Been a while, but I have returned to the Desipio Podcast to talk about all things Cubs. There’s more yelling on this one than I’m comfortable with. Enjoy.
I’m hardly the first or only to point this out about Cheating Scandal ’20, but it’s hard to get past the fact that no players were suspended as a result. Which makes you wonder just how much the actual players care about this sort of thing.
Yes, there are complication with the MLBPA that suspending players would come with that punting a manager and a GM don’t have. It would also have made things very awkward for at least half the Astros to be missing for a month, as well as suspending players now on other teams. It probably should have happened anyway, but I can at least see where Rob Manfred didn’t want to step into that muck.
Still, I can’t help but wonder if given the chance to do so off the record, wouldn’t players point out the following: every game, they get thorough and massive reports about what pitchers like to throw and when. About how much those pitches move both with runners on base and not. What they do various trips through a lineup. What he might do with his glove before throwing a break pitch. And that if you pick up the signs from the catcher from second base and relay that to the hitter, that’s considered the fault of the pitcher and catcher. There are 20 pairs of eyes at least in every dugout looking for tips to pitches from either the catcher or pitcher. Basically, hitters are prepped to suspect what might be coming every pitch in just about every way.
So how much farther is it to what the Astros, Red Sox, and I’m sure we’ll find out other teams, did? If everything else is right up to the line, is this so far out over the horizon? Or is it a mere few steps onto the other side?
Because if the players themselves thought this was such a huge violation of things, you’d have to believe at least one clubhouse leader–say an Altuve or Correa or Verlander or the like–would have put a stop to it. We know Hinch made some half-assed efforts to do so, and they were pretty much rebuffed. Clearly the Astros players either never thought they’d get caught, or they didn’t think it was such a big deal if they did. At least Tom Brady had the awareness to bust up a phone, and that was just over footballs.
And I’m sure what the players would tell you, at least the hitters, is that there are just as many reports and scouts on them, nailing down what they can and can’t hit and where they can and can’t get to and the defense is allowed to line up seven guys in accordance with all of that while they’re trying to hit a small rock hurled at them at 97 MPH. Perhaps it’s not such a great imbalance of knowledge?
The argument is of course that the Astros and Red Sox must’ve gleaned a huge advantage from it because they won two of the last three World Series. Except that’s going to go away when we find out just how many other teams had their own scheme in place. And also, what the hell happened to the Red Sox last year, then? I would still bet their success was more predicated on having more good players.
Not that this should have been swept under the rug or not even addressed, because clearly it’s a violation of rules. And perhaps you could solve a good portion of this by getting rid of the still idiotic challenge system of replay so that dugouts wouldn’t even have monitors anywhere near them. You’ll always have video rooms because hitters check that mid-game, but you could easily run those on delay for that purpose. It wouldn’t solve all, but it would solve some. Sure, VAR in England has shown us the problems with a non-challenge system, but baseball is different than everything and I will always be convinced that a fifth ump in the pressbox with radio communication to the other four umps could solve close calls in less than 30 seconds.
At the end of the day, I don’t see Correa or Altuve or Springer or Bregman hitting .228 next year.
In his letter, Manfred made comment how the Astros had made everything about winning at all costs, and results were all that mattered. Yeah, and? That’s the idea of every sports organization, or so I thought. There is something even more soulless about how the Astros went about things, going through their Taubman/Osuna grossness and their streamlining of their scouting department, and we could keep doing. I suppose there’s a part of all of us that’s the “Can’t we do better?” question when it comes to how much winning means and what we’re willing to put up with to see our team do so.
Again, haven’t the Patriots answered all of this?
It really feels like the Astros and Red Sox tried something, they got caught, and they’ll get punishments that might or might not affect them on the field. And maybe other teams will either be found out or stop doing whatever they were doing for fear of getting thwacked themselves. And then some other team will come up with something new. Others will follow. Cycle probably repeats itself.
It’s a violation. It doesn’t feel like a major crime. And it doesn’t feel like one that MLB has solved now, or will anytime soon. And that’s fine. There’s always shit like this.
vs. 
