Everything Else

Offseason Trade Target: Mike Hoffman

By Sam Fels 1852 0

This one is a bit of a stretch, but we like stretching. Feels good, good for you, keeps you young. Seriously, go to a yoga class if you haven’t. Though preferably one with an instructor with good music taste. You don’t need more Enya-adjace stuff in your life. But you’d be surprised how many do. Anyway, I’m getting off track.

The Cats don’t need to trade Hoffman. They have $23M in space with the news today that Roberto Luongo is retiring. Not even LTIRing into oblivion, retiring. Which fucks over the Canucks a bit, which is highly entertaining if not gratifying, even if it’s because of perhaps the NHL’s dumbest rule–cap recapture penalties. So that means the Panthers have the space to sign both Artemi Panarin and Sergei Bobrovsky, and perhaps have a touch of space leftover. It’s probably more likely they’d try and find a home for James Reimer and find a cheaper backup, but again, they don’t really have to do anything. They don’t have anyone they have to re-sign in the next two years, unless they’re higher on MacKenize Weegar than anyone else is and he’ll be stupid cheap anyway. Dadonov gets a raise next summer, but not a huge one at 31.

Still, last season the Panthers asked Hoffman for his 10-team no trade list, so they have thought about it. And with Panarin on the way probably knocking him down to the third line, and with only one year left on his deal, it wouldn’t be the craziest thing to see Florida try and get something back for him.

And Hoffman is a perfect fit into the Hawks top-six, and is coming off a 36-goal season. He’s got that flexibility we love, as he can get you out of a stretch of games playing center if you need. He can play both sides, but has mainly been on the left. Now, that’s where the Hawks have a jam thanks to Saad and DeBrincat, but as we’ve seen Saad actually did his best work hiding on the third line in the weeds. Which could lead to a pretty effective Doomsday line of Hoffman-Toews-Kane if you so chose.

And Hoffman scores. Given an actual center in Barkov saw his numbers soar. In Ottawa he was either with overmatched players like J.G. Pageau or Derick Brassard or shoot-first guys like Matt Duchene. Meaning he had to create all of his own openings. Clearly he took to getting to finish off some others’ creations at times.

While Hoffman is only 6-0 he plays a bigger game than that which would satisfy the Hawks. What satisfies us is he can move too, and would seem to be the perfect blend of the two ideologies.

Financially, Hoffman is only signed for one more year, which means you can reset and see what you have when all is said and done. It also probably keeps his trade cost down a bit. Again, the Panthers have no need to trade him and might be all-in on this season to get back into the playoffs and trading Hoffman isn’t in line with that. Then again, it’s impossible to predict what our namesake Uncle Dale might do. He’s out-thought himself before.

Hoffman’s off-ice issues from last summer seem to have died down, and even if they haven’t that’s entertaining for us, which is all we’re after here.

What do the Panthers need? They probably don’t think much, but I’m no fan of their defense. They already have right-handed Gustafsson in Keith Yandle, except he can actually skate, so that’s probably a no-go. It would be truly cruel to send Connor Murphy back to Joel Quenneville, but perhaps without a point to prove to his GM this time around he might actually give our lovable Irishman a fair shake. If they’re into cost-cutting, one of your magic foursome on the blue line could do the job included with other things.

It’s worth a phone call, and it’s not like Tallon hasn’t dealt with the Hawks before. Even if he tells them to go fuck themselves first, which I’m sure he does.

Everything Else

Stan’s Off To Marker – Free Agent Shopping List: Hey Do We Have Any Of That Plutonium Nyquist Left?

By Sam Fels 1531 0

Continuing our look at the sparse free agent market, we turn to the winger perhaps below the class of Pavelski or Lee, but would be an awfully solid signing, Gustav Nyquist.  And also maybe our most esoteric reference ever. 

Gustav Nyquist

Height: 5-11   Weight: 184 lbs.

