00:00:00
Speaker 1: Right, like fans are gonna start dreaming again. So that's just how I feel like these past four weeks in general have been welcome into Northside Territory. Foul Territory Networks Cubs Podcast. I'm Sahadev Sharma. Patrick Mooney is on vacation this week, so we have a special guest. Patrick had Jesse Rogers on. I believe that was last week or two weeks ago. So we're going polar oposites here where we're as as Jesse, let everyone know, I'm spin Rate and with me today is stat Cast, MLB dot COM's Cubs beat reporter Jordan Bastion. Jordan, thank you for joining the show. I believe you you are an occasional listener, so you're familiar with Patrick's and my my shenanigans. I guess I don't know what that is where we're not too too wild here. We stick to Cubs most of the time, but thanks, thanks for joining, thanks for listening on occasion, and we can talk about this up and down Cubs team that has started to tease the fans and let them think that maybe they're getting back into it, but but they're not. They're not getting back into this thing.
00:01:17
Speaker 2: Yeah, thanks for having me on.
00:01:18
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, after listening to that episode, I thought, yeah, you need to balance it out. I think we're going expected stats only in this episode.
00:01:27
Speaker 2: Uh you know, I'm.
00:01:28
Speaker 3: Gonna ask us say via stat cast every sentence. I got my speller hat on, so I'm ready to go.
00:01:34
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:01:35
Speaker 3: You know, this team has been it's for the last couple of weeks, it's been. You've seen those flashes of a team that that looks like a team that should be in the playoff race. You know, they they've going back to July fourth, I think they've won.
00:01:50
Speaker 2: I think they've gone sixteen and twelve.
00:01:52
Speaker 3: I mean, that's not great, but it's it's been much improved compared to what we saw across May and June. They have these these couple game stretches where the offense looks like what we kind of envisioned it would be, you know, not a top of the league offense, but a deep one through nine, above average across the board offense. I think that's what we all expected going into this year, and just certain parts of that lineup bottomed out. And I think yesterday was another example of you saw a pitcher that they hadn't seen, and he was facing hitters that you know with that knowledge, and he leaned on a change up more than he had all year, and all of a sudden, the rack the whiffs were stacking up at a rate we haven't seen since like June for this Cubs team. And no one wants to hear the word June right now in relations to the Cubs offense. But for one day, that's what it was against the Twins and Festa.
00:02:50
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean this is a slightly different team than the one we have been watching. I would be more optimistic in general about this team. I think they're uh, they're not going to bottom out. Is is how I look at these final two months. So this is this is gonna be typical. They're they're going to tease. I just don't think. I think they dug themselves too big of a hole. One thing, I know, we we have a kind of a plan of what we're going to talk about here. One thing I just want to touch on a reason why they're different, of course, is esak Paratus. I think fans this this is typical for fans that they they see it like the first week of a player. Jamber Candelario last year, first week he was a stud, right and then got hurt. Uh, never really played well again for the Cubs. And and it's like a below average bat this season, right, Like that's so the initial uh, you know, what you initially see can sometimes be what fans think the player is. Jamer or Estak Paratus has been above average every month this season, every month except for August so far. When I talk about above average, I mean offensively. His worst month was July, where he had a one o two way to runs great at plus and had a three forty on base percentage. Like that's he had an eighteen walk right right in July. If that's your worst month, you'll take it like he's He's incredibly consistent. This is a minor slump adjusting to a new city. He's My guess is he's fine. That's just a quick aside. I just wanted to I saw people panicking last night, like what's wrong with this guy?
00:04:22
Speaker 2: Yeah?
00:04:22
Speaker 1: This strikeouts I think are a little up for him.
00:04:25
Speaker 3: This I mean he actually has had. If you've watched the bats, there's been some really good at bats in there that just have resulted in either a strikeout or or a ball in play, but you've seen I know we pointed to it that night. But he had a twelve pitch at bat ended in a strikeout the other night, and you don't you can't draw a direct line.
00:04:47
Speaker 2: But there was a five run inning that happened after that. I mean there is.
00:04:51
Speaker 3: So we have seen little moments of those grinding at bats, which is what you want from a good hitter when you're in a result slump. You want the bats to still be impacting in some way or to have a competitive at bat.
00:05:05
Speaker 2: We've seen competitive atvats. We just haven't seen the results yet.
00:05:08
Speaker 1: Absolutely, I would not be concerned about him. He is pretty consistent. This is a third year in a row where he's performed at a high level offensively. If you want to look at bad luck numbers like the last two months and including July in the start of August, like the babep numbers are just ridiculous, ridiculously low, like sub one thirty numbers with the Babe, He's gonna be fine.
00:05:33
Speaker 2: And it's regularly so hot of the pole power doesn't play in regularly.
00:05:41
Speaker 1: Well, one player who is turning it around. And when we talk about small sample, this small sample is pretty impressive. Peek row Armstrong is starting to look like a completely different hitter at the plate. I started to notice it so at the end of the right before the break, he had that two homer game, and I actually didn't love those homers. They the results, you'll take them, right, But the pitches he swung it are the types of pitches you don't want. He was swinging it and getting bad results on before. He was chasing too much, and he chased a couple of breaking balls down, got them out, you know, hit them out like he had good results on pitches he probably should have swung it. And then you know, coming out of the break, he looked like the same guy, chasing way too much. I think he went on an oh for twenty one stretch there like it was bad, and he was chasing still in Kansas City. The second he got to Kansas City. That even that first game, I was like, ooh, this looks like a different guy. He started to get some results in Kansas City. First couple games of Cincinnati, line drives all over the place, didn't get results. But he's not chasing as much. He's making more hard contact, so he's this is a three six nine ten games sample now including Monday night, he has an eight point eight strikeout ray. He has a one forty eight way to runs creative plus. You know you want to see more walks. I think he has one walk in that stretch. It's okay. He probably needs to start walking more. And I think you were there on Saturday when Dustin Kelly kind of talked about like he's not going to be seeking out walks, but but there's a way that they'll come if he starts doing some damage.
