What changes must the Chicago Cubs make to become a postseason contender?
Yahoo Sports senior MLB analyst Jordan Shusterman is joined by Toronto Blue Jays writer Ben Nicholson-Smith to discuss what the Chicago Cubs must do to ensure they make the postseason mix. Hear the full conversation on the “Baseball Bar-B-Cast” podcast - and subscribe on Apple Podcasts , Spotify or wherever you listen.
Video Transcript
The Chicago Cubs right now are in the opposite situation.
Jed Hoyer was very open speaking in Pittsburgh last week.
At the end of their losing streak, he said, "Listen, candidly, we thought, you know, we h- our pitching li- depth is being pushed to its limits.
We thought we had 10, 11 deep, and we, do not right now."
And so I think now we're, we're finding out what they can do, because I'm not worried about their lineup kinda coming out of their, their recent funk, but at some point you're gonna have to do better than what Jordan Wicks is giving them.
frankly, Taillon is probably gonna have to be, be a little bit more stable than, than he has been.
Ben Brown has been a huge bright spot.
He was impressive again over the weekend.
But Wicks continuing to struggle.
They'll get Matt Boyd back at some point.
They'll get Edward Cabrera back at some point.
But Justin Steele is not coming back anytime soon from what I can understand.
He had a setback in his comeback from Tommy John.
We know Kate Horton's out for the year.
I, I just This is the team, I keep saying it, this is the team that needs to go out, be aggressive, trade for some pitching.
And unlike with the Terence Cropper situation where you can wait it out as long as possible, the Cubs, I just don't know how long they can wait.
I just don't know how long they can wait before they just need to add something from, from exter- externally, because even compared to Toronto, their AAA depth is, is brutal.
They just don't have anybody that they can turn to right now.
and I think that, I think that we're seeing that's starting to, to catch up to them because I still think that they're a good team.
I think that they're gonna be in the mix here in the postseason race, but gotta, gotta add some more arms I think.
And maybe it costs more, but you have to just go out and do it.
I mean, there's, there's not a ton of pitching out there.
You always hear that this time of year.
And so to get anyone, to jump the market for anyone, usually that means overpaying, but maybe there's a case for the Cubs to do that.
Yeah.
Cubs are a team that I am struggling with what to do with, with my power rankings that will be coming out on Tuesday.
The Cubs, the last time I did power rankings, I believe on like May 12th during one of their heaters, they were up at number three, right behind the Braves and the Dodgers.
They will not be number three this week, but they are still, you know, a few games over 500 and I still like the bones of the team, so I still expect them to be somewhere in the top half