Age: 29 (3o on Opening Night)  Shoots: Left

2018-2019 Stats

81 games – 22 G – 38 A – 60 P – 12 PIM

53.1 CF% (+4.9 Relative) 53.0 xGF% (+7.6 Relative)  52.7 ZSR

Why The Hawks Should Sign Him

Because he kind of does a lot. He’s played both sides in his career, and even moonlighted at center in an emergency, but mostly sticks to the right side. At the moment, that’s where the Hawks’ gap in the top six is. He’s not a prolific goal-scorer, but has put up over 20 in four of the past six seasons, and when getting to play on a real team again in San Jose saw his highest goals-per-game rate since 2015, the last time the Wings were even close to worth a shit. Unlike recent additions and whispers, Nyquist can actually move around the ice quickly. He is not defensively inept either, and has driven the play and chances and expected goals at above the team rate every year of his career, which continued in San Jose and it was not easy to be above the team-rate there. He did it with slanted offensive zone starts but not terribly so, and could be a player you’d ask to join say Toews and Saad in taking a fair share of defensive draws but turning the ice over. Toews needs the help, and Nyquist can provide it, which is something Lee’s footspeed and Pavelski’s age make a question. Nyquist also might come in cheaper than the other two, coming off a $4.7M hit and after a 22-goal, 60-point season he probably isn’t going to exceed that by much or at all. If the flexibility for DeBrincat and hopefully Strome next summer is a concern, Nyquist would not interfere with that.

Why The Hawks Shouldn’t Sign Him

First off, age is a question. He will be 30 when the season opens, and as he creeps deeper into that decade and loses a half step or step it’s a wonder how much his game will be affected. I might not care about the next, but the Hawks clearly think size is a problem for them and Nyquist doesn’t do anything about that. If he loses any scoring touch at all, he’s a third-liner at best and you can’t say for sure that he can transition into a full-time checking winger. The Hawks are short another 30-goal guy, as Saad hasn’t proven to be one, and Nyquist isn’t going to be one either. That leaves only Kane, Top Cat, and another Toews renaissance and you might need one more. All of this is question on term. Nyquist also hasn’t ever really killed penalties, so he won’t help there.

Verdict

In truth, Nyquist would be a great signing in addition to a big splash like Lee or Pavelski. Suddenly you’d be swimming in forward depth, counting on a second-line player like Nyquist for third-line scoring. Given his smarts, he’d be a nice compliment to Dach if the latter makes the team. It would depend on what he’s looking for and cost. If you could get Nyquist for just three years and around $4M, he’d be a steal. Having him around until he’s 35 is a risk, and anything about $5M feels a little excessive. He can do a job, but he’s more a support beam than foundational. You could do way worse, though. Like Perry.

Everything Else

The Road Leads Where It’s Led – Schedule Is Out

By Sam Fels 1589 0

In case you need to make plans or something, the NHL released its full schedule for the 2019-2020 season today. The Hawks one has some quirks:

-After opening the season in Prague, which we knew about, the Hawks will get five days off and then have the next seven and eight of nine at home. I’m not sure that’s how the front office would have designed it if given the chance, but it does give the Hawks the chance to bounce out of the gates if they can turn it back into Fortress UC again. Which would be helped if Coach Cool Youth Pastor knew anything about matchups and zone starts, but let’s save that bitching for another time.

That homestand bounces from one extreme to the other, with dates against the Oilers, stripped down Jackets, and Flyers, contrasted with visits from the Knights, Caps, and Sharks to kick it all off. We obviously don’t know shit now, but as everything is presently you can easily see the Hawks coming out of that barely .500 too.

-The Hawks will back that up with seven of the next nine on the road, with an early-November sojourn out to Southern California.

-The end of November will see the Hawks home for five of six again, including their first ever home game on Black Friday afternoon against the Avs, which isn’t going to feel completely weird at all or anything.