00:07:27
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:07:28
Speaker 3: I think it's the old adage that walks for a hitter, especially of his kind of profile, are going to be the byproduct of just good pitch selection and good at baths.
00:07:39
Speaker 2: You don't, I don't.
00:07:40
Speaker 3: I don't think he's the type of player you go up there and say, hey, I want you to draw walks.
00:07:45
Speaker 2: You don't want Peecrow Armston hunting for walks.
00:07:48
Speaker 3: You want him hunting for doubles and triples and or getting on base and turning a single into a double with a stolen base. But the walks are going to be that he's starting to learn to recognize the pitches that he has been chasing. And I think what he's talked about too, is he's starting to see some pitchers more than once. He's starting to get those mental reps so he can know what a guy's going to in what situation, or just what the shape of his breaking ball looks like. That's going to be valuable as he continues to learn. And I think if you actually I was looking at his fifteen game rolling on Fangrafts Jesse and Mooney, you can tune out right now, but I think if you actually go back to late June, you can steadily see that swinging strike rate just in full decline, so that part of it has started has been in decline for a good month plus. And yeah, I think he started some drills with Dustin Kelly really focusing on almost overemphasizing the weight distribution over his back leg to really stay back when he was hitting. I think you wrote he had conversations with Nick Madrigal about just his style of doing that and how he tried to incorporate a little bit of that mindset where you almost feel like you're off balance or leaning back too far, but it's actually just forcing you to not get out front. And we've seen a lot of pulled balls into the right field corner, which as soon as he puts a ball into the right field corner, that's a double, you know, for a guy with his speed. So I think we're seeing really really improved swing decisions. We're seeing him just on time more lately because of some of the drill work.
00:09:34
Speaker 2: He's been doing.
00:09:36
Speaker 3: And I mean, gotta remember, this guy broke into the big leagues at what twenty one, he's yeah, twenty two right now. The expectations are so high for him, and you know, a player's peak is I think we've learned it's not necessarily twenty seven anymore. Maybe it's skews a little younger than that, but I mean, this guy still has multiple seasons until he's peak. Major league Pete Crow Armstrong, it's hard to learn and develop in the big league level, and I think, you know, you hear a lot of people say that, but it's true. And you've got two examples this year of Petrol Armstrong and Miguel Amaya, who they've made.
00:10:15
Speaker 2: Stance implementation changes.
00:10:18
Speaker 3: That is the type of stuff that you would tell a minor leaguer to do in the minor leagues, and they're going, no, we need you to do this in the major leagues, try it out for a couple of days, and let's work from there. You know, that's developing at the major league level, and you know, I think we've seen tons of positive signs lately.
00:10:35
Speaker 1: Yeah, and so much of when you talk about how it feels like he's almost leaning too far back or too much on his back leg, like, so much of it is like these mental cues and the feel can be different than what's actually happening, right, and you just have to like, what's where are you comfortable with things? And when I was talking to Pete, a big thing that stood out to me is like he's getting a lot of it right and that can sometimes be overwhelming, but well, what he's he's he's really good. It seems to be like filtering out what he needs and just taking He's like he's like, there's not there's there's only so many ways to do this right, Like everyone has different paths to success, but there's only so many ways that things can work out. There's you can't have like there's not like thousands of different things. So he's like trying to pick the things that that work for him, like he is something that stood out to him was in spring training in the cage, like Dansby noticed he was doing too many things, and he was like, hey, just focus on the finish. Focus on the finish of your swing. And everything in the mindset is everything up the middle, hard up the middle. And and that's something that he's he's just kept that and then like talkman gives him a little bits of advice, Cody Beundry, he has all these veterans or really smart ball players just giving him little tidbits along the way. Uh. And the reason they're doing that is because they see them men's talent, right, Like this guy's an elite defender in centerfield. We can we can hem and haw about what happened on Saturday and listen, that was a bad play. It shouldn't have happened. The Cubs should have won that game. But he's he's still learning, Like you said, he's twenty two.
00:12:15
Speaker 3: One thing I like too is and Creg Council has used this example of that. It reminds him of Carlos Gomez when he first got to Milwaukee and he said, the one of the differences there and what I think what you're talking about all the advice that Pete's getting. All the advice that Pete Carl Armstrong is getting from the staff, from his teammates is how do we maximize your strengths and turn you into the best version of you. What creug Council has said happened to Carlos Gomez was he was a similarly speed based type hitter, and back in the day, it was, here's what we want you to do because you are that type of player. And they would almost they would force hitters to be someone who they weren't, and it took him a long time. You know, hey, get the ball on the ground, you know, move the runner over like you're you're the you're the fast slap hitter type guy. With Pete, it's like, no, you have a dynamic skill set if we can maximize it, So let's focus on getting getting that out of you.
00:13:17
Speaker 2: But if you look at.
00:13:17
Speaker 3: Gomas's his kind of career track record is first five years I was looking at this up he was seventy.
00:13:23
Speaker 2: Three ops plus a well below up average.
00:13:26
Speaker 3: His ground ball rate was really high, and then you could see when he got to Milwaukee there was less emphasis on ground balls. He's getting the ball on the air more. All of a sudden, that on base is ticking up and ticking up, and suddenly he's getting MVP votes and there's a two time All Star because he got his ops plus into the one twenty range. And I think, like, if you can get Pete crow Armstrong to that ninety five to one twenty range one twenty being like, this dude will get MVP votes because of the skills. Like it's it's like we talk about Danzby Swanson. If you can just be a league average or slightly a bug league average offensive player, that's superstar level, you know, So I think when you're talking about the all round games, I just thought that was an interesting example council is leaned on of you know, this is a normal career trajectory for a young player, and in Pete's case, this is let's emphasize your strengths, not make you do things that don't spit who you are as a player.
