The Cubs announced Tuesday that they’ve optioned righty Ben Brown to Triple-A Iowa. Reliever Porter Hodge was reinstated from the injured list in a corresponding move. Brown’s demotion opens a spot in the rotation for lefty Shota Imanaga, who is set to return to start Thursday’s game for Chicago.
It’s been an up-and-down season for the 25-year-old Brown, who has at times looked the part of a potential long-term member of the Cubs’ rotation. More often than not — and especially recently — he’s struggled to work deep into games, however. Brown is sitting on a 6.13 ERA at this point, a number that’s been inflated over the past five weeks. In Brown’s past seven starts, he’s had individual outings wherein he’s yielded six runs (twice) and eight runs (twice). It’s derailed a decent start to the season for the promising young righty and has at least for now cost him his spot on the big league roster.
Imanaga’s return will bolster what’s been a reeling Cubs staff. They’ve made no secret about their plans to upgrade the rotation via the trade market. President of baseball operations Jed Hoyer publicly said as much just two weeks ago. Even beyond that comment, a need for help was readily apparent. Chicago has lost ace Justin Steele for the season due to elbow surgery. Young righty Javier Assad has yet to pitch this season due to multiple oblique injuries. Colin Rea was excellent upon first moving into the rotation but has struggled over the past month, just as Brown has. Imanaga was sidelined nearly two months with a hamstring injury.
The Cubs’ need for pitching is no secret, but they’re one of just several clubs looking for immediate rotation help — and doing so at a time when there are few clubs around the league willing to engage in genuine trade conversations. Be that as it may, Bruce Levine of 670 The Score said in a radio appearance on 670’s Mully & Haugh this week (audio link) that the Cubs are being extremely aggressive and working on multiple fronts. Levine suggested a deal could come together well ahead of next month’s trade deadline and possibly even within the next week to ten days.
Levine downplayed the possibility of the Cubs acquiring former Cy Young winner Sandy Alcantara, who’s slowly turning his season around after an awful start to the year in his return from Tommy John surgery. (Alcantara has a 2.74 ERA and 19-to-5 K/BB ratio in 23 innings across his past four starts.) Rather, he suggests that the Cubs have been looking at some less-obvious trade candidates around the league.
The Marlins themselves have other, less-heralded trade candidates than Alcantara (e.g. Edward Cabrera). The Mets appeared to have some arms available before injuries to Kodai Senga and Tylor Megill thinned their depth. Clubs like the Orioles, Twins and D-backs could ultimately end up with starters on the market, but none of them seem ready to move in a sell direction with five-plus weeks before the deadline. The Rays can never be discounted as a possible trade partner at any juncture, and they’re again rich in pitching (at a time when Joe Boyle and Ian Seymour are thriving in Triple-A). Zack Littell is almost certain to be available as a rental, but an aggressive team could try to make a more substantial offer for someone like Drew Rasmussen.
Those are all speculative possibilities, of course. The Cubs have kept their rotation search generally close to the vest. With Brown and Rea struggling recently and Matthew Boyd a bit banged up — he exited his most recent start after a rough landing on his shoulder when spearing a J.P. Crawford comeback liner (video link) — the need has become more noticeable. Boyd is on track to start tomorrow’s game for the Cubs, and the team called the issue “minor,” but it’ll still be worth tracking how he gets through tomorrow’s outing.
As for Brown, he’ll head back to Triple-A and look to get back on track. Injuries to any pitching staff are an inevitability, so even if the Cubs wind up adding a starter sooner than later, as Levine suggests, additional opportunities for Brown to start games could present themselves as the summer wears on. This is his second of three option years for the right-hander, so even if he stays down longer than 20 days and formally burns a minor league option, he’ll retain one more option year and remain a flexible piece for the Cubs moving forward. If Brown spends more than two weeks in Triple-A, it’d push his path to free agency back by a year.
Long term reliever, unfortunately.
