Hockey

What Is Dominik Kubalik?

By Sam Fels 2500 0

This isn’t some existential question, though I’ve reached the point in my life where I’m not sure everything isn’t one. Anyway, for the Hawks going forward, it’s important to identify what Dominik Kubalik is going forward, not only for what his next contract will be but for what the Hawks think they need to bolster the roster.

Because, thanks to the supernova genius of the past offseason, the Hawks don’t have a lot of wiggle room. We’ve been over and over what the Hawks can, and really have to, do to open up cap space. Even with today’s announcement from scratch-muppet Bill Daly that next year’s cap will be between $84-$88M (which means $84M), the Hawks don’t have much to work with. If they’re really planning on having Andrew Shaw and Brent Seabrook return to this team next year, at best they could have $15M to play with and that’s with a buyout of Olli Maatta. They can’t buy out Zack Smith until he’s medically cleared, and who knows when that would be. And this the Hawks, so they might not even be considering buying out Maatta, which means only $12M in space. And that would be pretty much gobbled up by Kubalik, Strome, and the two goalies they’ll need to bring in (even if one of those is a kid from the system).

So yeah, nailing the Kubalik contract is just about paramount.

The Hawks catch something of a break with Kubalik’s birthday being in August, as he won’t hit unrestricted free agency for three years instead of two. You can bet whatever contract comes next will be for three years for that exact reason, and it would behooved the Hawks to keep it there. Coming off a possible 35-goal season, buying out unrestricted free agent years could get expensive, unless Kubalik and his agent are just the nicest people in the world.

So let’s try and figure out what Kubalik is on the ice before we try and diagnose what he is going to get paid off of it. First off, he’s almost certainly not a 35-goal scorer consistently. He was a point-per-game in Switzerland, and did score one in every two there, but that didn’t project to what the Hawks have gotten so far.

As we’ve noted, Kubalik is shooting 19.1%, which just isn’t sustainable. The highest career-mark this century is Alex Tanguay’s 18.3. Currently, Draisaitl has the highest current career mark at 16.9%. Maybe Kubalik can keep it around there, but we don’t know that yet.

At the moment, Kubalik is leading the league in goals/60 at even-strength. Right behind him is Alex Ovechkin. Auston Matthews is fourth. David Pastrnak is fifth. This isn’t to say Kubalik is these guys, just the rarified air he’s keeping. Kubalik is currently doubling his expected goals per 60, which none of the other top-five are. All except Pastrnak have a higher expected goals per 60, and Pasta has the same rate.

Kubalik leads the league in difference between his actual goal-rate and his expected one, tied with Andre Burakovsky. You might say that talented shooters/finishers outshoot their expected rates all the time, and that’s what makes them special players, and you wouldn’t be wrong. Just not at this level of doing so. Currently Alex Ovechkin has a difference in those marks of 0.72, which is still someway lower than Kubalik’s 0.88, and by far the highest difference of his career. You’d be hard-pressed to find a more gifted finisher than Ovie.

If you look at simply Kubalik’s expected number of 0.86/60, that ranks him 29th, again even with Pastrnak and Aho and William Nylander, all encouraging names to be around to be sure. And Kubalik produced that while spending a good portion of the first half of the season on the bottom six and such. Toews may be his most common teammate, but the next forward on that list is David Kampf. Tells you a lot.

Kubalik’s attempts per game rank him 39th among forwards, which isn’t bad but doesn’t really make him a volume shooter. So he’s more of his find-his-spots guy, which is fine.

The worrying thing for the Hawks is that everyone around Kubalik’s ixG/60 makes some coin, like Aho or Stastny or Atkinson or Marchessault or Stone. What the Hawks will be harping on pretty hard you’d have to think is track record.

What’s kind of weird is that Kubalik has an outside shot at putting together the second-most goals for a rookie in the past 10 years. Matthews’s 40 is not going to happen, but Laine’s 36 could happen with just another heater for two or three weeks. He’s going to top Panarin’s 30 from 2016, which helped get him a $7M contract that the Hawks were too terrified to actually pay him and traded him before it kicked in. You can bet Kubalik’s agent is going to have this in mind.

Panarin shot 16% that year, a mark he didn’t match until this campaign in New York. Laine shot over 17% his first two years but hasn’t come close to that since. This is probably what the Hawks have in mind. Laine signed a two-year bridge deal coming out of his entry-level for $6.7M, and you can argue whether or not he’s been worth it or not.

