After allowing a walk-off against a number 9 hitter (albeit a pinch hitter), I wanted to check in on a feeling that I’ve seen on social media that Cubs pitchers are constantly getting victimized by the bottom of the order of other teams.
Finding exact stats for where Cubs pitchers rank on this across MLB is a bit difficult. For batting stats by batting order position, Fangraphs Splits tool is easy to use. For example, the Cubs have the 2nd highest OPS (just behind the DBacks) in baseball for the 9th position in the batting order at .741.
But for pitchers, there is no specific split available for ranking teams by opponant batting position. Fortunately, Baseball Reference does have this data broken out by team, so we can at least see where the Cubs stand versus the league average.
| Batting Position | vs Cubs OPS | vs MLB OPS | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1st | .701 | .755 | +.054 |
| 2nd | .743 | .765 | +.022 |
| 3rd | .760 | .762 | +.002 |
| 4th | .796 | .741 | -.055 |
| 5th | .734 | .711 | -.023 |
| 6th | .685 | .706 | +.021 |
| 7th | .658 | .697 | +.039 |
| 8th | .678 | .663 | -.015 |
| 9th | .721 | .644 | -.077 |
So, for 7th hitters, the Cubs are actually better than league average against them. And they are just below league average against 8th hitters. But 9th hitters have absolutely been killing them.
Checking in on home runs given up to the 9 spot, the Cubs have allowed 18. Meanwhile, the league average per team is 10.4 (311 home runs divided by 30 teams). If you remove the Cubs from that average, it goes down to 10.1.
I was able to track down that 3 of those home runs cam from pinch hitters: Adolis Garcia, Adrian Del Castillo and Ryan Waldschmidt. Here is the list of the other 9 hitters who have homered against the Cubs, and their total home runs:
| Player | Team | Home Runs |
|---|---|---|
| Francisco Alvarez | NYM | 13 |
| Matt McLain | CIN | 13 |
| Jacob Young | WSN | 10 |
| Nathan Church | STL | 10 |
| Kyle Karros | COL | 10 |
| Mike Yastrzemski | ATL | 9 |
| Justin Foscue | TEX | 9 |
| Henry Davis | PIT | 8 |
| Brett Sullivan | COL | 7 |
| Christian Vázquez | HOU | 7 |
| Ke’Bryan Hayes | CIN | 5 |
| Nick Allen | HOU | 2 |
| Jonah Cox | SFG | 2 |
| Sung-Mun Song | SDP | 1 |
There are a few hitters here who are at double figure home runs, but it is not a list of sluggers.
Ultimately, I think the propensity of Cubs pitchers to give up home runs is hurting them up and down the order, but specifically the clean up hitters (with 31 home runs compared to an MLB average of 20.5) and 9th hitters.
So, ultimately, thinking that the pitchers of the Cubs are bad against the bottom of the order is a myth. However, that they are relatively bad against number 9 hitters is absolutely the truth. And it continues to hurt.
Cubs in 7 
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