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Luke Little Suffers “Likely” Season-Ending Lat Strain

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July 22: The Cubs today transferred Little to the 60-day injured list, per Meghan Montemurro of the Chicago Tribune on X. His roster spot goes to righty Julian Merryweather who has been reinstated from his own stint on the 60-day IL. Righty Hunter Bigge was optioned to make room for Merryweather on the active roster.

July 20: Cubs left-hander Luke Little was placed on the injured list with a left shoulder strain prior to the All-Star break last week, and today manager Craig Counsell told reporters (including Patrick Mooney of The Athletic) that the injury is “likely” to end the youngster’s season.

It’s a brutal development for the 23-year-old rookie, who has generally looked excellent since making his debut with the club back in September of last year. Chicago’s fourth-round pick from the 2020 draft, Little has posted a 2.76 ERA (158 ERA+) with a 3.61 FIP in 32 2/3 innings of work at the big league level to this point in his young career and has flashed the sort of high-end talent that could make him a potential high leverage arm for the Cubs in the future.

The hard throwing lefty averages more than 96mph on his fastball and has struck out a strong 28.8% of batters faced in the majors so far, but has to this point been held back by control issues. Little has walked an excessive 15.8% of opponents to this point in his career, including 16.5% this season. While his ability to avoid giving up homers (he’s allowed just one in his career to this point) has allowed him to post strong results in spite of that lack of control, his 4.29 xFIP and 4.19 SIERA both suggest that his current production isn’t entirely sustainable unless he can curtail his wildness.

Even with those potential red flags in his profile, the loss of Little is still a devastating blow for the Cubs. Chicago’s bullpen has been shaky all season due to injuries to their primary high-leverage duo of Adbert Alzolay and Julian Merryweather, which forced the likes of Hector Neris and Mark Leiter Jr. into more prominent roles. While strong performances from internal youngsters like Little and Porter Hodge as well as savvy external pickups like Tyson Miller and Jorge Lopez have helped to steady the Chicago relief corps’s production in recent weeks, only the Rockies and White Sox have blown more saves than the Cubs’ 18.

The news regarding Little figures to further tax a bullpen that also lost right-hander Hayden Wesneski to the 15-day injured list today, although Counsell told reporters (including Mooney) that the club believes that Wesneski’s forearm issue is not serious and that he’ll be back on the mound in Chicago fairly quickly. The righty has pitched crucial innings for the Cubs while swinging between the bullpen and the rotation this year and sports a 3.96 ERA (albeit with a lackluster 4.72 FIP) across 61 2/3 innings of work this season.

The continued stacking of bullpen injuries makes the relief corps an obvious place for improvement ahead of the trade deadline on July 30, but the Cubs haven’t made their plans for this deadline clear and entered today with a 47-53 record that places them dead last in the NL Central and 4.5 games out of an NL Wild Card spot. Should the Cubs opt to stand pat or even sell short-term assets such as Neris and veteran lefty Drew Smyly, the club will be left to hope that the likes of Merryweather and Alzolay can return healthy later this year and provide a boost while youngsters such as Hodge and Hunter Bigge step up to handle meaningful innings.

Cubs Don’t Expect To Be Deadline Buyers

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The Cubs’ deadline trajectory has been an oft-discussed topic over the course of the past few weeks, with the team sitting at or near the bottom of the NL Central but also within striking distance of the final NL Wild Card spot. They’ve ostensibly explored possibilities on both ends of the buy/sell spectrum, showing interest in Toronto catcher Danny Jansen while also reportedly talking with both the Yankees and Red Sox about the potential of a Jameson Taillon trade. The Cubs dropped their first two games coming out of the All-Star break to a D-backs team that’s now tied for the final Wild Card spot, though they dodged a sweep in an extra-inning win Sunday.

While the Cubs are 3.5 games out in the Wild Card hunt, the latest report from Patrick Mooney, Ken Rosenthal and Will Sammon of The Athletic indicates that the Cubs aren’t planning to be buyers at next week’s trade deadline. That’s not an indication there’ll be any kind of prominent fire sale for the Cubs either, however. Chicago hopes to contend next year and isn’t likely to move players who are under control unless they receive big league-ready talent in return.

