Cubs’ Balanced Power Attack Unmatched in MLB
As of this writing, only 14 players in MLB have hit 10 or more home runs. That group is comprised of players from 11 different teams, with only two squads fielding multiple representatives. Corbin Carroll (13) and Eugenio Suárez (12) form an unlikely power pair, but the Cubs have a trifect of 10-homer players in Kyle Tucker, Seiya Suzuki, and Pete Crow-Armstrong. Lurking down-range is Dansby Swanson, whose nine homers tie him with Francisco Lindor for most by a shortstop.
Remember earlier in the season when Swanson fell into a slump and some fans were calling him the second coming of Jason Heyward? Following a scalding stretch that began when he was dropped in the order, Swanson enters Tuesday with a 117 wRC+ that is tied for the best mark of his career. He’s also in line for his fourth consecutive season with 4+ fWAR, making any comparisons a practice in masturbatory foolishness.
Anyway, back to the team as a whole.
The Cubs are third in MLB in homers (61), ISO (.189), slugging (441), wOBA (.339), wRC+ (118), and fWAR (9.4), and the production is coming from all over the lineup. Until being moved into the leadoff spot due to Ian Happ‘s injury, Crow-Armstrong was batting seventh. Swanson got hot when he was moved to the eight-hole, which is also where Miguel Amaya typically bats.
Overshadowed by Carson Kelly‘s unexpected offensive explosion, Amaya is quietly slashing .286/.309/.506 with a 126 wRC+ and three homers. The Cubs’ catching combo has a 169 wRC+ that is best in MLB by 21 points and better than their 2024 production by a full 100 points. That 69 wRC+ from a rotating cast of characters was even worse in the early going, helping to doom them out of the gate. Not nice at all.
Getting production like that from a position not typically expected to be an offensive force is a huge plus, but the Cubs are above-average at almost every spot. The exceptions are third base, where their 48 wRC+ ranks ahead of only the Brewers (50), and DH, where their 104 mark sits in 16th. That’s almost exclusively a function of Suzuki’s performance, though he’s been pressed into left field duty for the time being due to Ian Happ’s oblique injury. Justin Turner is the other player on the roster with more than nine plate appearances at DH, and his 27 wRC+ there ain’t cutting it.
Nor is that .053/.250/.053 slash line, which is why the Cubs made the aggressive decision to promote 21-year-old Moises Ballesteros to Chicago for at least the duration of Happ’s IL stint. The rookie is best served as a DH due to his positional limitations and the Cubs’ exceptional backstop duo, plus it shifts Turner into being more of a pinch-hitting specialist. Despite his overall struggles, the grizzled ginger has found a little success in that more limited role.
Having such balanced production up and down the lineup from regulars allows Craig Counsell and the front office to keep guys like Turner and Vidal Bruján around for situational deployment. That’s something good teams are able to do, and it’s what we’d often see with contending Cubs teams late in the season when rosters expanded. They’d often go out and find a speed guy, like when they added current third base coach Quintin Berry for their 2015 stretch run.
Getting impact from multiple players also means no individual has to carry the team, allowing for cold streaks like the one Swanson experienced to happen without tanking game results. Even if certain individual results have varying degrees of sustainability, the balanced nature of the numbers tells us the Cubs should remain more consistent than we’ve seen in recent seasons.
