CHICAGO – The Chicago Cubs have rolled out good starting pitchers this year, the consistent types who have historically supported the idea of baseball gravity. As long as the rotation functions at a certain level, the season shouldn’t spin out of control and the team shouldn’t fall into last place. The combination of Shota Imanaga, Justin Steele and Jameson Taillon – plus contributions from the organization’s young arms – should have been enough to create real momentum.
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Wrigley Field certainly remains a great place to spend a Friday afternoon, as evidenced by the crowd of 37,613 in attendance for a 6-3 victory over the St. Louis Cardinals. The Cubs haven’t been eliminated from playoff contention yet, though their record is still only 54-58 after a three-game winning streak, and their postseason probabilities are hovering slightly above zero percent.
How this happened will be a focus of all the exit interviews and offseason strategy sessions. When a big-market franchise underperforms to this extent, you can point fingers at just about every aspect of business and baseball operations. Assuming the rotation will be this good again next year would be a mistake.
Remember, as Jed Hoyer mentioned, that the Cubs scored more runs than all but five major-league teams last season, an output that became part of the rationale to bring back largely the same group of personnel. Even with several established hitters returning, the offense has too often been boring and unproductive.
The Cubs may well wind up with the sixth-best rotation ERA in the majors this season, but that shouldn’t create a false sense of security. It shouldn’t stop them from asking the Chicago White Sox about Garrett Crochet or targeting different starters in trades. It shouldn’t keep them out of a free-agent market that could include Corbin Burnes, Max Fried, Blake Snell, Jack Flaherty, Justin Verlander, Max Scherzer, Robbie Ray and Roki Sasaki, among others.
Imanaga has put together a fantastic rookie year, but imagine how bad this team would have been if he was hurt or closer to a league-average starter. Steele is just now approaching the three-year window when the Cubs should have a good idea of how to project his performance next season and beyond. Not trading Taillon at the deadline was confirmation from Hoyer’s front office that the Cubs intend to compete next year rather than collect A-ball prospects and take a step back.
Where would the Cubs’ rotation be without rookie Shota Imanaga? (Photo of Shota Imanaga: Justin Casterline/Getty Images)
Getting a jump on 2025, the Cubs acquired Isaac Paredes from the Tampa Bay Rays in the belief that the 25-year-old All-Star third baseman can be the steady hitter and capable defender that Christopher Morel has not proven himself to be to this point.
Trading Mark Leiter Jr. to the New York Yankees meant taking a short-term hit in the bullpen. But holding onto Julian Merryweather and Tyson Miller in an overheated market for relievers – while adding Nate Pearson (a first-round pick of the Toronto Blue Jays) and Jack Neely (a 6-foot-8 right-hander who was at New York’s Triple-A affiliate) – meant not necessarily having to rebuild a bullpen from scratch.
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“We do have a good group, as is, and we went out and made this team better,” Taillon said after the Paredes trade. “It’s for the years to come, too. That’s exciting. I know there’s some good free-agent classes coming up and stuff like that. If it doesn’t work out this year, I think we’re in a good spot to be good next year.”
Trading Taillon for long-range prospects – in the second season of a four-year, $68 million contract – would have been an overestimation of the organization’s ability to seamlessly replace him with internal options. Financial flexibility sounds great in theory, but there’s still skepticism about the team’s willingness to pay top dollar for premium pitchers. And most of the attractive pitchers in free agency – the healthy ones to keep building out a team – will be looking for deals in the range of Taillon-plus.
That’s part of why the Cubs need to see more from Jordan Wicks (oblique), Ben Brown (neck) and Hayden Wesneski (forearm) whenever they come off the injured list. Cubs manager Craig Counsell said he “absolutely” expects to see each of them pitch in major-league games again this year.
“Jordan’s calendar is the most clear-cut,” Counsell said, anticipating that Wicks will soon begin a minor-league rehab assignment. The timelines for Brown and Wesneski are “a little more fuzzy.”
When asked if he had questioned this base of young pitching talent – which had been viewed as one of the most interesting parts of the organization when he first took the job – Counsell quickly replied: “No, not at all.”
“Pitching and injuries, unfortunately, you just have to know that’s going to be part of it,” Counsell said. “But they’ve all, from a development perspective, taken a step forward, so you feel like you’re in a better place.”
The Cubs would also feel better if it looked like Javier Assad was getting better as the season progressed. Cade Horton, one of the top pitching prospects in baseball, hasn’t pitched for Triple-A Iowa since the end of May, and the accumulated injuries since college mean the Cubs will have to continue to carefully monitor his workload going forward. Even with October baseball looking like a remote possibility, these final 50 games are a valuable opportunity to see who finishes strong.
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“Situations like this happen all the time across baseball,” Steele said. “With every bad thing that happens – it doesn’t matter what team you’re on – there’s probably going to be some good that ends up coming out. When we had the trade-off in ‘21, I got ample opportunity in the starting rotation. I was able to find my footing and kind of catch a groove and ran with it. It’s important.”
(Top photo of Jameson Taillon: Quinn Harris/Getty Images)
Patrick Mooney is a senior writer for The Athletic covering the Chicago Cubs and Major League Baseball. He spent eight seasons covering the Cubs across multiple platforms for NBC Sports Chicago/Comcast SportsNet, beginning in 2010. He has been a frequent contributor to MLB Network, Baseball America, MLB.com and the Chicago Sun-Times News Group. Follow Patrick on Twitter @PJ_Mooney