As for the Cubs’ slate of rental players, there’s simply not much to peddle to other clubs. Drew Smyly is sitting on an impressive 2.92 ERA in 37 relief innings, but he’s also walked 10.2% of his opponents and is playing on a contract other teams will want to avoid. Smyly is owed the balance of an $8.5MM salary for the current season (about $3.2MM) in addition to a $2.5MM buyout on a $10MM mutual option for the 2025 season.

Righty Kyle Hendricks is a free agent at season’s end but isn’t going to draw any interest with a $16MM salary and a 6.69 ERA (unless the Cubs eat the entirety of his contract, perhaps). Hector Neris has a 3.74 ERA and 24.2% strikeout rate in 33 2/3 innings — but he’s also walked a career-worst 16.1% of opponents. Neris is playing on a $9MM salary, and his $9MM club option will convert to a player option if he appears in 24 more games this season (60 total). That’s going to turn off any potentially interested parties. Cody Bellinger can become a free agent at season’s end, but he’s on the injured list with a fractured finger and the two opt-out provisions on his three-year deal would’ve made trading him extraordinarily difficult anyhow.

The Athletic’s report at least raises the speculative possibility of listening to offers for starter Justin Steele, though with three-plus seasons of club control remaining, the price would presumably be as high or even higher than the asks for crosstown ace Garrett Crochet (two years of club control remaining) and AL Cy Young front-runner Tarik Skubal (the latter of whom is not expected to be traded). There’s no reason to think the Cubs would outwardly shop Steele, but listening to see if someone steps up with a Juan Soto-esque haul for last year’s fifth-place NL Cy Young finisher is sensible enough.

With regard to Taillon, there’d be some sense to moving him even if the team doesn’t envision a broad-reaching sell-off. In signing any free agent to a long-term deal, a team is most interested in the first couple years of said contract. The 2025-26 seasons will be Taillon’s age-33 and age-34 campaigns. He’ll earn $18MM in each season on his slightly backloaded $68MM deal. Moving him would free up some money to potentially spend on a younger pitcher this offseason — or perhaps on another area of need entirely.

The Cubs control Steele, Shota Imanaga, Javier Assad, Ben Brown, Hayden Wesneski and Jordan Wicks through at least the 2027 season. Prospects Cade Horton and Brandon Birdsell are rising quickly through the system. There’s some depth from which to deal, and a Taillon trade could bring in talent, shed future payroll and reduce future luxury tax obligations. Taillon wouldn’t command nearly the same type of haul as Steele for a number of reasons (age, salary, general talent level), but there aren’t many arms available so the Cubs could conceivably take advantage of that shortage and see what the market bears.

It’s worth emphasizing, too, that most teams’ plans remain pretty fluid this time of year. While teams facing a gaps of eight, nine, ten or more games in their respective postseason pursuits are sure to focus on selling (just as clubs in the opposite position will primarily focus on adding), nearly half the teams in baseball exist in a relative purgatory between those two ends of the spectrum. There’s currently a three-team tie for the third NL Wild Card spot (Mets, D-backs, Padres), and another five teams are within four games of that final spot — the Cubs among them. In the American League, there are four teams within six games of the final Wild Card spot.

For instance, if the Cubs snapped off six or seven straight wins beginning today, they’d presumably be far more open to the idea of adding some pieces. That’s particularly true because their next three games come against the division-leading Brewers. But a win streak of that nature is always a long shot, and it’s plenty notable that for the time being, Chicago isn’t viewing itself as a team that will trade even lower-caliber minor league talent in exchange for some marginal rental upgrades. Time will tell whether the players on the field can push the front office to take a more aggressive stance, but right now it seems likely the Cubs are in for a relatively quiet deadline.

Red Sox, Yankees Have Reportedly Talked To Cubs About Jameson Taillon

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Both the Yankees and Red Sox have checked in with the Cubs and discussed the potential availability of right-hander Jameson Taillon, USA Today’s Bob Nightengale writes in his weekly Sunday Notes column. The Cubs have yet to determine whether they’ll off any veteran pieces prior to the deadline, per the report. However, Chicago has dropped consecutive games coming out of the All-Star break and now sits 10 back in the NL Central and 4.5 back in the Wild Card chase, so it’d hardly register as a surprise if they were at least getting a feel for the market on some of their potential trade assets.

