After a below-average offensive season, the Cubs are parting with assistant hitting coach Terrmel Sledge, Sahadev Sharma and Patrick Mooney of The Athletic report. They’ll look for someone else to partner with hitting coach Anthony Ianoce.
A former major league outfielder, Sledge spent two seasons on the Cubs’ staff. They finished 2019 ninth in wRC+ and 10th in runs with Sledge in the fold, but the Cubs fell to 21st and 20th in those categories this year. That surely didn’t help Sledge’s cause, though it’s difficult to quantify the impact of an assistant coach.
Beyond Sledge’s departure, the Cubs’ offense could face more drastic changes leading into next season. While the club did win the National League Central in 2020, it bowed out in the wild-card round against the Marlins, and president of baseball operations Theo Epstein has expressed an openness to overseeing a significant offensive shakeup since then. With that in mind, it’s possible the Cubs will seriously consider trade offers for some of their most notable hitters (Kris Bryant and Kyle Schwarber may be at the top of the list), especially considering the dwindling team control over some of their key players.
I think you meant Iapoce, not Ianoce.
A shame they let Sledge go. I was hoping the two sides would be able to hammer something out.
Well played
Ha
Typical Theo. His MO is to blame everyone else but himself. Another year to go of failed promises.
i mean, its prerty easy to see that the hitters underperformed. a lot of these guys were here during the WS year. How were guys like Javy and Bryant hitting poorly more Theo’s fault then the coaching staff’s?
But….who hired the coaches and thereby establishes the hitting philosophy. And drafts the type of hitters they want?
Bad logic
And how many hitting coaches has Theo hired and fired since they won in 2016!
It’s not the coach or Theo, it’s the core players (Rizzo, Bryant, Baez, Almora, Russell). They peaked in 2015 & 2016
Almora has never been a core player, even Russell was more of a failed prospect than a core player
If Russell hadn’t got into legal troubles he would’ve been a really good player and he was a pretty good all around player. He’ll never play for a ML team again.
And Rizzo had very similar and consistent seasons from 2015-2019 and Baez big seasons were 2018-2019. Your point only really applies to Bryant
Russell was definitely part of the core. He batted 5th most of ‘17, I think. Almora was a 1st round pick and was at least a platoon player with elite defense in his first few years. Kyle also peaked before his injury. I should’ve said they all peaked from ‘15 through ‘17 except Wilson
Almora was a first round pick. I believe number 6 overall. That does not make him a core player. It makes him a player they hoped would be a core player but he was never an actual core player
Looks like anderson and Abreau far overshadow 2 aforementioned Cubs
Anderson isn’t half the player Baez is. Rizzo is a far better defender than Abreu. Rizzo had
5 straight seasons with 32 Home Runs and 100rbi. He won 3 gold gloves in that time and 1 platinum glove. He’ll likely win another gold glove this year.
There’s a chance 4 cubs players will win a GG this year. Baez will probably be.snubbed again.
Failed promises? They said the payroll was limited but they would stay competitive. They did that. The offense was a struggle all year in this limited season. I think they waited a year too long if they trade KB now. Last offseason they could have gotten Austin Riley and Ian Anderson from the Braves.
Why not a new hitting coach. I’ve never seen four key players slump so badly in the same year
yep, why not… let’s blame the 5th hitting coach in 6 years or something like that. get a clue
Gonna guess you are not from Cincinnati (Castellanos, Suarez, Votto, Moustakas, Senzel, Aquino……).
Is it possible, just possible, that Baez is little more than a swing and miss machine who makes simple plays look difficult?
The former is possible, the latter is way off
@ Anthony—-Pretty sure the “birds fan” in the name blinds him to Baez making the difficult plays like simple. Give a guy a keyboard and anything can come off of the fingers.
Look, 60 games is a small sample size. And if you’re going to come to a conclusion like that, then I guess guys like Yelich & Belinger are no good either.
I mean it’s possible, just possible, right?
When you claim Baez makes simple plays look difficult your entire argument lost credibility.
At last Theo figured out what the problem is.
Wonder if they have the guts to blow things up with Rizzo/Bryant/Baez/Schwarber only a year away from free agency, probably not.
Theo vastly overrated. You can bet your last buck if he makes guys like Bryant, Rizzo, and Hendrick available in trades, there will be no shortage of suitors.
It won’t happen for obvious reasons, but Bryant in St. Louis with Tommy Edman moving to the OF would really strengthen the Cards.
There is a HUGE shortage of suitors! He tried to trade Bryant last year. He’s showing himself to be too injury prone to get back to what he was and nobody wants to pay his $20M salary. He could trade Hendricks but why trade one of the best starters in baseball on a club-friendly contract? They traded Eloy Jimenez to try to get another one of those.
He tried to trade Bryant last year? Credible sources and what were the offers, please. You don’t need a HUGE pile of suitors. If there are three or four out there the Cubs will get some value back in any trade. If you really think there aren’t that many teams that would be interested in Kris Bryant I would think your opinion of him is slightly off. The financial side will take a good chunk of teams out of the mix, but there are still multiple teams that would be at least interesting in talking.
Who did they try to trade Bryant to? For who?
Phillies: Asked for Bohm or Howard. Hard no on both.
phillyvoice.com/phillies-news-rumors-mlb-kris-brya…
Nationals: Asked for Victor Robles. Hard no.
cubbiescrib.com/2020/01/04/cubs-rumors-victor-robl…
Their ask was too high.
Robles is very overrated and I am a Nationals fan.