Commentary: Cubs roster decisions are confusing |
The last two weeks have been puzzling for the Cubs regarding their roster decisions. Perhaps the most puzzling of the recent roster choices surrounds Pete Crow-Armstrong’s controversial trip back to the minor leagues. Crow-Armstrong has dazzled since his demotion, winning Triple-A International Player of the Week for his performances. PCA has had five multi-hit games and clubbed three homers over the past week.
Meanwhile, the Cubs have gone 2-5 (including a season-long five-game losing streak) while struggling to generate offense in his absence. The Cubs have had the worst offense over the last week — and PCA’s three HRs are one more than the Cubs have hit since May 17th. Crow-Armstrong was sent down when Dansby Swanson was activated off the IL, and Miles Mastrobuoni was optioned to Iowa as shortstop Luis Vazquez was called up. Nobody questioned sending Mastrobuoni down, but what baffled Cubs fans was how Nick Madrigal stayed with the club, and PCA did not. While Madrigal has no options left, his .224/.283/, the 542 slash line does not belong on a big-league roster. Madrigal is on the team because of his defense, which is precarious considering his crucial error at third base on Monday potentially cost the Cubs the game. The Cubs may be tentative to pull the “Nick Madrigal experience” plug entirely, but they must be getting close to the breaking point. The other perplexing aspect of the roster move was Luis Vazquez. Vazquez is an above-average hitter and elite fielder up the middle — who plays at the big league level (I mean, he couldn’t be worse than Mastrobuoni was, anyway). Calling him up isn’t the confusing part. What makes no sense is that the Cubs called up Vazquez on the same day Dansby Swanson and Nico Hoerner returned to the lineup — giving him virtually no role and a limited path to at-bats. As you peel it back further, it becomes even more confusing why the Cubs were okay with Nick Madrigal and Miles Mastrobuoni up the middle every day. Madrigal hit 6-18 without an extra-base hit, and Mastrobuoni was 2-20 with only a pair of singles. Instead of calling up Vazquez, the Cubs played nearly a week with a thin bench and essentially two automatic outs in the lineup—no wonder the Cubs were struggling. Why wasn’t this move made two weeks ago when Swanson was on the IL and Hoerner first got hurt — he’d have been almost done with his IL stint, and the Cubs wouldn’t have had to play shorthanded for nearly a week. Either the Cubs truly believed Hoerner was day-to-day, or they don’t have faith in Vazquez at the big-league level yet. It’s entirely possible both can be true. But what we do know is that Vazquez has been hardly used since his call-up. Nick Madrigal is still, somehow, the defensive replacement choice and the pinch-hit selection. Vazquez has one at-bat as a pinch hitter in a Cubs loss, and then yesterday’s exciting scamper home on a liner off the pitcher from second base as the rookie pinch ran for Miguel Amaya as the ghost runner at second base in the 10th. Vazquez sure could have been used while both Swanson and Hoerner were banged up — and he couldn’t have possibly been worse than Madrigal and Mastrobuoni. Instead, Vazquez now has no real role — just rotting on the bench. All while Pete Crow-Armstrong continues to excel in the minor leagues. With almost the entire lineup struggling, PCA could be the spark the Cubs need — they can figure out the positions later. Perhaps Bellinger plays some 1B to give a struggling Michael Busch a breather. Maybe Sieya Suzuki or Ian Happ can DH more frequently as Christopher Morel matures as a fielder. However they figure it, PCA needs to be on the big league team. And Luis Vazquez needs a chance to show why he IS on the big league team. Instead, we can only scratch our heads about these roster decisions.
