Baseball

We Know Your Nature – Cubs 2019 Player Reviews: Jason Heyward

By Sam Fels 1177 0

For most of the season, the story or narrative around Jason Heyward was that he’d finally come good with the bat. There seemed to be more power, there were better ABs, so much so that he got himself elevated to the leadoff spot. Where he was a crime against nature. And as the season went along, and we came to realize the flubber contained within the baseball, Heyward’s season didn’t seem to be so much a revival as it was just riding along with the tide. And in the end, it was pretty much the same completely average offensive season 2018 was. Except it didn’t come with stellar defense, though that really wasn’t his fault. Let’s take a trip, take a little trip…

2019 Stats

147 games, 598 PAs

.251/.343/.429

21 HR  78 RBI

11.5 BB%  18.7 K%

101 wRC+  .343 wOBA  .772 OPS

-1.7 Defensive Runs Saved  1.9 WAR

Tell Me A Story: On the plus side, Heyward’s 21 homers are by far the most he’s hit as a Cub. His on-base was the best of his Cubs career. His slugging was, again, the highest of his career on the Northside. So that all sounds good. The problem is that EVERYONE was hitting more homers than they had in years, which raised the slugging percentage of just about anyone. So when you look at league averaging stats like wRC+ or OPS+, Heyward’s doesn’t stand out in the least.

Still, there are some caveats. Heyward’s August was simply woeful (58 wRC+), but that’s where he was installed in the leadoff spot. Now, I’m not sure why batting somewhere else should make any difference, because the idea is still the same. Have a good AB, try to get on base, and try to hit the ball hard if you can. But it obviously does, and because it’s become such a Bermuda Triangle area for the Cubs, there might even be a bigger mental block for anyone trying to take it on. We’ll just leave it as something weird just happens there. When batting 5th, 6th, or 7th, Heyward’s wRC+ was 162, 120, and 101.

Second, if only against righties, Heyward’s numbers look really good. .350 wOBA and a 115 wRC+. And seeing as how he had 112 PAs against lefties, you can certainly say he was trotted out against southpaws just far too often. You don’t want to admit Heyward is just a platoon player based on his paycheck, but we can see how the season played out. It’s what he is. Perhaps the next manager will see these, or more likely be shown these, and only keep Heyward in spots where he has success.

Heyward saw a big jump in his walks this year, but also a pretty big drop in his contact numbers. His contact-rates were still above league average, though. There was an uptick, and not a small one, in his swinging strikes. A small crawl up in that category in fastballs is worrying for a player who crossed the threshold into his 30s, because that doesn’t tend to get better as a player ages (what does though, really?). The bigger uptick is whiffs on sliders is also a warning sign, as it might suggest Heyward was starting to inch a little more into cheating on fastballs, or getting there. At least trying to get started earlier, which left him susceptible to pitches that look like a fastball until breaking down.

Perhaps the most worrying aspect of Heyward’s season is the drop in defense. But that almost all comes from his shift to center, which started even before the acquisition of Nicholas Castellanos, as Albert Almora‘s skeleton fell out and forced more people into right as Heyward moved to center so the Cubs could get any offense out of those spots. Heyward still grades out above average in right. He wasn’t a disaster in center, but he’s not a plus fielder there. Which is why some like me have argued against re-signing Castellanos, because the outfield defense would be so bad. We’ll see how the Cubs feel about it. Again, as he moves into his 30s, it’s not very likely that Heyward is going to get better in center, and probably not even in right field. But he can be a plus right fielder for a while yet, you’d think.

Contract: $21M in 2020, signed through 2023. Has opt-out.

Welcome Back Or Boot In The Ass: The Cubs don’t have much of a choice here obviously. Heyward is not going to opt-out, unless he’s the nicest guy in the world. Trading him isn’t really an option either, unless some team sees intangibles that only they can see and Heyward is moved to agree to such a move. And why would he? Also, his adult presence in the clubhouse probably shouldn’t be overlooked, as the Cubs don’t have a lot of vets who’ve been around long enough to be comfortable voicing anything.

So he’s going to be on the team, and that’s not a bad thing as long as he’s only asked to do what he does well. Which is play right field, hit in the back half of the order, and only against righties. That probably affects what the Cubs will do this offseason, as they’ll need to find someone(s) who can play right and center against left-handed pitchers (which might keep Happ around?). If they keep crowbarring Heyward in the lineup against lefties and/or in center, they’re going to have some if not all the same results.

