A lot of the credit’s going to Miguel Amaya as the Cubs start sniffing around the Wild Card picture. Deservedly so. Amaya’s been a good hitter since his days off in early July, turning those swing adjustments into real results to a degree not usually seen from a mid-season revamp. Amaya is not, however, the only Cub who’s taken a big step forward in recent weeks.
Since the All-Star Break, Dansby Swanson is hitting .319 with a 118 wRC+. He hasn’t homered, but his strikeout rate’s down around 20%, his walk rate’s back up close to 10%, and he’s reaching base more than three times every eight plate appearances.
The man’s BABIP over this stretch is concerningly high. Batting over .400 on balls in play is tough to maintain, especially when a guy isn’t hitting anything out of the ballpark. Swanson sacrificing power in exchange for better results is possible, but it shouldn’t come with a jump like that.
Still, the overall results are good enough to boost Swanson to 2.4 fWAR on the year, right there with Michael Busch and Isaac Paredes for the best by a Cubs’ position player. A lot of this is his defense, but that’s the point of Dansby Swanson. The bat only needs to be passable.
The Cubs need Swanson in different ways in the short and the long term.
In the short term, he needs to lead. He needs to be a contributing veteran presence with a World Series ring. The contributing piece of that is important. For natural clubhouse focal points like Swanson, it’s fair to theorize about a multiplicative effect when the hits start falling. Swanson doesn’t look towards Amaya or Pete Crow-Armstrong for confidence. Amaya and PCA look towards Swanson.
In the long term, Swanson needs to be serviceable, a major financial commitment at a key position. He doesn’t need to be great, but he can’t become actively bad.
In the short term, then, this recent surge is invigorating. It’s hopeful. It’s the kind of thing it’s reasonable to believe can spread. In the long term, it’s a bit of a relief. Fears will persist around Swanson’s bat until it either fully falls off or his contract ends. But for the time being, he’s getting on base, and with a season-to-date xwOBA still meaningfully higher than his realized wOBA, I’m not personally worried about the BABIP. He’s been unlucky on aggregate over the course of the year, and three and a half weeks is a small sample for something like contact quality.
Credit to Amaya.
Swanson’s resurrection probably means more.
News/moves/injuries/speculation:
- Sahadev Sharma confirmed rumblings this weekend that Jed Hoyer aggressively pursued Logan O’Hoppe at the trade deadline. Sharma mentioned that this pursuit could continue into the offseason, though perhaps more realistically, he also mentioned Shea Langeliers, Carson Kelly (who’d be a platoon-mate for Amaya rather than a replacement), and a number of potential prospects the Cubs could chase. I’m not sure it’s late enough in the year to look at offseason catcher acquisitions. In addition to getting a final verdict on Amaya’s first full MLB season, there’ll be a lot more data on Moises Ballesteros in Triple-A. But Sharma’s plugged in and I am not, so it’s all worth remembering.
- Cade Horton had a setback in his rehab process and won’t be back this season. It was unlikely the Cubs would call Horton up, but it would have been nice to have the possibility. More than anything, it’s the final blow on a disappointing year for one of the Cubs’ best preseason prospects.
Games:
- Monday, 5:40 PM CDT: Cubs at Cleveland (Marquee)
- Tuesday, 5:40 PM CDT: Cubs at Cleveland (Marquee)
- Wednesday, 5:40 PM CDT: Cubs at Cleveland (Marquee)
This will reach you after tonight’s game has begun, but while Shōta Imanaga gives the Cubs the best chance to win, Ben Lively has been an unsung Guardians hero this year. Tomorrow, Matthew Boyd makes his season debut against Javier Assad. Wednesday, Alex Cobb takes on Jameson Taillon in Cobb’s second start of the year. A lot of uncertainty in Games 2 and 3 this week.
