Chicago Cubs: The time has come to call up Robel Garcia

With a sputtering offense and lack of production at second base, the Chicago Cubs should strongly consider calling up Robel Garcia.

It’s been a revolving door for the Chicago Cubs at second base this season. Ben Zobrist was getting regular starts this season prior to leaving the team to attend to a personal matter. He figures to be back at some point, but the team has attempted to replace him with Addison Russell, Daniel Descalso, and David Bote.

I like David Bote and what his bat can bring to this offense, but not as an everyday player. Bote was signed to a five-year extension earlier this season and will likely replace Ben Zobrist as the super utility player for this roster. Addison Russell has not proven his worth as he’s slashing just 0.238/0.313/0.396 with 5 home runs and 12 RBI’s in 38 games to go along with a wRC+ of 81.

Daniel Descalso has been even worse. I’ll just leave it at that.

It’s time for the Cubs to turn to their minor league system and give slugging second basemen, Robel Garcia, a shot. He’s got a really unique story of how he arrived in Major League Baseball and started with Double-A Tennessee this season.

It only took 22 games for the Cubs to determine he was ready for Triple-A, and Garcia has played 45 games there as well. With the Triple-A squad, Garcia has slashed 0.298/0.379/0.626 with 15 home runs and 31 RBI’s. Between the two affiliates, he’s got 21 home runs, 13 doubles, 1 triple and 57 RBI’s this year.

He could be the consistent spark that this team needs right now. The Cubs are 12-13 in June, their worst month since May 2017. Scoring runs, consistently, has been an issue with this team for the last three seasons and it’s been primarily the same guys in the batting order.

At the end of last season, Cubs President of Baseball Operations Theo Epstein stated that it’s time to start playing production over talent but he’s not following through on that notion. There’s a point when he needs to realize that guys like Russell are not going to reach their full potential and should receive less playing time.

The Cubs need to call up Garcia and at least give him a look. I realize it would require someone from the roster to either be sent down or designated-for-assignment but the Cubs should consider themselves extremely lucky to still be in first place.

The rest of the National League Central division has been slumping as well, otherwise, the Cubs could be 5.0 games back of first place right now. Make the right move and call up Robel Garcia. There should be a sense of urgency now.