RECORDS: Hawks 21-20-6 Canadiens 20-20-7
PUCK DROP: 6:30
TV: NBCSN Chicago
GREAT BAGELS THERE: Habs Eyes On The Prize
Hey did you hear the Hawks took a train from Ottawa to Montreal? Crazy, right? I mean, who does that? A train from city center to city center without dealing with an airport that neither town has near downtown? Other than like, every East Coast team between DC and Boston? Who ever heard of such a thing? Geniuses, these Hawks.
Anyway, now that everyone apparently has survived this galaxy-brained tactic of taking, y’know, a train between two cities, the Hawks will use that advantage to take on their mirror image in a lot of ways in the Montreal Canadiens. The Habs are also an O6 franchise that can’t seem to get its dick out of a knot, are staring down their third-straight playoff-less season, and don’t seem to have any particular direction. Fuck, they even employ former Hawks assistant GM Marc Bergevin, who has done pretty much nothing since getting there 48 years ago or so it feels. But hey, he speaks French and everyone says he was a funny guy back in the day, so here he still is, serving up tepid stew as a hockey team once again.
The difference is that the Canadiens actually do things well with no stars to make it count, where the Hawks don’t really do anything well amongst their skaters but their stars barely keep them relevant. Metrically, the Canadiens are one of the best teams around, as Claude Julien teams tend to be. If you go by Corsi-percentage, or expected goals percentage, or just attempts per game for and against, or expected goals for and against per game, you’ll find the Habs top-10 in all of them. They keep the puck and they create the better chances more often.
What they can’t do is finish them. Les Habitants are bottom-1o in SH% at even-strength. Combine that with the fact they’re only getting middling goaltending from Carey Price this year, and they just can’t seem to turn these numbers into wins. Even a rise in SH% from their current 7.4% to just 8.0% would see eight more goals for them at evens, which can be six or more points in the standings. That would have them right on the wildcard hunt and breathing down the necks of Buds All Day for the last automatic spot in the Atlantic. You can’t miss the bear, people.
The Habs are also pretty damn fast, even without Paul Byron and Brendan Gallagher as they’re currently injured. This is a team that can feature Artturi Lehkonen and Jesperi Kotkaniemi on its third line at times. It just doesn’t have what you’d call front-line scoring. That’s why Ilya Kovalchuk is now here, hilariously. Tomas Tatar is on the top line. Phillip Danault is awesome and has a serious case for the Selke this year, but he’s also not a top line center as the Canadiens have to use him. The hope would be that Nick Suzuki becomes that one day, but that’s a hell of a stretch.
You used to think of Montreal as having a plodding defense behind these gnat forwards, but that’s not as much the case anymore. Ben Chiarot is at least an upgrade on Karl Alzner, and Cale Fleury and Victor Mete (which you have to pronounce as Jonah Jameson even if you have to mispronounce “MEH-te” as “MEAT”) on the third pairing certainly upgrade the mobility scales. Weber and Chariot have been great together, and Jeff Petry always makes it work despite being 198 years old (somehow he’s only listed as 32 but I’m sure that’s a lie).
Price is only sporting a .908 this year, but the Habs have yet to locate a suitable backup for him so he’s playing too much and not all that well. If they were getting Price of four years ago, they’re almost certainly a playoff team. But they’re not, which leaves them seven points adrift and having four teams to leap to get there. Sound familiar? It’s like looking in a mirror…only…not.
For the Hawks, the only change we should see is Corey Crawford starting in his hometown again, where he’s generally been brilliant. Crow carries a lifetime .954 against Montreal anywhere, and his last five appearances in the Bell Centre have seen him give up four goals total. Clearly he likes it there.
The Hawks will be up against it on the back end of a back-to-back here, given how fast the Canadiens can play. A good time to remind everyone that though they won their last trip there in March, they also gave up 48 shots to do it and Crow got them all. Best not to repeat that. A track meet wouldn’t suit the Hawks here, though they could end up finishing more chances than the Habs do even if they give up more. Play this one a little more simple.
