Prepare for Gausmania!

Last year, the Cubs trade deadline was defined not just by the guys Jed Hoyer was unable to get: Mackenzie Gore, Edward Cabrera, Sandy Alcantara, Mitch Keller, etc. But, by the guys he settled for, particularly starting pitcher Mike Soroka. Soroka was supposed to be the first of two starters they traded for, but ended up being the only one and he lasted two innings into his first start before he got hurt and didn't pitch again, save for a brief relief outing in the season's final days.

This year, Jed was going to get a real starter if it killed him. And, you can't say he didn't get a starting pitcher in his first trade of the deadline.

He acquired free agent to be Blue Jays workhorse Kevin Gausman in exchange for two minor leaguers who would need to stand on each other's shoulders to equal one real baseball player.

Gausman is, amazingly, old enough to have pitched on the 2013 Baltimore Orioles with future Cubs legends Jason Hammel, Jake Arrieta, Tommy Hunter, Brian Matusz, and Pedro Strop, and past Cubs legend Scott Feldman.

Gausman is in his 14th big league season, he's made 30 or more starts nine times, including the last five straight, and he comes to Cubs after making an American League high 23 starts so far this season.

So he's going to take the ball, which on this current Cubs team is a bit of miracle in itself. But what's he going to do with it?

If recent results are any indication, he's going to give up a shit load of runs. After posting ERAs of 3.10 and 3.18 in 12 starts in April and May, Gausman went 0-7 in 10 starts in June and July with ERAs of 6.47 and 6.10. Is that bad? That seems bad.

In one August start he righted the ship going 5.2 and allowing just one run in a 5-1 win over the Cardinals. Ahh, the Cardinals. We know they suck.

So, is Gausman cooked? Is that how Jed could get him for the low, low price of a couple of dainty minor leaguers in OF Brett Bateman and middle infielder Ty Southisene?

Maybe.

However, maybe there's some bad luck mixed into those awful June and July results. For the season, Gausman's FIP (fielding independent pitching) is just 3.51, nearly a full run lower than his season ERA of 4.38. And that's significant, because normally Gausman outpitches his FIP. For his career his FIP is 3.59 and his career ERA is 3.85.

Maybe it's bad luck and the Blue Jays playing all season without a shortstop.

If the Cubs hang on to reach the postseason, Gausman has plenty of experience there. He's pitched in nine different series, and has a 3.83 ERA in 14 playoff games, eight starts.

Last year he was terrific in the ALDS against the Yankees (1.59 ERA in one start), and the Mariners (2.19 ERA in two starts and a relief appearance) and less than terrible against the Dodgers in the World Series (4.26 in two starts). He started game six with a chance to close out the series and went six innings, but a Dodgers rally in the third put them up 3-0 (RBI double by Will Smith, two RBI single by Mookie Betts) and the Jays could only manage a single run. Unlike his game six opponent, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Gausman did not come back to pitch in game seven. It's still fucking crazy to think that Yamamoto did that in the first place.

Gausman will bump either Colin Rea or Javier Assad out of the rotation, and then Edward Cabrera will bump out the other one when he returns. And, hopefully Jed will have traded for another starter to take over when Mr. Ed hurts himself again.

The biggest difference between last year's version and this year's version of Gausman has been that his offspeed stuff (primarily his slider) is getting the shit knocked out of it. His slider's never been great. Last year opposing hitters slugged .590 against it, but this year he'd kill for that kind of thing, as hitters are slugging .743 on it. He's only throws it about nine times a game, but he's given up ten hits on it and FIVE of them were homers. Maybe stop throwing it?

Ahh, I'm sure the Cubs' vaunted pitch lab will fix it right up. When have they ever not been able to fix somebody?

It's unlikely the Cubs will ever miss the guys they traded for him. Bateman is listed at 5'10, but he's 5'8 in heels, and enjoying a breakout season slugging wise at Iowa with a .422 slug. Ehh. That's James Triantos territory, and we know how useless that guy is.

One thing to keep in mind with all of the Cubs having better than usual slugging at Iowa this year is that the International League changed the way they schedule and teams play the same team all week, six days in a row. Every Monday's an off day and then you play a team from Tuesday through Sunday. Not only do you get awfully familiar with every guy in the other team's bullpen, but the unintended consequence of the six games in a row is that it's not uncommon for a team to use multiple position players as pitchers in a given series. How fun.

As for Southisene, he has batted 706 times in the minor leagues without a homer. But hey, not to be outdone he's also hit just 13 doubles and seven triples. His career on base average is 85 points HIGHER than his career slugging is. He's listed at 5'7, and honestly, I don't even want to know how short he really is.

You could smell this trade coming based on Jed's comments in an article in Saturday's The Athletic that apparently was so complicated that both Patrick Mooney and Sahadev Sharma had to work together to write it.

In it, Jed talks about how he regretted the Cubs not completing a 2017 deadline trade for Justin Verlander. No shit. Honestly, not getting the trade done wasn't that bad, what was moronic was that as much as they wanted him, they didn't claim him when the Tigers put him on revocable waivers (I miss those). Had they done that they could have basically forced the Tigers to take whoever they wanted them to. Instead he cleared waivers and then the Astros made a strong offer to the Tigers for him. That's OK, all he did for the Astros was win two Cy Youngs, finish second another time, lead the league in wins twice, and win three pennants and two World Series. But hey, the Cubs got to pitch John Lackey in relief in both games and two of the NLCS, so it worked out fine for everybody.

Jed said the Cubs learned their lesson and they traded for Cole Hamels in 2018, and yeah, Cole was awesome for them, so good job.

But this Jed quote is one that scares me. "You try to balance: What is injury? What is age? (It could also be): ‘I’m frustrated in this bad situation right now.’"

Sure. Just trade for any old pitcher. He'll just magically get better like Verlander and Hamels did!

Or, maybe I'm being crazy here. Verlander and Hamels were Hall of Fame pitchers on bad teams.

Nah, that can't be it.

Anyway, the Cubs basically got Gausman for nothing. Let's hope he doesn't pitch like it.