The 32-year-old Taillon (33 in November) is in the second season of a four-year, $68MM contract he inked with the Cubs in the 2022-23 offseason. After a very rocky showing last May and June, he’s righted the ship. Taillon is sitting on a pristine 3.10 ERA (3.81 FIP, 4.18 SIERA) in 93 innings this season, but his turnaround really dates back to the second half of the ’23 season. Though he finished out his first Cubs season with an ERA just shy of 5.00, that brutal stretch in May/June heavily weighed down his season-long line.

Over the past calendar year, Taillon boasts a tidy 3.34 ERA (4.05 FIP, 4.11 SIERA) with a 21.1% strikeout rate that’s only about a percentage point shy of league-average and an outstanding 5.1% walk rate. That walk rate is the 11th-lowest among qualified starters in the majors.

Taillon is still owed about $6.8MM of his 2024 salary as of this writing. He’s also being paid $18MM in each of the next two seasons. That’ll bring the tab on him to a bit less than $43MM over the next two-plus seasons. On its face, that’s a generally reasonable rate for a pitcher of Taillon’s caliber.

However, it’s also worth noting that the Yankees are a third-time CBT payor who are in the top tier of luxury penalization. They’d pay a 110% tax on Taillon, at least this season and possibly in future seasons, depending where their luxury ledger lands in 2025-26. Boston currently has a projected $218MM worth of luxury considerations, per RosterResource, so they could acquire Taillon and take on his full contract without crossing into luxury territory this season. As for the Cubs, they’re just $3MM shy of the $237MM luxury threshold; moving Taillon would create some breathing room in the event that the front office opts to deal from its rotation depth but simultaneously bring in some other players to address needs (e.g. third base, bullpen).

As far as the Red Sox go, the reported interest in Taillon is pretty straightforward. Boston has seen Lucas Giolito, Garrett Whitlock and depth starter Chris Murphy go down with season-ending injuries. Righty Bryan Mata recently had another setback in his recovery from a hamstring injury. At the moment, the Sox have a rotation comprised of Tanner Houck, Kutter Crawford, Nick Pivetta and Brayan Bello. Both Cooper Criswell and Josh Winckowski have gotten looks in the fifth spot of the rotation. The depth beyond that quintet is fairly suspect.

The current top four in Boston’s rotation is solid, but both Houck and Crawford are going to sail well beyond their 2023 workloads as they set new career-high marks for innings pitched. Even if they avoid injury while doing so, there’s real possibility of fatigue setting in and impacting the quality of their results (which have thus far been excellent). Taillon would add some stability and push Criswell and Wincowski down the depth chart. He’d also add a solid veteran arm to the 2025-26 rotations, which surely has some appeal with Pivetta slated to become a free agent this offseason.

The Red Sox currently hold the third Wild Card spot in the American League. They’re a long shot within the AL East but certainly not buried, sitting 6.5 games behind the division-leading Orioles and 4.5 games behind the second-place Yankees.

Speaking of the Yankees, they’re of course no stranger to Taillon. The righty pitched the 2021-22 seasons in the Bronx and fared well, logging 321 1/3 innings of 4.08 ERA ball over the life of 61 starts. The Yankees have a mostly healthy rotation now that Gerrit Cole is back from the elbow injury that sidelined him into June, but they did lose breakout righty Clarke Schmidt to a late-May lat strain that’s going to sideline him for a considerable period. The Yankees announced on May 30 that Schmidt would be shut down up to six weeks. He was transferred to the 60-day IL on June 18. He’s out until at least the end of this month, but that’ll likely stretch into next month. Schmidt only began throwing off a mound this weekend, and he’ll need to make multiple minor league rehab starts (and dodge any possible setbacks) before he’s an option.

Right now, manager Aaron Boone’s rotation includes Cole, Carlos Rodon, Nestor Cortes, Marcus Stroman and Luis Gil. It’s a talented quintet, but Gil has faded considerably after posting a sub-2.00 ERA for the first couple months of the season. His sky-high walk rate always made his ERA a little dubious, but over the past seven starts Gil has pitched to a 6.00 ERA. He’s not the only Yankee starter struggling, either. Each of Rodon, Cortes and Stroman has an ERA north of 5.30 in the past month. Rodon has been clobbered for 24 runs in his past 22 innings. If anything, Gil has begun to right the ship with a pair of excellent starts his last two times out, but it’s plenty understandable if his workload concerns and the generally shaky performance from the rest of his rotationmates has the Yankees seeking external help.