As Heyward ages, he’s going to have to adjust to get to more fastballs somehow. Shorten or quicken his swing, which is hard to do at his age and something he’s already tried to do once. Being vulnerable against sliders is probably only going to be more of a feature in the coming years. It won’t wreck him yet, though, or it shouldn’t. Heyward is still a plus to have on the team if used properly.

Baseball

We Know Your Nature – 2019 Cubs Player Reviews: Albert Almora

By Sam Fels 1509 0

As the Cubs have searched for a manager, and my fears about the offseason in general grow thanks to having far too much time on my hands and struggling to escape the cynicism of my youth, one thing I’ve tried to reassure myself with is that it’s not really in Theo Epstein’s DNA to do something completely moronic. Something you’d see the Mets or Edmonton Oilers do. Sure, some moves haven’t worked out or not gone as well as hoped, but almost every one of them you could see the logic behind at the time. The math added up.

Except for his first draft pick here in Chicago. That might have been a complete and utter whiff. Seems to be a theme in Chicago sports these days.

2019 Stats

130 games, 363 PAs

.236/.271/.381

12 HR  41 RBI

4.4 BB%  17.1 K%

64 wRC+  .271 wOBA  .651 OPS

-1.1 Defensive Runs Saved  -0.7 WAR

Tell Me A Story: This season started much like 2018 did, with a lot of people contending–even screaming from the truly unhinged–that what Albert Almora Jr. really needed was just consistent playing time. That being jerked in and out of the lineup and never starting more than three days in a row, if that, was stunting his development. It ended just like 2018 did, where it’s pretty clear that there isn’t anything to develop.

There was only one stretch of the season where Almora looked like a Major Leaguer, and that was May with a 107 wRC+. That was almost entirely due to hitting six homers in the month, and seeing as how he managed six more in the other five months, one wouldn’t count on that to happen too often again, if ever at all.

This is where the “WE NEED CONTACT” Big Audio Dynamite tribute argument kind of falls flat for me, though it’s cherry-picking admittedly. Albert Almora makes plenty of contact. He doesn’t walk much, but he doesn’t strike out much either. The problem is almost all of that contact is soft, and most of it is on the ground. So where does that get you? A negative-WAR player’s what it gets you. But hey, if you think the answers to the Cubs problems are having more guys ground out to short more often, well you go as far as you can with that, Big Shooter.

To be fair to AA, his hard-contact rate in July and August was actually pretty good, and his ground-ball rate declined throughout the season. But that’s also when his playing time dried up, which he also earned, so it’s hard to tell if that’s progress or just a few spasmed ABs out of a shallowing collection of them. And I don’t think the Cubs are going to bother to find out anyway.

If Almora was taken in the first round due to his athleticism, and you’d never followed him before, you’d swear he suffered some sort of bad knee injury in the minors or something. He’s slow, and he doesn’t have natural power because he doesn’t really have that much bat-speed. Even his instincts, which somehow had him stumble into being a decent centerfielder, went away this year as he graded out negatively in the field. Which would lead one to ask what it is he does at all. And that would be a question no one has an answer for right now, other than really upgrade the hair in the clubhouse.

But he rescues dogs, so he’s a good guy.

Contract: Team Control, Arbitration eligible in 2021

Welcome Back Or Boot In The Ass: Well, he can’t be on the team next year. All he’s earned is a fifth-outfielder role and if the Cubs have any hope, however slim, that Almora can develop into anything he’s not going to do it with four ABs a week. What the Cubs probably need to do, because he has options left and they never actually let him do it before calling him up, is play full-time in AAA for a full season. Or most of it. Almora never hit in the minors before joining the 2016 team. He just had a glove and promise. Now he doesn’t seem to have either. He’ll get you nothing in a trade, and I doubt you could even make him a throw-in to another deal at this point. He costs nothing, so there’s not much harm in letting him get at least three or four months in Des Moines to play every day and see if he can’t discover something, while Happ and Heyward and possibly an acquisition figure out centerfield at Wrigley.

At 26 at the beginning of next season, you don’t want to say that there’s no hope for Almora. But also by 26 we should have seen something, anything, to suggest there’s anything to be excavated out of him. Have you? No, you haven’t. And he’s not going to get faster, which probably means the defense is going to struggle to be plus before too long. If that ship hasn’t sailed already.

