Kyle Tucker's slump shouldn't cause Cubs' front office to overreact at trade deadline

With all of the trade rumors surrounding top prospect Owen Caissie, you'd figure that the outfield picture in Chicago would be set in stone.

Instead, Ian Happ is kind of, maybe injured, Seiya Suzuki is still booting routine fly balls, and Kyle Tucker is mired in his worst slump as a Cub.

With Moises Ballesteros coming up to replace Happ (and Vidal Bruján) for now, you can bet that Caissie probably won't be part of the organization for much longer. However, any desire to hold onto him should not be motivated by Tucker's difficult month at the plate.

Kyle Tucker is slumping, but the Cubs can bet on a bounce back

In 97 plate appearances in July (prior to the final game of the month against the Milwaukee Brewers), Tucker is slashing .200/.358/.267 with just one home run. As you might expect, all of those numbers are the worst he's posted in any month as a Cub. His 92 wRC+ is his worst mark in any month since May 2023.

Most concerningly, his hard-hit rate (26.2%) is in the gutter (for him). Throughout the first three months of the season, that mark was at 34.0%.

It's a heck of a time for him to be going through his worst slump in at least two years, but it's not like he's been devoid of value. His walk rate (19.6%) and strikeout rate (11.3%) are both at absolutely elite levels this month, and his plate approach has remained practically identical.

There's not much difference in his batted ball data either, and the only things worth mentioning are the fact that he's basically hitting no fly balls hard (career-low 3.4% home run per fly ball rate) and he's pulling balls a little less than usual (40.%) this month.

This could just be a timing issue, or perhaps a small, nagging injury that's impacting him at the point of contact. It wouldn't be wise to expect this to persist far that much longer, though, obviously, the Cubs can't afford for it to, lest they cede an insurmountable gap in the division to the Brewers.

With the trade deadline roughly 24 hours away at the time of publishing, there may be some inkling in the back of the Cubs' minds to keep Caissie (or Kevin Alcántara), just in case Happ's injury is more serious than it appears or Tucker's slump extends into the dog days of summer.

That shouldn't be the case. Betting on the veterans to figure their issues out and going all-in at the deadline is the team's best path to making noise in the playoffs. Kyle Tucker was brought in to be the lineup's rock through thick and thin—the Cubs need to double down on that notion right now.