Cubs Sign First-Round Pick Cam Smith

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The Cubs have signed third baseman Cam Smith to a $5,070,700 bonus, per Baseball America’s Carlos Collazo. That bonus matches the slot value of the fourteenth overall pick Chicago used to select the infielder. Smith’s bonus will take up the majority of Chicago’s $9,802,300 total bonus pool for this year’s draft.

Smith, 21, was generally expected to go in the middle of the first round, although prospect services held some differences of opinion regarding his exact placement in the class. MLB Pipeline had Smith ranked exactly 14th, while Fangraphs was highest on him at 7th in the class. Baseball America (16th), ESPN’s Kiley McDaniel (17th), and The Athletic’s Keith Law (19th) all ranked Smith just below Pipeline but still within the draft’s top 20.

The Florida State product boasts a strong .331/.420/.594 slash line across his time in collegiate ball, although it’s worth noting that he adjusted his swing prior to his second year in the ACC and took a major step forward with an eye-popping .387/.488/.654 slash line in 322 trips to the plate. Listed at 6’3”, 224 lbs, there’s some debate among various prospect services about whether or not Smith will be able to stick at third base long-term, but scouts generally seem to agree that even if he needs to move to an outfield corner or first base his impressive power potential should allow him to stay relevant at positions where more pressure will be put on his bat.

It’s the second season in a row where the Cubs used their first-round pick to select a college infielder, and Smith figures to join 2023 draftee Matt Shaw in the club’s near-term infield plans. Dansby Swanson is locked in at shortstop long-term, and Michael Busch is surely part of the club’s long-term plans amid a fantastic rookie campaign where he’s slashed a 132 wRC+ as the club’s primary first baseman.

Even so, there’s still room in the club’s big league infield mix for an addition or two when Shaw and/or Smith are ready to contribute. Christopher Morel has had an up-and-down season at the plate while struggling badly with the glove at the hot corner, and while Nico Hoerner is currently locked in as the club’s everyday second baseman his contract runs only through the end of the 2026 season. With some scouts suggesting that Smith’s development may take a bit longer than is typically associated with college position players, it’s certainly feasible to imagine playing time opening up for Smith by the time he reaches the majors, even in the event that Shaw is able to position himself as an everyday infielder in his own right.

Yankees Sign Thomas Pannone To Minor League Deal

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Left-hander Thomas Pannone has signed a minor league deal with the Yankees and has been assigned to Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, per his transactions tracker at MLB.com. He had previously been with the Cubs on a minor league deal but was released earlier this week.

Pannone, 30, was working out of the rotation for Triple-A Iowa prior to his release and was putting up decent numbers, so it’s possible that he triggered some kind of opt-opt. After signing a minor league deal with the Cubs in the winter, he logged 90 2/3 innings over 19 starts with a 4.37 earned run average, 22% strikeout rate, 8.1% walk rate and 42% ground ball rate. The run-scoring environment in the International League has been pretty strong this year, with pitchers in the IL having a combined 4.90 ERA. Pannone’s 4.37 mark is 12th out of 29 qualified pitchers in that league.

The Yanks have a strong rotation at the major league level right now but their depth has taken a few hits. Though Gerrit Cole, Carlos Rodón, Nestor Cortes, Marcus Stroman and Luis Gil have the five big league spots, guys like Clarke Schmidt, JT Brubaker, Cody Poteet and Clayton Beeter are all injured. Schmidt went on the injured list in late May due to a lat strain and still hasn’t begun a rehab assignment. Poteet landed on the IL about a month ago due to a right triceps strain and he hasn’t started a rehab assignment yet either. Brubaker was rehabbing from last year’s Tommy John surgery but was recently shut down with an oblique strain. Beeter has some kind of shoulder issue and might be done for the season, per Greg Joyce of the New York Post on X.

Since Pannone has been in decent form this year, the Yanks will bring him aboard to replace some of that missing depth. He has 118 2/3 innings of major league experience with the Blue Jays and Brewers with a 5.46 ERA in that time. He also spent parts of 2022 and 2023 in Korea, tossing 165 innings for the KBO’s Kia Tigers with a 3.49 ERA. If Pannone is added to New York’s roster at any point, he is out of options.

