Morel of the Story

 

The good news is the Cubs managed to keep Willson Contreras for the rest of the season. The bad news is that regardless of that, they are still in last place.

And it's not without a lack of trying. The Cubs still have the better team of the three low-level NL Central teams, and got rid of the least of them all, but even with Contreras, Ian Happ, Yan Gomes, Marcus Stroman and Drew Smyly still on this team, they've had a terrible second half of July and are still trying to inch back above the Reds. Plus, a lot of the pieces who thought they'd have room to play this half, like P.J. Higgins, Nelson Velasquez and even poor David Bote, are stuck grasping for playing time. 

Still, even with that, a lot of new players have emerged from under the preexisting rubble of these Cubs teams that were. For instance, Christopher Morel is having a very fun rookie season, hitting .260 with 9 homers and 29 RBIs in 65 games. Somehow he's had a more consistent and promising season for the Cubs than Seiya Suzuki, who looked to be the real deal at least in April. At the same time, the rotation is being run by people like Justin Steele and Keegan Thompson, two relievers turned starters who seem to be gaining a lot of trust as people like Kyle Hendricks and Marcus Stroman begin to show their age. And now that the bullpen is pretty vacated, newcomers like Brandon Hughes and Anderson Espinoza are getting the chance to show their stuff for a chance to potentially be the next lone Cubs reliever to stick around after a firesale.

The main problem with the Cubs is that at the end of the day, this is a very old team trying to stay younger by putting in players who may be fresh but are still old themselves. Patrick Wisdom, Frank Schwindel, Rafael Ortega, P.J. Higgins and Adrian Sampson may be young in Cubs roster years, but they're all in and around their 30s and trying to desperately hold onto their peak years. Even Seiya Suzuki's 27. Morel is thankfully a rookie that's the age a rookie should be, and is probably a more promising young player because of this, but the team needs more guys like that and less guys like Ortega. 

I don't know if the Cubs are capable of substantial changes without getting rid of a lot of people. I can't see a new regime peeking out from under a lot of the mess of this team. I wanna say Nico Hoerner leads the next generation of Cubs, but I don't even know which Cubs are gonna be around him when that happens. Or if David Ross will still be around to lead them. I guess it'll be a surprise for all of us.

Coming Tonight: A youngster who pitched a no-hitter earlier this year before his team completely fell apart.