Moises Ballesteros has been optioned to Triple-A Iowa. This news comes as a surprise after he's been inconsistently thrown around the roster. But the MLB is a business, and like Craig Counsell says, every roster is different. Some rosters have enough flexibility to keep struggling hitters on their lineup indefinitely. Yet in the injury prone season that the Cubs pitching staff has been putting forward, flexibility isn't something the Cubs have been rich in.
Ballesteros took the north side by storm when he lit up April in the earlier part of the season. He posted a .382 batting average during the month of April, collecting 21 hits on only 55 at bats. His at-bats came almost exclusively from the DH position. The Cubs were riding high at the time, as they collected two separate ten game win steaks right in that vicinity. But it didn't last.
The Cubs should have made this move weeks ago
Ballesteros is 22 years old. After being tossed around the big league roster in 2025, he surely wished to keep his presence consistent this time. Through the first chunk of the season, it sure looked like he would. That's when he hit a brick wall.
May brought one of the worst months of hitting from the young slugger since being promoted to the show. There was one point where he was resting at an abysmal .068 batting average. Six hits on just under sixty at bats is enough to put any big leaguer on the bench. His presence on the starting lineup was an eaten out 3-5 times a game, and there wasn't a pundit alive that could justify keeping him on the roster. Yet Counsell held firm. It didn't pay off.
Now, after Ballesteros posted a respectable .231 average in June, he's heading down. This is exactly the type of decision making that has landed the Cubs firmly in third place, and even more firmly out of competitive talks. It's simply not good enough. Craig Counsell is an excellent manager, and he knows exactly what he's doing. But keeping Ballesteros on the roster when he clearly isn't ready could be enough to cost him his job.
Ballesteros still has the talent to become an impact bat at the major league level, but talent alone isn't enough to justify a roster spot on a team fighting to stay afloat. The Cubs finally made the right decision, and now they have to hope it didn't come a month too late.
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