For sure. Ive been saying it since the end of last season. He just isn’t starter material. He’s a 2-pitch guy that profiles well as a back of the bullpen guy- if he can harness his control a bit better.
He was definitely serving up some sirloins last night. Hitters salivating at the plate.
What’s a McGreevy? Is that one of those green shakes at McDonalds? Or is it that sauce they put on a Big Mac? Anybody know?
Absolutely justified. Last night, Brown took the mound for the biggest game of the year so far, and tried to get good hitters out with garbage. He might not just need Iowa; he might not just need another pitch; he might need vocational training. Who ever told him he was a baseball player?
It was funny to read Brett Taylor this morning and see how that little quisling had turned on his former pet Brown.
Biggest game of the year so far?
Alan also thought the White Sox would sweep the Cubs earlier this season.
Brett Taylor does excellent work.
Alan is obsessed with Brett. Brett banned him from Bleacher Nation some years back and he still can’t let it go.
I love Alan’s one-man war against Brett Taylor. I don’t like his writing style, either, but he pops up in like every other post by Alan.
Show me where the Cubs hurt you Alan. Point to where on the doll.
I love the Cubs, falcon. Have for 65 years. But real love is not uncritical. Because I love them, I want them to do well. When they are not doing well because of self-inflicted wounds–a good expression for Hoyer’s mismanagement–I point it out.
The folks at BN are laughing at Alan, whom Brett banned. Give up your crusade. You lost.
@wood: I can laugh at myself too, which is a gift. Brett misunderstood a comment of mine as gay-bashing, which it wasn’t. I wish him no ill and in fact think he comes across as a nice guy (though, IMO, not a very talented writer, and an almost compulsive splitter of differences. He “sees both sides” to a fault sometimes.)
I’m not sure what you think my “crusade” is. I just want to tell the truth as I see it, and love my neighbors. But no, I am not going to
quit speaking my piece because you want me to.
Do you know “the folks at BN” personally? Are you one of them? If so, please tell Cerami I like his stuff better, it’s more to the point and he writes with more energy. I like the Bears stuff too.
Wait a minute, I thought Cerami was a “self-contented popinjay”?
Whatever else I may have failed to accomplish in life, one memorable day, back in 1977, I was Cub Reporter for a Day.
That year, the Cubs led the National League East from May to August before fading badly and finishing fourth. Rick Reuschel was the best of their starting pitchers. Bruce Sutter ruled the bullpen with his incredibly unhittable split-finger fastball. Bobby Murcer, Bill Buckner, Larry Biittner, Jerry Morales, and others supplied big hits.
(As an aside, the Cub went from 25 games over .500 at one point in late June to an exactly .500 finish—81 and 81. No other major-league team has ever failed to finish about .500 in a season where they were 25 games over at any time—but that’s the kind of manager that Herman Franks was.)
As a donation to a cancer charity, the Cubs PR department offered the gift of being Cub Reporter for a Day. The Reporter would do things real reporters do—eat in the press cafeteria, go on the field for batting practice, visit the clubhouse, watch the game from the press box. Somehow, there’s always money to be found for the most important things, so my brother and I set out to make the highest bid for this item—and we were delighted when we were informed that we had won the prize.
We reported to Wrigley Field’s Clark Street entrance promptly at 11 a.m. on July 28, as we had been instructed to do. We were met by a hearty, bespectacled fellow named Buck Peden, who was the Cubs’ PR director and our keeper for the day. He looked surprised to meet two grad students in their 20s; he probably expected two perky kids half our age. But Buck rolled with it.
He first took us to the Pink Poodle, the press hangout and dining room, where we lunched on barbecued beef sandwiches and were introduced to several live, honest-to-goodness, for-real reporters. We met Lou Boudreau, who was concerned about Buck getting an autographed ball to a kid. (We had always suspected that Lou was a genuinely nice guy.) We met Jack Brickhouse. Jack had plans to have Phil Donahue, then a rising national talk-show star, in the booth that day, and irritably asked Buck if he had “taken care of that [expletive] Donahue thing.” (We had always suspected that Brickhouse was a phony and a jerk.)
