Moises Ballesteros may be leaving the Cubs with obvious choice for next roster move

The days of the Chicago Cubs' dual ten-game winning streaks feel like ancient history at this point, as the team has come crashing back down to Earth throughout the month of May. Their most recent losing streak has dropped them from the top of the NL Central and then some, leaving fans and team personnel alike searching for answers. Injuries have wreaked havoc on the Cubs' pitching staff (and veterans like Jameson Taillon haven't pulled their weight), but the real problem is in the lineup.

Manager Craig Counsell (as relayed by The Athletic's Sahadev Sharma) may have recently referenced the 1927 Yankees to explain away the team's struggles with situational hitting, but Lou Gehrig isn't going to step up to the plate for these Cubs any time soon. The team has already pulled the lever of promoting top prospects to try and break this slump, but if Moises Ballesteros can't turn things around soon their next move might be to send one back to Iowa.

It's impossible to deny that Ballesteros has had an overall successful start to his MLB career. In his first 200 plate appearances as a big leaguer, he slashed .264/.350/.454 with a strikeout rate below 19% and power that puts him on pace for more than 40 extra-base hits over a full season. That sort of hitting ability is hard to come by, and Ballesteros should be given every opportunity at the major league level.

With that being said, however, it's fair to suggest that Ballesteros has already been given exactly that opportunity at this point. Ballesteros's 2026 production has been carried by an absurdly strong April, and the numbers just haven't been up to snuff in the month of May. Ups and downs are to be expected for any rookie, but a player who is more or less DH-only producing a .410 OPS across 17 games this month just won't cut it.

The Cubs have better options than Ballesteros already on the roster

If the Cubs were struggling to field to a lineup the way they're struggling to cobble together a pitching staff amid a wave of injuries, then letting Ballesteros keep trying to fight through this slump would make some sense. That's not the case, however, and with the team's playoffs odds having plunged below 50% according to FanGraphs it's fair to say that now is the time for real urgency.

Presumably, Pedro Ramirez and Kevin Alcantara were both called up from the minors for a reason. You wouldn't know it given that Alcantara has exactly one plate appearance so far in the majors this year, but he was tearing the cover off the ball at Triple-A with 15 homers in 41 games before getting called up. That's the sort of game-changing production the Cubs need right now, and letting Ballesteros's slumping bat stand in the way of that makes little sense.

Even if Craig Counsell is insistent on squeezing another lefty into the lineup, veteran outfielder Michael Conforto doesn't have a regular role and has enjoyed a very productive start to the year. He's scuffled a bit during this recent losing streak (as has the rest of the offense), but his .887 OPS in the month of May is more than double that of Ballesteros. Between Alcantara and Conforto, surely the Cubs can find a way to get Ballesteros the reset he needs, whether that's on the bench or in Iowa.

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