Hey, everyone, welcome back to another episode of Cubs on Tuesday.

It has been bad.

No way to sugarcoat it.

It's been bad.

Right now, the Cubs are seventy and fifty four, sixteen games above five hundred.

They still stand a five and a half games above the Cincinnati Reds in that last wild card standing.

They still have a ninety seven percent chance and making the playoffs.

But the vibe is awful.

The offense has escaped the Cubs.

Kyle Tucker is throwing his helmet, throwing his bat.

It does not look like the Cubs offense is clicking.

It's also inspiring a lot of dark thoughts.

Is this the beginning or the middle of a Cub's collapse?

Are they even going to make the playoffs?

Fans are a spiraling.

Even at my worst times, I'm spiraling.

I understand that, but I still come back to several different reasons that the Cubs could still or in this around more than that tread water, make it into the playoffs and normalize that offense that we saw for ten weeks of the season be the best in Major League Baseball.

We'll get into it a lot to talk about this episode.

Most of it will be centered on Kyle Tucker.

Some of it will be centered on the pitching returns of Javi A Sad Jamison Taione does come back this week in s Milwaukee Brewers.

We'll also talk about how we contrast what we've seen from the Cubs and versus the Brewers, and basically, by the end of this episode, I hope you feel a little bit I'm not gonna say better, but like realistic.

Because I'm prepping for this episode, I'm trying to make myself feel more realistic.

I'm thinking dark thoughts too, and I do think that after I just scrapped all the different numbers and looking at all the different trends, some of the things I've seen made me realize that, you know what, maybe I am overreacting just a little bit.

Maybe there is some reason to be optimistic, even though I say that cautiously, but more so, just a reason to believe that over the next forty games, it's not out of the realm of possibility things normalized.

But I do acknowledge it's been bad, really really bad.

So let's get into it.

The last week, we've seen Pete crow Armstrong start to look like his normal self.

We saw in May and June.

So over the past twenty five player appearances, he's batting three thirteen on base percentage of four twenty one, so he's chasing less.

Nico Horner has been three to eighteen over the last week.

He's looking good, especially with runners in scoring position, as we know outside that the run production over the last week has just not been there.

It's been reflected in three run games, two run games and shutouts.

Ian app betting one sixty seven, Michael Bush betting two hundreds, says Azuki betting to eleven, Dansby Swanson betting one eighty two, and then the affor mister Calentucker batting ninety five.

So when three quarters of your lineup is batting two hundred or below, of course you're just not going to score runs.

Most of the runs have been carried by Matt Shaw in the post second half, and Matt Shaw over the past week batting two fourteen, still showing some pop had a home run last week, but relying on a guy who spent time in Iowa who's been betting ninth is obviously what Currek Council does not have in mind.

So then the question is, well, in a small sample, despite some of the lack of results, who has just looked better, who's hitting the ball far, who's hitting it hard, who's basically hitting the baseball that's likely going to produce value.

And despite Ian App not having a high batting average, if you look at his last ten games, his expected numbers look pretty good.

He's trending up.

You look at sayas Zuki, he's also trend enough when you just look at how far he's hitting the ball and how hard he's hitting the ball.

Matt Shaw continues to trend up.

Nico continues to trend up.

However, even though pek armstring has looked better over the last week, a lot of the base hits we saw were not ones of the variety that we've seen driven, so he's actually still trending down.

Michael Bush, despite some of the home runs recently this month, he continues to trend down.

And Dansby Swanson, although he did have a few warning track hits that were out, he's still trending down due to some majority of week contact.

And then Kyle Tucker is just trending down, down, down, down.

He's among the lowest of that trend in this group.

Again, we will get into Kyle Tucker.

Despite all these offensive trouble, the irony about all of this is that they're pitching, which at the trade deadline was my cause for concern in Angst, is performing exceptionally well and they're getting healthy.

Their starting staff continues to go deep.

We just saw Shoda and Boyd go seven innings each this past week.

We saw Haavey Asad come back in two starts over the last week, gave the Cubs eight innings.

