This story was excerpted from Jordan Bastian’s Cubs Beat newsletter, with MLB.com's Brent Maguire pinch-hitting on this edition. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.
The 2026 Cubs experience has been a wild ride.
Early this season, the Cubs became the fifth team in MLB history to have two distinct streaks of 10 or more victories before their 40th decision of the season. Shortly after that, the Cubs lost 10 games in a row. With so much volatility on the team level, it’s not surprising that some individual Cubs players have endured spotty starts to the season.
With that in mind, here are three Cubs players performing below their career norms and why a return to their previous levels could shape Chicago’s season.
Seiya Suzuki, OF
2026 stats: .757 OPS, 9 HR, 1.1 fWAR in 51 G
Let’s start with an optimistic view of Suzuki. The 31-year-old owns a career .813 OPS thanks in part to his excellent power (.468 SLG) and his ability to work walks (10.4 percent). In each year from 2023-25, Suzuki had an OPS of at least .800 with 20-plus homers, including a career-high 32 long balls in 2025. And despite his slow start at the plate this year, he still has an above-average batting line because of the aforementioned power and plate discipline.
The pessimistic view is Suzuki has not looked right since the second half of last year. In 110 games since last year’s All-Star break, Suzuki has a .721 OPS that is well below his career mark. There’s also plenty of underlying data that supports Suzuki’s numbers dipping in that time: his barrel rate, hard-hit rate and average exit velocity are down significantly so far this season.
The good news is Suzuki has shown signs of life recently: he had a four-game hitting streak through Saturday and had two homers and three walks during that time.
Dansby Swanson, SS
2026 stats: .606 OPS, 7 HR, 1.1 fWAR in 62 G
Swanson has mostly thrived on providing league-average offense and elite defense at a premium position. Most years, you could count on him being one of the better defenders in baseball and an OPS somewhere in the .700s. The defense is still very much elite this season, but the bottom has totally fallen off at the plate.
The 32-year-old is running a .180/.285/.322 slash line and a .606 OPS -- all of which are career-worst numbers for Swanson. The defense remaining excellent still makes Swanson a viable everyday player, but there are worrisome trends at the dish. The biggest red flag is Swanson’s barrel rate dropping to 7.2 percent (as of Saturday), his worst figure since 2018.
Swanson’s role is still pretty set in stone, but posting a bottom-10 OPS among qualified players is not an ideal outcome for him or the Cubs.
Shota Imanaga, LHP
2026 stats: 4.74 ERA, 4.93 FIP, 0.4 fWAR in 76 IP
Imanaga was excellent to begin the season, as the left-hander posted a 2.32 ERA with 59 strikeouts in 54 1/3 innings, while only allowing five home runs. This seemingly put his 2025 concerns to bed … and then Imanaga endured one of the roughest stretches of his career.
In his last four starts, Imanaga has allowed 26 runs (all earned) in 21 2/3 innings, good for a 10.80 ERA. He’s only struck out 15 of the 97 batters he’s faced and has allowed a dozen homers, including four long balls in his most recent outing against the A’s. This is especially concerning given that Imanaga’s drop in whiffs and upticks in homers were a nagging issue last season.
Imanaga’s flyball-heavy profile makes him prone to bouts of homeritis so these kinds of ebbs and flows might be an inevitable part of his career. But when he’s dealing with these inconsistencies with his ability to miss bats, it makes the entire profile a little more uncertain.