While Cleveland’s rotation’s in a bit of a weird place, the Guardians’ bullpen is great. It’s been the best in the league by fWAR and leads in ERA by more than half a run. Emmanuel Clase is putting up career numbers. For a guy whose single-season ERA’s have gone 2.31, 1.29, 1.36, and then 3.22 through his young career, putting up career numbers means a whole lot. At the plate, José Ramírez and Steven Kwan are monsters while Josh Naylor and Andrés Giménez are reliably scary. Adding to it all, the Guardians have the fewest home losses in baseball this season.
They’re overachievers, but that doesn’t mean regression’s on its way. Tough series. Playoff-caliber competition for a team trying to prove it’s playoff-caliber itself.
Managerial Candidate: Willie Harris
Scott Merkin of mlb.com led with Ozzie Guillen, but it was Willie Harris who got the bulk of this speculative post on potential managers from the 2005 White Sox. Harris, currently the Cubs’ third base coach, openly told Merkin he’d be interested in the job if approached. Would he be good at it? It’s very hard to know. Harris lacks the red flags of Guillen or A.J. Pierzynski, but baseball’s not really a sport with hot managerial candidates outside of the very best of “vibes guys.” Harris is a good vibes guy, but being a third-base coach, he doesn’t command the title like David Ross did in 2016.
Games:
- Monday, 7:10 PM CDT: White Sox vs. Yankees (NBC Sports Chicago)
- Tuesday, 7:10 PM CDT: White Sox vs. Yankees (NBC Sports Chicago)
- Wednesday, 7:10 PM CDT: White Sox vs. Yankees (NBC Sports Chicago/MLB Network)
Ky Bush tonight against Luis Gil. Jonathan Cannon tomorrow against Nestor Cortes. The Yankees haven’t announced their Wednesday starter yet, but it’ll be Davis Martin for the home team before a day off on Thursday.
Does Haason Reddick Make Sense for the Bears?
There weren’t many bad quarterback performances this weekend, which probably says something about the opening week of preseason football, but Caleb Williams did showcase his ability to throw on the run. It wasn’t a surprise, but it did still pop against NFL-caliber competition. Will he have to throw on the run a lot? That’s a concern. Ryan Bates didn’t play on Saturday, with Matt Pryor starting at guard, but Matt Eberflus didn’t express concern about Bates’s availability.
The question with the Bears ever since the offseason settled down has been whether they’d bolster their offensive line or the edge of their defensive line. On the edge, a new option might be available.
Haason Reddick requested a trade today, deepening the market for marquee pass-rushers as Matthew Judon’s negotiations with the Patriots remain seemingly fruitless. Either would be an upgrade from DeMarcus Walker and a strong complement to Montez Sweat. The downside is that either would come with a new contract, and it doesn’t make a lot of sense for the Bears to commit significant salary beyond this year. Reddick’s 29. Judon is 31. Those aren’t old ages, and defensive ends (or whatever position label you apply to Judon) don’t age terribly. But Reddick and Judon are looking to be paid like centerpieces, and even a short-term deal would presumably require some money being pushed into the future.
We’ve said before that the Bears should use what cap space remains, and we maintain that it’d be valuable. It’d be more valuable, though, to use it for very short-term depth (especially around the offensive line, where protecting the rookie quarterback is a big deal) than to make another Sweat-like splash. Getting another Sweat is a great idea, but Reddick and Judon aren’t Sweat’s. They’re older than he is by multiple years. Figure out who the next Sweat is. Find a monster on a team entering a rebuild. Go get him and lock him up for a few years. But don’t commit to someone already aging.
News/moves/injures/speculation:
- Yesterday, the Bears waived Demetric Felton, opting to bring in Jaylon Hutchings, an undrafted free agent out of Texas Tech. Hutchings is a defensive tackle, so he’s not a candidate to bolster the edge-rushing position. This is likely more about depth than impactful contribution.
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No news on the Bulls or Blackhawks, and we’re running late so we won’t try to make any. The Sky are back on Thursday, where the true measure of the WNBA’s growth will be whether there’s a widespread Rest vs. Rust debate as some players return from the Olympics and some return from a one-month break.