00:14:25
Speaker 1: Yeah, and and I glossed over it. I said, the eight point eight strikeout, eight point eight percent strikeout right over the last ten games. I don't think he's going to be like a twelve percent strikeout guy, but right now he's like twenty three point six.
00:14:37
Speaker 2: Right now you're seeing the best version of him.
00:14:40
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's like twenty three point six for the season, and like after what he did last year, it was what nineteen played appearance is not enough to really make grand conclusions, but still like that's that's solid. Like his babeb is way too low for his speed. He's this is this is fine. I know the results aren't fully there for the full season, but this, like I think Cubs fans now that we've kind of seen like this stretch of like, oh wait, he can make adjustments, he can look good at the plate. I was getting to the point where I was like, oh, these chases on these sliders in are just like that's unbearable to watch, Like you have to adjust, and he did so I think there's reason to be optimistic for fans. I think obviously the speed's there. You have elite speed, top three, top five in the game speed. It's like Bobby wit, Ellie De la Cruz and Peeker Armstrong right like these this is an elite talent that you know, if he starts to look like you said, ninety five one hundred way to runs great A plus that is a great player with his defense in center field. It's it's starting to build some optimism. I think, you know, you don't want to get overwhelmed or overthink things for twenty twenty four, but twenty twenty five like this, Suddenly it changes the trajectory of things and you feel a little bit more comfortable, and you start talking about depth, and you know all the options you have and what what Cody Bellinger is going to do as far as opting in, opting out, and you have different you have. You have a lot of options right now and part of that and we can shift here they like Council addressed this yesterday. But they three guys move up from Double A to Triple A, Matt Shaw, Kevin al contra Uh and James Trianto's. That's six top one hundred guys at Triple A, you know, including Kate Horton who has hurt. But you know, five position players. Moyses Biasteris, Owen Casey already there, Owen Casey's been there all season long. Moyses Biasterius is twenty years old. Like they have a loaded Triple A team, a bunch of position players on the cusp of coming up to the big leagues. You already have PCA and Matt Bush. Matt Bush, Michael Bush at the big league. There's a lot of young talent here, and not everyone's going to hit, not everyone's going to become a CUB, not everyone's going to impact this team as a cub. But it is a good thing to see them get to Triple A, to see them develop, to see them on the cusp of the big leagues and finally feeling good about the system. As far as it's it's almost I remember in fourteen people would be like, who cares about these these prospects? Right? Because they're they're these intangible concepts. They're starting to become tangible now and it's something fans can really grasp a hold of.
00:17:42
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's one thing I've really liked since i've been so I came over to this beat in nineteen and maybe you can speak to what the development was like before that.
00:17:53
Speaker 2: I know you can.
00:17:55
Speaker 3: But one thing I've really liked of this sort of new player development regime is the they're not timid to push guys that are young up the ladder, especially on the position player side.
00:18:10
Speaker 2: Before you would look at their age and think like, oh, they're ready for that level.
00:18:13
Speaker 3: I've really liked how fast they pushed Owen Casey up the level. You know, they drafted Shaw and he said, I want to be pushed. I want to be in the big leagues. And one of the reasons he liked at the Cubs where the team that drafted him is he was confident they would do it.
00:18:30
Speaker 2: They've backed that up and his performance has dictated it.
00:18:34
Speaker 3: James Toronto's who I think kind of flies under the radar a little bit just because of some of the other prospect names. He's been pushed and has answered the bell and moved up quickly and showing an incredible propensity for just not striking out and getting on base. And so I think that's been really impressive, and these guys have backed it up. And yeah, I think when you start when you hear Jed Hoyer say at the trade deadline, like, yeah, this year hasn't called the way that the Cubs have wanted it to go, but they still feel they're in a good organizational place foundation wise for the next two years. It's it's because of this, It's because you have this layer coming and it's not necessarily plug and play guys. Oh, these are all gonna be superstars and you plug them in. And that's what top one hundred means. It's you fill out a major league team with veteran major league players and if something happens, you have this layer underneath that you can trust and step in and fill in in spots, and you know, maybe you pick one spot up Pete crow Armstrong to say, you're gonna be the guy who's in the big leagues developing this year.
00:19:39
Speaker 2: We're not gonna We're not gonna run the whole farm system up.
00:19:42
Speaker 3: And you're waiting for these guys to be baking down in the minor leagues and when it's time, they're called up and you can kind of trust like they're ready for this. And I think pushing them is a big part of that in terms of kind of aggressively moving them up that ladder.
00:19:57
Speaker 1: Yeah, and fans are gonna wonder where do they play, where do they fit on the roster.
00:20:02
Speaker 2: It's a good problem if you ask.
00:20:05
Speaker 1: If you're asking, I mean, it's the same that there was a too many shortstops joke we used to have back when it was Starlin Castro and and Addison Russell and Javier Baiaz and Glaber Torres. These things have a way of working them out themselves out. You don't want to overthink these things. It's it's good to have a lot of talents.
00:20:27
Speaker 2: Right now, a lot of too many. What do you do?