Jonathan Marchessault on that list makes for an interesting comp, because both he and Kubalik feel like solid 25-30 goal-scorers. Marchessault signed his deal at 28, which marks him out from Laine, Nylander, Pastrnak who signed their current deals at younger ages than Kubalik will be this summer. The projection for them would be that they would get better, whereas the Knights were signing what Marchessault was and will be. He’s at $5M per year, which you’d have to say is a bargain, especially as he was UFA aged. The Hawks are probably pegging (not like that) this season as the absolute height of what Kubalik can be.

All of that suggests the Hawks are going to be up against it to get Kubalik in for under $5M a year, even with his restricted status. It’s also hard to find a comp for a player who comes from Europe and in his first year kicks ass and then is ready for a new deal. Panarin is about as close as you’d get and he had a second year before getting his deal. Anything under $5M per year should be considered a steal.

The Hawks do have all the leverage here, as it’s unlikely that someone is going to swoop in with an offer sheet north of $7M for a player with just one year in the NHL, and that’s the amount that would definitely make the Hawks pass. But then again, the Hawks have never used that leverage with anyone not named Marcus Kruger, and he didn’t seem to care.

And I’m not sure anything between $4.5M-$5.5M would ever be a bad deal for the Hawks. Given what his underlying numbers say, it’s easy to peg Kubalik as hovering around 25 goals, give or take, for the next few years. That’s about what they cost.

Baseball

Yes Movement – 2020 Chicago Cubs Player Previews: He’s Still Galactus

By Sam Fels 1223 0

Other than Mookie Betts, it wasn’t just the Cubs’ winter that hinged on Kris Bryant. It felt like half of baseball or more was waiting to see where he’d go and what they’d do in response. Or every move that was made viewed through the prism of whether or not that would enlarge or shrink the market for him. And then nothing happened. I’d like to believe that Theo Epstein has been slow-playing his ownership the whole time, never intending to make a deal while guising it as just not finding one that’s appropriate. Because there isn’t one that’s appropriate. You can’t get equal value for a player like Bryant, and the Betts trade proves it. Unless your real goal is to just lower payroll, which was the Red Sox’s. And was pretty much the Cubs’. But thankfully, they couldn’t bring themselves to do it, at least for a few months and probably a year. And maybe not at all.

So we have to endure the torture of having the third-best player in MLB since making his debut stuck on the team. The horror, the horror…

Kris Bryant 2019

147 games, 634 PA

.282/.382/.521

.379 wOBA  135 wRC+

11.7 BB%  22.9 K%

-4.1 Defensive Runs

4.8 fWAR

It’s funny, and don’t take this as me being anti-Javy because I’m the farthest thing from it. But all those people who had either reconciled a Bryant trade or were actively pushing for it–and they’re the same people who will tell you they’ve definitely heard of and seen the band you simply made up to mock them without them knowing it–will tell you last year clinched it because Bryant was hurt and not very good and Baez is the one the Cubs have to extend. And that 4.8 WAR mark is one Baez has surpassed…once. And it was Bryant’s second-worst season out of five. I don’t think people pay enough attention.

Bryant definitely was carrying something for the second half of the season, and still put up numbers that most players would cut off their mom’s pinky for. It’s not even a baseline for him. IT COULD NOT BE ANY SIMPLER, LUANNE.

August was the rough one, where clearly something went off physically, as Bryant’s hard-contact rate was only 25% and his line-drive rate just 12%. But on the spotted times he could actually get out there in September, be bashed the ever-loving shit out of the ball to the tune of a 52% hard-contact rate, 34% line-drive rate, and a 145 wRC+. So the idea that he was somehow part of the Cubs collapse when he was healthy is fucking laughable.

YES! YES! YES!: Bryant just needs to stay healthy, or at least have his medical staff properly diagnose when something is wrong and in a timely fashion. It felt like the past two years Bryant has just soldiered on through things they couldn’t identify, and it didn’t help matters much. When healthy, you don’t need to look much farther than last season’s first four months, when he had 21 homers, and was slashing .291/.394/.541, and that’s with carrying a rough first five weeks of the season due to a .263 BABIP, 80 points below his career average.

