Cubs' bullpen crunch could solve itself with Caleb Thielbar fear hiding in plain sight

By infusing the pitching staff with four new arms at the trade deadline, the Chicago Cubs bought themselves a lot more leniency with their usage of their most trusted pitchers. Plus, with Hoby Milner and Edward Cabrera expected to return from the injured list in the near future -- not to mention looming relievers also on the IL, such as Phil Maton and Daniel Palencia -- it's not a stretch to say that their may soon actually be a roster crunch on this side of the ball.

A few players, like Javier Assad, are optionable, but there will still need to be quite a bit of juggling with both the 40-man and 26-man rosters in order to get the best collection of talent in Chicago at the same time. That means that even some stalwarts will be under the microscope as the Cubs down the stretch.

And really, there's no one who should be watched closer than Caleb Thielbar right now. The 39-year-old southpaw has been laboring in recent outings, and his usage pattern mirrors that of someone who may be on his last legs with the team.

Caleb Thielbar is getting crushed, and the Cubs may no longer have use for him in the bullpen

Thielbar's season-long stats are ugly enough; despite an impressive 28.5% strikeout rate, he's responsible for a 5.30 ERA and 5.36 FIP. Add on the fact that left-handed batters are crushing him to the tune of an .843 OPS, and you've got the recipe for a reliever who has (somewhat generously) been worth -0.5 fWAR this year.

And if we narrow our scope, things only get less tolerable. Since the start of July, Thielbar is working with a 7.30 ERA and 5.93 FIP. His xFIP of 2.63 is rather impressive, but that's mostly due to the fact that he hasn't walked a single batter in that span. What he has done is give up five home runs over his past 12.1 innings, as he's seemingly lost the ability to keep the ball on the ground.

The Cubs have also rode on him heavily since the trade deadline, pitching him in three straight games from August 5-7. Besides the fact that he's got a 32.40 ERA in those outings (that's not a typo, by the way), it's clear that the team is trying to get whatever it can from him until roster decisions need to be made.

That's not to say that Thielbar is a definite goner, but the fact that he's struggling this much in front of the league's best defense is concerning. His raw stuff hasn't totally deteriorated, hence the big strikeout totals, but he just can't make his living in the zone anymore without being punished.

Barring a miraculous turnaround in the days ahead, we may have already seen his swan song in Chicago.

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