Maybe a new manager can whisper something to him, and stop putting him in spots to fail like Maddon had a habit of doing (he’s leading off again, is he Joe? How does Binny’s pay you exactly?). But everything with Almora needs to be considered a longshot at this point. And before too long, it’ll probably be in another uniform.

Football

Three Things We Learned From Week 7 – This Is Some F*cked Up Repugnant Sh*t

By Sam Fels 1357 0

Ooof.

The Bears Coach Might Be Broken-Brained – I joked about it in the preseason. It was only semi-serious. But Matt Nagy’s fixation/psychosis about one missed kick last season seemed to be far too big of a story, and one they were pushing themselves. It seemed so odd and so unnecessary, but in the end you didn’t fear that it would get in the way of too much else. The biggest hope was that they were using it as a smokescreen, to cover for Nagy’s offense going cold in December, or to keep hit off Mitch. It was still a leap to think that that weirdness was clouding their view of the rest of the team.

What my book presupposes is…maybe it did?

Matt Nagy had two weeks to reshuffle his offense, figure out what might work, and to prepare to slide a QB who had been out injured–and lacking confidence anyway–back into the lineup gently. He was facing a team without its two biggest offensive weapons.

And he came up with that.

As Brian said in the recap, they ran the ball seven times. It feels like there are two Matt Nagys, or at least he thinks there are. There’s the one calling the plays, and then there’s the one who shows up at the postgame press conference and wonders why they didn’t run the ball or the run game didn’t work. Not that the Bears went exactly anywhere with those seven rushes, but seven isn’t enough to know that you can’t do anything.

It also puts your questionable quarterback into a nearly impossible situation. He’s got to win a game all by himself, something he probably can’t do when he’s healthy and in rhythm anyway. But they didn’t move him out side the pocket. They didn’t try and give him any obvious throws. Your line still sucks, and there weren’t any changes in scheme or anything to help them out either. Even just trying to run the ball at least lets them do something different, gives them a moment.

The special teams suck. They have for a while. Throwout the kick return, which is more individual brilliance than anything. They had two punts blocked. They had two big returns against called back because the other team held or blocked in the back. They lose that battle every game.

The entire summer was fixated on one kick and another kicker and having them locked in the American Gladiator Death Ball. And now we can’t help but wonder if that fixation blinded them to the fact their O-line was leaky, their QB might not be good, their special teams don’t do anything, and their defense is predicated on two guys and having both of them.

Insert “THE GODDAMN PLANE HAS CRASHED INTO THE MOUNTAIN!” gif. 

Their Quarterback Is Bad – I’ve tried to defend Mitch, mostly because I just want a Bears QB to be good and I still have all my Jay Cutler tools still lying around. And as above, he didn’t get much help from his coach. As Brian pointed out in his recap, when the line is bad things get hurried, and when things get hurried they look unsure. They look hesitant.

And that’s the thing I can’t get past with Mitch. His throws don’t have any conviction. I’d almost live with wrong decisions if he stepped his back foot in the ground, stepped into a throw and did it with confidence. It might be wrong but I believe in it! Though that would just give us Rex again, I suppose.

But almost every throw Mitch makes look like a pitcher trying to aim instead of throw. There isn’t any feel of, “This is where the ball goes now.” It feels more like, “I guess this is where the ball goes? Maybe?” Which is why passes float, miss their targets, or are just heaved into triple coverage.

Take away his first read, and he feels like he doesn’t know what to do. Take away Allen Robinson and he loses all confidence to make another play. He’s not even running anymore.

Mitch has ten games to save his Bears career. That’s it right there.

They Don’t Have An Answer Without Akiem Hicks – Akiem was an All-Pro last year, rightly lauded in this town, if not downright worshipped. And he still might be under-appreciated.

What makes the Bears special, or did, is having two guys on the defensive line that you couldn’t do anything about. You could double both but someone would make a play because you just ran out of guys to have block. And they’d probably get through those double-teams anyway. You couldn’t just run the ball up the middle because Hicks was standing there, asking just what in the fuck you thought you were doing. You couldn’t run outside because the linebackers were too quick.