So for the optimum outcome, Kris Bryant just needs to be Kris Bryant. There isn’t some combination of events that have to come together for him to succeed. There isn’t something he needs to work on or adjust to. He just needs to be healthy and breathing. The only quibble, if you have to have one, is his defensive metrics have slipped since 2016. Now maybe you attribute this to him being 6-5 and simply not as mobile as he ages, and that could very well be true. Having knee problems wasn’t ideal, either. It’s worth keeping an eye on, but he seems too good of an athlete to just be a bad defender now. It’s been two years under water when it comes to Defensive Runs, so it’s not quite a trend yet but another year of it would make it so.

YOU’RE A B+ PLAYER: The opposite of above, where health is again an issue and he’s merely really good instead of a team-carrier, and all that will do to those who really liked that band where the dude plays a theremin with a cat (hat tip Kyle Kinane) is lower his value in a trade with only one year of control left and you can have the bucket of sink scum and pigeon shit the BoSox got for Betts. Yippee.

If we need to go deeper than that, Bryant struggled a bit on fastballs high in the zone last year. And if that continues he does become an easier out, though it was clearly something he had adjusted his stance and swing this spring to deal with:

It wasn’t that much better before August 1st either, so it’s tricky to blame it on his knee problem. You don’t want Bryant having to cheat to get up to high fastballs, because of what that leads to. One would expect this is the first area opposing pitchers go to this season.

Dragon Or Fickle?: I would like to tell you that after a winter of trade rumors and the grievance and listening to some experts try and disparage what he’s meant to this team and city, Bryant would be leading the Fuck You World Tour. But he’s just not that guy. When he says he’s over it and it generally doesn’t bother him, you tend to believe it. That doesn’t mean this isn’t an ultra-competitive guy, you’d have to be to get to where he’s gotten, but he’s different.

I would simply expect a Kris Bryant season, but a healthy one. Which means there will be a month or two where he simply carries this team and keeps them in the race by himself if not on top. I would expect him to beat the projections and top a 5-WAR season, and maybe with a little luck get himself into the MVP discussion again. It’s his standard, and not enough appreciate that.

Baseball

New World Order: 2020 White Sox Previews – Yoan Moncada

By Adam Hess 1470 0

As we continue our trip around the diamond for the Sox this year, we now come to the hot corner which is manned by the most important player on the 2020 White Sox. Sure, you can make the case that other players like Eloy Jimenez or Luis Robert need to have breakout seasons, but if the White Sox are going to be good in 2020, Yoan Moncada is going to need to be their best player – again. That may even be true of the years beyond. Let’s just get into this because I am ready to lose my gord over this man.

2019 Stats

.315/.367/.548, 25 HR, 79 RBI

5.7 fWAR, 4.6 bWAR, 5.1 WARP

7.2 BB%, 27.5 K%

.379 wOBA, 141 wRC+ .915 OPS

-4 DRS, 5 Outs Above Average

Last Week On Nitro: Yoan went on a full blown Fuck You Tour in 2019, telling every White Sox fan and baseball analyst that started to doubt him after his rough 2018 campaign exactly where they could put their concern. From the very beginning of the season, Moncada looked like a new player. He was hitting higher in the lineup every day, playing a new position, and was more aggressive at the plate, and all of that led to huge success from jump. He was mashing enormous dingers in big situations right away, which is great for us all because he has the best home run swing in all of baseball. If you don’t enjoy watching this man hit a baseball 450 feet and admire his work with incredible swagger and charisma, you are a joyless human being. Along with the huge homers, he also ripped 34 doubles and 5 triples, and while his walk rate dipped a bit from 2018, you take that trade off for the significantly lower K-rate and the more aggressive approach that led to a .915 OPS.

The only problem with Moncada’s 2019 outbreak is that it’s simply undeniable that his .406 BABIP is not repeatable and is destined to regress. With that being said, when you go across his Statcast profile and look at all of his numbers, the BABIP is the only thing that really sticks out as a red flag. His wOBA of .379 was barely above his xwOBA of .362, and given the fact that he hits the living shit out of the ball as well as anyone in the game – he was 7th in average exit velocity (97th percentile) and 19th in hard hit percentage (92nd percentile) – a high BABIP is going to be a natural occurrence. It certainly won’t be over .400 again, but it’s still reasonable to think he can keep it up around .360-.370, and that’s still going to result in a near-.900 OPS. Aaron Judge is routinely among the leaders in exit velo and hard hit percentage, and and he’s had BABIP’s around .360 every year of his career so far, so there is your comp and reassurance for Moncada’s future.