Cubs Select Jesus Tinoco

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The Cubs have selected the contract of recently acquired righty Jesus Tinoco, tweets Patrick Mooney of The Athletic. He’ll join their big league bullpen to start the season’s second half. Lefty Jordan Wicks, already out more than a month with an oblique strain, is being transferred from the 15-day injured list to the 60-day injures list to open a spot on the 40-man roster. Wicks will now be out until mid-August at the earliest.

Chicago acquired Tinoco from the Royals in exchange for cash earlier in the week. Presumably, given how quickly he’s been added to the big league roster, the right-hander had some form of opt-out or upward mobility clause in his contract that led to the swap.

Tinoco, 29, pitched 10 innings for the Rangers earlier this season and allowed nine runs before being designated for assignment. He rejected an outright assignment to Triple-A in favor of free agency, signed with the Royals a few days later, and now will find himself back in the majors with the Cubs less than a month after he became a free agent.

This year’s run with the Rangers obviously didn’t go how he’d hoped, but Tinoco tossed 20 2/3 innings of 2.18 ERA ball for Texas back in 2022 and has pitched to a 4.58 earned run average in 76 2/3 innings across parts of five seasons. He averages better than 96 mph on his fastball but doesn’t miss bats at a particularly high level; he’s fanned 18.1% of his big league opponents against an untenable 13.9% walk rate. He’s had a solid showing in 28 Triple-A innings this season, however, posting a 3.86 ERA with a huge 31.9% strikeout rate against a more manageable (but still higher than average) 9.5% walk rate.

The Cubs’ bullpen has been problematic for much of the 2024 season. They’re a middle-of-the-pack group in terms of ERA but have regularly faltered in high-leverage situations, due in no small part to possessing the third-highest walk rate in the majors, at 10.8%. Tinoco will give them a fresh arm, though his own history of command troubles doesn’t inspire much confidence that he’ll help the group cut down on its walk issues. If the Cubs plan to add to the roster between now and the July 30 trade deadline — they’re currently 3.5 games out of a Wild Card spot in the NL — bullpen help will likely be a focus.

MLBTR Podcast: Top Trade Candidates, Hunter Harvey To KC And The Current State Of The Rays And Mets

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The latest episode of the MLB Trade Rumors Podcast is now live on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and wherever you get your podcasts! Make sure you subscribe as well! You can also use the player at this link to listen, if you don’t use Spotify or Apple for podcasts.

This week, host Darragh McDonald is joined by Steve Adams of MLB Trade Rumors to discuss…

Plus, we answer your questions, including…

  • The Cubs are such an interesting case right now. They’re not performing well, but they’re also not built to sell. They’ve got a lot of players slated to return from the IL in the next few weeks and they’ve got an easy strength of schedule after the deadline. They’ve got a strong farm system and some positional surpluses that they could deal from, but they’re up against the tax that they’ve self-imposed as a hard cap. They’re not too far from playoff contention but they’ve got a bunch of teams ahead of them. What should they do? (27:15)
  • With the trade deadline approaching fast and the Tigers’ recent play, could they be potential buyers if they continue this trend up to the deadline? (34:25)
  • If the White Sox trade Luis Robert Jr., Garrett Crochet, Erick Fedde and Michael Kopech, just how improved could they expect to be? (40:40)

Check out our past episodes!

The podcast intro and outro song “So Long” is provided courtesy of the band Showoff.  Check out their Facebook page here!

Cubs Acquire Jesus Tinoco From Royals

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The Cubs announced this evening that they’ve acquired reliever Jesús Tinoco from the Royals for cash (X link via Maddie Lee of the Chicago Sun-Times). Tinoco had signed a minor league deal with Kansas City three weeks ago and was not on their 40-man roster. Unless tonight’s trade was spurred by some kind of upward mobility clause in that contract, the Cubs don’t need to immediately place Tinoco on their 40-man.

Tinoco made six appearances for the Royals’ top affiliate in Omaha. He fired 6 2/3 frames of three-run ball, striking out 10 while issuing one walk. Tinoco also missed plenty of bats in Triple-A with the Rangers earlier this season, fanning 30.3% of batters faced across 21 1/3 innings. His control was quite a bit spottier than he showed in his small sample with K.C., as he walked upwards of 11% of opponents with the Texas affiliate.

