It’s Tuesday night here at BCB After Dark: the grooviest get-together for night owls, early risers, new parents and Cubs fans abroad. Come on in and sit with us for a while. We’re all in a good mood. There’s no cover charge. The air conditioning is working. The hostess can seat you now. Bring your own beverage.
BCB After Dark is the place for you to talk baseball, music, movies, or anything else you need to get off your chest, as long as it is within the rules of the site. The late-nighters are encouraged
to get the party started, but everyone else is invited to join in as you wake up the next morning and into the afternoon.
The Cubs swept a doubleheader from the Brewers, 6-4 and 4-1. One day after arguably the most embarrassing game of the year, the Cubs bounced back and took it to the Brew Crew. Owen Caissie played both games and had a big day, going 3 for 6 with his first career home run over the two games. He also had four RBI on the day. Willi Castro hit a huge three-run home run in the first game and made a huge outfield assist in the second one.
I thought about breaking out Judy for tonight’s sweep, but the Cubs are still seven games behind Milwaukee. If they win the next two, I’ll bring Judy out. But tonight, for all you who thought the Cubs’ season was over yesterday:
Last night I asked you what your opinion would be of “radical realignment” that would eliminate the National and American Leagues in the name of an Eastern and Western conference. A lot of you said that you really don’t want the Cubs to be in the same division with the White Sox. That may have something to do with the final vote, where 57 percent of you were against it. Only 20 percent of you like the idea and the rest of you are pretty “meh” about the whole thing. But you still took time to vote and I appreciate that.
On Tuesday nights/Wednesday mornings, I don’t normally talk movies. But I always have time for jazz, so those of you who skip that can do so now. You won’t hurt my feelings.
Tonight we are featuring pianist Cedar Walton playing his classic tune “Bolivia.” Walton is joined by Pierre Michelot on bass and Billy Higgins on drums. This is in San Sebastián, Spain, in 1988.
Welcome back to everyone who skips all that jazz.
Kyle Tucker has been a mess lately. I think you all know that. In the first half, Tucker was playing like a strong MVP-candidate. He looked to be worth every bit of what the Cubs gave up for him. Since the All-Star Break, however, Tucker is hitting .182/.333/.239 with just one home run in 26 games. He’s still drawing a lot of walks, but the power is gone and when he does make contact, Tucker is hitting a ton of easy ground balls to second base. His body language is also poor—shocking for someone who rarely showed emotion before. Tucker was booed in Monday’s shutout loss and he did not play either game in today’s doubleheader. Rookie Owen Caissie did and he did pretty well, as outlined above.
There has been some suggestion that Tucker is injured, most likely in early June when he jammed his finger sliding into second base and missed a game. That makes sense as a finger injury could really affect his swing.
The problem with that explanation is that Tucker hurt his finger on June 1, and he has his best month of the season in June. It was only in July that his season started to go haywire. The timing simply doesn’t make sense. There could be another injury that we don’t know about. But we have no reason to think there is.
So today’s question is a way of asking “How down are you on Tucker right now?” Specifically, do you still want the Cubs to sign Tucker to a long-term deal after the season?
People are saying that Tucker’s slump here is costing him a lot of money, and it might. Certainly if he doesn’t snap out of it, teams are going to hesitate to hand him $400 million. But if Tucker snaps out of it in September and especially in October, then teams are going to forget about a forgettable July and August when making an offer this winter.
So tonight we have a hypothetical. You’re in charge of the Cubs. You make the decision whether or not to give Tucker a massive contract extension. Let’s say that Kyle Tucker comes to you this morning and says “I’ll sign an eight-year, $380 million extension right now.” That’s on the low-end of the estimates for Tucker’s free agent deal, but I think it’s a pretty realistic number. Yeah, maybe it’s a bit low, but it’s realistically low.
Would you sign Tucker right now for that amount of money? Are you confident that this slump, the worst of his career, is just temporary and he’ll bounce out of it? Or does this slump give you pause that the rest of his career is going to be downhill? Maybe you just think Owen Caissie is going to be better for less money?
Now to be clear, Tucker is not coming to the Cubs this week with this offer. This is just a thought exercise to gauge how worried you are about Tucker and how much you want him to be a part of the Cubs’ future. But this is a question that the front office is going to have to deal with this winter, although they’ll have a bit more information then than we do now.
Thank you for stopping in tonight. We’re always glad to see you and the celebrations was pretty wild tonight. Please get home safely. If you’ve had too much to drink, let us call you a ride. Please recycle and cans and bottles. Tip your waitstaff. And join us again tomorrow for more BCB After Dark.