After hobnobbing with our fellow scribes, it was down to the field to gad about the batting cage while the Cubs took batting practice. Funny the things one remembers: I recall now how perfectly cut the grass was, how the famous scoreboard towered above all else from field level, how the southwest wind blew the infield dirt out toward the bleachers. Around the cage, the unaffected Biittner was friendly, asking us what *we* did for a living. Cubs coach “Peanuts” Lowery took time out from hitting fungoes to chat with us as if we, too, were baseball lifers like himself. Morales and Jose Cardenal were cool, appraising us as interlopers, I think.
Then Buck walked us toward the left-field corner and led us into the Cubs clubhouse, which one entered in those days through a door just outside the foul pole. We had heard that the clubhouse was small by major-league standards, but it was even smaller than I expected. (It has since been remodeled and greatly enlarged.) Buck brought us into the locker room. A pre-game schedule was taped to the wall, telling what time batting practice began, and infield practice; when to change into game uniforms, etc. Players’ names were written on cardboard nameplates mounted above the lockers, which were actually small dressing cubicles. There was something endearingly hamische about the whole set-up.
I remember seeing spacey Cubs starting pitcher Bill Bonham sitting in the training room, in a T-shirt, shorts, and leggings, eating one of those cheese-and-crackers things. Reuschel and pitcher Pete Broberg, the old Washington Senator who was briefly with the Cubs that season, sat on a bench, chatting. Murcer, lolling in a rocking chair, was listening to country music, just as I had read he did. And then there was Sutter, clad only in a jockstrap, looking anything but imposing with his pasty skin and pop-bottle physique.
Then it was up to the press box to watch the afternoon’s game against the Reds. The press box was then part of the mezzanine that hung from the upper deck, between home and third. We sat on card-table chairs set up in the first two rows, just to the left of home plate.
That was the setting where we met, among others, a Runyonesque old-timer, Jimmy Enright, an ex-reporter who served as the Cubs’ p.a. announcer. He seemed to think we were real reporters on our first assignment, and said, “Well, you got a great day for it.”
Indeed we had. It was a warm summer day, with the wind blowing straight out, the kind of day that can produce slugfests at Wrigley Field. That day, it produced one of the most exciting and memorable games in Cubs history. Barely were we in our seats when the Reds scored six first-inning runs off Ray Burris. But the Cubs came back immediately to get four of their own, and the race was on. The Cubs led 7-6 after two; the Reds then retook the advantage. The Cubs tied the game at 10 after four innings, but then the Reds pulled away again. Three runs in the eighth and one in the ninth got the Cubs into a 14-14 tie and sent the game into extra innings. The Reds scored a run in the top of the 12th, but the Cubs answered minutes later with a home run by catcher George Mitterwald.
Both teams began to run out of players, as often happens in this kind of game. Murcer, the Cubs right fielder, was pressed into service to play middle infield in the top of the 13th; he would switch between second and short with the Cubs back-up, back-up shortstop, Dave Rosello, depending on the handedness of the batter. (Franks was really managing, for a change.)
People in the press box were beginning to say it was the best game they had ever seen, with its riveting action and increasingly unlikely comebacks. In the bottom of the 12th, Jimmy Enright said, “Well, at the end of this inning, win, lose or draw, I’m hitting the head.” Then, as he passed by Julian and me, he commented, “You fellas are getting one hell of a baptismal.” Not “baptism”–*baptismal*.
Finally, the Cubs won the amazing game in the bottom of the 13th, when Rosello, the weakest hitter on the team, singled in the lumbering Reuschel from third. Reuschel, who rarely showed emotion on the field during his long career, crossed home plate with his arms in the air, pumping his fists. I still see him.
