First half negatives for the Cubs

Yester, I went over the things I was most pleased with for the Cubs in the first half. Today, we look at the negatives.

Now, with a team 12 games over .500, which is a winning percentage slightly above what the ZIPS projections had predicted, it really should be more positive than negative. But I think there’s a general tendency with sports teams to focus on the negative. And I’m not going to fight that tendency.

The Off-Season Acquisitions

I wrote about this a week ago, so I’m not going to re-hash things. Bregman, Cabrera, Harvey and Maton were the biggest pick-ups, and they’ve all been disappointing. Combined with the pitching injuries, it is sort of miraculous this team is where they are.

The Pitching Injuries

This is not the fault of anyone, I think. It seems like the Cubs were very careful with Horton and Harvey, and they both got hurt. Palencia’s work in the WBC might have contributed to his injury, but who knows. Hoby Milner had an emergency appendectomy, so it’s hard to in that on anyone. I suppose the Ben Brown injury, that appears to have been misdiagnosed in 2024 could be something you could pin on those doctors and trainers.

Or maybe another team in the NL Central has a voodoo doll of a Cubs’ pitcher they are using over and over.

It may seem like no other team could be hit by injuries as much as the Cubs, but they are currently only 7th in days of IL time (according to Spotrac) – with several other disappointing teams – including the Astros, Tigers, Blue Jays, Orioles and Diamondbacks ahead of them. Number 1 is the Dodgers, who just use a multi-million dollar replacement for any injury.

Here is a chart of the top 7 injury impacted teams, and their current win percentage difference versus PECOTA projections:

Team	Win Pct Diff	Injury Days
Dodgers	+.030	1426
Cubs	+.025	1152
Diamondbacks	+.004	1158
Astros	-.039	1266
Orioles	-.069	1169
Tigers	-.073	1280
Blue Jays	-.080	1210

On the flip side, the St. Louis Cardinals have been the team least impacted by injuries, which could be a factor in their surprising performance in 2025.

Nico and Mo Baller

Nico got off to a hot start when the weather was cold, with a .291/.370/.449 slash line in March and April. But since then, things have gone south. His OPS in May was .546, in June it was .575 and so far in July it is .374.

How has one of the most reliable contact hitters in the majors been so terrible?

Last season, he was a slightly above average hitter, with a 109 wRC+. But this season, that number is down to 79.

The biggest red flag in his 2026 stats is his batting average on balls in play. Most of his career, he’s been at or above a .300 BABIP. But this season, that number is a paltry .243. So, is this just bad luck, or are their other underlying reasons why his BABIP would be so low?

There no way to determine this for sure, but there are a couple concerning underlying numbers.

1. His Ground Ball to Fly Ball Ratio is out of whack. As a guy who does not hit home runs, lots of his hits come from sharp grounders. Has GB/FB ration has been between 1.32 and 1.40 the last four seasons, but this season it is down to 1.14.
2. His line drive % is down since April, going from 27% to start the season down to 19.8 (May), 20.2 (June) and 16.1 (July).
3. His barrel rate is at 0.9% this season, down from 2.3% in 2025.

But other stats are not concerning:

1. His hart hit rate is 26.6%, up slightly from 2025
2. His expected batting average is .284, compared to his actual batting average of .233
3. HIs overall line drive percentage of 22.0% is above what he hit in 2025 (20.4%).

I think if Hoerner can flatten his swing a bit, and stop hitting the ball in the air quite as much, he’ll see better BABIP luck in the 2nd half, and go back to being the productive player we expect.

As far a Moises Ballesteros goes, I really thought we we seeing a star in the making during the first month of the season. He slashed .338/.392/.620 in the first month, and then fell off a cliff. His OPS dropped to .687 overall after being at 1.012 in March and April.

With the emergence of Michael Conforto as the regular DH/RF against right-handed pitching, Ballesteros became somewhat expendable, and could be sent back to Iowa to work on his confidence and his catching.

It still remains to be seen whether Mo Baller will ever be a regular catcher, but having some defensive value would certainly help. So we will see how the additional reps in AAA help him out.

The bad news is that he has not dominated AAA pitching as one would hope. He is slashing .250/.374/.375 since being sent down. The .374 OBP is very encouraging, but the slugging has not really been there, and he just hit his first home run.

We could still see him back in Chicago this season, either with an injury or if Michael Conforto stops hitting. But it might not be until September, when having a 3rd catcher who can hit from the left side would be a luxury.

The Slumps

It seems like every single player has had at least one bad month for the Cubs, and the all seemed to coincide from May 9th to June 10th, when the Cubs went from 27-12 to 34-34.

Here are some of the “slump months” we’ve seen, with an OPS under .700, and how much lower it is than their season average.

Player	Slump Month	OPS	Diff from Avg
Moises Ballesteros	May	.358	-.329
Dansby Swanson	May	.448	-.257
Michael Conforto	June	.471	-.346
Nico Hoerner	May	.546	-.085
Seiya Suzuki	May	.551	-.260
Nico Hoerner	June	.575	-.056
Michael Busch	Mar/Apr	.576	-.187
Carson Kelly	May	.618	-.145
Miguel Amaya	May	.628	-.076
Alex Bregman	June	.658	-.038
Pete Crow Armstrong	Mar/Apr	.669	-.248
Alex Bregman	May	.687	-.009
Ian Happ	June	.687	-.072

Only Matt Shaw, who’s been injured, Ian Happ seemed to be spared from this list. And Happ is currently at a .572 OPS for July.

If the Cubs could somehow get everyone hot at once, and get decent pitching, I think they might be able to make a run at the Brewers. But if we see another stretch where everyone slumps, their hold on a Wild Card spot could be in jeopardy.