-December is awfully busy with 15 games, and quick roadies to Boston and Newark, the desert swing plus St. Louis, Winnipeg and Denver, and then Columbus, Calgary, and Vancouver spread over New Year’s.

-They’ll get the All-Star break and bye week Jan. 22nd through February 1st.

-There will be a second Western Canada swing in the middle of February, which is bookended by trips to Winnipeg. They’ll only be home for two games before going back out on the road for four, Dallas to St. Louis to the Florida swing.

-March is where it will be decided probably, with another 15-game slate but 11 of which are at home. If they need to really clean up there, that’s how you’d want it.

-They’ll end the season in New York, playing the Isles at Nassau and then the Rangers at MSG.

-Joel Qunneville’s return is January 21st, the day before the break. We’re all going to need it after that.

And now in list form:

Schedule

 

Baseball

F***in’ Quintana, Man…

By Sam Fels 1534 0

There’s always a Cub, for however long a period of time during a season, is that portion’s goat or target of ire or villain. For the past few years, Jason Heyward has taken that belt for most of the time. John Lackey was on there for a bit. Addison Russell probably has permanent claim to it. Kyle Schwarber has been there. The pen as a whole, sometimes Maddon, this could go on for a while.

At the moment, it’s Jose Quintana. Some of that is his doing, as his last six starts haven’t been particularly pretty. And some of that isn’t, as it’s been accentuated by Eloy Jimenez’s game-winning homer (even though Eloy wouldn’t have a place to play here but whatever), or that the money saved on Q’s contract was used to buy Yu Darvish, who is only just now seemingly getting going, or that Darvish’s injury problems led to the option being picked up on Cole Hamels, which stripped cash from everything else. None of that has anything to do with Quintana, but he’s also not going to duck all of the annoyance people have about some or all of that. It isn’t fair, but no one deals in fair in sports. Especially when you have bullhorns like David Kaplan fanning the flames for their own enjoyment.

So what’s the deal, here? What’s been going on with Quintana in his last six starts?

I don’t know if it is important, but I think it’s important, to point out that in the eight starts before this stretch, Q carried a 2.34 ERA, with just a tick below 3-to-1 K/BB ratio. He was the Cubs best starter for a few trips through the rotation there. While he might not be that guy, he’s also not this guy. Perhaps the truth is right in the middle, though I tend to believe it’s closer to those eight good starts than these six bad ones.

So we’ll split the season right at May 25th, between those two stretches. I’ve remarked in series wraps that he’s gone away from his change of late, and that is true. He was throwing it 11 or 12% of the time in April and May, and that’s down to nine in June. By strict counts, he would throw it between 12-15 times per game in the first half of this season completed, and he’s only done that once in the past six starts (at the Dodgers, and I don’t know if we should count anything that happens against that collection of mutants).

When Q doesn’t throw his change much, he’s basically a two-pitch pitcher, which makes him pretty predictable. But the problem here is…that change-up hasn’t been very good of late. To wit…

In the season’s first 10 appearances, Q got 27% whiffs on the swings taken on the change. Since, that’s down to 9%. The fouls are up 12% too. Of the change-ups put in play, those first 10 appearances saw them only become line drives at a quarter of the time. In the past six starts, that’s doubled to 50%. Batters were hitting .294 off it then, which isn’t great. It’s .500 in this stretch, which REEL BAD. So did something happen to it?

According to BrooksBaseball.net, it has lost some of its horizontal movement, or what you might think of as “fade,” as on a change from a lefty it will fade away from righties or to the arm-side of Quintana. Here:

So in the early point of the season, he was getting five or six inches of fade, and is this last bit that’s down to four and a half or so. That’s certainly enough to keep the pitch on bats and on barrels of bats. It’s the same story with vertical movement, as the change is getting less drop than it was in his first 10 starts, and if your change isn’t sinking, that’s going to be a problem. And it has been.