It’s a busy end to the pre-bye schedule, as the Hawks will close with three-in-four after this, making a total of five games in eight days in four cities. And they need most of the points on offer if not all of them. This is what happens when you back yourself into corners like this. Allez.
When Carey Price signed his bonanza extension in 2017, it seemed as sure of a bet as anyone can make on a goalie. Price was clearly the best around, was only 28, coming off his fourth-straight .920+ SV% season and fifth out of seven (though one of those was only 12 games long thanks to an injury). Throw in the gold medal he simply waltzed to with Team Canada, as well as a Vezina and Hart Trophy and you have as close to a lock in the crease as you would have thought.
About that…
Price would back up that contract the next season with a .923 and another Vezina finalist appearance. It’s that since then, he’s been mired in the swamp of “meh” and sort of taking the Canadiens with him. A .900 in ’17-’18, a better .918 last year that still isn’t up to the standard he set, and a .908 this year. The last two aren’t bad numbers exactly, but they don’t prop up the lack of top-tier finishing the Habs currently sport, nor do they live up to the $10.5M hit that Price has on their cap from here until Heat Death Of All. When you’re taking home that bag with the “$” on it and your team is looking at three straight years out of the playoffs, especially in Montreal where everyone is a loon, you know where the focus falls.
Price is only 32, and that seems an early cut-off from when goalies can and should remain among the elite. Currently, 33-year-old Ben Bishop is your odds-on for another Vezina and 32-year-old Tuukka Rask is right behind him. The difference is that neither have been asked to shoulder the amount of starts in recent years that Price has, as both have had more than capable backups. And that’s multiple stops for Bishop.
Same goes for other goalies currently in the top-1o right now. Either they’re younger or are getting many more nights off, like Kuemper or Binnington or Hellebuyck or Lehner. Indeed, most of the league is moving to having something closer to 1 and 1As, or steering away from giving a starter anything more than 55 starts. And when you can’t do that, you’ve seen the problems the Habs, or the Knights, or the Canucks, or a few others are having.
But of course, that raises the question on whether or not you should be paying a goalie anywhere near Price’s $10 mildo if he needs to be paired with another to take at least 25 starts.
How much does Price’s salary hurt? Hard to say. The Habs aren’t capped out but had to bury Karl Alzner in Laval to get some space. They have some $16M in space next year though Domi will get a raise and the Habs clearly need more. It’s the following year when things really open up for them, as right now only Price, Weber, Byron, Chiarot, Drouin, and Cale Fleury are signed for that season. The Canadiens could be totally reconstructed if they so choose.
What they do with Price is another question. Moving him isn’t an option, and they’ll most likely always have to accommodate a goalie in the $3M-$4M range to pair with him. But that’s nearly $15M a year you’d be allotting to your crease, which seems a hinderance. Or they will just have to keep drafting and hitting on ones to back up before having to pay them. Only the Capitals can do that, silly.
It’s also worth noting that Henrik Lundqvist, Price’s contemporary, hasn’t hit a .920 season since turning 33. Fleury’s revival season in Vegas also came at 33, but he’s been nothing more than ok since. Bobrovsky is already falling off in his 30s. It could be that it’s just a younger man’s position now. Corey Crawford has had basically a year and a half off out of the past two and still hasn’t found it at 35. Which makes it even weirder that most goalies don’t even get a look until their mid-2os, giving them a running back-like window.
Perhaps the Hawks should consider this if they get too out there on re-signing what will be a 29-year-old Robin Lehner this summer for many years.
Max Domi – Everything we said about Matt Duchene’s face but then add in ignorant MAGA views and his shithead father.
Nick Cousins – Important reminder: He’s a rapist and Kyle Dubas covered for him.
Dale Weise – It doesn’t get enough attention that this guy cost the Hawks Phillip Danault, and then the Habs ended up with both anyway. Like, that’s nearly as bad as this Nylander-for-Jokiharju bit.