Now gave up a handful of runs.

He had a five ERA in those eight Indians, right, but still nonetheless able to keep the Cubs in a competitive environment to win these games.

Ben Brown has looked a little bit better, although he did give up a few runs in his last outing, but over the last week provided the Cub seven innings and only gave up three runs.

So that is still keeping the Cubs in a position where they can win these games.

And they have won these games, right.

They did win the series against the Pirates, although dropping the first game against the Milwaukee Brewers Monday.

But despite the offensive slump, they're still hovering around this five hundred ish territory over the last month, and if we're not for the starting pitching and bullpen recently, this could feel a lot lot worse.

But the offense, man, it's just it's taking any type of good feeling you have watching Boyd go out every fifth day, or watching Shoda rebound after that worrisome start against the White Sox a month ago.

Seeing guys get healthy, seeing Brad Keller continue to produce value, or Andrew Keisher's throw immaculate Indians and not walk anyone this month is taking away.

The offense is taking away a lot of the good feelings we've seen from that Cub's pitching corps.

And this pitching was the reason why that their projections weren't higher than a ninety two win team at the All Star break.

When we are reading off, what do the Cubs need to do to win the division?

Now this is head to time where they were neck and neck with the Brewers, and now I cannot believe I'm saying this, but they're nine games back.

But at the time you look at the projections and they were very wild.

For the pitching staff.

They gave for instance, Kate Horton a four and a half ear ray at the time, Colin ray near a five ear ray they gave guys like Matthew Boyd a much higher ear ray than the sub two and a half that we've seen so far.

They were not confident because those guys did not have track records.

If you look at the Cups hitting, they do have track records.

There's more confident projections.

You can give someone like Dansby Swanson, who's almost a ten year VET a track record.

Ian Halp.

Now say Szuki in his fourth year, having Kyle Talker hopefully being that superstar like he was projected to be produced.

Their lineup and offense was projectable.

And the irony is it's been completely flipped over the last month.

But at the same time, what do the projections look like now?

Earlier I said they still been ninety seven percent chance at making the playoffs?

How does this happen?

So on fangraphs.

In order for the Cubs to reach that ninety two win goal, which gives them a ninety seven percent chance at making the playoffs, this is what needs to happen.

First.

Carson Kelly needs to hit around two forty at a ten to twelve home run pace over a normal season.

That's not really unreasonable.

That's even lower than his career rates in or rather his season rate this season.

I'll continue going down this list.

This is all scaled to a six hundred played appearance sample.

So what does Michael Bush need to do?

Well?

He needs a bet two fifty it hit around over a twenty home run pace.

Well, that's what he's done so far in nearly two seasons.

What does Nico Horner need to deal?

He needs to hit around two eighty with a wors plus of league average.

Well, that's what he's been doing.

What is dance By Swanson need to deal?

Dance By Swanson needs to hit two forty five to two fifty with a fifteen to twenty home run pace.

That's exactly what he's been doing.

In fact, he's even performed higher than his rest of season projections so far this year.

What does Matt Shaw need to do?

Now?

This is where the projections want more from Shaw.

They think if he were to bet two forty to two fifty with everything else being normal from the lineup at a fifteen home run pace from Matt Shaw with slightly below league average offense, that's enough for the Cubs to be content.

What is Ian happened to deal?

Hit his career rate that two forty five twenty home run pace, as he's done almost every single year.

What does PCA need to deal that two fifty five on a fifteen home run which is well below what we've seen so far this year.

Kyle Tucker, the computers believe he needs to be that superstar.

They think, okay, for the Cubs to reach their potential to hit their ninety seven percent playoff chance, he needs to bet two to seventy, needs to hit home runs on a twenty five to thirty home run pace and be that superstar.

Likewise, say Zuki needs to hit slightly lower at two sixty also with a plus twenty home run pace.

The questions are, well, can Kyle Tucker even do that?

Is he healthy enough to even hit that?