You might think this has something to do with release point, but Q’s release point on it has bounced between 5.9 feet and 6.5 feet all season, so it’s hard to pinpoint on that. Same with his horizontal release point. So it could just be a feel thing. As far as how it all pans out, here’s the difference in locations between the two segments of the season with his change:

It’s not a huge difference, but it is a difference. From being consistently below the zone where you get weak contact and whiffs and fool people, it’s staying in the zone where it can still be reached and reached well.

This probably isn’t everything. Q has seen a slight dip in his velocity. Before the split on this, his fastball never averaged below 91.5 MPH. In the six starts after the split, it’s only been above that once. It’s not fallen off a table or anything, but the loss of dip and fade on his change could also coincide with a little less “finish” on his pitches. But that’s just a guess.

Hopefully it’s something in his mechanics and not something physical, and he can correct that to get his fastball back just a touch and a little more finish on the change. It doesn’t feel like it’s all that far away, but a few more starts like the last and it just might.

Everything Else

Stan’s Off To Market – Free Agent Shopping List: Anders Lee

By Sam Fels 1752 0

Monday is when the doors fly open and GMs go climbing and rushing over each other for the chance to splash the cash on whatever player or players they think will take them to the promise land. Or save their jobs. Stan Bowman and the Hawks have been making noise at being interestingly active for once past July 1, so what might they be in the mood for? We start with the winger they’ve been most heavily linked to. 

Anders Lee

Height: 6-3  Weight: 231

Age: 28 (29 on Opening Night)  Shoots: Left

2018-2019

Team: New York Islanders

82 games – 28 G – 23 A – 51 P – 58 PIM

49.2 CF% (+1.96 Relative)  54.2 xGF% (+4.29 Relative)  49.5 Zone-Star Rating (or offensive zone starts

Why The Hawks Should Sign Him

What they’ll tell you, though we might not necessarily believe, is size and goals. Lee would immediately become the Hawks’ main power forward threat, now that Artem Anisimov is no more than a fourth-line winger if not garbage to be jettisoned before the jump into hyperspace. On the top six, the only winger with size at the moment is Brandon Saad, and he’s not really much of a crease-crasher, space-eater, greasy goal-getter. While we might hem and haw, you do need that somewhere and Lee does that. And the dude scores. 28 last year, 4o the year before when playing with Tavares, 34 the year before that. That 102 goals over the past three years ranks Lee 12th in the league, ahead of names like Skinner, Seguin, and MacKinnon and right behind Kane and Draisaitl. Goals are still the name of the game. While the 28 goals might look a drop, Lee moved from the first line to the second line with Brock Nelson and Jordan Eberle.

While Lee isn’t exactly swift, he does carry the “moves well for his size” label. And perhaps under the radar, the dude is good in both ends, with an expected goals percentage way over the team-rate both last year and three seasons ago and consistently ahead of it every year. And he’s done that with Captain Jack Capuano‘s Fury Road With No Planning methods or Barry Trotz’s cure for insomnia. So he can do just about whatever you ask him. He’s also been the picture of durability, missing nine games in the past five seasons total.

Why The Hawks Shouldn’t Sign Him

Well, that depends on how much you think speed matters in the game in terms of size. Lee won’t make the Hawks any faster, and they already are behind in the game when it comes to speed with which it is played. It’s also a little hard to picture where Lee would line up. He’s almost always been a left-winger, but you wouldn’t necessarily want to play him with Kane unless Toews was between them. As we’ve seen, Kane will make just about anything work but ideally has an actual sniper on the other side instead of just a crease-crasher. Lee isn’t really that. You could play him with Toews and RW du jour (Saad?) and have a hybrid scoring/checking line again, if Toews is up for that. Lee also might come at a higher price than you might think given that goals-standing over the past three seasons. He will be 29 when the season starts, so committing a ton of years to him might just leave you with an awfully expensive Andrew Ladd (now) on your hands in three or four years.