Along with the offensive outburst, Moncada took to playing third base extremely well, registering in the 87th percentile for outs above average. He also is still one of baseball’s faster runners, though he didn’t steal a lot of bases, totaling just 10. But if BABIP and SB’s are the biggest issues from a 2019 season that saw him register the 16th best fWAR in all of baseball – higher than the likes of Ronald Acuña Jr. and Juan Soto despite playing less games than either of them *sips a huge cup a tea* – then we are just being nitpicky.

TOO SWEET (WHOOP WHOOP): As I said in the open, Moncada is going to have to be the Sox’ best player again if 2020 is truly going to be a year that sees the Sox contend, and to that end the best case for the Sox is that Moncada gets even better this year than he was in 2019. And even with the natural BABIP regression, I think it’s possible. The .367 OBP (or similar, obviously, as I’d be a fool to predict it’ll be exact) could be repeatable if he is able to bring his walk rate back up a bit, and while it may be wishful thinking to think that the K-rate will fall at the same time, obviously that would help things. On top of that, continuing hit the piss out of everything in site while enable the power to stay up and he can easily slug in the mid .500’s again – again, the batted ball rates compare nicely to Judge, who has a career low SLG% of .528.

If all of the above happens, I think it’s easy to envision Moncada slashing something like .270/.360/.540, which would obviously be incredible. If he stays healthy – which has admittedly been an issue for him so far in his career – he could easily hit 30-35 homers and 40 doubles in the process. In terms of the peripherals, Moncada has already been outspoken about wanting to steal more bases, so if he can even raise from 10 steals to 15 in 2020, that is going to boost his wRC+ and WAR numbers. And I think he can get even better defensively as well, although as long as he doesn’t get significantly worse he will be fine over there. If all of this comes to fruition, I think we are talking about 6 win player, and if the Sox are able to reach their ceiling, that will be good enough to make Moncada a dark horse MVP Candidate.

YOU FUCKED UP! YOU FUCKED UP!: I have to be honest – selfishly, I don’t even want to entertain the thought of Moncada falling off a cliff. I am clearly biased, but an all out collapse that indicates 2019 was nothing but a blip on the radar does feel extremely unlikely, but baseball is a cruel game. I don’t think he’d fall so far as to be at 2018 levels again, but if the BABIP was truly the main driver behind his 2019 success, then it’s not all that unrealistic to think he could crash back down to being closer to a 3 win player. And while that would still qualify as a perfectly fine MLB regular, that would be a huge disappointment in terms of the expectations that the Sox and their fans have for Moncada. That’s all I want to say about this because trying to speculate numbers too much could just get depressing.

BAH GOD, THAT’S MONCADA’S MUSIC: Well, I kinda lost my gord a little early here. I tried to stay measured and not just go “WELL THE BEST CASE SCENARIO HERE IS HE BECOMES BETTER THAN MIKE TROUT MY FRENDT” in the TOO SWEET section, but in the process I think I dipped a bit too much into what I am actually predicting will happen. Maybe my 6-win player idea is a bit much, largely because that could depend on him staying healthy, but overall I really think that what we saw in 2019 was a sign of things to come for Moncada. The guy is really fucking good at baseball, and he is going to be really fucking good for a long time. And that is wall I have to say about that.

Oh wait, one more thing – extend him now, Rick!

Hockey

Game #66: Ducks 2, Hawks 6 – The Best of a Bad Situation

By Rose Rankin 1920 0

The Ducks aren’t a good team, the Hawks aren’t a good team, and there was plenty of dumb bullshit to go around. But, if the Hawks want to at least have a semblance of dignity (and are willing to not worry about the draft pick ramifications), they need to beat these teams that are even worse than they are. And that’s what happened so we’ll go with it:

Box Score

Natural Stat Trick

–In the spirit of not burying the lede, Adam Boqvist and Dylan Strome both had a very good night. Let’s start with Boqvist: his pass to set up Caligula’s goal in the first was spot on and was an identical repeat of a play he had against the Panthers. So yes, let’s have this pass for a tap-in become a habit of his. He also had the secondary assist on Strome’s first goal, and at the other side of the ice, it was his defensive play that set up Nylander’s goal in the second. That may sound like yeah, a good defensive play, that’s your job description, but that goal was the point where the game broke open, so that particular stop carries some weight. As for Dylan Strome, he’s been in a weird limbo since coming back from his ankle injury, and being marooned as a winger wasn’t really working. Tonight he was back at center and having Patrick Kane on the wing will always make you look good. But Strome took full advantage of the situation and had a three-point period in the second (2 goals, 1 assist).