Hawks
Notes: Obviously no morning skate today but we’re not expecting many changes. Koekkoek’s actually been fine in third-pairing duty so he shouldn’t have to sit for the monolith Gilbert. Crow starts in his hometown…Kubalik ended up with nine shots on goal last night…
Canadiens
Notes: Habs didn’t skate this morning either, but this is how it looked on Monday against the Flames…Chiarot returned from injury that night and he and Weber have been a force together. Not like the Jets need d-men or anything…Tatar and Danault have been possession monsters but Tatar hasn’t scored in his last nine…Domi hasn’t scored in his last seven either…
Everything you need for tonight’s contest in the Canadian Capital. Or like, near it.
vs. 
RECORDS: Hawks 20-20-6 Senators 16-22-7
PUCK DROP: 6:30
TV: NBCSN Chicago
BULWORTHS: Silver Seven Sens
The Hawks get to remain in the remedial class after their win against the Ducks tonight, and arguably tomorrow, as they’ll head for the Eastern Canada swing. They kick it off tonight against the equally-rebuilding-as-the-Ducks Senators, before decamping east into La Belle Province to face another floundering O6 team in Montreal on Wednesday. But first things first, a contest out in the middle of nowhere Ontario. Even though basically Ontario is nowhere, and deep down even Ontario knows that.
The Senators aren’t quite as bad as they were supposed to be. This was supposed to be a Wings-like outfit, with a sad little point total as they raced to the #1 pick in June. And the Senators certainly aren’t good, but they haven’t redefined stink as we know it like the Motor City cadre. Still, they’re tied for the second-fewest regulation wins in the league with the just-conquered Ducks and two ahead of the Wings. Perhaps they just couldn’t anticipate just how bad the Wings would be. Who could?
Not that the Sens do anything well. They’re bottom-five in both goals-for and goals-against in the league. Their metrics aren’t much better, though they’re a little weird. They give up a ton of attempts, and have one of the worst Corsi-shares around. But their expected-goals marks are basically middle fo the pack, in that they don’t give up a ton of great chances. They’re not a great defensive team by any sense of the word, and they don’t have nearly enough firepower to make any team capable of breathing sweat. But they do limit the kinds of things they give up, which is more than you can say for the Hawks. In fact, if they were getting any kind of goaltending, they might barely be on the fringes of they playoff picture.
But the thing is, Craig Anderson is now three days older than water and Anders Nilsson is the very definition of “replacement level goalie.” So this is what you get.
The Sens have gotten breakout seasons from Anthony Duclair (spotlighted earlier) and Jean-Gabriel Pageau, the latter of which figures to be a pretty valuable commodity around the deadline. He’s cheap now at $3M and will make a decent 2-3 center for some contender down the stretch. He also is an impending UFA, so he’s going to get a major raise which probably isn’t in the interest of the Senators.
The only pieces that figure to be around whenever this thing turns in Ottawa is whichever garbage Tkachuk son resides there and Thomas Chabot. You may have heard about Chabot playing 37 minutes in a game recently and averaging about 27 minutes per night the past couple months. I mean, why not play your future pieces into dust now while you suck raw sewage, eh? I suppose names like Filip Chlapik, or Rudolfs Balcers (which sounds like a gastrointestinal problem), or Drake Batherson (which definitely was a character in Knives Out) could make the list before the year is out but they have some work to do. The road is long for the Sens, let’s just say that.
For the Hawks, Robin Lehner gets his “revenge” game or whatever as a former Senator before Corey Crawford gets the hometown start in Montreal tomorrow, where he generally has flourished. Thanks to the demotion of John Quenneville, which was done because the Hawks actually feared putting him on waivers, means that Dylan Sikura gets back in the lineup. Zack Smith also has this as a homecoming, having spent his entire career in Ottawa before moving south.
Neither the Senators or Canadiens are any damn good, so the Hawks might want to gobble up these points before seeing a rejuvenated, if not beat up, Leafs squad on Hockey Night. They’re getting close to the bye, which generally has seen them turn the motor off. And that’s fine if they’ve scratched this season. If they’re still planning on making something of it, these are games you have to have. Well, they have to have them all but we know how they do against other teams actually competing for playoff spots, but you know how this goes.