I had taken public transportation from Hyde Park to get to Wrigley Field that day—the #1 bus and the Howard-Jackson Park El. As I rode home, I wondered if just going to the game and sitting in the stands would be good enough from then on. But it has been. I was Cub Reporter for a Day. I have been something more important—a Cubs fan—for life.
No one asked, but: PCA, Hoerner, Tucker, Suzuki, Busch, Happ, Swanson, Kelly, Shaw.
And that’s the reason nobody asked you.
🙂
But school me, Steelers. What, specifically, is wrong with that lineup?
Well let’s start with Counsell’s lineup has been 1st or 2nd second in runs scored all year and he makes just shy of $8m more than me making a lineup so there’s that.
PCA…at THIS point of his career. Takes no pitches, does not walk, swings at everything. Not a leadoff hitter. Needs to be hitting 4/5 where chance to drive in runs. Less chance at that hitting #1 when the bottom turns over.
Hoerner at 2. No no no. You said you’re a fan for 65 years. This is not 1975. Do not hit a singles hitter (good one) with barely doubles pop anywhere near the top. Very nice average but you now need three hits in an inning to score.
Tucker is a lock at #2. Best hitter always need to be 1 or 2. Again, this is 2025. Check where these players have batted most often in their career…Ohtani, Judge, Bryant, Betts, Trout…
That’s pretty much enough.
@Steelers: Good points. I admit I had the feeling when I made out the lineup that it was a little too old-school, not applicable to the game as it is these days. But can one not go too far in the other direction too–and end up with a lineup where Swanson bats fifth, clearly too high? And the Cubs don’t seem to be able to hit home runs in Busch Stadium, for whatever reason–so is it not arguable that for this game, this series, a reversion to the older lineup philosophy might be something to consider? And, except for a few windblown homers at WF this past weekend, the lineup has not been hitting anyway, so might a new look be worth a try?
The Cubs seem to me to be a good hitter short in any case; their overall rankings in the hitting categories have been falling, and probably will continue to fall. Do you think Hoyer should consider a trade for a third baseman with more pop than Shaw–even if it costs some prospect capital? Or do you think he should concentrate exclusively on getting pitching at the deadline (or preferably before)?
Alan…jumping in here—things have changed officially dramatically in the last day or so. Corbin Carroll injury.
Here’s what I want as Cub trade target right now..
Zac Gallen and Eugenio Suarez from the Dbacks.
Gallen gets the pitching potential.
Suarez changes some things….give a legit 5 hitter (or 4 righty/efty dependent) and helps slot Dansby down to where he should be. As a SS hitter, really pretty good, but as a 4-5 (and maybe 6) just a little too high.
You do downgrade the defense and add strikeouts but you give that power potential in the playoffs. Free agent at end of year, so true rental. But–it puts Shaw on the bench, gets rid of Brujan (or Berti) which makes the bench better and Shaw has the ability to give Hoerner or Dansby a day off more often while still getting time at 3b.
With that a real lineup becomes
Happ
Tucker
Seiya
PCA
Suarez
Busch
Swanson/Hoerner
Swanson/Catcher/Hoerner
Catcher/Hoerner
Bottom three interchangeable.
Both those guys I traded for are free agents so the price will still be lofty but not as much as Sandy and another offensive player.
The Cubs don’t need Suarez. They have Shaw.
Seiya and Tucker 2 and 3 are also interchangeable too. Depending on the opposing starter. Happ being a switch hitter will either have the lineup start with 2 lefties or right, left , right. Or it could be RRL if Tucker bats 3rd .
Kelly is a better target
I’d take Gallen and Suarez. What would it cost for two rentals? Just asking. Likely not cheap. DBacks, if they sell will likely be the epicenter of activity. Add another pull pen arm as well.
I’m ok with that too….either.
