3 Cubs who need to turn their seasons around, starting this weekend against the Mets

This week's series against the Philadelphia Phillies was exactly the confidence booster the Chicago Cubs and their fans needed after a sluggish opening stretch. Facing a buzzsaw of pitchers between Cristopher Sanchez, Aaron Nola, and Jesus Luzardo, the North Siders' offense finally came alive with a collective 28 runs across the three games as they took two out of three. Even against another uncharacteristically struggling contender, that's a great outcome, though there are still problems to iron out as the team heads back to Wrigley Field to play the New York Mets.

A lot of the Cubs' key players' stat lines are looking much better after heading to Philly. Among their regulars, only three have a wRC+ below 100 now. Their slash lines still show room for improvement, but it's a good start, carried by white-hot streaks from Nico Hoerner, Carson Kelly, and Moises Ballesteros. Save for a clunker of a second outing from Javier Assad, the starting pitching — rather, what's left of it — has mostly performed admirably too, with Shota Imanaga and Edward Cabrera being the standouts.

Yet, this team still has three key contributors struggling mightily that, for the sake of the season, need to turn it around, starting this weekend. These are not players the Cubs can afford to have scuffling for much longer if they want to reach their full potential as contenders. Let's take a look at their respective cases and see what needs to improve against New York and throughout the rest of the year.

3 guys the Cubs need to get going sooner rather than later

Pete Crow-Armstrong

After getting his big six-year, $115 million extension, expectations were high for Pete Crow-Armstrong heading into the year. The hope was that he could finally figure out how to hit more like his first-half self from 2025 across a full season and really blossom into a superstar. Unfortunately, he's so far looked a lot more like his second-half self, hitting just .236/.276/.306 with a 63 wRC+. He, like many of the Cubs' hitters, got a bit of a boost from the Phillies series, but the slash line is still pretty ugly.

Despite a focus on limiting his chase rate and driving up his on-base percentage this year, it's somehow become an even more glaring problem than ever. PCA is going after pitches outside the zone nearly 50 percent of the time, leading the majors by a good margin. Chase is always going to be a part of his game, but it's gotten to the point where it is severely limiting what he does do well — crushing the ball with elite bat speed. As a result, his line drive rate (10 percent) and fly ball rate (26 percent) are by far at career lows, while he's increased his rate of ground balls by a staggering 14.5 percent to an above league-average 48 percent.

PCA has always been at his best when pulling the ball in the air. That approach helped him post the first 30-30 season by any Cub not named Sammy Sosa. Pitchers aren't going to throw him opportunities to do that when they know they have about a coin flip chance of getting him to chase at something he can't do damage to. He's still only 24, and his ceiling is so high, so it's far from time to panic, but he has to start making adjustments to become the force the Cubs believe he can be. At the very least, he's still providing all-world center field defense while he figures things out.

Michael Busch

I recently ranked Busch as one of the struggling Cubs that weren't worth worrying about after his slow start, but boy, he's testing my patience. On the one hand, he's made strides at the dish that are encouraging, boasting an improved 12.7 percent walk rate and 19.7 percent strikeout rate while still squaring up the ball well. Yet, he still hasn't actually hit the ball with any authority, perhaps best exemplified by the fact that his average exit velocity of 82.6 mph is fifth-worst in all of baseball. The underlying stats show he absolutely deserves that dreadful .148/.254/.180/33 wRC+ slash line.

And yet, it's still hard to be overly concerned about him, considering what he's shown he's capable of. A 0-for-30 stretch will do a lot to sour fans on a player, but it's always worth remembering that he was a top ten offensive player in the game just last year by wRC+. He slashed .261/.343/.523 and posted 34 home runs in 592 plate appearances. Bad splits against lefties may have held him back in the eyes of some, but the numbers were simply impressive and were backed up by his ability to barrel the ball.

Once he's operating like that player again, this year's Cubs offense will start to feel much different. He definitely has the potential to carry the group on any given day when things are going well. Aside from simply working on realigning his power and timing, it'll help if he can start pulling and elevating the ball closer to the rate he did in 2025. So far, his ground ball rate is up from 36.2% all the way to 52.1%(!), and that certainly hasn't done him any favors.

Jameson Taillon

Compared to Crow-Armstrong and Busch, Jameson Taillon's start to the season hasn't been nearly as calamitous. His 4.86 ERA and 6.28 FIP aren't good, but that's after only three starts. Moreover, he has an expected ERA and FIP of 4.32 and 4.46, which are more acceptable for a back-end starter. That's not to say he hasn't shown some concerning signs, though. His fastball velocity has remained down a tick, his 8.5% walk rate is a career high, and, most problematic, he's already given up a league-leading five longballs on the year. With Cade Horton down for the year, he simply needs to be better.

Taillon has already done a lot to quell concerns from a disastrous spring where he gave up 10 home runs, but it would be a boon to the Cubs if he could get back to where he was the past two years. One key difference that's held him back so far is how his fastball and changeup are playing to hitters. Both offerings are getting smoked, with the heater giving up a .333 batting average and .722 slugging percentage while his off-speed has thus far surrendered a .400 BA and 1.000 SLG. Last year, the changeup in particular was a go-to weapon for him against lefties, holding batters to a .161 average, so not having that at its sharpest certainly hurts.

The good news is that Taillon is a crafty veteran, and he's already found some adjustments, like leaning more on his cutter. Batters are struggling mightily to figure it out, only hitting 0.71 with a .286 SLG against it in the early going. He's always been such a steady presence in the Cubs' rotation that it would be hard to bet against him once again finding a way to give them quality, if not always pretty, innings throughout the season. A strong start against the Mets would be a good sign that he can still be that dependable veteran who can step up when he's needed the most.

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