The 29-year-old Tinoco has appeared in parts of five MLB seasons between the Rockies, Marlins and Rangers. He tossed a career-high 36 innings of 4.75 ERA ball for Colorado as a rookie in 2019. Tinoco saw more sporadic work over the following few years, only narrowly topping the 20 inning threshold once. He spent last season in Japan, working to a 2.83 ERA despite pedestrian strikeout and walk numbers for the Seibu Lions.

Tinoco returned to the affiliated ranks on a minor league deal with the Rangers over the winter. He made nine MLB appearances with Texas earlier in the season, allowing nine runs over 10 innings. That pushes his career earned run average to 4.58 through 76 2/3 MLB innings. He has a below-average 18.1% strikeout rate with a near-14% walk percentage over that stretch.

While Tinoco hasn’t had much success against big league hitters, his recent form in Triple-A evidently intrigued Chicago. The Cubs rank 16th in the majors with a 4.01 ERA from their relief group. They’re in the top 10 in strikeout rate, but only the Rangers and White Sox have issued more free passes.

The Cubs also have six relievers — Julian Merryweather, Adbert Alzolay, Colten Brewer, Yency Almonte, Keegan Thompson and Luke Little — on the injured list. Chicago optioned Daniel Palencia to Triple-A Iowa today, opening a spot in the major league bullpen. If they decide to install Tinoco directly into the MLB staff, they’d need to create a 40-man roster space.

Cubs Reportedly Interested In Danny Jansen

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The Cubs have expressed interest in Blue Jays catcher Danny Jansen, according to USA Today’s Bob Nightengale. It’s unclear how serious discussions between the sides have become at this point.

It would hardly be a surprise to see Toronto part ways with Jansen prior to the deadline on July 30. The club has experienced a freefall in the standings that has seen the club drop to just 43-52, 14 games out of the AL East and 9.5 games out of a playoff spot. That massive deficit in the standings has left the club’s playoff odds (according to Fangraphs) at just 1.6%. Given those dismal odds, it’s only natural that the club is reportedly “expressing openness” to moving on from rental players this summer.

Jansen, 29, is one of the club’s more intriguing rental players. Initially drafted in the 16th round back in 2013 by the Blue Jays, the Wisconsin native made his big league debut with Toronto back in 2018 and generally struggled at the plate early in his career. He carried a lackluster .208/.297/.370 slash line (79 wRC+) into the 2021 season. Fortunately, in 2021 Toronto began to lean less heavily on Jansen behind the plate due to the arrival of youngster Alejandro Kirk. From 2021-23, Jansen enjoyed a resurgence on offense while being counted on for an average of just 76 games a year. In 754 trips to the plate across those three seasons, he saw his wRC+ jump to 121 as he slashed a solid .237/.317/.487 while clubbing 43 home runs.

Early in the 2024 campaign, Jansen appeared to be on track for the best season of his career as he was slashing an incredible .287/.371/.535 through the end of May. He struck out just 15.5% of the time in those 116 trips to the plate while walking at a 12.1% clip and crushing five homers. Paired with generally strong defensive grades behind the plate throughout his career, that figured to make him an extremely attractive free agent this winter, as MLBTR’s Anthony Franco explored for Front Office subscribers at the time.

Things have come off the rails a bit for Jansen since then, however. In 91 trips to the plate since the start of June, Jansen has posted a lackluster .141/.253/.218 across 26 games. An eye-popping .164 BABIP that’s all but certain to enjoy some positive regression indicates that there’s some reason for optimism when looking at Jansen’s numbers during this recent slump, as does the fact that Jansen’s plate discipline numbers (18.9% strikeout rate, 11% walk rate) remain impressive. Even so, it’s hard to imagine the Jays getting anywhere close to the trade return they might have had Jansen maintained his early season production now that he’s hitting a roughly league average .223/.319/.397 (103 wRC+) for the season.

Even so, it’s not hard to see why the Cubs would be interested in Jansen’s services. The club has struggled somewhat on offense this year with a collective wRC+ of 102 that ranks 16th in the majors this year, even in spite of excellent seasons from corner bats Seiya Suzuki, Ian Happ, and Michael Busch. The most obvious culprit for those struggles at the dish in Chicago is the players they’re using behind it, as Cubs catchers have slashed a pathetic .180/.227/.264 this year. That translates to a wRC+ of 39 that ranks 29th in the majors ahead of only the lowly Marlins.