And if he's not well, then you're asking Matt Shaw to produce more.

You're requiring more from Dansby Swanson, You're asking Michael Bush to keep beating his projections, and you're really asking a lot from Carson Kelly, who's betting fourth and fifth to replicate what he produced in April in May.

This is all if if Kyle Tucker does not performed like that superstar now if he does and everyone else stays stable, well, then they're likely going to make the playoffs.

It's almost as reductionary as that.

What's bizarre about the Kyle Tucker story is after Milwaukee's first game Monday night, Correct Council said he's going to give Kyle Tucker a few days off.

So if you're listening to this, let's say on Wednesday or Thursday, it's remained determined when he'll come back, if it's even multiple games, but correct Council did say Monday he's taken some time off.

Jed Hoyer also said on Monday quotes, if you look at tucker swing earlier in the year as opposed to now, it's less connected therefore less powerful end quote.

His numbers this year and the trajectory and trends I followed are bizarre to me, Like truly bizarre.

We've Corey and I on The Cub's Related show.

We followed a lot of guys over the years, Chris Bryant, Hafe Bias, and so on and so on.

Kyle Tucker is by far the most enigmatic hitter I've seen in one season.

Enigmatic because number one throughout the majority of the year, His data, The swing data has looked basically the same, so he's swinging the bats as normal as possible, like how the bat goes through his own In terms of speed, tilt angle looks very similar now as it did in the middle of March when he debuted in Japan.

However, though, if you look recently in the past fifteen days, you are starting to notice a little bit of a dip where in the month of August, when he has not hit one extra base hit.

By the way, the swing speed has not entered a territory that you typically see him hit for the last time it was in what I call the red zone where he's swinging.

You know, his fastest on a five to ten swing average was the end of July, so it's been three weeks.

A lot of folks point to the finger injury being a problem, and they date back to that early June finger injury or thumb injury where he jammed it into the bag as the start of all the problems.

Maybe that's the case.

This is why it's so odd to me, because even when he heard that hand, that finger of that thumb, well, you saw five home runs in June.

You saw stretches where his swing speed was actually faster than what it was in most of April and May.

That doesn't make sense.

And then folks point to just before the All Star break where it started to go back down again and the offense wasn't there.

Well after the All Star break and towards the end of July, you started to see this swing speed go back up where was at his highest in the year, and a lot of fans points to, well, you know, Crek council should have benched him when he was slumping at the back end of July.

They're looking at way more complicated stuff than we are, and I know we want to like be simplistic with everything, say oh they messed up, maybe they did right.

But if you're looking at some of the stuff and the data and you're thinking, you're thinking, Okay, he's injured, but he's swinging the bat faster than he was before, and the best going through is don't exactly the same, Well, how injured is he?

I read Jed horrors quote early a few minutes ago because I think it points to what they're looking at.

The Cubs have a lot of biomechanical data They've hired folks to track exactly.

This sinnquencing of mechanics.

And if you look at Jed Horrier's quote, which I'll read again unquote, if you look at his swing early in the year as opposed now, it's less connected therefore less powerful end quote.

You can still have some of the same swing speed over stretches, but not have that connectedness.

And I imagine they're looking at some of that biomechanical data and they're looking like it's not synced up.

That's my that's my guess.

And I think you're seeing that in the way he's grounding out.

I mean time and time again, we're getting weak ground balls the first base or second base or base hits.

When he is hitting for base hits, squeaking through that first base second base hole, that's not Kyle Tucker at all.

He's not lifting the ball.

The ground ball rate is over fifty percent.

We know that that's not Kyle Tucker.

Kyle Tucker drives the ball.

So whatever is leading to his inability to be connected to maximize that optimistic bat angle, the swing path, the bat speed, whatever is involved to get to that point of barreling needs to be improved.

And it's just hasn't clicked and you can see signs of him being healthy and normal.

I mean in Toronto he hit a ball like three hundred or ninety feet.

I know people roll their eyes at that.