–Corey Crawford was outstanding again and then fucking Ryan Getzlaf had to go jumping up to knee him in the head in the third. This shouldn’t surprise anyone at this point, but Crow finished the night with a .949 SV%, and at key moments before the Hawks piled up a bunch of goals, he was keeping them in the game. To wit, the first period was mostly a dull back-and-forth until Crawford had to make a flurry of saves in the last 5 minutes, and he withstood a 5-on-3 in the second. Danton Heinen‘s goal in the second was your typical defensive breakdown and can’t be chalked up to a mistake on Crawford’s part. Carter Rowney‘s was a bit soft but also seemed to be a redirect. Getzlaf’s stupid ass could have avoided leaping into him, but he clearly couldn’t be bothered to avoid kneeing the opposing goalie in the head. What a piece of shit. But, the other part of this is whether Coach Pete should have just kept Crow out the rest of the game. The Hawks were up 5-1 with almost half the third period over…was it really necessary to send him back out there? I’m not saying, I’m just saying. Either way, let it be known that Corey Crawford is the hero we need but don’t deserve.

–Also, for the record, I’d like to see what Malcolm Subban can really do and if he can be a decent/reliable backup or 1B. I just don’t want to see it because Crawford took a head injury from a stupid asshole play, obviously. But this may have been the moment to just leave Subban out there to close out a game that was damn close to blow-out status

–Oh Alex Nylander…don’t for a minute think he’s anything other than a bust. He had a couple good plays (I for one was surprised he scored on his goal and wanted him to pass instead, so that shows what I know). So we’ll have to keep watching them try to make Fetch happen.

–In general though, I didn’t hate the lines tonight. The Nylander-Strome-Kane line obviously was a scoring juggernaut, but overall I was glad to see Toews, Strome and Dach as the first three centers. Kubalik-Toews-Saad is also just a sensible top line (finally). They didn’t score but still managed six shots and had a 66 CF% at evens.

–If you need more evidence that Ryan Getzlaf sucks, he let Matthew Highmore steal the puck and get past him for a short-handed opportunity in the third. Luckily for him Highmore sucks too and didn’t convert, but he would later have a nice pass to David Kampf for the sixth goal, thanks to Getzlaf’s lazy-ass effort. Ya hate to see it.

Tonight was a win they had to have, and historically they’ve blown those opportunities. So we’ll take what we can get and just be glad they didn’t cough up a hairball against this half-assed excuse for a team on their home ice. Onward and upward…

 

 

Baseball

New World Order: 2020 White Sox Previews – Nick Madrigal

By Adam Hess 1463 0

There is perhaps no more polarizing player amongst White Sox fans than second baseman Nick Madrigal. After a great college career at Oregon State that concluded in a College World Series Championship, the Sox took the diminutive infielder with the fourth overall pick in the 2018 MLB Draft, passing on a number of high upside high schoolers for the high floor but low ceiling 2B who finished his college careers as one of the best contact hitters ever. Heading into 2020, Madrigal figures to be the Sox’ starter at the keystone for most of the year, but may Sox fans are still divided on him. Let’s dig into why:

2019 MiLB Stats

.311/.377/.414, 5 HR, 55 RBI

8.3 BB%, 3.0 K%

.366 wOBA, 117 wRC+ in AAA (29 games)

4 Total Errors across all levels

Last Week on Nitro: Madrigal played across three levels of the minors last year, and he was quite good at each stop. His worst slash line at any level was the one in High-A, which means that he got better as the competition did. The real encouragement came from his performance in AA, where he hit .341/.400/.451 with a .391 wOBA and 150 wRC+ across 42 games in Birmingham, which is notoriously stifling to offense. Along with that, Madrigal improved his walk rate from 2018 from 4.7% to 7.8% in A+, continued that same rate at AA and then jumped to 9.7% at AAA, which was a welcome sight considering his contact heavy profile saw a lot of swinging and not as much patience in his college career and he first few months of his pro career. The real headliner, though, is the strikeout rate, which was so low it has garnered plenty of attention from national outlets. He kept it steady at 2.8% in both Winston-Salem and Birmingham before seeing a minimal bump to 3.7% in AAA. With plenty of strikeout-prone sluggers in the lineup, having a guy like Madrigal who makes consistent contact and damn near never strikes out will be a nice piece to have in the lineup to counteract some of that. That combined with his 65-grade speed and baserunning abilities makes him seem like your prototypical leadoff hitter moving forward, and his glove has drawn plenty of “Future Gold Glover” praise from scouts.

