Cubs briefing: Catching up on surging rookies, a first mock draft and Christopher Morel’s emergence (2024)

Watching the same team every day makes it easier to see the flaws. For the Chicago Cubs, it’s been an avalanche of injuries, a flammable bullpen and a flickering offense. Yet their record is still good, and the organization has all the fundamentals in place for long-term success. Sometimes a national perspective helps illuminate the big picture.
The Cubs briefing is here to catch you up on the last week around the Cubs.

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Power rankings: Chicago Cubs are No. 7

In this week’s power rankings, we went with our “what a difference a year makes” theme, sneaking a look at the Power Rankings at this point last season to see how far – in either direction – each team has gone. (Record as of Tuesday)

Record: 24-18
Last Power Ranking: 9

This time last year: 19-22, ranked No. 19

We should get a better sense of Chicago’s ceiling soon, now that Cody Bellinger, Seiya Suzuki and Justin Steele are all back off the injured list. To this point, the Cubs have done a nice job of weathering various absences from their everyday players, fueled by the performances of Shota Imanaga, Javier Assad and Jameson Taillon in the rotation and Mike Tauchman in the lineup.

It’s the kind of thing good teams do when they’re missing their better players, and the Cubs are looking more and more like a very good team. Last year’s early narrative was about Steele’s breakout and Bellinger’s rebound; now it’s about putting all the right pieces around those guys. — Tim Britton

Big league quiz

The latest hits

ICYMI, our national writers weighed in with what they are hearing and seeing

1. Ranking the top 10 rookies in the National League, an early ROY race no one expected

Jim Bowden took a look at some of the surprising names in the Rookie of the Year conversation, including a pair of Cubs. (Statistics current to May 10)

1. Shota Imanaga, LHP, Cubs

Age: 30
Height: 5-10 Weight: 175

Imanaga is not only the front-runner for NL Rookie of the Year, but also the NL Cy Young Award as he’s arguably been the best starting pitcher in baseball. He’s gone 5-0 with a 1.08 ERA and 0.816 WHIP over seven starts. Imanaga is a strike-thrower with a rare combination of an elite chase rate (96th percentile) and walk rate (96th percentile). Opposing batters have hit .140 against his four-seam fastball and .214 against his wipeout split-finger. He gets hitters to chase the fastball at the top of the zone and the split-finger at the bottom of the zone. His command and control have been much better than advertised as he’s making very few mistakes over the middle of the plate.

4. Michael Busch, 1B, Cubs

Age: 26
Bats: L Throws: R
Height: 6-1 Weight: 210

The Cubs front office, realizing Busch was blocked in the Dodgers organization behind first baseman Freddie Freeman (who is signed through 2027), made an aggressive trade of top prospects this past offseason to land him, filling their opening at first base. Busch has delivered as they anticipated thus far, hitting .259/.309/.488 and leading NL rookies with seven home runs and 19 RBIs. His barrel percentage (93rd percentile) and sweet-spot percentage (90th) have been impressive. He’s also demonstrated plus range at first base despite being a below-average defender overall.

2. Surprise, surprise

Bowden listed his Top 10 surprises in the game, and a certain Cubs lefty made the cut.

2. Shota Imanaga has been better than Yoshinobu Yamamoto

The Dodgers committed $325 million to Yoshinobu Yamamoto this past winter and, so far, he has lived up to that contract despite opening his MLB career with a one-inning start against the Padres in South Korea. However, he’s rebounded from that bumpy beginning to go 4-1 with a 2.79 ERA over eight starts. That’s not a surprise. The surprise is that fellow free agent Shota Imanaga, who signed with the Cubs for two years and $22.5 million guaranteed (with options and escalators that can take the deal to $80 million over five years), has not only outpitched Yamamoto, but also every other pitcher in the National League. Imanaga is 5-0 with a 1.08 ERA and 0.816 WHIP over seven starts. He’s done it with a 91-93 mph fastball at the top of the zone and a wipeout split-finger that gets strikeouts in and out of the zone. Incredibly, he has both an elite chase percentage (97%) and walk percentage (3.1%) to start the year.

3. Projecting the Cubs top pick in the 2024 MLB Draft

The first edition of Keith Law’s MLB Mock Draft 2024 published this week. Here’s who he has the Cubs selecting with the 14th pick in the first round.

Brody Brecht, RHP, Iowa

Another guy who could slide into the latter third of the round, Brecht has the size and arm strength to be a top-10 pick, but he’s far less polished than most of the college starter prospects in this draft. The team that takes him will have to be one willing and able to stomach a bigger risk. I didn’t just put him with the Cubs because he’s often compared to another wide receiver-turned-pitcher, Jeff Samardzija. I could also see the Cubs in on the next tier of college bats, including Tibbs, Cam Smith, and Carson Benge.

Baseball beat

Our beat writers Patrick Mooney and Sahadev Sharma picked out what you need to know

Cubs winning despite ‘uncharacteristically sloppy’ defense

Craig Counsell and Jed Hoyer answered the question in two different ways that revealed the perception gap between the new manager and the executive who built the roster. Maybe this defense isn’t as good as advertised. Perhaps a better bullpen would cover up more of the mistakes. But the numbers and the eye test show that the Cubs are slipping.

How good can Cubs third baseman Christopher Morel be?

Christopher Morel was always the type of prospect to dream on. The talent was obvious, but everything needed to click. Most systems across the game have players like that. Very few see it all come together to blossom into a star. But what Morel has done early in 2024 has people wondering whether he’s starting to figure it out.

Did you catch this?

Can MLB save the starting pitcher? The search for solutions to baseball’s ‘existential crisis’

May 6, Wrigley Field. San Diego Padres versus Chicago Cubs. Theoretically, this was one of those pitching matchups to savor: Yu Darvish, one-time Cubs ace, starting for the Padres versus Justin Steele, a 2023 All-Star and the Cubs’ 2024 Opening Day starter. But was it the stuff of goosebumps? No. The score at the end of five innings was 0-0. Both starting pitchers had allowed only three hits apiece … and, naturally, neither of them was still in the game. Seven relievers ate up the last 25 outs. Just another slice of baseball life in 2024.

True, both starters had spent time on the injured list this season, so they were being handled carefully. But those injuries — and how teams respond to them — are part of a crisis that seems to loom larger over baseball every year.

Photo of the week

Pittsburgh is a great sports town. The view from PNC Park’s press box is spectacular. The Pirates just haven’t won enough to consistently elevate and electrify the stadium. But anyone who covered the 2015 wild-card game knows what the atmosphere was like before Jake Arrieta quieted the blackout crowd. Can the Pirates count on Paul Skenes to become that kind of guy?

Look at the rainbow over PNC Park in Pittsburgh pic.twitter.com/63VOhHgbhN

— Zach Zaidman (@ZachZaidman) May 11, 2024

(Top photo of Christopher Morel: Michael Reaves / Getty Images)