Cubs aggressively promote minor-league catcher

It's no secret the Cubs haven't gotten much offense from the catcher position. They rank 28th in MLB in both batting average and OPS by their catchers, ahead of the White Sox and Marlins.

Is help on the way? The Cubs made an interesting move this week, promoting catcher Moises Ballestreros to Triple A. He made his debut for the Iowa Cubs on Tuesday in Indianapolis and doubled in his second at-bat.

The Venezuela native is just 20 years old, which explains why he's the No. 91 overall prospect by MLB Pipeline.

“I would say it's a really special bat,” Cubs president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer said. “If you look at what he's doing, he's 20 in Double A. He's worked hard on his defense and that's something that's going to continue. But the bat has been really impressive.

“Twenty-year-olds don't usually perform like that in Double A and I think he's got a 14% strikeout rate. Not only is he doing damage, but he's doing it with no strikeouts, which is impressive.”

One question with Ballesteros is if he'll be able to play catcher in the major leagues. He's listed at 5-feet-7, 215 pounds with a husky build.

Ballesteros split time between catcher and DH at Double A Tennessee. He had 5 errors and a 9% caught stealing percentage. Tennessee's other catcher, Pablo Aliendo, isn't much better at 11%, although that's the same as Cubs catcher Miguel Amaya.

PCA here to stay

With Mike Tauchman on the injured list with a groin strain, the plan is to play Pete Crow-Armstrong every day in center field.

Crow-Armstrong is hitting .129 in June, but Jed Hoyer defended the plan of keeping him in the majors.

“I think this is the place for him to develop,” Hoyer said. “He's contributing to winning as much as any position player now. His defense is off the charts, his baserunning.

“I compare it — different shape of player — a little bit to Javy (Baez) in a sense that Javy sort of learned to hit in the big leagues and his contribution early on offensively was the occasional homer. He wasn't getting on base, he was striking out a lot. But his defense was so remarkable that we played him a lot.”

According to StatCast, Crow-Armstrong is top 10 among outfielders in outs above average and top five in sprint speed.

“He's going to take his lumps sometimes early,” Hoyer said. “When you're able to commit those at-bats to a guy because he plays really good defense, I think this is the best place for an outfielder like him to learn.”

Around the horn

Manager Craig Counsell on the boos after the Cubs squandered a late 6-3 lead Monday and lost to the Giants: “We've got to take it the right way and use it for a positive. That's part of our jobs here.” …

Veteran pitcher Carl Edwards Jr., who was doing well in Iowa, chose to opt of his minor-league deal with the Cubs and became a free agent. The Cubs designated reliever Jose Cuas for assignment over the weekend and added Ethan Roberts to the 40-man roster. …

The Cubs have played the most 1-run games in the majors this season, going 13-17.

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