The main area of concern for Madrigal is his power, or more accurately his lack thereof. Madrigal totaled just 36 extra base hits last year, and 27 of those were doubles. He hit just 5 dingers, and even that is a bit misleading as one of them was in fact *not* a dinger because he had one inside-the-parker. To his credit, he had a few wall-scrapers, but that also could point to the problem – he has wall-scraping power at best. Most scouting reports hesitate to even credit him with gap power, while his biggest detractors go as far as to place a 20-grade on his power tool which essentially figures to a zero power rating if you were creating him in MLB The Show. Even the jump to AAA, where they were using the same golf ball imitation that MLB was, saw Madrial’s SLG% drop from .450 in Birmingham to .424 in Charlotte. We will talk more about this below, but this is certainly an area of concern when looking at his MiLB numbers considering that it’s only going to get harder for him to hit the ball with power in the bigs.

TOO SWEET (WHOOP WHOOP): Madrigal seems destined to start the year in AAA, and while normally sending a top prospect who had success at every level of MiLB the year prior to AAA to start the year would scream service time manipulation, I truly don’t believe that is the case here. As just discussed, there is a serious power element missing to his game, and it’s not hard to believe that a bit of time with the tennis ball in Charlotte could help that a bit. The Sox have plenty of power in the lineup, so they don’t need a ton of round trippers from Madrigal, but they’re gonna at least need him to start hitting with doubles power. Of course, the ideal outcome there is that his elite batter’s eye allows him to consistently avoid strikeouts enough to the point that pitchers have to choose to either walk him or throw him a pitch he can really hit a long ways, and he starts elevating the ball more to make use of the relatively batter-friendly Sox Park. I refuse to get ahead of myself here, but I think seeing him post an 8+ walk rate while keeping the K-rate below 10 and hit even just 10 home runs could allow him to be a hugely impactful player right away.

YOU FUCKED UP! YOU FUCKED UP!: Okay, let’s just rip the bandaid off here – there is a chance Nick Madrigal doesn’t even become a league average player, not just for 2020 but long term. If you want me to just tell you a worst case scenario for 2020, it largely starts with Madrigal getting hurt, because that would indeed be bad, but I think the Sox could survive it because, again, ther is a chance he may not be a league average player, largely because of that power issue. Let me tell you what I mean. Per last week’s Keith Law Podcast, Madrigal averaged just over 84 MPH exit velocity last year, and looking at the statcast leaderboard for exit velo, the player names that are living in that realm are not exactly comforting. Now, the most optimistic of fans will point to the fact that Jose Altuve averaged just 86.1 MPH last year, but I don’t need to explain to you why there is plenty of reason to think that may not have been legitimate. There are a few encouraging names in the 87 MPH range – Paul DeJong, Adam Eaton, Starling Marte, Kris Bryant (please do not fire me, Sam) – but I’m ignoring a LOT of “dear God I don’t want Madrigal to be THAT GUY” contestants to give you these names. Now, Sox Park is hardly a hitter’s nightmare, so he might be able to make due with his current power, but if he ends up being Dee Gordon, Neil Walker, or *gulp* Yolmer Sanchez, all of whom were in the 86 MPH range for average exit velo last year, that is going to be a huge disappointment.

BAH GOD, THAT’S MADRIGAL’S MUSIC: This is a really tough one, because I truly do not know what to expect from Madrigal. If he was playing 20 years ago, he’d be a fucking star from jump street. He’d probably win multiple MVPs. But in today’s game, where strikeouts are not viewed as a huge negative and power is the real premium tool, Madrigal almost seems like a misfit. I don’t want to place everything on Madrigal’s power, because just about every other tool he has is average or plus. He’s one of the best hitters the minors have ever seen from a strikeout and contact profile standpoint, he fields well and runs well. All of those things could enable him to be a good player without hitting for power. But the lack of power could also hold him back from becoming a great player. All of this is more big picture, though. For 2020, I expect Madrigal to be productive at AAA before coming up to become the Sox everyday 2B, and fitting in well right away. I think he will still be hard to strikeout, and draw walks at a decent rate to make him an OBP threat, but overall I think he will finish 2020 with a wRC+ below 100 (meaning he will be a below average hitter). But if he can bring the upside with his glove and the basepaths that he has in the minors, that could still be enough to be a high-level player at the keystone.

