4 Cubs players who should be ditched by the All-Star Break

At 26-44 heading into a weekend matchup against the Cardinals in St. Louis, it’s safe to say the 2022 season has already gone off the rails for the Chicago Cubs.

The pitching rotation has been an injury-riddled disaster, the team’s key offseason position player addition, Seiya Suzuki, hasn’t played in a game since May 26 because of a finger injury and the daily lineup construction has tested the sanity of us all. If all that weren’t enough, the trade deadline is just about five weeks away when, if all goes as expected, the quality of the big league team will only get worse.

Here are four guys the Cubs need to dump, one way or another, in the weeks to come – none have anything to offer to the team long-term and haven’t earned a spot on the roster with their play.

4 Cubs players who should be ditched: #4 – Jonathan Villar

When Chicago decided to go with Jonathan Villar and Andrelton Simmons at shortstop instead of going out and signing one of the marquee shortstops in free agency last winter, it wasn’t exactly ideal, but I don’t know if anyone could have predicted things would go quite this poorly.

Villar, for his part, has been a complete and utter disaster, no matter how you look at his performance. At the dish, he’s batted just .222/.271/.327 – more than 30 percent below league average, even in a year where offenses have been slow to get rolling. If that weren’t bad enough, his glove work alone is enough to warrant cutting ties with him.

Using Outs Above Average (OAA), Villar ranks in the bottom one percent of the league defensively and he’s been worth -7 Defensive Runs Saved (DRS). He isn’t running well, either, something that used to be a staple of his game. So he isn’t hitting, fielding or running – why exactly are the Cubs burning a roster spot for this guy? This is a no-brainer. It’s time to move on. 

4 Cubs players who should be ditched: #3 – Andrelton Simmons

The other half of the Cubs’ budget-friendly middle infield ‘solution’, Andrelton Simmons has been pretty not-great, as well. The four-time Gold Glover hasn’t just been bad at the plate. He’s been what essentially amounts to unusable.

In 68 plate appearances (remember, he got a late start to his season), Simmons carries a 14 OPS+. Yes, you read that correctly. He’s batting .188/.212/.188 with zero extra-base hits. He’s got a career-low walk rate and is essentially an automatic out when he steps in.

Defensively, he’s definitely been better than Villar, but I think most 40-something beer league softball players can say as much. He ranks in the 80th percentile, per Statcast, in OAA – but the complete lack of value at the plate has more than erased anything he brings to the table defensively.

When Nick Madrigal returns, it’s time to roll with him and Nico Hoerner. Madrigal has been awful, as well, but he at least has a shot at being something for this team long-term. A soon-to-be 33-year-old Andrelton Simmons does not.

4 Cubs players who should be ditched: #2 – Daniel Norris

I understand the need for left-handed pitching, but the Daniel Norris reclamation project just hasn’t produced the results the Cubs hoped for. Sure, he’s racking up the strikeouts – his 33.6 percent strikeout rate ranks in the top six percent of the league – but there are too many other red flags to simply ignore.

His 50 percent hard-hit rate? Bottom two percent of the league. 116.8 MPH max exit velocity? Same story – bottom two percent. He’s carrying a wholly unsustainable 14.6 percent walk rate and the final results speak for themselves: a -0.8 bWAR, 7.24 ERA and 5.73 FIP.

He’s allowing way too much slugging to be a reliable presence in the pen for Ross and, combined with the walks, it’s a recipe for disaster. Norris is on the IL now with a left index finger strain but once he’s eligible to return, it’s time for the team to cut ties and move on.

The front office has been great at uncovered some diamonds in the rough in recent years, particularly in the bullpen, but this just hasn’t been one of those instances. Once the rotation gets healthy, the guys who’ve been starting can shift to the pen and cover the innings Norris has been getting.