Trade Deadline Eve
The rumor talk hasn't grown much louder than a whisper so far for the Cubs, a few names sprinkled here or there, but it doesn't appear they'll make any big impact moves.
Ken Rosenthal at FoxSports says the Cubs prefer lefty reliever John Grabow of the Pittsburgh Pirates over the Nationals Joe Beimel. Neither one seems like much of a choice to me as a LOOGY though. Grabow has struck out 8.1 batters per nine innings(7.8 on the season) compared to Beimel and his 5.1 career K/9 (5.4 on the season). Over his career, Grabow doesn't show much of a difference versus lefties or righties (.742 OPS vs RH, .723 vs. LH).) Beimel for his career has a .721 OPS against versus lefties, .785 versus righties. As for this season, Beimel does a better job of keeping people off base with a 1.33 WHIP compared to Grabow's 1.50 WHIP. Beimel has a .714 OPS against versus righties, .705 versus lefties this season while Grabow has shown a reverse split of .702 versus righties, .715 versus lefties.
Grabow features a low 90's fastball with a change and slider, and tends to give up the flyball over the grounder (at least the last 2 seasons). Beimel keeps the ball on the ground usually(not so much this year) with a fastball in the mid 80's along with a change and curve as well.
Considering Marmol, Gregg, Marshall and Guzman all have OPS against as good or significantly better than either of them, I'm not sure this is much of an improvement for the team, although removing Jeff Samardzija or Aaron Heilman from the roster wouldn't be that bad. Grabow is a free agent after the season and would be a Type A free agent most likely, according to MLBTR.
The other rumor from Wittenmyer is that the Cubs continue in their perpetual search for a left-handed hitting right fielder with Jeremy Hermida and Mark Teahen mentioned.
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