Hockey

Game #66 – Ducks vs. Hawks Preview: You Were Only Supposed To Blow The Bloody Doors Off

By Sam Fels 1324 0

vs.

RECORDS: Ducks 26-31-8   Hawks 29-28-8

PUCK DROP: 7:30

TV: NBCSN Chicago

MUSKETEERS? ON GUARD?: Anaheim Calling

Whenever the Hawks were mapping out a road back to the playoffs–be it before the season, or in the depths of the fall, or when they looked barely competent around the new year and trying to place a final charge–they must have looked at March and thought this was where it would happen. Because looking at this month’s slate, even in their current state the Hawks could pile up some points here.

It starts tonight with the Ducks, who blow. The Wings are on Friday, and they blow. The Sharks and Sentators at home next week. They blow chunks, too. Minnesota in a home-and-home and then Buffalo, and both of those teams blow a fair amount as well. The Kings and Canadiens at the end of the month, and yep, there’s some definite blowage there as well. That’s nine games that you’d expect the Hawks to win, no matter their makeup. Which means if  the Hawks were to goof a couple of results out of the Oilers, Blues, Caps, Penguins, or Stars…they could have 86 or 88 points, or even more at denouement of the season.

Except that probably only worsens their draft position. And makes you wonder what if. And that’s if you think the Hawks will take all 18 points from the games they should. Which they won’t. There’ll be no shelter here.

Either way, it kicks off tonight with the visit of the Ducks, who have backed up all season themselves after backing up all last season and have never really recovered since a playoff loss to the Predators in 2017. Boy, that sounds familiar. The Ducks might still be in Step 1 of turning from the Getzlaf-Perry generation to the next that will be led by…well, they don’t really know who yet and that’s the problem.

Getzlaf is still here of course, but his can’t-be-bothered, I’ll-float-out-here style has now aged into a I-can’t-get-there-if-I-wanted-to-but-still-don’t morass. Getz is headed for his lowest point-total since 2012 or worse, and he’s still the #1 center around these parts. What kids he’s turning the torch over to, I can’t tell you. The Ducks seemed to have missed a generation, just like the Hawks have. Rickard Rakell is 27 soon. Jakob Silfverberg is 29. Adam Henrique is 30. Cam Fowler is 28. Josh Manson too. That’s not really anyone in their prime or approaching it who’s ready to be the centerpiece of this team. When your important players are either over 30 or under 24, you get this.

The younger ducklings (so clever) like Sam Steel or Max Jones or Max Comtois (Larry Horse say Ducks too Max-y) or Jacob Larsson haven’t seized the greater opportunities. There’s still time of course, but Ducks observers would probably like to see a little more flash and less talk. The Ducks have taken on a couple projects in the hopes of finding plutonium by accident like Danton Heinen or Sonny Milano or Christian Djoos. Something’s got to work soon, right?

There’s still a few kids who haven’t even gotten a full go yet, and that’s where the hope lies. But this being a Bob Murray team, they’re going to struggle to find room for them thanks to contracts like Ryan Kesler’s if he doesn’t want to retire, or Erik Gudbranson’s, or David Backes’s for one more year. It’s a project in Anaheim, that’s for sure. The hockey team matches the area around it. There’s a lot of trash just lying around with nothing to stand out from the background.

To the Hawks, it’s basically the same again as it was in Florida. Corey Crawford will start, and the rest of the lineup will remain the same. And really, why would you change anything at this point? How would you? It kind of picks itself.

Toews, Keith, Kane, and Crow have been sounding the bell about making a serious run this month, and they’ll probably be doing the same in the room. They have to. Players want to win, and there are wins here to be had. And hey, maybe it’ll be fun. Who knows what it would tell the front office though. Look, we’ve got to come up with some reason to electively watch the Hawks play teams like this, right?

Hockey

Game #66 – Ducks vs. Hawks Spotlight: Dallas Eakins And The Curse Of The Marlies

By Sam Fels 1259 0

You won’t believe this, but everything being overblown and exaggerated just because it takes place in Toronto spreads beyond its NHL team. You probably knew that, because no Leafs fan every shuts the fuck up about what’s going on with the AHL’s Marlies. Remember when Mark Arcobello was all that was needed to get the Leafs from merely playoff attendant to Cup winner? The Rays don’t talk about their AAA team an eighth as much and that actually produces shit for the big club!

