Everyone, Welcome back to another edition of the Cubs on Tuesday podcast.

The Cubs drop a very difficult game against the Cincinnati Reds, losing three to two on a couple of squibblers, but yet another offensive anemic performance and a first outing injury from new Cubs pitcher Mike Soroka.

They now sit three games back of the Milwaukee Brewers and quite frankly, it feels like one of the lowest points of the year so far.

This episode will talk about what the Soroka injury means to a Cup starting pitching staff that's already riddled with injuries, yet perhaps returning from those injuries are Jamison Tayone and Javi Asad.

We'll talk about what the projected Indians workload looks like since Soroka is going to the IL according to Correct Council after the first game against the Reds.

In his post game pressure.

We'll also talk about the rough offensive showing, specifically highlighting performances from Kyle Tucker, say Suzuki, Michael Bush, Dansby Swanson, and the rest of the lineup.

Tough podcast.

What can I say It's not a good vibe podcast.

There's still a lot of games left to be played.

But when the offense is showing broken signs like this, and your new acquired pitcher who was presumed to pitch thirty plus innings for the rest of the season is now gone, and with shoulder injuries, you do think significant time.

As Krek Council said, it's not a good time.

It's just not a good time.

But we'll get into it.

Let's first read the offensive leaderboards since the All Star Break.

To set the stage, I have sorted the lineup by just WRC plus.

Anything above one hundred is above league average.

Anything below one hundred is below league average.

Since the All Star Break and sixty plate appearances entering Monday night, Michael Bush has been batting one fifty four.

He's striking out in a third of his plate appearances, his WRC plus is fifty four, and he only has two home runs.

Not far behind himnoring Monday is Saya Suzuki's one fifty one batting average, also striking out in almost thirty percent of his plate appearances with total sixty three, and he has a fifty six WRC plus dansby Swanson.

He did hit a home run Monday night, so his WRC plus is higher than that of say It and Michael Bush were.

Entering Monday, he was sitting at a thirty nine, striking out in nearly behalf of his plate appearances in fifty four plate appearances, and just not walking either and not hitting for power.

A lot of opportunities with runners in scoring position, as has been highlighted.

Dansby's second half posty All Star Break has been extremely frustrating and you can see it on his face.

Other than those three, you do have the rest of the lineup performing at an above average pace.

Ian happ Is batting to twenty four entering Monday, WRC plus of one to fourteen three home runs.

Matt Shack contenues to have some positive at bets, but recently may have taken that bats away with the arrival of Willie Castro.

Matt Shaw's batting three twenty six four home runs of one eighty one WRC plus.

P Crow Armstrong a lot more strikeouts recently, striking out in a third of his plate appearances, but still has a one to forty one WRC plus batting two seventy eight ten doubles from PCA since the All Star Break, a lot of doubles and two home runs, so still showing that slug that you'd like to see Kyle Tucker.

Kyle Tucker is batting two forty four, only striking out in ten percent of his plate appearances, with total sixty one entering Monday, walking in a quarter of those plate appearances.

But this fit the okay batting average and the high OBP.

Only has one home run in two doubles since the break.

A lot of questions about Kyle Tucker and the offense and the power specifically.

We'll discuss that in the next coming segment.

Okay, let's talk Kyle Tucker.

The numbers overall for Tucker this year are well within line what you see from a high performing offensive bat For instance, entering Monday's game, he was betting two seventy six, he was walking more than he was striking out, and had eighteen home runs, all around a four hundred weighted on base average, which is among the best in the league.

You factoring the base running that comes with Kyle Tucker, and he is going to warrant a significant contract.

As we all know, there's been debate how much should he get.

Is he worth three hundred million, four hundred million and so on.

That discussion points reserved for the offseason.

There's still fifty games left, regardless of where we end up talking about that in the winter.

Currently, he's within his range of offensive output that he's had every single season.

The specific question is the injury that he suffered in Detroit's the finger injury and a slide.

Is that causing any change in his offensive performance?

Is it changing any of the under the hood numbers?

And does that explain why the power has not been there?

Again, just one home run and two doubles since the All Star Game.

Over the weekend, Dustin Kelly discussed how maybe there was some residual things with that finger, but we don't really have the detail to take too much away from that.

How significant is that lingering finger problem?

We just don't know.

So you can look at some of the under the hood numbers such as swing speed, such as swift rates, such as chase rate, right, but specifically some of the mechanical things like swing speed, and you would imagine if there was a significant problem gripping the bats, then it might manifest in slower bat speed, but that has not been the case.

In fact, his bat speed over the past three weeks has looked almost identical than what we saw from the previous three weeks and the previous three weeks before that, and on a rolling basis, every five to ten swings, you're not seeing even the variation that you might expect from an injury.

