The late-night/early-morning spot for Cubs fans asks if you would want the Cubs to trade for Royals pitcher Seth Lugo.
It’s Tuesday night here at BCB After Dark: the grooviest gathering of night owls, early risers, new parents and Cubs fans abroad. Come on in out of the heat. It’s always good to see you. We still have a few tables available. There’s no cover charge. 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.
I’m in a bad mood because the Cubs lost to the Cardinals 8-7. Worst yet, a boneheaded play by Pete Crow-Armstrong was the difference. The Cubs have lost three in a row and I don’t want to talk about it. That’s a problem because it’s my job to talk about the Cubs.
Last night I asked you if you though the Cubs should trade for Diamondbacks third baseman Eugenio Suárez, if Arizona decides to trade him. In first place, with 35 percent of the vote, was “no.” So I guess you could say that 65 percent of you think the Cubs should trade for him, but you quibbled with my proposed deal. Still, 31 percent of you think that a deal of Kevin Alcántara and Riley Martin would be a fair deal. My feeling is that Alcántara and Martin is more than the Cubs got for Kris Bryant in a similar situation four years ago. On the other hand, Suárez is having a better season this year than Bryant was having in 2021 (although not by much) and there are fewer injury concerns with Suárez. So I think the deal was pretty fair.
On Tuesday’s I don’t talk movies, but I always have time for jazz. Now is that time.
I know some of you might argue that this video is classical music and not jazz because it’s being performed by an orchestra. But the tune is definitely jazz and I know that it’s one that a lot of you love. So just think of it as a fancy big band sound.
This is l‘Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France playing Lalo Schifrin’s classic “Mission: Impossible.”
This is from 2023.
Welcome back to everyone who skips the music.
Kiley McDaniel and Jeff Passan of ESPN dot com are keeping a list of the top 50 players who could get traded this summer. This list includes estimates of how likely the player is to get moved and which teams might be interested. As you might guess, the Cubs are listed as “interested” in a lot of these players.
It’s no secret that the Cubs need starting pitchers and this three-game losing streak has made that point abundantly clear. The number-one starting pitcher (and third overall) on the ESPN list is Marlins pitcher Sandy Alcantara, whom, after a terrible start to the season has thrown quality starts in three of his last four starts and the other one only wasn’t a quality start because he allowed two runs in just five innings instead of six.
But we’ve already discussed Alcantara in this space. We probably will again, but we probably should wait until we get closer to the deadline to repeat that discussion.
The second-highest rated starting pitcher who could get dealt, and fourth overall, is Brewers starter Freddy Peralta. There are two problems with the Cubs dealing for Peralta. One, McDaniel and Passan give Peralta only a twenty percent chance of getting dealt to anyone. The second problem is that if the Brewers do decide to sell, they would probably prefer to trade with anyone other than the Cubs.
But the third-ranked pitcher (and sixth-overall) is Royals right-hander Seth Lugo. Lugo is an interesting player. Lugo’s pure stuff is pretty “meh.” His fastball velocity is a little below average and he doesn’t miss as many bats as you might like. But Lugo has at least eight different pitches and he knows how to use all of them to keep hitters off balance. He avoids hard contact and keeps the ball on the ground. He throws strikes and doesn’t issue many walks. In other words: he’s a pitcher, not a thrower.
You also can’t argue with Lugo’s results. Lugo had been a reliever most of his career until 2023 when the Padres moved him to the rotation. He was successful enough there to sign a two-year, $30 million deal with the Royals before last year and he’s been nothing short of fantastic there. Last year he finished second in American League Cy Young Award balloting, going 16-9 with an ERA of 3.00. Lugo, despite or maybe because he’s an older pitcher, is also a workhorse. He led the league in starts last year with 33 and was second in innings with 206 2/3.
This year, Lugo has been just as good. His ERA this year is 2.93. His strikeouts are down slightly and his walks are up slightly, but they are “within the margin of error” of what Lugo did last year.
Lugo has a $15 million player option for next year that, despite being 35 already, he’s likely to decline because he can get more than that on the open market. So Lugo would be a pure rental again.
For the statistically-inclined, a lot of you will note that Lugo’s underlying stats don’t line up with his low ERA. Lugo’s “expected ERA” and “Fielding independent pitching (FIP)” are a lot higher than his low actual ERA. But Lugo does seem to be a pitcher, like Kyle Hendricks, who can defy those underlying numbers through superior command and knowing how to set up hitters. (Of course, until they can’t, as Hendricks declined rapidly when his command and his changeup were no longer “elite.”)
McDaniel and Passan rank Eugenio Suárez as the fifth-best player who could be traded and Lugo sixth. So I would imagine it would take a similar package to get Lugo. Maybe a little less on Lugo since there are a lot more starting pitchers likely to be available at the deadline than slugging third basemen. So whatever you thought it would take to get Suárez yesterday, just shave a bit off of that and that’s what it would likely take to get Lugo.
So are you interested in the Cubs getting Seth Lugo?
Thanks so much for stopping by tonight. I didn’t want to feel this miserable alone. Please get home safely. Tell your friends about us. Recycle any cans and bottles. Tip your waitstaff. And join us again tomorrow night for more BCB After Dark.