00:20:29
Speaker 1: Right? So they'll they'll they it's how they utilize that talent, right, Like, how can they maximize Uh? I hate to talk about them like they're not people, but how do you maximize your assets? Right? That's that's how they think of it. And and you know, whether it's trading guys, whether it's playing guys in different positions, or whatever it may be. Uh Matt Shaw, Uh yeah, is he is? He probably best at second base? Probably yeah, But Nico Horner is locked in there right now. Does that mean that you don't consider, uh, you don't consider outside the box ideas in the offseason. I think you have to. This team didn't win enough this year. They haven't won enough this year, so you consider whatever you can to find ways to improve the team. And and h Jed was clear he doesn't want to shake things up just for the sake of making changes. But but I think at the deadline we saw that. I think Patrick and I were both a little surprised that they were able to pull off the es Ocparatists trade. Uh, So they're willing to be creative, like they've they've done some creative things, but getting Michael Bush was creative. Getting Paradis was creative also.
00:21:40
Speaker 3: I think the other important one is when you look at Jed Yer's track record of just making the move that he thinks is best for the team. Despite the like Christopher Morrell's fan favorite, you could think like, oh man, we can't trade that guy, Like, well, the marketing team react if we trade Christopher Morel or the core in twenty one? Oh man, you know it's getting rid of the whole core, Like that's how are fans going to react? I think he's made moves that have kind of stunned us, but stunned us in sort of the fan haat way. But when you're looking at roster construction, he's unafraid when that move is there, to pull that trigger. And so I think, you know, I think that gives some I don't know if you want to say hope, but maybe just optimism that the way this season went, you know, hopefully this front office will be unafraid to make something drastic to to not necessarily shake things up, but reimagine what the core and what the lineup needs to look like, because you want to have feeder lanes to get the prospects up, but you also need to make a market improvement over over this lineup when there's, to your point, over and over and over and over, when there's not a superstar.
00:23:04
Speaker 2: Anchoring the level of floor that you can expect.
00:23:10
Speaker 1: The next question fans are going to have is when when did these guys get up to the big leagues. I think you know only one of them is on the forty man that's Kevin al contra H. He's probably arguably the furthest away from getting to the big leagues. He also plays a position that he plays Pete Armstrong's position, and he's frankly really good at center field. Early on, when they first acquired him, people were like, he's going to go out of the position. He is, He's not. He has these long limbs, he takes these long strides and he can handle center. He's faster than he's he's stayed faster and more limber, limber than people expected so far, and he's he's a plus center fielder according to all reports. I get That's that's a great another great problem to have. I think the closest if if they're not getting in contention that the person that makes the most sense his own case, he needs to be added to the forty man After the season. You can stick him at d eh. You can give him some time in right field if you want. You know, there's ways you can find time for him in the final month if things, you know, go continue to trend the way they're trending right now, which is they're on the outside looking at if they get it, if they get into this race, if somehow they're a game or two back and it's September, right, yeah, then I think you throw everything out the window about forty man stuff. Who can help the team? Right that? That like the thinking has to shift. I look, I we've talked to Jed long enough. Like he's competitive. He's not gonna be overthinking forty man moves. If you're if you're in the race, right like, he's gonna consider that stuff. If they're out of it, if it's still five games or whatever, six games out, yeah, September first, he's he's not gonna be like I'm calling up Matt Shaw unless they decide like, hey, let's give him a cup of coffee this year and and then bring him up to start next year in the whole Rookie of the Year stuff, and you know, like you can give him like they did with Pca last year. But again last year they were competing. I do think that if they get in this race, then it's just like who helps the team, and then I would consider any of those guys except for probably a Contra and probably Treanto's, but shaw by Stairs in Casey would all all be considered.
00:25:22
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, and fans also got to remember it's much different in September these days too, with the limitations on how many players you can call up, Like almost the days of the September call up were almost kind of gone. It's like a by gone era just in terms of like, oh, this kid will get a September call up, let's take a look at him. That's just the roster rules don't really allow for that as much as it used to. I think we saw Canario was one of those where it was like he was up, but then he was optioned or he was delayed brought up. I don't remember the exact order, but it was like because of the rules, they had to kind of be a little different with how they took a look at him down the stretch. So but yeah, I kind of agree with you.
00:26:05
Speaker 4: I think if somehow they can chip a win off the deficit every week and pull back into the race over the last seven weeks, yeah, you got to start considering that stuff.
00:26:19
Speaker 3: But I agree also that I think Owen Casey has kind of made the most sense for the longest now. Bellinger needing to stick into the DH role kind of hampers the flexibility of the roster at the moment. Once he can play the field, then Craig Council has the more ability to rotate guys in and out of DH, and so if you eventually get to that place, Owen Casey would be a nice addition into that rotation.
00:26:49
Speaker 2: I think he's the one that makes the most sense.
00:26:52
Speaker 1: Yeah, we'll see what happens over these final seven weeks. I think Monday's loss puts puts a damper on hopes of getting back into the right now. But you could say that like every week if they win these Yeah, if they win, if they win this series against Minnesota, they have two against the White Sox, and then it's like and then you have then the hope gets back up right, like fans are gonna start dreaming again. So that's just how I feel like. These past four weeks in general have been up and down nature of this team. That's it's hard to find consistency. But I think that's why they are where they are. Uh So, Jordan, thanks so much for joining me on this episode. Uh sorry, I lost track of what I was saying because I'm thinking about what I need to do. I'll have my editors cut this out, Jordan, Jordan, thanks so much for joining me. Jordan, you can find his work at MLB dot com. Jordan Bastion, Cubs Beat Reporter, appreciate you nerding out with me, giving Jesse and Patrick are run for their money, making sure that we don't only have meatballs on this show. Balance, bear and balance, That's what we are. This is Northside Territory. Thanks so much for listening. Make sure to rate, review and subscribe. Rate. Make sure to read Jordan's work at MLB dot com. Make sure to read mine and Patrick's work and subscribe to the Athletic. We appreciate you all listening. Thanks everyone, Take care,
Speaker 1: Right, like fans are gonna start dreaming again. So that's just how I feel like these past four weeks in general have been welcome into Northside Territory. Foul Territory Networks Cubs Podcast. I'm Sahadev Sharma. Patrick Mooney is on vacation this week, so we have a special guest. Patrick had Jesse Rogers on. I believe that was last week or two weeks ago. So we're going polar oposites here where we're as as Jesse, let everyone know, I'm spin Rate and with me today is stat Cast, MLB dot COM's Cubs beat reporter Jordan Bastion. Jordan, thank you for joining the show. I believe you you are an occasional listener, so you're familiar with Patrick's and my my shenanigans. I guess I don't know what that is where we're not too too wild here. We stick to Cubs most of the time, but thanks, thanks for joining, thanks for listening on occasion, and we can talk about this up and down Cubs team that has started to tease the fans and let them think that maybe they're getting back into it, but but they're not. They're not getting back into this thing.