You can do all of it now. Khalil Mack is watching run plays go up the middle that he can’t do much about. He’s watching quick passes fired out before he has a chance to get there, with no one up the middle moving the walls into the QB. He’s seeing triple teams when they need time. And no one else is doing much about it. Leonard Floyd has gone to that mystical place that Leonard Floyd goes for weeks at a time, that only he can find. There’s a reason Roy Robertson-Harris doesn’t start. There’s a reason you don’t hear Eddie Goldman’s or Bilal Nichols’s name much right now, other than, “Watch this guy get run over and become one with the soil.”

Secondary doesn’t look as good now. Neither do the interior linebackers. They actually have to do all the shit now. And maybe they can’t.

This isn’t going well, is it?

Hockey

Game #6 – Capitals vs. Hawks Preview: Spike To Streak

By Sam Fels 1374 0

vs.

RECORDS: Capitals 5-2-2  Hawks 2-2-1

PUCK DROP: 6pm

TV: NBCSN Chicago/NHLN Outside the 606

WHAT A BUNCH OF CLOWNS: Japers Rink

The Hawks come in to their first game of the year on a positive base, though perhaps a touch lucky to have their second win of two. So the Hawks have a chance for their first “winning streak” of the season. The challenge is that to get to there, they’ll have to go through one of the hotter teams in the league.

The Washington Capitals come in with the second-highest point-total in the East, tied with the Penguins atop the Metro which has been their apartment for the past few seasons. Their two regulation losses have come against the Predators and Avalanche, who have been a problem for America so far on the nascent season. And they’re doing it a little differently so far than they have.

In the past, at least the last couple seasons, the Caps were not a great team when measured metrically. But they’re finishing talent would always outshoot what the chances and attempts said they should have, because when you have Alex Ovechkin, Nicklas Backstrom, TJ Oshie, Evgeny Kuznetsov, and some nifty bottom-sixers that’s a thing you can do. They didn’t give up too much while not being exactly defensively iron curtain, but just enough to let their array of snipers to outdo whatever they did surrender.

This year, they’re controlling play much more so far, ranking fourth in team Corsi-percentage and expected goal-percentage. Which has left them sixth in goal for, because again, they have finishers everywhere. But Barry Trotz’s ways haven’t completely disappeared, as the Caps remain one of the better defensive teams around in terms of attempts and chances against. It’s been a promising start for a team that becomes an afterthought simply because they’ve been around so long you get a little sick of them or take them as a given so consistently they just fade into the background. But it’s been a decade now where anyone trying to get out of the Metro or NASCAR Division before that had to go through DC. Still looks that way now.

The concern for the Caps so far is that Braden Holtby has been awful, and once again the Capitals are thinking about turning their eyes to a younger model. Where it was once Phillip Grubauer, it’s now Ilya Samsonov. He’s been very good in his first month in the NHL, and with Holtby a free agent after this season, you can bet there are more than a few hopes in the Caps front office that Samsonov proves he can be a cheaper, younger starter going forward. Of course, we won’t know that until April, where Grubauer faltered for the Caps a couple years ago and kept Holtby around.

The big story tonight for the Hawks is whether or not Kirby Dach is going to make his debut. It would seem silly to call him up and then just have him sit in the pressbox, but we’ve seen that before. Dach was skating as a top line winger with Jonathan Toews yesterday, as a totally charming, bright, and handsome (and available!) writer suggested just a couple days ago. Given the success David Kampf has had between Brandon Saad and Dominik Kubalik, and that Dylan Strome belongs far less on a wing, it seems the best answer. It would be the softest landing as well, and Toews and DeBrincat could use a little more dash than Drake Caggiula can provide. Then again, Caligula is the only puck winner there, and Toews might not be able to that any more. Could we see Dach with Caggiula and Toews with Top Cat sliding down to the second line with Kane and Strome? Even talking about it is kind of exciting. It could be new toy night, and what we really want is Dach just to flash what he can be this season. It won’t all be pretty, but let’s see if there’s a diamond here.

As for the rest, Corey Crawford will take the net as he and Lehner are going to split the starts over this busy stretch you’d have to think, at least until one gets hot or one turns into stone. It’s how they drew it up.