It’s like that every goddamn year with them, because everyone in T.O is under the delusion that everyone else cares about their entire system. He’s in Germany now, by the way. It was the same with Josh Leivo or T.J. Brennan or Carter Ashton or a host of others Leafs fans were convinced were NHL-worthy simply because they were in the Toronto system/area code who turned out to be tomato cans.

It’s apparently the same with with coaches. Except the Leafs have somehow exported that blurred vision of the world elsewhere.

Dallas Eakins is on his second job, and it’s hard to get a good read on what he is. The Ducks roster he has here is shit, John Gibson hasn’t played well, but it’s not like this team is overachieving or anything. Metrically, they’re about the same as the Hawks, and we know what a problem that is. But unlike the Hawks, there really isn’t a star on the roster besides Gibson, at least one that can stay healthy. Getzlaf is past it, Lindholm is just under that border, and the rest have flattered to deceive or are mere seat-fillers to plus seat-fillers.

But it wasn’t so long ago that you simply had to have Eakins as coach. He was the hot name because…he took the Marlies to the Calder Cup Final once? So it seems. Every second intermission on Hockey Night in Canada had some hockey wag breathlessly reporting that one of a dozen teams was all over Eakin’s ass. Most of the current crop of players that make the Leafs what they are now came after him, and/or skipped the Marlies altogether. Still, that was in the bloodstream, and the Oilers axed Ralph Kreuger to get Eakins even though the former had a surprising season with the dish-water talent that usually exists in EdMo. Well, Eakins won 36 of his 113 games in charge up there and was out on his ass in 18 months.

Of course, he’s not alone. Paul Maurice was able to parlay one season behind the Toronto bench to a job with the big club, which went exactly nowhere. He’s still getting work despite clearly demonstrating his head is filled with barf. Sheldon Keefe followed that same path as Maurice, just 15 years later or so, and he’s currently struggling to make the the playoffs with one of the more gifted sets of forwards in the league. Good stuff there. Clearly the Marlies are the start of a golden road. Or shower.

Eakins recovered to take a job with the Ducks’ AHL affiliate in San Diego, where he worked with some of the kids they hope will turn this ugly-ass ship around sometime soon. The Ducks and their fans have been bleating about Sam Steel and Max Jones and Max Comtois for a while now, without actual tangible results at the top level. Trevor Zegras was picked last draft and Isac Lundestrom came up for air briefly this season. Maybe they’ll be the ones who the Ducks got right.

Still, this is where Eakins is now, watching this dreck every night. Eakins did all right work with the Gulls for a couple seasons, taking them to the conference final last year with Steel, Jones, and others. But he never proved to be the genius that Toronto fans told everyone he was. Which is how things work around there all the time.

Hockey

Game #66 – Ducks vs. Hawks: Hedley Lamarr’s Mugs, Pugs, And Thugs

By Sam Fels 1112 0

Ryan Getzlaf – He’s the only shit-eater left now that Corey Perry and slinked off to Dallas to do pretty much nothing except elbow anyone who fell asleep for seven seconds to not see him coming. Getzlaf’s skills seems to have matched his attitude now, as he hasn’t given a shit in years and now he can’t just use his hands to get out of it. He’ll be 35 next season and in the last year of his contract, so this could be one of his last visits to the United Center. Which is fine, the fumigation costs after he leaves are absurd.

Erik Gudbranson – He’s hurt and won’t play tonight, but someone always seems to sign or trade for this cinderblock and he hasn’t been able to do anything since he came into the league. But if you’re big and hairy the NHL will always find a place for you for some reason.

Michael Del Zotto – There’s no coming back from publicly blowing it with a porn star, dude.

Hockey

Game #66 – Ducks vs. Hawks: Lineups & How They Were Built

By Sam Fels 1039 0

Ducks

Notes: Here is a mash unit of sorts. If Hampus! Hampus! plays it’s kind of different animal, but it’s not expected…Henrique has nine points in his last eight games…Gibson has had a rough season, but was good against the Devils last out. He has to start as Miller is still just out of an illness, though the Hawks might see Anthony Stolarz tonight with the Ducks playing the Avs tomorrow…

Hawks