00:01:17
Speaker 2: Yeah, thanks for having me on.
00:01:18
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, after listening to that episode, I thought, yeah, you need to balance it out. I think we're going expected stats only in this episode.
00:01:27
Speaker 2: Uh you know, I'm.
00:01:28
Speaker 3: Gonna ask us say via stat cast every sentence. I got my speller hat on, so I'm ready to go.
00:01:34
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:01:35
Speaker 3: You know, this team has been it's for the last couple of weeks, it's been. You've seen those flashes of a team that that looks like a team that should be in the playoff race. You know, they they've going back to July fourth, I think they've won.
00:01:50
Speaker 2: I think they've gone sixteen and twelve.
00:01:52
Speaker 3: I mean, that's not great, but it's it's been much improved compared to what we saw across May and June. They have these these couple game stretches where the offense looks like what we kind of envisioned it would be, you know, not a top of the league offense, but a deep one through nine, above average across the board offense. I think that's what we all expected going into this year, and just certain parts of that lineup bottomed out. And I think yesterday was another example of you saw a pitcher that they hadn't seen, and he was facing hitters that you know with that knowledge, and he leaned on a change up more than he had all year, and all of a sudden, the rack the whiffs were stacking up at a rate we haven't seen since like June for this Cubs team. And no one wants to hear the word June right now in relations to the Cubs offense. But for one day, that's what it was against the Twins and Festa.
00:02:50
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean this is a slightly different team than the one we have been watching. I would be more optimistic in general about this team. I think they're uh, they're not going to bottom out. Is is how I look at these final two months. So this is this is gonna be typical. They're they're going to tease. I just don't think. I think they dug themselves too big of a hole. One thing, I know, we we have a kind of a plan of what we're going to talk about here. One thing I just want to touch on a reason why they're different, of course, is esak Paratus. I think fans this this is typical for fans that they they see it like the first week of a player. Jamber Candelario last year, first week he was a stud, right and then got hurt. Uh, never really played well again for the Cubs. And and it's like a below average bat this season, right, Like that's so the initial uh, you know, what you initially see can sometimes be what fans think the player is. Jamer or Estak Paratus has been above average every month this season, every month except for August so far. When I talk about above average, I mean offensively. His worst month was July, where he had a one o two way to runs great at plus and had a three forty on base percentage. Like that's he had an eighteen walk right right in July. If that's your worst month, you'll take it like he's He's incredibly consistent. This is a minor slump adjusting to a new city. He's My guess is he's fine. That's just a quick aside. I just wanted to I saw people panicking last night, like what's wrong with this guy?
00:04:22
Speaker 2: Yeah?
00:04:22
Speaker 1: This strikeouts I think are a little up for him.
00:04:25
Speaker 3: This I mean he actually has had. If you've watched the bats, there's been some really good at bats in there that just have resulted in either a strikeout or or a ball in play, but you've seen I know we pointed to it that night. But he had a twelve pitch at bat ended in a strikeout the other night, and you don't you can't draw a direct line.
00:04:47
Speaker 2: But there was a five run inning that happened after that. I mean there is.
00:04:51
Speaker 3: So we have seen little moments of those grinding at bats, which is what you want from a good hitter when you're in a result slump. You want the bats to still be impacting in some way or to have a competitive at bat.
00:05:05
Speaker 2: We've seen competitive atvats. We just haven't seen the results yet.
00:05:08
Speaker 1: Absolutely, I would not be concerned about him. He is pretty consistent. This is a third year in a row where he's performed at a high level offensively. If you want to look at bad luck numbers like the last two months and including July in the start of August, like the babep numbers are just ridiculous, ridiculously low, like sub one thirty numbers with the Babe, He's gonna be fine.
00:05:33
Speaker 2: And it's regularly so hot of the pole power doesn't play in regularly.
00:05:41
Speaker 1: Well, one player who is turning it around. And when we talk about small sample, this small sample is pretty impressive. Peek row Armstrong is starting to look like a completely different hitter at the plate. I started to notice it so at the end of the right before the break, he had that two homer game, and I actually didn't love those homers. They the results, you'll take them, right, But the pitches he swung it are the types of pitches you don't want. He was swinging it and getting bad results on before. He was chasing too much, and he chased a couple of breaking balls down, got them out, you know, hit them out like he had good results on pitches he probably should have swung it. And then you know, coming out of the break, he looked like the same guy, chasing way too much. I think he went on an oh for twenty one stretch there like it was bad, and he was chasing still in Kansas City. The second he got to Kansas City. That even that first game, I was like, ooh, this looks like a different guy. He started to get some results in Kansas City. First couple games of Cincinnati, line drives all over the place, didn't get results. But he's not chasing as much. He's making more hard contact, so he's this is a three six nine ten games sample now including Monday night, he has an eight point eight strikeout ray. He has a one forty eight way to runs creative plus. You know you want to see more walks. I think he has one walk in that stretch. It's okay. He probably needs to start walking more. And I think you were there on Saturday when Dustin Kelly kind of talked about like he's not going to be seeking out walks, but but there's a way that they'll come if he starts doing some damage.