The Hawks were scorched at least in the first period by the Jackets, who are a team that’s consistently been able to use their speed against the Hawks’ lack of it. The Caps certainly can play in the straight lines through the neutral zone that the Hawks can’t handle when their defense gets squared up. Kampf can take the Backstrom assignment, but the thing with the Caps is they still feature Kuznetsov behind that. If we’re going to get excited about what the Hawks can do this season, they have to prove not only that they can survive against teams that can do that thanks to goaltending, but can actively handle it and give as good as they get. It’s been a while since that happened. Tonight’s another test.

Hockey

Game #6 – Capitals vs. Hawks Spotlight: Bra-done?

By Sam Fels 1331 0

Because of 2018’s run, Braden Holtby will probably never pay for a drink or meal in the DC area again. And he played no small part, as he came in relief in the first round of a struggling Philip Grubauer and rescued the Caps out of a 2-0 series hole on the road. He was brilliant that spring, posting a .922 in 23 games and turning back both the Lightning and Knights in the last two rounds.

The thing is, those free drinks and meals might only do Holtby any good once or twice a year after this season.

Holtby is off to a woeful start, with a .862 SV% and a goals-against creeping up on 4.00. Holtby’s SV% at evens is just .868, and it’s not like he’s getting peppered, as the Caps have kept him at a respectable .919 expected SV%. He just hasn’t made the stops. And what’s worrying for Holtby, perhaps more so than the Caps as you’ll see, is that this isn’t not a one-off.

Holtby has been subpar the past two regular seasons, getting himself out of jail with that Cup run. He had a .911 last year and a .907 in that season before the parade. So this would be the third year in a row that Holtby hasn’t been up to it, which you can’t just chalk up to a spike of bad luck.

It couldn’t be more poorly times for Holtby for a couple reasons. One, he’s a free agent after the year, his first and perhaps only chance to cash in as an unrestricted free agent. While the gloss from backstopping a champ almost never wears off in the NHL, there won’t be the quite the same market for a goalie who has three seasons of too many whiffs. Perhaps a great defensive team would think they could shield him and could use “the experience,” but more and more teams are getting away from that kind of thinking.

Second, the Caps already seem to have a backup plan in place. Ilya Samsonov is already clawing starts away from Holtby. Samsonov had something of a rough go of it in his first year in North America last year in the AHL, but has some glittering numbers in the KHL and so far this year has been great in four games. He’ll certainly be getting more starts while they let Holtby try and find it again with less pressure.

While Holtby’s name will go down in Capitals history, his play is making it less and less likely the Caps are going to have any interest in signing him. They have the space, but have Nicklas Backstrom to re-sign (if they so choose) and room to leave themselves to improve. Most of the rest of the core of this team is locked in, though Alex Ovechkin will see his contract run out after next year, and he’ll be given pretty much whatever he wants. Having freedom in the cap will be ideal for the Caps just in case, which means Holtby doesn’t fit.

What’s gone wrong for Holtby is hard to pinpoint. He was certainly overworked there for a while, having 73, 66, and 63 starts the three years before he fell off the table. But at 30 he shouldn’t be fatigued that much. Generally we think of goalies having longer aging curves than skaters, but Holtby and Martin Jones seem to be doing their best to disprove that. It could be that Holtby is missing the tutelage of Mitch Korn, who followed Barry Trotz to the Islanders. But the first year of his decline was with Korn around.

Holtby really couldn’t have timed this worse. In some sense, it couldn’t actually be better timing for the Caps.

Everything Else

Game #6 – Capitals vs. Hawks: Hedley Lamarr’s Buggerers, Bushwhackers, Hornswogglers

By Sam Fels 1438 0

Tom Wilson – The head halfwit/nitwit/dimwit not just of the Capitals, but perhaps in the entire league. Simply a workplace hazard for everyone around. Wilson hasn’t popped off this season yet, and has been pretty useful on the second line. We know that won’t last, and he did brain someone in the preseason. The next time it happens, he should be suspended 40 games if not more, but the NHL doesn’t have the stones to do it. One day, he and the league will get sued by someone for someone’s rough retirement.

Radko Gudas – The Caps either wanted to save money by swapping out Niskanen for Gudas, or they felt they didn’t quite have the asshole level on defense to match the one at forward. What’s infuriating about Gudas is he is actually a good player when he’s not trying to be Freddy Krueger out there. He’s always on the plus side of the metrics and can be a steady centerfielder for a more adventurous partner. But he just can’t help himself.

TJ Oshie – He still makes engine noises while skating around the ice.