun to get another Angel Reese double-double), but the win streak ended, and with it, the Sky remain eighth in the standings. They’ve got the Lynx on Sunday at home. You could say there are five good WNBA teams right now. The Lynx are one of them.
Game:
- Sunday, 2:00 PM CDT: Sky vs. Minnesota (ESPN3/WCIU)
Poor Matas Buzelis
The Bulls didn’t do anything stupid. They didn’t trade up. They didn’t try to stress a positional need on a roster a whole decade away from contention. They didn’t outsmart themselves once the pick arrived. They drafted the best player available eleventh overall, and they got a hometown kid in the process. Matas Buzelis, congratulations and I am sorry.
Other developments on the offseason front:
- Shortly after we published on Monday, the Bulls gave Patrick Williams a qualifying offer. This wasn’t surprising, but recent reports hold that the conventional industry wisdom points towards Williams staying in Chicago. What can we say? The Bulls love medium-upside projects in their early 20’s. Guys who could be great…somewhere else.
- Meanwhile, those reports hold that the conventional industry wisdom points towards DeMar DeRozan leaving Chicago. I don’t know whether that would mean DeRozan walking or departing via sign-and-trade, but the other redeemable veteran piece (besides Alex Caruso, who’s already gone) appears to be on his way out.
- Among irredeemable veteran pieces, Nikola Vučević is even getting trade buzz now. Much like Zach LaVine, it’s unclear who would want him given his contract, but a clearance is possible. The Bulls could become salary dump recipients. If only Artūras Karnišovas appreciated (or was permitted to appreciate) draft picks.
- Marcus Domask is in the building as an Exhibit-10 contract. Great Exhibit-10 guy. No real longterm hopes there, but fun to have around. The Bulls should always sign the best available player from an Illinois college.
Connor Bedard Is On Track
The NHL Draft is minutes away, so there’s no sense in talking mock drafts or Levshunov vs. Demidov. The Blackhawks did make a nice little trade on Wednesday, picking up Ilya Mikheyev, the rights to pending UFA Sam Lafferty, and 2027 second-round pick in exchange for a 2027 fourth-rounder. It’s a salary dump for the Canucks, but it’s a low-risk move for the Hawks, and they get to move up in a future draft because of it.
Anyway, before the draft heats up, a moment of appreciation for Connor Bedard’s rookie year. Got through the injury. Impressed amidst high expectations. Won rookie of the year. Good stuff.
**
(Nothing on the Bears today. Not much to talk about.)