00:07:27
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:07:28
Speaker 3: I think it's the old adage that walks for a hitter, especially of his kind of profile, are going to be the byproduct of just good pitch selection and good at baths.
00:07:39
Speaker 2: You don't, I don't.
00:07:40
Speaker 3: I don't think he's the type of player you go up there and say, hey, I want you to draw walks.
00:07:45
Speaker 2: You don't want Peecrow Armston hunting for walks.
00:07:48
Speaker 3: You want him hunting for doubles and triples and or getting on base and turning a single into a double with a stolen base. But the walks are going to be that he's starting to learn to recognize the pitches that he has been chasing. And I think what he's talked about too, is he's starting to see some pitchers more than once. He's starting to get those mental reps so he can know what a guy's going to in what situation, or just what the shape of his breaking ball looks like. That's going to be valuable as he continues to learn. And I think if you actually I was looking at his fifteen game rolling on Fangrafts Jesse and Mooney, you can tune out right now, but I think if you actually go back to late June, you can steadily see that swinging strike rate just in full decline, so that part of it has started has been in decline for a good month plus. And yeah, I think he started some drills with Dustin Kelly really focusing on almost overemphasizing the weight distribution over his back leg to really stay back when he was hitting. I think you wrote he had conversations with Nick Madrigal about just his style of doing that and how he tried to incorporate a little bit of that mindset where you almost feel like you're off balance or leaning back too far, but it's actually just forcing you to not get out front. And we've seen a lot of pulled balls into the right field corner, which as soon as he puts a ball into the right field corner, that's a double, you know, for a guy with his speed. So I think we're seeing really really improved swing decisions. We're seeing him just on time more lately because of some of the drill work.
00:09:34
Speaker 2: He's been doing.
00:09:36
Speaker 3: And I mean, gotta remember, this guy broke into the big leagues at what twenty one, he's yeah, twenty two right now. The expectations are so high for him, and you know, a player's peak is I think we've learned it's not necessarily twenty seven anymore. Maybe it's skews a little younger than that, but I mean, this guy still has multiple seasons until he's peak. Major league Pete Crow Armstrong, it's hard to learn and develop in the big league level, and I think, you know, you hear a lot of people say that, but it's true. And you've got two examples this year of Petrol Armstrong and Miguel Amaya, who they've made.
00:10:15
Speaker 2: Stance implementation changes.
00:10:18
Speaker 3: That is the type of stuff that you would tell a minor leaguer to do in the minor leagues, and they're going, no, we need you to do this in the major leagues, try it out for a couple of days, and let's work from there. You know, that's developing at the major league level, and you know, I think we've seen tons of positive signs lately.
00:10:35
Speaker 1: Yeah, and so much of when you talk about how it feels like he's almost leaning too far back or too much on his back leg, like, so much of it is like these mental cues and the feel can be different than what's actually happening, right, and you just have to like, what's where are you comfortable with things? And when I was talking to Pete, a big thing that stood out to me is like he's getting a lot of it right and that can sometimes be overwhelming, but well, what he's he's he's really good. It seems to be like filtering out what he needs and just taking He's like he's like, there's not there's there's only so many ways to do this right, Like everyone has different paths to success, but there's only so many ways that things can work out. There's you can't have like there's not like thousands of different things. So he's like trying to pick the things that that work for him, like he is something that stood out to him was in spring training in the cage, like Dansby noticed he was doing too many things, and he was like, hey, just focus on the finish. Focus on the finish of your swing. And everything in the mindset is everything up the middle, hard up the middle. And and that's something that he's he's just kept that and then like talkman gives him a little bits of advice, Cody Beundry, he has all these veterans or really smart ball players just giving him little tidbits along the way. Uh. And the reason they're doing that is because they see them men's talent, right, Like this guy's an elite defender in centerfield. We can we can hem and haw about what happened on Saturday and listen, that was a bad play. It shouldn't have happened. The Cubs should have won that game. But he's he's still learning, Like you said, he's twenty two.
00:12:15
Speaker 3: One thing I like too is and Creg Council has used this example of that. It reminds him of Carlos Gomez when he first got to Milwaukee and he said, the one of the differences there and what I think what you're talking about all the advice that Pete's getting. All the advice that Pete Carl Armstrong is getting from the staff, from his teammates is how do we maximize your strengths and turn you into the best version of you. What creug Council has said happened to Carlos Gomez was he was a similarly speed based type hitter, and back in the day, it was, here's what we want you to do because you are that type of player. And they would almost they would force hitters to be someone who they weren't, and it took him a long time. You know, hey, get the ball on the ground, you know, move the runner over like you're you're the you're the fast slap hitter type guy. With Pete, it's like, no, you have a dynamic skill set if we can maximize it, So let's focus on getting getting that out of you.
00:13:17
Speaker 2: But if you look at.
00:13:17
Speaker 3: Gomas's his kind of career track record is first five years I was looking at this up he was seventy.
00:13:23
Speaker 2: Three ops plus a well below up average.
00:13:26
Speaker 3: His ground ball rate was really high, and then you could see when he got to Milwaukee there was less emphasis on ground balls. He's getting the ball on the air more. All of a sudden, that on base is ticking up and ticking up, and suddenly he's getting MVP votes and there's a two time All Star because he got his ops plus into the one twenty range. And I think, like, if you can get Pete crow Armstrong to that ninety five to one twenty range one twenty being like, this dude will get MVP votes because of the skills. Like it's it's like we talk about Danzby Swanson. If you can just be a league average or slightly a bug league average offensive player, that's superstar level, you know, So I think when you're talking about the all round games, I just thought that was an interesting example council is leaned on of you know, this is a normal career trajectory for a young player, and in Pete's case, this is let's emphasize your strengths, not make you do things that don't spit who you are as a player.