So my takeaway, without of course talking to the player and understanding some of the nuance, but just from the public data perspective, which is limited, significantly, you're not seeing traits stand out that signal massive concern from an injury point of view.

The chase rate is also the best in his career rather this season in a tense swing stretch, so he is more selective.

That's a good thing, right now.

The counterpoint is, well, maybe he's not feeling the best, so he's not as convicted with his swing and that's why you're walking more.

Maybe, but again that's still too much to take away.

Maybe then you can look at some of the swing plane things, and if you've been watching the game all these games to see all Star break, he may notice he's not lifting the ball as well, and that's clear through some of the launch angle stuff.

So his overall ability to lift the ball in the air is lower.

Recently by several degrees, but his swing plane looks the same.

So the bat speed looks the same, the attack angle looks the same, the swing tilt looks the same.

What are we supposed to think when at least the public swing data signifies that everything is within normal range?

Would I say, oh, this finger injury is a massive concern.

Probably not right, But there's other things going on that maybe Talker or Cubs hitting coach Dustin Kelly can highlight, but we're just not seeing it.

Then the question is can we rely on Talker the rest of the year because only one home run and two doubles is not going to cut it right?

And again the answer to that is, well, if he's chasing the same and swinging as fast and so on and so on, then I would imagine over time, in the next fifty games, I would bet that those numbers do return and the power starts to come back.

But it's one of those situations where ultimately you have to talk to the player.

But if you want to be encouraged, the under the hood numbers don't suggest there's a significant problem at hand, no pun intended, and his struggles, if you want to call that, even though he is above average.

It's really highlighted because he's sandwiched, in my opinion, highlighted between says Zuki and Michael Bush.

And at the start of this episode, I was reading off just the least productive hitter since the All Star break, and the least productive on this list was Michael Bush, followed by sayas Zuki.

So when your lead off hitter, then Tucker than Saya are all going through simultaneously their worst funk of the year, it gets highlighted more because Michael Bush comes up.

Up, there's an out.

Here, comes Kyle Tucker up, there's a ground ball, Here comes says Zuki.

You know he's swinging blind at times it feels like, you know, no offense to say it, but some of the bats do look just uninspiring.

And we've seen this with many guys, including very good batters throughout seasons.

Saying and Michael Bush.

They're going through the funk right now, and I believe it's highlighting some of the lower points of the season for Kyle Tucker.

But really I would wait to reserve judgment about extension and prices and all of that conversation until the next fifty games are done.

So much happens in fifty games.

It's not worth talking about how much money he deserves, and YadA, YadA, YadA until we get the full picture.

Okay, let's move on to the pitching.

What I want to do here is highlight the remaining projected innings from the entire Cubs pitching staff since the trade deadline.

They did acquire several new pitchers, chief among is Taylor Rogers and consistency and Earra.

Taylor Rogers was with the Reds and Pirates, but mostly pushing for the Reds before being acquired by the Cubs in a trade from the Pirates.

In addition to Taylor Rodgers, they did a trade for Andrew Keetridge as well as we know Michael Soroca, who's now on the injured list, breaking news unfortunate for him and for the entire Cups PA staff.

And so now all the trio of those pictures they acquired, really, Andrew Keatridge and Taylor Rodgers are the two that they got.

Now when they traded for the trio, they were projected a total among those three about sixty five innings.

You can subtract him for all intensive purposes.

All of the Indians from Soroca.

He has a shoulder injury.

In my mind, I'm not counting on him being back, but that's just me being pessimistic.

And as he stands now.

From the starting pision staff Showedy i Minaga is projected for fifty five more innings, followed by Matthew Boyden at fifty four, then Cad Horton at forty one.

That Jamison Tyone at forty three, assuming he comes back, which, by the way, he had his first start in Iowa in a rehab fashion, did get lit up but apparently felt good, so there's encouraging signs there.

Colin Ray projected at forty three Indians, and then after Colin Ray, you have Ben Brown, who I assume will get boosted up in the projected innings at twenty, Javi Asade at eight, and then Jordan Wicks at three.

That rounds up to starting pushy staff.

So you can sum that up basically in a few different concise bullet points.

Number one, relying on Kate Horton to give you about five innings every fifth to sixth day here and out.

I think that's possible, but that's going to put him around a career inding limit at one thirty five second is Colin Ray's production, so forty three more Indians of him similar five to six indians per start hoping there for about you know, a four to four point five here at and then is having Ben Browse step up, which he did against the Reds following Sroka's injury, and hopefully, hopefully, hopefully Tyon comes back and looks to be about border league average in his five to six Indians every fifth day as well.

That's that's the hope right there.

But the pushback is, well, can Tayone be healthy enough?

Can Colin Ray be productive enough?

Can Ben Brown be productive enough?

He's been going back and forth from Iowa.

Can Havyasa come back healthy.

There's a lot of unknowns there.

