With all due respect to the members of the Cubs front office, all of whom know more about the inner workings of their team than those of us on the outside could hope to, I think it’s foolish as hell to utilize a truncated roster. Like a college team being penalized with a loss of scholarships, the Cubs are essentially playing a man down by keeping Daniel Descalso on the roster and never playing him.
The never playing him is easy to understand, since he’s slashing .182/.280/.264 with a 48 wRC+ and has been worth -0.6 fWAR this season.