But when we're looking at signs of optimism and they're looking at all this underlying, you know, sequencing data on his mechanics, I'm sure they're asking the same questions we're asking does he need time off?

And I imagine there's points where it looks like he might be coming out of it, but it's not consistent.

They hit a tipping point, I believe were the past five days.

That series against the Pirates was unbelievably cringe worthy.

And it hurts me to even say that because you see the pain on Tucker's face.

He wants to succeed.

He's throwing his helmet.

I feel his frustration.

I feel his frustration Monday against Milwaukee, and I imagine the poor quality of contact, the weak round balls.

That was it for the coaching staff to finally believe, Okay, you know what, we need more of a consistent stretch.

We need Kyle talk to reset a little bit.

But if there's points of optimism, well, the swing path looks the same and the past bee looks the same.

Is this a finger injury?

I have no idea.

Is it due to more of a recent injury with him banging up his knee a few weeks ago sliding?

Maybe maybe that's what it is.

Is it something else we don't know about?

Maybe right, there's also history of Chris Brian going through similar weird stretches because of nagging injuries.

I don't know.

Maybe Chris Bryce's injuries were completely different.

They have very different swing paths.

I don't know if this is like Chris Briant either.

Each guy is individually unique, and Kyle Tucker is a hell of a lot different than Chris Brian is, both from the swing path as well as the way they go about producing results.

I don't think it's like that either.

I do hope though, over the next week we see some degree of consistency.

The question is, well, do you inspect it?

I don't know.

If you're looking for optimism, I would just point to the post finger injury stretch in June where he was hitty for power.

Everything looked pretty normal.

I would even point to more recency the end of July where he was swinging pretty fast.

I would have point to some recency in Toronto where he's scoring up balls.

If you're pessimistic, I would look at the whole stretch from July onwards to know.

I would dial in recently on that Pittsburgh series as room for pessimism.

I would look at that first game because Milwaukee as validation of that pessimism.

But ultimately none of us know, and I think giving Tucker the chance to reset now, at first I thought didn't make sense.

I'm thinking to myself, why didn't they do this earlier.

If you're not healthy, stop playing, go get healthy.

That was my instinct.

But now I'm looking at some of the under the hood trends.

I'm trying to understand what they're thinking.

And I can understand hanging on this a little bit because some of the way he was hitting the ball in Toronto and the end of July did look encouraging.

He was also getting on base even during a slump.

He was producing better than league average, So I understand them thinking, number one, he's getting out of it, but number two, he's still producing.

Recently in the last week that hasn't been the case, and clearly they reached the tipping point.

And if he does not return back to those levels.

Well, you saw all the numbers I read off earlier.

Who needs to produce?

How Matt Shawn needs to produce better than what we've seen at the bulk or continue the progression that we've seen recently.

We know that Dancy Swasson, if Tucker does not produced, needs to be better than his career rates, and everyone else needs to stay normal.

Michael Bush needs to revert back to what we saw in early April.

And I'll leave it this the Cubs still have a very good chance at making the playoffs, in fact, even getting home field advantage in that Wildcard series.

I see everything you're seeing.

I see Kyle Tucker not performing well.

I'm concerned as well.

But when trying to project forty ish games or so in advance, as we talked about last week, we're in the nonsense territory, and I think you do have to bet the track record of these guys, and if Tucker is healthy, a few days off might help him reset whatever it is.

He has an eight year track record.

If he's not healthy, if these injuries are really bugging him, then it's going to open up an entirely different conversation that we'll have towards the back end of this year and throughout the entire offseason.

But a lot can happen in these next forty games.

That's the lay of the lands.

I hope that we understand how weird this Tucker thing is.

I don't know if it's pessimistic or optimistic.

You guys can decide for yourself.

At this point, I'm just watching the sport.

I'm neither optimistic or pessimistic here.

I'm on the roller coaster.

I'm watching this team go down.

Hopefully they go back up.

No clue, but they still have a good chance at things working out.

I'll leave it there.

I'll talk to you guys next Tuesday on the Cubs on Tuesday podcast