MLBTR Chat Transcript

The Cubs are now a defense and pitching team. They’re extremely strong up the middle with Bellinger, Swanson, and Hoerner – along with Gomes and Barnhart working with the pitchers….a group whose ERA went from 4.87 to 4.00 from 2021 to 2022….a major turnaround. That was done with a terrible catcher that doesn’t work with pitchers well. Improving the defense – particularly at catcher – as well as the coaching staff further sophisticating their approaches to pitching should be exciting for Cubs fans.

Hitting / runs scored will have to come from the corners. Suzuki and Happ were solid in 2022, and are in their primes – so if healthy they should improve some. Wisdom hits HR’s, but not enough to offset his poor hitting, OBP and inconsistent defense. 1B will be decent with Hosmer and Mervis…with Mervis also a possibility to play 3B and DH. So it appears that David Ross will do a lot of juggling trying to get the best out of what he has…hoping to find hot hands at times.

If the Cubs play strong D and their pitching continues to improve then of course they won’t need to score as many runs to win games. But since they don’t look like they’ll be doing much running in spite of the new rules (they don’t have base stealing candidates) they badly need to get a strong run-producing RH bat or two in that lineup. If they can’t find one by opening day, they if they’re in contention they’ll need to find one during the season.