How catcher went from Cubs’ weak spot to key offensive contributor
The Chicago Cubs sealed their place in the 2025 MLB postseason after two straight years of 83 wins and falling just short of the playoff tournament. How did the Cubs put it all together and get over the hump? Here are six key areas that led to the return of October baseball on the North Side.
CHICAGO — The catching position is so demanding that offensive production takes a backseat.
“There’s so much demand that comes with that, that a lot of times we don’t get as much time in the cage with them to kind of go through some of the smaller, minor details that some of our other guys get a chance to,” Cubs hitting coach Dustin Kelly said.
Yet, the Cubs have received some of the best production from that group in all of baseball. Their backstops – Carson Kelly, Miguel Amaya and Reese McGuire – have slashed .251/.309/.447 (.756 OPS) with a 110 weighted runs created plus (wRC+), 10 percentage points above league average. They are fifth in baseball in home runs (29), seventh in OPS and eighth in baseball in wRC+ and fWAR (4.1).
That’s a stark contrast from the last two years.
In 2023 and 2024, the Cubs had 28 home runs from catchers – one fewer than they have this season – a 1.2 fWAR, 76 wRC+ and a .633 OPS.
“We’re [around] 30 home runs from our catching group. That’s outstanding,” Cubs manager Craig Counsell said earlier this month. “The offensive level of production, I think, has been a big deal for us and have been just a big help to any offense, right?
“When you’re getting plus production from your catching, it makes you a good offensive team, because it’s so hard to get.”
The catching position was an area where the Cubs thought improvements could help them break through the 83-win threshold they’d been stuck on the last two years. Especially in the first half of last season, the bottom of their lineup was a black hole.
A marginal improvement from the catching position, coupled with some positive regression from Dansby Swanson and the belief that Pete Crow-Armstrong’s second-half offensive prowess was real, meant the Cubs had a path to remedy that this season. There were flashes of that in the second half.
It started with Amaya carrying over his strong 2024 and the Cubs adding a complement to split duties with him.
Enter Carson Kelly.
The veteran was once a top prospect, the heir-apparent to Yadier Molina in St. Louis. But he was the headliner in the blockbuster deal with Arizona that sent Paul Goldschmidt to the Cardinals, and Carson Kelly carved out a solid, but not quite the face-of-the-franchise-type, career. As a free agent, there was a belief that he would help the ascension of the Cubs’ catchers at the plate.
No one could foresee what would transpire, though.
Carson Kelly would begin the year on an absolute heater while splitting the duties initially with Amaya. He hit for the cycle in his third game of the year, carried a 1.000-plus OPS into late May and had an .899 OPS with 12 home runs and 33 RBI in the first half. Amaya was hitting .280 with four home runs, 25 RBI and an .819 OPS, forming quite the tandem. But then an oblique injury landed Amaya on the injured list.
“You’re devastated for him personally,” Dustin Kelly said. “You hate to see that happen to somebody, just because you know him personally so well, but he was off to a really good start. He was doing great things offensively, and you just wanted to see that continue.
“So yeah, it was tough to swallow for us, for sure.”
The Cubs called up McGuire to take his spot on May 25, just three days after McGuire had re-signed with the team on a minor-league deal (he had opted out of a minor-league pact with the Cubs earlier in the month).
“Beginning the year in Triple-A and just kind of having to accept what the reality was at the time,” McGuire said. “For me, it was like, ‘All right, let me do everything I can to force the issue.’ Play good baseball, basically, but also knowing that, like, ‘Hey, if anything happens, no matter how I’m playing, prepare as if, like, I’m gonna be the guy.’ So that was always in my mind.”
That mindset helped him, and the Cubs did not skip a beat when he was brought up.
McGuire hit two home runs in his debut that day, as the Cubs beat the Reds 11-8, and has nine home runs and 24 RBI in 135 plate appearances this season.
“What he’s done for us here has been huge,” Dustin Kelly said. “The balance of Carson and himself of like keeping each of them fresh but getting them enough at-bats to where they stay in their groove.”
The duo has been a perfect complement to each other. McGuire stepping in and hitting in the bottom of the order has allowed Carson Kelly to remain fresh when he’s hitting in the middle of the order.
“Every at-bat matters. There [are] 27 outs in the game,” McGuire said. “You want to have a productive at-bat. To have the production that we’ve had at that position has been very rewarding for this team, and to be able to complement days where our top of the lineup doesn’t have their best day or something, maybe that 7-8-9 slot has been doing something in those moments.”
That’s helped lengthen the lineup, which wasn’t the case last year.
“To be able to do that at the bottom of our lineup is huge for us, because that’s just the way the lineup turns over,” Dustin Kelly said. “So when you’re getting production at the bottom part of that lineup, like we did [in the second half] last year, it just helps everybody.”