Verdict

Much like his former teammate in de Haan, you can’t see how a Lee signing would make the Hawks any worse. He would be an excellent weapon on the power play blotting out the sun, and he can do more than just stand there and shift out and make plays as well like Strome did. Whether that’s on the first or second unit, it would certainly strengthen it. The Hawks need someone to occupy defenders down low, and Lee does that, which should open up more space for the more creative forwards he plays with. And he probably helps defensively, too.

On the other hand, we’re talking about a not all that quick player heading into his 30s, and you have to wonder how much of a step he can lose before the hands and brain can’t compensate any more.

Like with anything, it’ll depend on the deal. You’d be awfully antsy about handing him more than five years, or anyone really. Second, given that goal-total the past three years, Lee wouldn’t be remiss in asking for $8M or more. Jeff Skinner, whose numbers Lee has essentially matched the past three seasons, just signed an extension that’s $9M per year. On the other end, Cam Atkinson–another numbers match–is only paid $5.8M per year, though he signed that extension a little while ago.

Eyeballing it, the upper-limit on what I would hand Lee is $7M per year. And that’s if you absolutely have to. That would still leave the Hawks with wiggle room to either do more or save space for DeBrincat and Strome (if he earns it). Skinner’s $9M seems too high as he has four 30-goal seasons on his resume to Lee’s two. Even $8M feels that way. If you can get Lee in for between $6-7M and for five years, six at the absolute max, you’ve probably got a good deal. Otherwise, shop better.

Everything Else

It’s Movement, But Is It Just Deck Chairs?

By Sam Fels 1993 0

Well, let’s state this at the top. If you take the non-NHL quality defensemen out of the equation–or at least the ones who aren’t worthy of a top-six most nights–and the Hawks were to open the season with some iteration of Keith, Maatta, Murphy, de Haan, Jokiharju, and Gustafsson on the blue line, it would be better than they ended with. I don’t know that it would be good, but it would be better. I also highly doubt that’s the plan.

So let’s start here:

This is true. Now everyone knows I don’t like Maatta at all, but I do like de Haan. And the Hawks do need to get better at actual defending without the puck. These two…well, at least de Haan, are improvements on that from Dahlstrom and Forsling and Koekkoek. And if this were Quenneville, you’d see the actual layout. These free safeties would be paired with the more free-wheeling Keith, Jokiharju (maybe?) and Gustafsson (if only he had wheels to be free).

But this isn’t Wayne’s basement. This is Colliton, whose “system” isn’t really dependent on positioning and angles, but on harassing and chasing all over the zone. At least that’s what we’re led to believe. Is that changing? Being tweaked? Sure, de Haan helps no matter what, but blocking more shots isn’t the problem. Well, it’s not THE problem. It’s stopping those shots from being taken at all.

Oh were you now?

Because what I saw was some shitty goddamn metrics whose specific task is to tell us what kind of transition team you were. And who’s getting this team up the ice now to avoid all those shots against again? In theory, de Haan is the perfect partner for Jokiharju to show off whatever transition and offensive flair he has (which I have to be convinced is there at all). So there’s one. It’s not really Keith’s wheelhouse anymore, and it probably never was. Maybe in a lesser role Keith can do some of that the way he used to, but then you’re implying someone can take the major minutes. That person is not here. And it doesn’t look like it’s going to be here anytime soon, unless you believe that absolute most in Adam Boqvist. And brother, I want to see the world the way you do if that’s the case.

The Hawks still have this “logjam” on defense which again, is just a clogged toilet. In any rational world. Koekkoek, Dahlstrom, and Seabrook don’t even enter this discussion. The first two are in Rockford, the last one is eating pressbox popcorn most nights (and almost certainly way too much of it, topped with carnitas). So how do you solve that?

One rumor or feeling is that Murphy will go. But slotting in de Haan for Murphy is at best the very definition of a lateral move, except you’ve gotten older, more expensive, a touch slower, and with the same injury and health concerns. As always, it depends on the return, but to me that just keeps your defense spinning its wheels.