And then you insert Mike Soroka's injury, which there's no timeline for a return, right, that's a lot of unknowns.

I do want to highlight the thought process of Soroka before the Cubs did acquire him, he was throwing three to four miles per hour slower in his previous three starts.

Apparently that was not a big deal.

There's a few quotes we have from Crook Council to highlight that statement after the postgame professor, he was asked, I forgot by who, but from someone in the Chicago media, what was the idea with Mike Soroka's velocity and were their discussions when they were when he was acquired.

Crook Council discussed, Yes, there were discussions when Soroka was acquired.

He was excited and optimistic that the velocity would return.

Now does that mean that it was a mechanical thing or a health thing?

We don't know, right.

I share a lot of the frustration with fans who look at this scenario where the starting pitchy staff is already riddled by injuries from tayone and Asad they had just lost Justice Steel for the entire year showed it.

Imnaga had a hamstring injury, his velocity was down about two weeks ago against the White Sox, and then their primary trade target in terms of projected Indians was throwing three miles per hour slower, which was ninety to ninety one, down from ninety three to ninety four.

And then, of course within the first game he suffers a shoulder injury with no timeline for return, and you give up you know, mid tier prospects but prospects.

Nonetheless, I share that frustration.

Is it the right process?

Did they go about it the right way?

I think you can look at this and ask one simple question, what is the likelihood that the velocity dip that he showed prior to being acquired was random and fixable?

I would say it's more likely that that was not random, and also a significant point to Wagh when acquiring him.

It's not in terms of prospects given up, but the other available guys at the deadline that other teams acquired mid tier starters, the Charlie Morton types and so on, if their comparisons there, and the Cubs ultimately chose to go with Soroka because it was higher ceiling, but they believe that the velocity dip was a random blip or fixable, then that's on them now.

From my point of view, the Cubs right now, I have fifty games left.

I'm not quite interested in playing the high ceiling game.

I would be interested in playing the high ceiling game when the projection's call for that, when you need to overproduce by let's say a standard deviation new productions.

We're not in that scenario.

I need Indians at this point.

So when I saw the velocity dip and the change in mechanics, he was extending more.

His release excession was more within those three games when he was throwing slower.

Didn't sit right with me.

I understood the process, but I was a little wary and I don't want to connect the shoulder injury to that velocity dip.

But regardless, there was some weirdness going on that just did not quite settle with me.

And I was hoping, I really genuinely was hoping that it was just a blip.

But it's not even gonna get the chance to showcase itself if it was.

And I do think there was a risk there, and that was the game they played.

That was the gamble they played that he would withstand some of this random weirdness going on.

So the replacements for him, we'll see what happens.

But Brandon Bursa was asked.

He was a minor league pitcher of the year last year with Iowa, came back, had a nice quality start in his recent outing.

He may gets a minions right, but he's working back from injury.

He's a guy that has a very short release extension, very good command, similar extension to Kyle Hendricks.

Actually, if you look at some of the numbers, commands very well.

So yeah, he magets and minions.

There's a huge breakdown we could do with him, but I think we could reserve that for perhaps a different day when he does get called up.

Now for the more positive positive reports, I do think the bullpen feels better, and in the last two minutes, I just want to highlight that Daniel Palencia is still pumping one O two, one oh three.

I know he blew the save Sunday just before Justin Turner walked off in the series canal against the Orioles, but Brad Keller's velocity is held stable.

Caleb Thielbar continues to strike out guys, and then you insert Andrew Keechurst and Taylor Rogers into the mix, and those are five relievers whom I feel comfortable slotting in.

Ryan Brazier is a fine sixth inning guy.

Fifth inning guy, Drew palmeranz induced vertical break appears to be back up on the rise.

They have seven guys who I feel at this current point comfortable with, and specifically the two guys they acquire Keytridge and Rogers, I can see correct council using those two guys, very specifically Key Tridge because he has a very tight slider, can mused against the lefties and righties, and that could allow for a bridge to use Taylor Rogers and more lefty heavy lineups, ultimately getting to the back end with Brett Keller and Daniel Palencia.

So while the bullpen as the stands now, seem steady and I don't think there's cause for concern there.

My main cause for concern is filling innings in the starting rotation, bolstering Shoda and Michael Boyd's starts every third day after they pitch.

My hope is Tyon comes back healthy.

If he is healthy by the end of August, that would give me a big confidence boost.

And then my hope is Ben Brown pitches well like he did against the Reds after coming in for Soroka, and you get Indians in some fashion from the remaining guys such as jave A Sad and maybe Burslut does come up, but that's the last resort type situation.

You're hoping that the current guys I talked about can't fill those Indians, and they will need to fill those Indians right now again, three games back in Milwaukee.

It's weird to even be saying that, but we'll talk about it all on next week's edition and the Cubs on Tuesday podcast