1. You can’t let Jake Arrieta start anymore, right?
If you’re trying to win, Arrieta doesn’t help you do that. If you’re trying to develop young pitchers, he doesn’t help you do that either. It’s sad, and it sucks, but the signing that was supposed to give the Cubs a guy who’d have an ERA around 5.00 but five or six innings eaten per start has instead gotten them a 6.30 ERA (5.86 xERA, 5.98 FIP) and just under four and a half innings per start. It hasn’t worked. It sucks, but it hasn’t worked.
2. Javy Báez is hot…
…and if you’re going to sell high…
Look. I love Báez too. I understand he might be great for a long time. He’s a 30-40 home run guy most years, he’s got a few more years to improve, his glove is phenomenal, and he’s just so much fun. Among major league shortstops, he’s probably something like the eighth-best, trailing Fernando Tatís Jr., Carlos Correa, Trea Turner, Xander Bogaerts, Francisco Lindor, Corey Seager, and one or both of Bo Bichette and Trevor Story. The market will determine his price this offseason, and the Cubs might be able to get something of a discount, but if you’re going beyond four years with him, you’re risking a big downturn and a dead whale on the payroll, which is something the Cubs really don’t want.
At some level, this comes down to how soon the Cubs think they can contend again. If Báez finishes with 3.5 fWAR this year (the FanGraphs aggregate projection) and ages normally, he’ll be a 2.5-WAR guy in 2023, a 1.5-WAR guy in 2025, etc. If your window is 2023-25, then yeah, he’ll be serviceable in that window, but he might be a seventh-in-the-order, home-run-or-strikeout guy, akin to Kyle Schwarber when Schwarber was going bad. His defense probably won’t get much better, too. If you’re trying to contend next year, then yes, hold onto him, he’s a good piece. But if the window’s later than that, or if you have aspirations of being major players in free agency these next few offseasons, I’m not sure how much money you want to tie up in Báez.
In a satisfy-the-fanbase sense, I’d guess you want to hold onto two of the four of Anthony Rizzo, Báez, Kris Bryant, and Willson Contreras. The fanbase is most attached to those first two. Bryant is so damn versatile and figures likely to age the best. Contreras is the least replaceable position-wise and is under club control for one more year. If you do want to move on from two of them, and you want more value or more immediate value than a compensatory draft pick provides, you’d move two of them at the deadline. Rizzo appears unlikely, to me, to be moved: For one thing, he’s having a mediocre year on the back of an even more mediocre short season last year, and for another, his back has been a consistent issue, and that’s before we get into talking about how much of a face of the franchise he is. Bryant’s recent swoon and this recent issue with his side are a concern for his trade value and a potential deflation of his offseason market, which moves the needle towards trying to extend him. Contreras’s market is unclear—would the Red Sox want him to give them a better bat behind the plate than what Christian Vázquez is providing?
I don’t know if it’s prudent to trade Báez. But if Brian Cashman called and offered Oswald Peraza or Alexander Vargas for Báez and, say, Andrew Chafin, I’d listen.
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Around the Division:
In trade news, the Brewers flipped Trevor Richards and a AAA arm for Rowdy Tellez, giving the Blue Jays a bullpen boost while picking up a desperately needed bat, albeit one that’s had a hard go of it in limited opportunities this year. Strength for a strength. What a concept.
In baseball news, the Brewers were rained out yesterday in Queens. The Cardinals beat the Giants again, passing the Cubs in an old-school Adam Wainwright vs. Johnny Cueto game. The Reds lost to the Royals, and I’m not so sure they’re actually going to be buyers, considering they’re six and a half games back with hardly any shot at a wild card.
Standings, FanGraphs division championship probabilities:
1. Milwaukee: 51-35, 84.9%
2. Cincinnati: 44-41, 10.2%
3. St. Louis: 43-44, 1.8%
4. Cubs: 42-44, 3.1%
5. Pittsburgh: 32-53, 0.0%
At least the Cubs are in better shape than the Cardinals, theoretically.
Doubleheader today for the Crew: Corbin Burnes vs. Jacob deGrom, Brett Anderson vs. TBD. Sonny Gray vs. Brady Singer in Kansas City. Johan Oviedo vs. Alex Wood in San Francisco.
Up Next:
Game 3 (of 4)
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Whom:
Cubs vs. Philadelphia
When:
7:05 PM Chicago Time
Where:
Wrigley Field
Weather:
Stormy, so we’ll see what that means. Temperature’s supposed to be around seventy degrees at gametime, with wind blowing in from left at about ten miles per hour. Tomorrow looks drier, so if it’s soggy they might call it early and opt for a doubleheader to close the set.
Starting Pitchers:
Alec Mills vs. Zack Wheeler
The Opponent:
Wheeler’s been the second-most productive pitcher in baseball this year. He leads in innings pitched. He’s second among qualified starters in both xERA and FIP (fourth in ERA). He’s striking out more than a batter an inning and walking fewer than two batters per nine innings. In his last two starts—against the Mets and the Padres—he’s worked a combined fourteen and two-thirds innings, striking out seventeen while walking zero and allowing zero runs.
Good luck.
The Numbers:
The Cubs are +126 underdogs with the Phillies at -136, which comes out to about a 42% win probability for the home team and underscores how bad the Phillies’ lineup is. The over/under’s at 7½ and favors the under.
Cubs News:
After bringing Kohl Stewart up to replace Tommy Nance over the weekend (I think I mentioned this, but apologies if I’m your only source for Cubs news and I didn’t), the Cubs put Stewart on the IL with elbow inflammation prior to last night’s game. They also put Eric Sogard on the IL with a thumb contusion, and the upshot of those things is that Sergio Alcántara and Trevor Williams (!!) are back with the big league club.
Williams threw a few innings last night, and while it didn’t go great, he was eating innings at that point. He might start on Sunday in Arrieta’s spot in the rotation.
Cubs Thoughts:
I’m not feeling the pain anymore. I’m on to selling mode. If you’re not, though, you can hope on the Brewers getting swept in today’s doubleheader, the Reds losing in Kansas City, and the Cubs pulling out a win, a combination that’s about eight percent likely and would leave the Cubs perhaps a little better than five percent likely to win the division. I will hope for this too. But the Báez question looms larger on my mind.
