Bear needs Soroka to meet expectations

The Cubs had only one game in NL Central, but in terms of field performance, the presence of the two division competitors was almost perfectly inverted to each other. Chicago ranked 117th in WRC+ and 98th in ERA, while Milwaukee ranked 13th in WRC+, 102nd in ERA, and ERA-89 ranked 5th in ERA. Their common foundation is defense, and both teams rank in the top three in defensive value.

The cubs lost a series against the winemakers and the decline in trade deadlines on Wednesday by getting pitcher Michael Soroka from the Nationals. Soroka will become a free agent by the end of this year after reaching a $9 million deal with NATS and NATS at the end of this year. In return, Washington won Triple-A outfielder Christian Franklin, Chicago won a fourth-round pick in 2021, and 18-year-old shortstop Ronny Cruz, the Cubs were selected in the 2024 third-round draft.

Entering the season, the Cubs’ starting rotation has Justin Steele and Shota Imanaga sit on the top, Jameson Taillon, Matthew Boyd and Javier Assad fill the remaining three positions, while Colin Rea is ready to step in as needed. The plan seems reasonable enough, but except for Boyd, every starter on the depth chart is struggling with injury, uneven performance or a combination of the two. Steele had end-of-season elbow surgery in April. Imanaga’s HR/9 has risen to this season since the second half of 2024, and he missed most of the time in May and June due to hamstring pressure. Tyron has also been trying to put the ball in the yard and then hit the IL at the end of June and was injured. Assad has not made his debut yet, but he has recovered from oblique pressure to recover from his recovery. The best ability of Rea is availability. He recorded the team’s second innings after Boyd, but his game reached 105 ERA, putting him slightly below the league average.

Given all injuries, the bear also relies on injecting youth to cover the bureau. Ben Brown made his debut in 2024 and performed well in a 55-inning sample, but he has performed well below average in 88 innings this season. However, rookie Rookie Cade Horton has solid results in 68 innings, although his strikeout rate has shrunk from about 30% of minors to 17% of professionals. Instead, he put the ball on the ground and let the defense behind him take it away from there.

Soroka is joining the goal now, but with his career track record and production so far this year, it’s unclear how he fits perfectly into the pitcher. He made his American League debut in May 2018, but he has only pitched for one whole season since then, and that was 2019, when he was second in the NL Rookie of the Year vote and sixth in the CY Young competition. Shoulder issues have bothered him in multiple seasons, with Achilles surgery taking him to most of 2021 and 2022, with his season being postponed to May this year due to biceps stress. Needless to say, there are some harm risks here. Given that Soroka’s speed dropped a few tickings in July, maybe more damage should be taken than a team that has already fallen into injury.

But then again, Soroka is also likely to end the season’s healthy end. Despite the slowdown, Soroka allowed FIP and WOBA in July than any other month of the season. Soroka’s speed fluctuations are not uncommon. The same thing happened to him in one of his entire workloads last season, and when did he? 1 pitcher for the Brave. The decline in speed is also not related to a significant decline in production. So what would his actual pitch look like if Soroka stayed healthy?

Over the years, Soroka has gone from relying primarily on a sinker/slider combination to a four-person combination paired with slurry. He still threw the sinking piece to the right, but when facing the left-handed, he switched it to a substitution. Soroka stood out, emphasizing the sinking piece, sacrificing his extreme ground ball rate while supporting more strikeouts. While strikeouts are good, the tradeoffs don’t actually improve the prevention of running. Now, with four-slit approaches, any batsman who doesn’t hit is more likely to lift some lifts on the ball and cause serious damage. That’s why Soroka allowed Soroka to allow Woba to be .309 this season, while he was labeled .272 when he became a Shenmao player in 2019. However, his expected statistics for the season are very strongly suggesting that he has very poor hitting luck. Perhaps the defender responsible for hitting the ball is very poor. (The Nationals ranked 29th in defensive value.) As a result, his Xwoba allowed a .295 record this season, down from .305 in 2019. Comparing the actual results of Soroka’s four Seameers with expected statistics highlights the gap.

Although Soroka has reached 4.87 ERA and 118 ERA so far this season, there were 4.11 FIP and a series of expected statistics well below his actual figures in the final months of the season. One of the best defenses in the league, rather than the worst, will surely improve his batting luck.

From one perspective, the cubs appear to be adding another shaky starter and worrying about injury in their steady shaky starter, hoping that if they bring together a large enough favorite, at least three or four will be repaired and healthy in October. But from another perspective, Chicago may have identified a pitcher on him for a positive return.

Is Soroka starting nine times for the Cubs’ stretch and pitching on the 3.20 ERA or is he pulling out early from a game with a horrible forearm tightness in August, he goes deeper than the meaningful upgrade. Given the quilt preation of the Bears rotation, it does work with actual upgrades (like Craig Counsell can confidently hand the ball over Game 1 of the playoff series). So while bringing Soroka is a good first step, without giving other Sorokas, the cubs will still stand in the middle of the street, waiting to run over.

As for the players heading to the Nationals, Franklin was 25, but lost to a season with a torn tendon of Pat. Since returning to the venue, he has been developing steadily through the Bear system. Eric Longenhagen’s latest report on Franklin rated him at 45 fv and became a profile as the fourth outfielder, who can play in these three positions and add defense around the corner. As for his future on the plate, here is a direct breakdown of the report:

His feet are very close, his swing is complete, suitable for low ball contact and creates an extreme outdoor fly ball trend. Although Franklin’s hands are authoritative and his hard hit rate (54%) is a comfortable plus (41% last year), he may not actually suffer too much power from this swing except for being left-handed. He is the fourth outfielder driven by OBP, and should play a role-misted left wing later in the game and upgrade to the defense.

Then there is Cruz, 18, so his profile still has a lot of variability. He made some paradoxical impressions at the 2024 draft: He showed impressive primitive power, especially given his fiber frame, but then got caught up in the race’s slowest runners. He has since started to become stronger and develop more power, according to the latest report from Longenhagen, which has increased with the batting data and details other skills of Cruz:

Cruz’s peak exit speed (110 highest, 105.5 EV90) and tough speed (43%) are on the major league average, and he hasn’t grown yet. We don’t know Cruz’s ability to get into this year because he wasn’t a showcase in high school, and the early end of draft time and complex balls meant Cruz didn’t play branch Pro Games in 2024 after signing. What we learned this summer is that Cruz covered the countdown of the strike zone most comfortably and showed some ability to expand and cover the quadrants on and off with Oppo Doubles Power. The looming question is Cruz’s plate discipline. He had a poor ball/strike recognition and had a great time all summer. Defensively, Cruz has a gentle hand on the dirt, enough to accommodate the left side of the infield, but he is not a quick twitch player, and his horizontal range may deteriorate as the frame continues to mature. There is quite a lot of room for a hit up here, but Cruz’s popular tool has been lowered due to his swing decision.

Given his current trajectory, Cruz divides it into over 40 FVs.

As Soroka’s contract expires at the end of the season, Nats will never get a huge reward. They performed a nice hedge by making a player close to the major league (even if his ceiling is relatively low) and young lottery type players can dream. If any player works a little harder, it’s a win for Washington – that’s not to say Soroka’s losses can make the situation worse for the Nationals in 2025.