00:14:25
Speaker 1: Yeah, and and I glossed over it. I said, the eight point eight strikeout, eight point eight percent strikeout right over the last ten games. I don't think he's going to be like a twelve percent strikeout guy, but right now he's like twenty three point six.
00:14:37
Speaker 2: Right now you're seeing the best version of him.
00:14:40
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's like twenty three point six for the season, and like after what he did last year, it was what nineteen played appearance is not enough to really make grand conclusions, but still like that's that's solid. Like his babeb is way too low for his speed. He's this is this is fine. I know the results aren't fully there for the full season, but this, like I think Cubs fans now that we've kind of seen like this stretch of like, oh wait, he can make adjustments, he can look good at the plate. I was getting to the point where I was like, oh, these chases on these sliders in are just like that's unbearable to watch, Like you have to adjust, and he did so I think there's reason to be optimistic for fans. I think obviously the speed's there. You have elite speed, top three, top five in the game speed. It's like Bobby wit, Ellie De la Cruz and Peeker Armstrong right like these this is an elite talent that you know, if he starts to look like you said, ninety five one hundred way to runs great A plus that is a great player with his defense in center field. It's it's starting to build some optimism. I think, you know, you don't want to get overwhelmed or overthink things for twenty twenty four, but twenty twenty five like this, Suddenly it changes the trajectory of things and you feel a little bit more comfortable, and you start talking about depth, and you know all the options you have and what what Cody Bellinger is going to do as far as opting in, opting out, and you have different you have. You have a lot of options right now and part of that and we can shift here they like Council addressed this yesterday. But they three guys move up from Double A to Triple A, Matt Shaw, Kevin al contra Uh and James Trianto's. That's six top one hundred guys at Triple A, you know, including Kate Horton who has hurt. But you know, five position players. Moyses Biasteris, Owen Casey already there, Owen Casey's been there all season long. Moyses Biasterius is twenty years old. Like they have a loaded Triple A team, a bunch of position players on the cusp of coming up to the big leagues. You already have PCA and Matt Bush. Matt Bush, Michael Bush at the big league. There's a lot of young talent here, and not everyone's going to hit, not everyone's going to become a CUB, not everyone's going to impact this team as a cub. But it is a good thing to see them get to Triple A, to see them develop, to see them on the cusp of the big leagues and finally feeling good about the system. As far as it's it's almost I remember in fourteen people would be like, who cares about these these prospects? Right? Because they're they're these intangible concepts. They're starting to become tangible now and it's something fans can really grasp a hold of.
00:17:42
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's one thing I've really liked since i've been so I came over to this beat in nineteen and maybe you can speak to what the development was like before that.
00:17:53
Speaker 2: I know you can.
00:17:55
Speaker 3: But one thing I've really liked of this sort of new player development regime is the they're not timid to push guys that are young up the ladder, especially on the position player side.
00:18:10
Speaker 2: Before you would look at their age and think like, oh, they're ready for that level.
00:18:13
Speaker 3: I've really liked how fast they pushed Owen Casey up the level. You know, they drafted Shaw and he said, I want to be pushed. I want to be in the big leagues. And one of the reasons he liked at the Cubs where the team that drafted him is he was confident they would do it.
00:18:30
Speaker 2: They've backed that up and his performance has dictated it.
00:18:34
Speaker 3: James Toronto's who I think kind of flies under the radar a little bit just because of some of the other prospect names. He's been pushed and has answered the bell and moved up quickly and showing an incredible propensity for just not striking out and getting on base. And so I think that's been really impressive, and these guys have backed it up. And yeah, I think when you start when you hear Jed Hoyer say at the trade deadline, like, yeah, this year hasn't called the way that the Cubs have wanted it to go, but they still feel they're in a good organizational place foundation wise for the next two years. It's it's because of this, It's because you have this layer coming and it's not necessarily plug and play guys. Oh, these are all gonna be superstars and you plug them in. And that's what top one hundred means. It's you fill out a major league team with veteran major league players and if something happens, you have this layer underneath that you can trust and step in and fill in in spots, and you know, maybe you pick one spot up Pete crow Armstrong to say, you're gonna be the guy who's in the big leagues developing this year.
00:19:39
Speaker 2: We're not gonna We're not gonna run the whole farm system up.
00:19:42
Speaker 3: And you're waiting for these guys to be baking down in the minor leagues and when it's time, they're called up and you can kind of trust like they're ready for this. And I think pushing them is a big part of that in terms of kind of aggressively moving them up that ladder.
00:19:57
Speaker 1: Yeah, and fans are gonna wonder where do they play, where do they fit on the roster.
00:20:02
Speaker 2: It's a good problem if you ask.
00:20:05
Speaker 1: If you're asking, I mean, it's the same that there was a too many shortstops joke we used to have back when it was Starlin Castro and and Addison Russell and Javier Baiaz and Glaber Torres. These things have a way of working them out themselves out. You don't want to overthink these things. It's it's good to have a lot of talents.
00:20:27
Speaker 2: Right now, a lot of too many. What do you do?
