The Chicago Cubs have not been playing like a playoff-bound team since about the middle of June. And if they continue playing like they have been since the All-Star break, they may not be in the playoffs at all.
The team has already fallen deeply into second place, 9 games behind the Milwaukee Brewers in the Central Division as of this writing. They are currently just 1.5 games ahead of the San Diego Padres for the top National League Wild Card spot.
Since the All-Star break, they’ve managed a feeble 13-15 record. Since July 1, they are just 21-19.
Offensive outage sinks Chicago Cubs’ ship
In nobody’s wildest imagination is this team, right now, a team likely to have any sort of success in the postseason against teams that are not only better stocked with talent, but also not mired in inconsistency and flat-out poor play.
Chief among the Cubs’ woes is an offense that once ranked among the elite and is now firmly bottom-tier.
Frustration has boiled over with their sudden feeble-hitting ways, resulting in fan unrest and the return of boo birds to Wrigley Field.
Jed Hoyer vows more of the same
Stoking the fires of the frustration is an organization that seems to be taking this fall from grace way too coolly and dispassionately.
“We play every day for six months and there’s going to be, even with a really good team, you have really good stretches and you’re going to have some stretches where you’re grinding,” Cubs president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer told Marquee Sports Network before Monday’s 7-0 loss to the Milwaukee Brewers. “And we have been now for a bit offensively.”
When prodded on the possibility of a shakeup in the lineup or maybe some strategic benching of struggling hitters, Hoyer fell back on his personal analytics-driven narrative.
“I’m going to give an answer that will frustrate people, but hit your best players at the top of the lineup,” Hoyer said. “Hit them the most often. I was taught that 25 years ago by Bill James when we’re talking about lineup construction. I think you want to avoid clusters of handedness to make it easy on the opponent.
“…We have a lot of analytics, we have a lot of projection systems, and in general, just fall back on you hit your best players most often and avoid clusters of handedness to make it easy on the opponent, is sort of the simplest way to go about it.
“Hit your best players the most often is really simple, and it works.”
Except, it’s clearly NOT working.
Among the Cubs’ best hitters, Kyle Tucker is hitting .148 in August, Pete Crow-Armstrong is hitting .154, and Michael Busch is hitting .151.
No apparent solutions
“What I’m really saying is I just think that the answers to our struggles are not lineup construction,” Hoyer continued. “I think sometimes you can simplify it down to, our best players haven’t been producing at the level they were in the first half…That’s the reason that we’re not scoring as many runs.”
Well, no duh. The question is how to fix this downward dynamic. As of right now, they’ve just barely even addressed the issue beyond a “We’re good, we’ll get good again” response with manager Craig Counsell’s decision to bench Tucker for a “reset.” For almost two months now, they’ve only been talking about how good the team is– as the team sank lower and lower.
When push comes to shove, the Cubs leadership always seems to fall back on the “We’ll be fine…We’re having bad luck” narrative. Well, having bad luck, suddenly, all of the time, clearly indicates that luck is not really a factor.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen a streak like this,” Hoyer said of the red-hot Milwaukee Brewers, via The Athletic’s Jon Greenberg. “I mean, give them a lot of credit. I wish we were on that kind of streak. We’re not. They are.”
The secret to the Brewers’ streak is easy to identify. They are playing good baseball. They are playing like a team and executing consistently. The Cubs aren’t doing any of that. And, sadly, there doesn’t seem to be any burning desire among team leadership to change course.
Chicago Cubs feel the rage over mishandled Kyle Tucker situation
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