Gustafsson, given his numbers and contract should have as much if not more value for this season to a team, and if you really believe in Jokiharju’s offensive upside he can do most of what Gus did on the power play. And he might be a better weapon there in some ways, given that he’s right-handed and could one-time Kane’s passes from the boards. But that’s another hole to be filled, and you don’t have the answers.

Again, nothing about this solves the long-term outlook of the top pairing. Now, you could sit here and say the last three Cup champs didn’t have a real top-pairing d-man other than John Carlson and the one year Kris Letang was healthy. But all those teams featured four 1b-2b d-men. How many do the Hawks have right now? Murphy maybe? The absolute best version of Jokiharju? Can Keith claim that anymore? de Haan now but in a year or two? Boqvist really?

The Hawks passed on solving a big portion of this by not drafting Byram, which is fine if Dach is really their top of the board guy. They passed on this in the short term by not making an offer for Subban or Trouba. But now how is this solved in the next three years? Do you see a path? Little hard, isn’t it? Seems like a lot is riding on the very slight shoulders of Boqvist.

It’s good that they recognize the problems. And it’s good that they’re trying to do something about it. It’s good they’ve been aggressive. My fear is that it all signifies nothing, though.

Everything Else

Well, It’s A Start – Hawks Acquire Calvin de Haan

By Matt McClure 3070 0

Earlier in the day, friend of the program Jay Zawaski wrote and went on air with Laurence Holmes stating that the Hawks were going to look to the trade market to improve their historically bad blue line, and threw out the names of either Justin Faulk or Calvin de Haan from Carolina, and the Hawks have now acquired the latter in exchange for Anton Forsberg and Gustav Forsling, both of whom are restricted free agents.

Baseball

Series Preview – Braves vs. Cubs: Clearing The Hand Wall

By Sam Fels 1368 0

vs.

RECORDS: Braves 46-32   Cubs 42-35

GAMETIMES: Monday-Wednesday 7:05, Thursday 1:20

TV: NBCSN Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, WGN Wednesday

BABY DRIVER EXTRAS: Talking Chop

PITCHING MATCHUPS

Julio Teheran vs. Jon Lester

Max Fried vs. Adbert Alzolay

Dallas Keuchel vs. Yu Darvish

TBD vs. Tyler Chatwood

PROBABLE BRAVES LINEUP

Ronald Acuna Jr. – CF

Dansby Swanson – SS

Freddie Freeman – 1B

Josh Donaldson – 3B

Nick Markakis – RF

Austin Riley – LF

Ozzie Albies – 2B

Tyler Flowers – C

PROBABLE CUBS LINEUP

Kyle Schwarber – LF

Kris Bryant – 3B

Anthony Rizzo – 1B

Javier Baez – SS

Willson Contreras – C

Jason Heyward – CF

David Bote – 2B

Carlos Gonzalez – RF

 

So, you’ve kind of biffed a long homestand, and now you need to ace the last series to have a successful one. Nothing better than having to face the National League’s hottest team to do it, right? The Braves are 16-5 in June, have surged to the top of the NL East and have kind of hid from the Phillies with a 6.5-game gap. So that’s who the Cubs have to grab at least three of four from to claim what they should have from 10 games at the Friendly Confines.

So how did the Braves pull an Easy Goer on the outside in the division this month? Well, pretty much everything. The offense has gone plaid, led by Freddie Freeman, who’s got a 1.157 OPS in the month. Ozzie Albies has recovered from a slow start, and Tyler Flowers has been mashing as well. In fact, the only two regulars who don’t have a .900+ OPS in June are Dansby Swanson and Nick Markakis. So yeah, that’s six guys tearing the ass off the baseball the past three weeks.

