Hey Busch, this ain't gonna cut it

When Michael Busch broke out last year with 34 homers and a .523 slug, it looked like the Cubs had found another in a long line of really productive first baseman. It's a line that goes all the way back from Bill Buckner to Leon Durham to Mark Grace to Derrek Lee to Anthony Rizzo in a nearly unbroken line from 1977 to 2021.

The current Cubs have one of baseball's highest scoring offenses. It doesn't always feel like it, considering they can go from scoring 24 runs over two days to getting no-hit for long stretches of three games in four days, but the runs are the runs.

And, while some obnoxious fans spend their entire free time looking up embarrassing numbers on Ian Happ (me, I do that, and it's fun really to point out things like his current stretch of hitting under .200 over the last 83 games--.199 with a .296 on base and .372 slug) not every Cub gets the dragging they thoroughly deserve.

Like Michael Conforto, for example, who has settled in a pretty consistent stream of DH at bats even though he's hitting .191/.270/.397 since May 12. MAY 12. MAY!

But what does this have to do with Busch? Surely he's still hitting well considering almost all of his at bats have come while hitting second, third or fifth in the order.

Well...no. He's been a very league average overall hitter this year, which isn't necessarily bad, except he's doing it with no power.

And it's kind of ironic. Last year, the Cubs moved Busch to the leadoff spot in the order to jump start their offense, and he hit nearly half of his 34 homers in just 199 at bats there. So that was great, but his on base average was just .311 which is not what you want as a leadoff hitter.

This year, he's hitting in more traditional run producing spots in the order and his on base is .354. Hey, pretty good.

But. You knew there would be a but...

Yesterday, Busch got a day off and Pedro Ramirez started at first, and with Pedro at first it was the first time the Cubs started a first baseman who was slugging over .415 since March 29.

MARCH.

Last year, Busch slugged .523. In his "rookie" year two years ago he slugged .440. But this year? He's slugging .387, and in 123 games played he's started the game with a slug of at least .400 just 20 times.

Busch was a 4.5 WAR player last year. He's currently on pace to be worth less than 2.0 this year.

His .387 slug is ninth on his own team (only Carson Kelly, Miguel Amaya and Nico Hoerner are worse of the regular players). And it ranks him 110th in baseball. Last year he was 13th.

How rare is it for the Cubs to have a primary first baseman slug less than .400?

In the last 50 years it's only happened four times.

2023 - Trey Mancini (.336) - But also Eric Hosmer (.330) and Matt Mervis (.289)
2022 - Alfonso Rivas (.307) and Frank Schwindel (.358)
1991 - Mark Grace (.373)
1976 - Pete LaCock (.373)

Grace is the only first baseman in those 50 years to play as many games at first as Busch already has this season and finish under .400. And Grace played 13 more years for the Cubs after that and never came close to slugging just at or under .400 again.

The 2003 Cubs had three first basemen, and they all slugged at least .400 (Eric Karros - .446, Hee Seop Choi - .421, Randall Simon - .485).

One season fill ins like Matt Stairs (.462), Carlos Pena (also .462) and the year and two months of the corpse of Fred McGriff (.518) easily cleared this low bar.

In Anthony Rizzo's rookie year, All-Star Bryan LaHair (.450 for the season, and .523 when played first) and Rizz (.463) took care of business.

So, what's the problem? How does a guy's power just completely disappear? Is Busch playing with an injury? Not that we know of.

The only difference is that this is the first year that he's not platooning to avoid left-handed pitching.

Even in the handpicked ABs Craig Counsell gave him against lefties in 2024 and 2025 it was pretty rough. He struck out 25 times in 89 at bats against lefties in 2024. Last year he slashed just .207/.274/.368 against lefties with 26 Ks in 87 at bats.

And last year was a good example of how much he tormented right-handed pitchers while struggling in his limited at bats against lefties. Against righties he slashed .272/.356/.554.

So this year, the Cubs showed faith in Busch by just starting him every day, no matter if the pitcher was right-handed, left-handed or neither.

And, he's held his own against lefties. He's slashing .241/.346/.387 against them. The problem is that he didn't just level out his average and on base, he did the same with his slug. He's slugging the same .387 against righties and lefties and that's bad.

Are his struggles a result of somehow changing his swing, either on purpose or by accident to stay in better against left-handers?

If it is, he needs to cut it out. Because if this trend holds, instead of looking for a right-handed hitting first baseman to platoon with him, the Cubs will be out looking for a power hitting first baseman to replace him.

We are told over and over about how great Busch's defense at first base is, but clearly they're grading on the same curve they use to pretend Happ is anything special out in left.

Busch is not a bad defensive first baseman by any measure. He's solid. There's no issue with his defense. But don't act like it's additive. He's fine.

According to Baseball Savant, Busch is three outs above average at first, and in the 70th percentile. That's solidly above average. It's good.

But the dopes at Marquee always forget that most of us watched the Cubs long before their crappy in-house network started televising the games, and we saw Buckner and Grace and Lee and Rizzo and we know what great defense at first looks like.

Busch ranks right about where you'd guess defensively at first. He's eighth in baseball. He's half as good as the best guy, Matt Olson who is six outs above average, which feels right. That he's tied with Pete Alonso seems...eh? Really?

Whatever.

My point (there is one, really) is that while Busch's defense is good, it's not good enough to make up for a .387 slug. That defense when he's slugging .523 like last year? Yes! Very good. That defense when slugging .440 like he did in 2024? OK.

In 2025 he was among the league leaders in run value on two pitches. He was elite against four seam fastballs where he was worth 14 runs above average, and changeups where he was +7. This year? He's -2 against four seamers and -4 on changeups.

His slugging is down across the board. It's down over 100 points on fastballs compared to last year, down nearly 80 points on breaking pitches, but it's really down against changeups. He smoked those last year to the tune of a .610 slug on offspeed pitches. This year? .238. That's down 372 points.

He had a long stretch without an extra base hit of any kind early in the season. He had three doubles on opening day, March 26, and then not another extra base hit until April 22. He slugged just .281 in March/April and then was back to normal with a .510 in May, but he's slugged just .390, .388, .375 in the three months since.

Whatever the problem is, Busch needs to figure it out. Because Petecrow and Seiya can't do this shit by themselves. Alex Bregman seems to have gotten his shit together, now it's Busch's turn.