00:20:29
Speaker 1: Right? So they'll they'll they it's how they utilize that talent, right, Like, how can they maximize Uh? I hate to talk about them like they're not people, but how do you maximize your assets? Right? That's that's how they think of it. And and you know, whether it's trading guys, whether it's playing guys in different positions, or whatever it may be. Uh Matt Shaw, Uh yeah, is he is? He probably best at second base? Probably yeah, But Nico Horner is locked in there right now. Does that mean that you don't consider, uh, you don't consider outside the box ideas in the offseason. I think you have to. This team didn't win enough this year. They haven't won enough this year, so you consider whatever you can to find ways to improve the team. And and h Jed was clear he doesn't want to shake things up just for the sake of making changes. But but I think at the deadline we saw that. I think Patrick and I were both a little surprised that they were able to pull off the es Ocparatists trade. Uh, So they're willing to be creative, like they've they've done some creative things, but getting Michael Bush was creative. Getting Paradis was creative also.
00:21:40
Speaker 3: I think the other important one is when you look at Jed Yer's track record of just making the move that he thinks is best for the team. Despite the like Christopher Morrell's fan favorite, you could think like, oh man, we can't trade that guy, Like, well, the marketing team react if we trade Christopher Morel or the core in twenty one? Oh man, you know it's getting rid of the whole core, Like that's how are fans going to react? I think he's made moves that have kind of stunned us, but stunned us in sort of the fan haat way. But when you're looking at roster construction, he's unafraid when that move is there, to pull that trigger. And so I think, you know, I think that gives some I don't know if you want to say hope, but maybe just optimism that the way this season went, you know, hopefully this front office will be unafraid to make something drastic to to not necessarily shake things up, but reimagine what the core and what the lineup needs to look like, because you want to have feeder lanes to get the prospects up, but you also need to make a market improvement over over this lineup when there's, to your point, over and over and over and over, when there's not a superstar.
00:23:04
Speaker 2: Anchoring the level of floor that you can expect.
00:23:10
Speaker 1: The next question fans are going to have is when when did these guys get up to the big leagues. I think you know only one of them is on the forty man that's Kevin al contra H. He's probably arguably the furthest away from getting to the big leagues. He also plays a position that he plays Pete Armstrong's position, and he's frankly really good at center field. Early on, when they first acquired him, people were like, he's going to go out of the position. He is, He's not. He has these long limbs, he takes these long strides and he can handle center. He's faster than he's he's stayed faster and more limber, limber than people expected so far, and he's he's a plus center fielder according to all reports. I get That's that's a great another great problem to have. I think the closest if if they're not getting in contention that the person that makes the most sense his own case, he needs to be added to the forty man After the season. You can stick him at d eh. You can give him some time in right field if you want. You know, there's ways you can find time for him in the final month if things, you know, go continue to trend the way they're trending right now, which is they're on the outside looking at if they get it, if they get into this race, if somehow they're a game or two back and it's September, right, yeah, then I think you throw everything out the window about forty man stuff. Who can help the team? Right that? That like the thinking has to shift. I look, I we've talked to Jed long enough. Like he's competitive. He's not gonna be overthinking forty man moves. If you're if you're in the race, right like, he's gonna consider that stuff. If they're out of it, if it's still five games or whatever, six games out, yeah, September first, he's he's not gonna be like I'm calling up Matt Shaw unless they decide like, hey, let's give him a cup of coffee this year and and then bring him up to start next year in the whole Rookie of the Year stuff, and you know, like you can give him like they did with Pca last year. But again last year they were competing. I do think that if they get in this race, then it's just like who helps the team, and then I would consider any of those guys except for probably a Contra and probably Treanto's, but shaw by Stairs in Casey would all all be considered.
00:25:22
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, and fans also got to remember it's much different in September these days too, with the limitations on how many players you can call up, Like almost the days of the September call up were almost kind of gone. It's like a by gone era just in terms of like, oh, this kid will get a September call up, let's take a look at him. That's just the roster rules don't really allow for that as much as it used to. I think we saw Canario was one of those where it was like he was up, but then he was optioned or he was delayed brought up. I don't remember the exact order, but it was like because of the rules, they had to kind of be a little different with how they took a look at him down the stretch. So but yeah, I kind of agree with you.
00:26:05
Speaker 4: I think if somehow they can chip a win off the deficit every week and pull back into the race over the last seven weeks, yeah, you got to start considering that stuff.
00:26:19
Speaker 3: But I agree also that I think Owen Casey has kind of made the most sense for the longest now. Bellinger needing to stick into the DH role kind of hampers the flexibility of the roster at the moment. Once he can play the field, then Craig Council has the more ability to rotate guys in and out of DH, and so if you eventually get to that place, Owen Casey would be a nice addition into that rotation.
00:26:49
Speaker 2: I think he's the one that makes the most sense.
00:26:52
Speaker 1: Yeah, we'll see what happens over these final seven weeks. I think Monday's loss puts puts a damper on hopes of getting back into the right now. But you could say that like every week if they win these Yeah, if they win, if they win this series against Minnesota, they have two against the White Sox, and then it's like and then you have then the hope gets back up right, like fans are gonna start dreaming again. So that's just how I feel like. These past four weeks in general have been up and down nature of this team. That's it's hard to find consistency. But I think that's why they are where they are. Uh So, Jordan, thanks so much for joining me on this episode. Uh sorry, I lost track of what I was saying because I'm thinking about what I need to do. I'll have my editors cut this out, Jordan, Jordan, thanks so much for joining me. Jordan, you can find his work at MLB dot com. Jordan Bastion, Cubs Beat Reporter, appreciate you nerding out with me, giving Jesse and Patrick are run for their money, making sure that we don't only have meatballs on this show. Balance, bear and balance, That's what we are. This is Northside Territory. Thanks so much for listening. Make sure to rate, review and subscribe. Rate. Make sure to read Jordan's work at MLB dot com. Make sure to read mine and Patrick's work and subscribe to the Athletic. We appreciate you all listening. Thanks everyone, Take care,