You don’t need more ammo to hang the Hawks front office out to dry these days. We even feel slightly guilty about doing so. Piling on and all that. But we can’t help ourselves. Anthony Duclair might go down as another one they missed on. It’s getting to be a very long list.
It’s hard to believe Duclair is still only 24, as this is his sixth season in the NHL. And he’s having what anyone would call a breakout season, with 21 goals already and 32 points in 44 games. The former mark is already a career-high and the second is only 12 points short of another one. It’s all resulted in his first All-Star appearance.
Now, whenever you see a spike like this from a player that hadn’t before approached these kinds of numbers, you are tempted to dismiss it as a shooting-percentage binge and just the way of the things sometimes, and that the player will soon return to the herd safety of anonymity. And yes, Duclair is shooting 16.7%, a career-mark. But it’s not that far above his career-mark of 13.9%. To put it another way, if Duclair were potting goals at his normal rate amongst his shots, he’d still have 17 goals. It would be enough to make you notice.
There’s an old corollary in hockey, which is used to lower the accomplishments of players on bad teams, that “someone has to score the goals.” And surely Duclair is benefitting from getting top six minutes that never came to him in Arizona or Chicago or even Columbus. He’s getting 12 minutes per night at even-strength, the most he’s seen. And he’s seeing nearly three minutes of power play time, which is nearly double what’s gone on in previous seasons. So the five goals and 12 points on the man-advantage are boosting the totals a bit.
Still, Duclair is doing more than just puttering along with more time. His shots, chances, and expected goals per 60 are all way up, and you couldn’t argue he’s benefitting from better teammates. Unless Jean-Gabriel Pageau really does something for you. And hey, we’re not here to kink-shame. He’s just getting to better areas more often and firing more, which is a good way to score, and then to open up space for others. “Making yourself dangerous,” Hawk.
While you might not have projected this when he played 23 games for the Hawks two years ago, it also is easy to look back and wonder why he couldn’t have been given another season. You’ll recall his season was ended early after an ankle injury caused by Brad Marchand literally slingblading him in Boston. Duclair’s numbers with the Hawks weren’t very impressive at that point, just two goals and six assists.
Look deeper, though, and you get a little frustrated. Duclair couldn’t buy a bucket here, shooting below 7% for his stay. And his individual metrics–his shots, his chances, were amongst the lowest in his career. But his team-metrics when on the ice were decent enough. +2.2 in Corsi and at the team-rate in expected goals.
You can’t say he wasn’t given a big chances, as his most common linemates that year were Jonathan Toews and Alex DeBrincat. So the eight points in 23 games certainly were a disappointment,
Still, the following season, here is a sampling of forwards the Hawks gave time to instead of giving Duclair another season to see if his SH% could rebound: Chris Kunitz, Brendan Perlini, Drake Caggiula, a deceased Marcus Kruger, Alex Fortin, John Hayden, Andreas Martinsen. Out of all that muck, only Caggiula can claim to be helpful, and that’s really as nothing more than a fourth liner.
Perlini was certainly worth a look to see if you couldn’t get him to care given his skills, and Fortin was at least fast (nothing else though). But the rest, again, were grind-y fourth-line types who checked all the wrong boxes that the Hawks can’t seem to get past. Duclair flashed skill and speed, something they just don’t value nearly high enough beyond anyone in the top six. Duclair wouldn’t save them from the mess they’re in now, but he would have helped in both the past seasons. He was certainly worth a one-year deal more than Kunitz was, we know that for sure. But it still feels that the Hawks feel if you aren’t in the top six, you have to be a foaming shit-beast instead of just having more skill and scoring stocked in the lineup.
The Hawks aren’t alone, of course. The Coyotes aren’t getting anything out of him now, and even Richard Panik moved on (what they received for Duclair). The Jackets got their six weeks out of Ryan Dzingel and now have nothing either. But at some point it would be nice to write about the Hawks actually succeeding on a reclamation project and then keeping that player for long-term benefit. It’s been a while.