I think those would be good pick-ups.. Suarez might have a sort of galvanizing effect on the lineup that it seems to need. Of course, it depends on what they would have to give up. Uncle Mike is right, I think, to worry about Hoyer’s penchant for trading the wrong prospects.
Log—sure they don’t NEED Suarez, but I think he makes the lineup deeper and better, makes the bench better and would be part of a package that may be steep but less than what the Marlins would want.
Was responding to Alan asking if pitching should be only concentration.
The only obvious place to upgrade offensively right now is 3b.
It is a tough call on value of 2 rentals.
Caissie alone might nab both. 2 months for full control of a core hitter MLB ready holds heavy value.
They are ranked at the bottom in baseball vs LH pitching for a while now
If you define fighting for a WS then that becomes a need just as much as having 5 guys that don’t poop the bed frequently.
It’s funny to read how much Alan hates Brett Taylor because Alan got himself banned from Bleacher nation. It’s not Brett Taylor’s fault that Alan is such a miserable person.
And a race baiter of the first order
Marlins should keep Alcantara and compete in ’26, they have a good farm, they can win with Alcantara, Cabrera, Perez and Meyer.
On what planet bw
Their options keep dwindling as far as starters are concerned if and when a trade is made for another fringe starter.
Will that vaunted cubs offense scoure more than 2 runs tonight because they need 10 or more to win and at least 5 homers.
Dude needs a 3rd pitch. Or a 4th.
Ben Brown has shown signs of being an elite pitcher but he really needs a 3rd pitch. He’s still young enough to develop another pitch. Maybe Jamo can’t teach and work with him this winter on a kick change up pitch. He definitely needs something though. He was very good out of the pen last year. He could be very beneficial in the late innings. If they decide to call him back up at some point. Long relief is his best chance of having a long caréer. IMO.
I’m not exactly sure what Brown is going to learn at Iowa. I’d rather see them put him on the development list and let him learn either a cutter or make his change up elite at the lab or something. It’s just a sideways move and he needs to pitch to build up his innings so he can last a whole season. There’s still a move to be made when Shota comes back that might be interesting. Flexen has no options left or I would have sent him down to stretch him out but the only guys with options are Hodge and Palencia. So somebody hits the DFA list.
Like the mariners before them, the red birds show the cubs they can out homer the cubbies too.
Does the majority of cubs fans still would like hoyer to return because haven’t seen the poll lately and if there are any changes?
Maybe go look at the article with the poll?
I like the kid but three things need to happen before he ever starts again…
1) Learn a minimal 3rd pitch but 3 and 4 would be better.
2) learn how to pitch in all parts of the zone not just the center .
3) Learn how to stay focused and out of your head.
With sweep, cubbies lead Down to 1/2 game over do nothing brewers and cardinals.
The idea that the Cubs are the class of the division has been Brett Taylor-esque wishful thinking all along. It is good that he and other naive fans are getting a dose of reality now. In the long run, that will make them better fans.
Frustrating loss tonight, but in a way encouraging: The Cardinals are a lot better than the Cubs, and there is a kind of air of inevitability about games between the two teams, especially in St. Louis. But the Cubs gave them a game tonight, and if not for the egregious Swanson coming up to make the 27th out–that’s actually not a bad nickname for him, The Egregious Swanson– they might have pulled it out.
They are probably going to lose tomorrow and Thursday too, and are likely to get swept in Houston, for a winless road trip–but maybe that will be the low point. Maybe sleepy Hoyer will give them some reinforcements when they get home, and maybe they will turn a corner. They might be fourth in the division soon, though, so if they are to win it they will have to battle back.
As far as I’m concerned Brown can either stay in the minors like single A or be traded. He isn’t worth the money or a roster spot. Please Hoyer include him in any upcoming trade for a decent starting pitcher. If nobody will take him (which it’s very possible no one will) the release him. He isn’t worth anything.
Cubs will be fine. Relax.