Yesterday we took a closer look at the Clay Holmes part of this transaction that brought a sinkerball throwing, extreme ground ball pitcher to the Cubs rotation in return for one of their top prospects, Jefferson Rojas. You can read about the Rojas part of the trade in the link above, however today I want to focus on the second piece the Cubs got in this deal: outfielder Tyrone Taylor. Here is his first hit as a Cub [VIDEO]
.The bat
Taylor is
a 32-year-old righthanded outfielder whose overall slash line doesn’t really jump off the page. In 174 plate appearances this season he’s hit .241/.294/.481 with ten home runs and zero stolen bases. He has an above league average strikeout rate of 19.5 percent and a below league average walk rate of 5.7 percent. His wRC+ of 113 indicates he’s about 13 percent better at run creation than the league and park adjusted average.
However, digging into the stats a bit reveal the reason Taylor is a Cub. He has a much better .295/.304/.564 slashline with five home runs and a wRC+ of 137 in 82 plate appearances against lefties. Below you can see the Cubs hitters with at least 20 plate appearances against lefties sorted by wRC+ with some additional key stats:
To be clear, hitting against southpaws is a strength of the Chicago Cubs. Their team wRC+ of 124 is seven points higher than the next best team, their wOBA of .353 is nine points higher than the second place team (in both cases it’s the Washington Nationals). But there is a glaring outlier at the bottom of that table in left fielder Ian Happ. Happ has really struggled against lefties this year and it seems pretty clear that Taylor was brought to the Cubs at least in part as a short-side platoon partner for Happ.
Interestingly, that isn’t how the Cubs have played it so far. Taylor has started three games in centerfield to allow Pete Crow-Armstrong to DH on those days while Happ is still starting against left- and right-handed pitching. Admittedly, one of those lefty starters was an opener, but it’s worth keeping an eye on how Counsell deploys Taylor.
The glove
It’s a bit difficult to measure a part-time outfielder based on counting stats like Outs Above Average or Defensive Runs Saved. Taylor doesn’t really jump off the page by either metric this season. He’s got zero OAA this season and one DRS this season in 393.2 innings played in the outfield so far this season. He’s committed two errors this season and they were both fielding errors for a fielding percentage of .979. Again, not really a stat that screams excellent defender.
However, in looking at the rate at which he makes plays by difficulty Taylor compares favorable to Ian Happ in left field:
Obviously we’re looking at pretty small sample sizes here given Taylor’s part-time role. But I did glance back at these leaderboards for each of the last few seasons and the slight edge Taylor has over Happ also existed in 2024 and 2025 as well. Taylor consistently makes slightly more difficult plays than Happ. He’s also just a smidge better in terms of total percentage of plays made. It’s less clear who has the stronger arm as both have a handful of assists each season. The bottom line is Taylor makes the outfield a lot deeper and since he can play center field he upgrades the Cubs’ bench options considerably.
Here’s a nice grab he made against the Dodgers’ Freddie Freeman last week [VIDEO].
Takeaways
One of the items on Craig Counsell’s wish list heading into the trade deadline was a better right-handed bat off the bench who could play the outfield. Taylor certainly fits that bill. He’s been solid defensively so far with the Cubs and has a track record that backs that up. His familiarity with Wrigley Field is a bonus given his time with the Brewers. This is the type of move that makes a contender deeper down the stretch and while the cost of Rojas for two rentals is incredibly steep, I imagine we’ll all be fine with it if Taylor saves a run with his glove or delivers a key hit off a lefty in October.
