The Cubs are approaching deadline seller mode

Remember back when the Chicago Cubs were trade deadline buyers?

You should…it was less than a week ago. Last Thursday, Zach Davies and three relievers combined to no-hit the Los Angeles Dodgers (of all teams), boosting the Cubs into a tie for first place in the NL Central.

In the week since, the Cubs are winless, they have fallen six games behind the Milwaukee Brewers and they are staring at a final three games of a death march-style road trip that included an overnight road trip from LA to Milwaukee.

Six-game June losing streaks are not in and of themselves cause for trade deadline surrender. But the Cubs’ leadership team led by Jed Hoyer is fast-approaching a very dicey decision point.

What are the Cubs to do at the deadline?

The Cubs have as many prominent free agents-to-be as any team at season’s end. The list includes the heart of the team’s batting order, first baseman Anthony Rizzo, probable All-Star Kris Bryant, and Javier Baez, along with rotation starter Davies.

Collectively, Rizzo, Bryant and Baez – all veterans of the 2016 World Series run – constitute the team’s heart and soul.

At the same time, it isn’t clear that any of them can be signed long-term, nor, with the exception of Bryant, is it clear that the Cubs want them at the price they’re likely to command on the open market.

Baez is an ultra-talented athlete with major swing holes and a history of not closing those holes. Rizzo is in his 30s and his offensive value has begun to moderate the last couple of seasons. Despite his no-hitter, Davies’ performance has at best been mixed. He’s 5-5 with a 4.32 ERA.

The other question is whether — after the July 30 deadline — even an intact Cubs team can haul down the Brewers. It hasn’t looked that way this week. On Monday a jet-lagged Chicago pen – thanks, ESPN — allowed 10 runs in the eighth inning to destroy what had been a 4-4 tie.

On Tuesday night the Cubs managed just one run in a 2-1 defeat.

As the trade deadline approaches, an optimist can find reasons to continue to believe in a team that has gone 12-15 through June.

In a season when most teams have emphasized spreading out the pitching workload to avoid a second-half crash coming out of the COVID-shortened 2020 season, the first-place Brewers have done exactly the opposite.

• 70 of their 78 starts have gone to their big five. Ace Brandon Woodruff is just 20 innings short of his career high workload, Adrian Houser will hit his career high in July, and both Corbin Burnes and Freddy Peralta have already done so. Can the Milwaukee staff hold up for the long-term?
• Then there’s the Milwaukee offense. It ranks ninth in runs per game, last in batting average at .216, and 10th in OPS. It is first in the NL in only one category: strikeouts.
• This is not a fluke. In 2020 Milwaukee was 13th in runs per game, 12th in average and 13th in OPS.
• The team’s Pythagorean record – basically factoring in luck – is five games worse than its actual record.
• Milwaukee also has the tougher schedule, including six games with the New York Mets and seven with the San Francisco Giants, both division leaders. The Cubs are through with the Mets and get the Giants at Wrigley in September.

So there are legitimate reasons to think it’s not yet time to get the white flag ready on Chicago’s North Side. But offsetting those reasons is the potential lost opportunities created by inaction.

Say the Cubs stand pat – or even add a piece – and it’s not enough. Say Milwaukee’s pitching thrives on work, Chicago is brought down by its own significant inconsistencies and the division pennant flies in Wisconsin.

Then the Cubs will be faced with either trying to re-sign their free agent core on what is likely to be a highly competitive open market – Baez, for one, will almost certainly be overpriced relative to his performance value – or losing the team’s core for comp-level draft picks.

Hoyer and his staff have only the month of July to figure this conundrum out. Given the team’s recent performance, it is a lot tougher question to answer than it was just six days ago.