It’s possible the Cubs would be willing to stomach that brutal offense production if they were getting elite defense behind the plate, but youngster Miguel Amaya has been worth -2 runs according to Statcast’s Fielding Run Value, and veteran Yan Gomes was performing even worse before being replaced by Tomas Nido after he was released by the Mets last month. Nido has looked good behind the plate but has hit a ghastly .135/.154/.189 in 13 games with the Cubs. He doesn’t have much of a track record to lean on, either, as a seven-game stint in 2020 is the only time in his career he’s posted a wRC+ higher than 86.

Those woes behind the plate make the Cubs an obvious fit for Jansen’s services, although it’s fair to wonder if Chicago will be in position to buy by the time the deadline rolls around. After all, the team is currently five games below .500 (46-51) and in dead last in the NL Central. They’re only 4.5 games out of the final NL Wild Card spot, but Fangraphs gives them playoff odds of just 8.7%. While that’s substantially higher than the aforementioned odds Toronto has, it still suggests a postseason berth is a remote possibility for Chicago, and it would hardly be a surprise to see them pivot towards selling if they struggle coming out of the All Star break.

Should the Cubs wind up buying, Jansen isn’t the only Blue Jays hitter the club has reported interest in. Last month, it was reported that Chicago was having internal discussions about the possibility of pursuing star first baseman Vladimir Guerrero Jr. if the Blue Jays decided to sell. Of course, that reporting came on the heels of GM Ross Atkins very plainly saying that dealing Guerrero, who is controllable through the end of the 2025 campaign, “doesn’t make any sense” for the team to do. While it’s at least theoretically possible the club’s front office changes its stance before the deadline, that possibility seems remote at best as things stand.

Cubs Place Cody Bellinger On Injured List With Finger Fracture

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The Cubs announced that outfielder Cody Bellinger has a fracture in his left middle finger and has been placed on the 10-day injured list. Meghan Montemurro of the Chicago Tribune was among those to relay the news on X. Fellow outfielder Alexander Canario has been recalled to take his spot on the active roster.

In last night’s game, Bellinger was hit on the hand by a pitch from left-hander Cionel Pérez. He departed the contest as he felt he couldn’t throw a ball, per Montemurro on X. Now it seems a fracture has been found and he’ll need to miss some time.

Teams are generally more willing to put a player on the IL around the All-Star break, as it allows for an extended breather while perhaps only missing a handful of games. But if Bellinger has a broken bone, he was probably going to need an IL stint regardless, though the club hasn’t yet indicated how much time they expect him to miss.

Either way, it’s a rough development for the club. Bellinger isn’t quite hitting as much as he did last year but his .269/.331/.410 batting line is still 9% better than league average, according to wRC+. He’s also stolen five bases while playing competent center field defense.

The Cubs are in a tight spot, as they are currently 44-49. That only leaves them 3.5 games back in the crowded National League Wild Card race but with several teams ahead of them. They are currently only ahead of the Rockies, Marlins and Nationals and would have to leapfrog six other clubs to get into postseason position. With the trade deadline now less than three weeks away, they will soon have to make some decisions about how aggressively to buy or sell or walk a fine line between the two.

Losing a player of Bellinger’s quality will make it a bit more challenging to climb in the standings in the next few weeks. Bellinger himself has also been speculated as a potential trade candidate, though the opt-outs in his contract make that a complicated endeavor, something that MLBTR’s Anthony Franco recently explored in a piece for Front Office Subscribers. If there was any chance of the Cubs lining up something there, it’s possible that this injury will make it less likely.

With Mike Tauchman also on the IL, the Cubs are now down two outfielders. They will have to proceed with a mix of Pete Crow-Armstrong, Seiya Suzuki and Ian Happ with Canario now in there as well. Canario has a stout batting line of .282/.333/.538 in his big league career. That’s come in a small sample of 42 plate appearances but he also has a strong line of .238/.330/.502 in Triple-A this year.

For Bellinger, it’s possible this impacts him personally. At the end of the year, he will have to trigger his opt-out or stick with the Cubs. He can take a $2.5MM buyout or stick around and collect a $27.5MM salary in 2025, with another $25MM player option and $5MM buyout for the following year. Whether he wants another crack at free agency or not will naturally depend on the kind of platform he produces here in 2024, so he will obviously be hoping to come back in good form in short order.

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