The rotation hasn’t been far behind, though it has some injury issues. Kevin Gausman has landed on the shelf, and Mike Soroka was pulled from his last start. Given that he’s only 21, any tweak to his arm is going to be treated like ebola. Mike Foltynewicz was so bad this year he was sent down. So the Braves have Teheran, Fried, and Keuchel ready to go today and a bunch of questions. The Cubs might see Touki Toussaint slide into the rotation for a bit, depending on how the injuries turn out.

The pen has been a touch rocky. Anthony Swarzak and Luke Jackson have been dominant, with the latter taking the closer’s role. Toussaint has been able to dance through the fire of his nearly five walks per nine, but that won’t last. Beyond that it’s been an adventure. Jacob Webb doesn’t strike many out nor get ground balls, but has a 1.77 ERA. One wonders just how long he can keep that up.

For the Cubs, they’ll give Alzolay his first start in the majors on Tuesday, and give Chatwood a full week before starting again on Thursday. The Cubs don’t have a day off until July 5th, so they’ll likely stick with six starters until then and keep Hendricks on ice until after the All-Star Break. Hopefully this is the start of Bote getting a run at second base with no bullshit breaks for Descalso or Russell. If we can get that, I’ll live with the Carlos Gonzalez experience.

It’s a rough week, because backing up the Braves is probably the other hottest team in the league, non-Dodgers division, in the Reds on the road. They’ve been annoying as fuck for the Cubs as is, so this week shapes up as a nasty test. Let’s get through it.

Baseball

Braves Spotlight: Stone Freeman Do What He Please

By Sam Fels 1217 0

There’s a theory floating around these days that the peak of a baseball player’s career is sliding up from 29 or 30 to 27 or so. It’s part of the reason you see more players getting called up earlier than before. The Braves themselves have Ronald Acuna Jr. and Ozzie Albies in the every day lineup, and they were up at 20 or 21. Austin Riley is the most recent addition this season, and he’s 22. But Freddie Freeman doesn’t seem to care at age 29, as he’s having his best season.

Freeman is on his way to a career-high in homers, as he’s got 21 already and that number is 34. He has his second-highest batting average, best on-base, and by far his best slugging. The latter might be helped by the baseballs hopped up on goofballs this year, but hey, everyone’s playing with the same ball.

How’s Freeman doing it? Well he’s not getting particularly lucky, as he’s always been a line-drive hitter who runs a hot BABIP and this season is no different. Still, Freeman is rocking a 52.7% hard-contact rate, the highest of his career by a mile and only bested by resident alien Cody Bellinger. If you’re going by Statcast, his barrel rate is a career-high and his exit velocity is the highest of his career as well. So why is Freeman suddenly hitting the ball so hard?

Well, he’s being pickier than in a long while. He’s swinging at just 52.1% of the pitches he’s seen, the lowest since 2015. He’s not chasing out of the zone, as he’s swing-rate at pitches out of the zone is the second-lowest of his career. If he’s only sticking to strikes, that’s a lot more pitches he’s going to turn into his patented liner.

Freeman has also been murder on curveballs this year, hitting them to the tune of .427, though not for much power.

Freeman has been much better at the top of the zone this year. Here’s proof:

Which doesn’t leave pitchers a lot of places to go on Freeman.

All of it leaves Freeman on course for his highest WAR season, which is 6.0 a few years ago and he’s already at 3.2 before the break. It’s going to be hard for him to get MVP consideration considering what Yelich and Bellinger is doing, and 1st basemen tend to get punished by the defensive metrics. Still, he’s a major weapon in the Braves lineup which needs it. Albies has struggled, and Donaldson only got going in the last couple weeks (after yours truly turned down a trade for him in his fantasy league, natch).

But with Freeman mashing and the pitching staff nails, it’s been enough for the Braves to surge to the top of the division and open up some distance for a second-straight playoff appearance. Freeman has always made a great comparison with Anthony Rizzo, and funny enough they’ll both hit the free agent market in 2021. Wonder if the Cubs and Braves will be waiting for each other to figure out those markets.