This season has looked like the dawn of a new era. The Cubs are blazing out of the gates, staked to an 18-12 record and just half a game back of the equally hot Milwaukee Brewers in the NL Central. But unfortunately, the Cubs also have a kryptonite. It’s a roster weakness, exacerbated by recent injury, that doesn’t have an imminent solution.

The Cubs don’t hit well against righties

It’s really as simple as that. Put a lefty on the mound and the entire Cubs lineup goes into Death Star mode, putting up an .820 OPS against those lefties, second-best in the big leagues. But when facing righties, that OPS drops to a paltry .678, only good for 19th.

It makes sense because the main left-handed power bat on the Cubs the past two seasons has been Cody Bellinger, who had a resurgent 2023 and helped the Cubs maintain a .734 OPS against righties, which was still only good for 13th in the league. But with Bellinger dealing with injury and some ineffectiveness, the bats have gone totally stale when a righty takes the mound.

Want some culprits? Dansby Swanson jumps off the page, with a .591 OPS against righties and a 1.088 against lefties. Nico Hoerner is a .656 against righties and a .929 against lefties. Christopher Morel is at .627 vs. .819. Even Ian Happ, who switch-hits and is therefore supposed to help negate the issue, has a .638 against righties compared to a .737 against righties.

The only saving grace the Cubs have against right-handed pitching is Michael Busch, who the front office had the foresight to trade for from his position crunch in Los Angeles to play full-time first base in Chicago. Busch is excellent against righties and borderline unplayable against lefties, but the Cubs have bigger fish to fry. And if the front office can’t find a way to course correct by the trade deadline, the numerous stud righty starters across the National League will eat this lineup alive come October.

What are righties doing to shut the Cubs down?

Interestingly enough, the answer varies for each hitter. Swanson has seen a heavy diet of sliders and is hitting just .200 against them. Hoerner is a mixed bag, with decent stats against the slider and poor ones against the sinker, but xWOBA says those should be reversed. And Morel is having nightmares about changeups every night, hitting just .111 with a 30% K rate.

And in particular, it seems like the higher the velocity, the worse the Cubs fare. In the seventh inning or later, when fireballing relievers are typically in the game, the Cubs have a .637 team OPS, tenth-worst in the league, Comparatively, they have the ninth-best OPS from innings one through six at .736.

The Cubs are in a bit of a slump as a team all-around right now, so perhaps it isn’t fair to judge on recent sample size, but it’s worth looking at the context of their most recent four games, three of which are losses and the fourth was a win where they were no-hit into the eighth inning. The Cubs have just five earned runs in those four games when facing right-handed pitching and have struck out 30 times in 30.2 innings, having seen almost every archetype pitcher you can think of.

Who would be realistic adds for the Cubs?

Having firmly established that Chicago needs help when facing righties, we can have some fun and start looking ahead to the trade deadline. One lefty bat might not be enough to turn this “fatal flaw” into a non-issue, but it could still go a long way, so let’s look across the rosters of non-contenders to find some trade candidates that might be able to mash some right-handed pitchers at Wrigley Field in August and September.

The Colorado Rockies signed Ryan McMahon to a long-term extension through 2027, but frankly, they might not be halfway decent by then. McMahon has an .895 OPS against righties and fills a potential need at third base if the Cubs are willing to move Morel around the diamond like they did a season ago.

But McMahon might be a bit of a pipe dream, so how about the Washington Nationals’ Jesse Winker? The Cubs are no strangers to dealing with the Nats at the deadline, having brought Jeimer Candelario over a season ago. Winker was almost out of the league after underperforming in his last two injury-riddled seasons but caught on with Washington this spring and is eating righties for lunch, with a .977 OPS in 72 plate appearances.

And if the Cubs get lucky and the Arizona Diamondbacks fall out of the playoff race by the deadline, they should be ringing the front offices in Phoenix every hour on the hour about Joc Pederson. His 2021 tenure with the Cubs wasn’t the most fun portion of his career, but he’s seen nothing but good times since, winning a World Series in Atlanta that same year then having success in both San Francisco and Arizona. Off to a great start again in 2024, Pederson would make a heck of a Cub the second time around.

There we go, Cubs fans. We turned a negative into a positive. Your team just needs to grab one of those three lefties at the deadline and it will be 2016 all over again on the North Side.