Baseball

Giants Spotlight: How To Plan For 2022?

By Sam Fels 1271 0

The Giants held all the keys, or marbles, or cards, whatever game we were playing, at the trade deadline. They had the most sought-after reliever in Will Smith. They had perhaps the most coveted starter in Madison Bumgarner. The Giants could have started planning for a future they’ve put off for years now, as the glow from #EvenYear has finally faded.

And they chose to do nothing.

Oh sure, there was some tinkering. Out went Sam Dyson and Mark Melancon, the latter another panic signing in an attempt to plug holes on the good ship Giant a couple years ago. In came Scooter Gennett to try and fill what had become a black hole at second base, though he seems to have been swallowed up by it as well. Still, no major shift. No groundbreaking on a new era for the orange and black. No shift whatsoever.

Which makes one wonder what the plan here is for GM Farhan Zaidi. These current Giants clearly have an end date, and that’s after the 2021 season. Both Brandon Crawford‘s and Brandon Belt‘s contracts are up then, and Buster Posey will only have one more year that can be bought out for just $3M. Right now the three combined for some $55 million on the payroll, which has been something of an obstacle as together they’ve been worth exactly replacement level this season. They’re not going to be linchpins of this team in their mid-30s in two seasons, that much is clear.

And perhaps the Giants didn’t feel they were going to get those pieces in return for Smith or Bumgarner. Smith is a free agent after the year, and as good as he’s been, two months of a closer plus whatever playoff games you only might get him into just isn’t worth all that much. Bumgarner is having a bounce-back season as he’s hardly walking anyone, but he’s a free agent-to-be with a ton of miles. And only a couple of contenders would have felt they needed another starter. The Phillies? The Braves definitely could but believe in their young rotation as well as being overly miserly, and made their move with Dallas Keuchel. Where the Brewers or Yankees were on this is anyone’s guess, but the Yankees probably figure they’ll be throwing their bullpen for five or six innings in every playoff game anyway. Houston opted for Zack Greinke, objectively the better pitcher.

Still, what are the next two years, then? The Giants prospect pool is filled with kids who are at least two or three seasons away from being anything on The Cove. Perhaps Bumgarner or Smith don’t get you the players to come up and fill in that gap, but they might get you closer. Or maybe the offers were just that bad and Zaidi figured it was better to try and miracle half of a playoff spot (the Giants are only 3.5 games out of the second spot but have three teams to leap).

The Giants aren’t totally out over their skis financially for next year. Yes, the core of those three parades are taking down the aforementioned $55 million or so, and throw Johnny Cueto‘s and Evan Longoria‘s paper on top of that and that’s $91 million for four players who are on the back nine of their careers and one pitcher coming off Tommy John. Not ideal.

Still, the Giants aren’t paying anyone else after that, aside from Jeff Samardzija. And they might be able to move him along, as he’ll only have 2020 left on his deal. None of their arbitration players are due for huge raises. And the Giants weren’t afraid to at least look like they wanted to throw money around last winter, making some kind of attempt at Bryce Harper to finally give them ANYTHING in the outfield, which they haven’t had since Hunter Pence died.

That didn’t work, and this free agent class isn’t worth putting too many eggs in. Gerrit Cole would help things, whether in combination with a returning Bumgarner or as a replacement. But there isn’t much to help the lineup. Anthony Rendon can’t be crowbarred in with Longoria at third, unless they move the latter to left field? And Longoria is still good with the glove. J.D. Martinez can’t play in the NL without being a danger to himself and society as a whole, though you’d be tempted to see if everyone can survive with him in left. Nick Castellanos isn’t a team-turner.

And should the Giants just lose Smith and Bumgarner in free agency, they aren’t going to have anything to peddle next year to try and fill the gap in their old era and new. Samardzija isn’t landing you much other than space on the payroll. Maybe if Cueto proves to be healthy, as he’ll have another year and an option year left on his contract. Perhaps that’s what the Giants are banking on.

But without a splurge, or something really creative, this team is kind of just floating there for the next two, three, or four seasons. Good thing the ballpark is nice.

Baseball

Baseball Has An Old Man Yelling At Cloud Problem Of Its Own Making

By Sam Fels 1414 0

It’s probably a good idea to point out a portion of the appeal of being a baseball fan is yelling at clouds. It’s the one sport where part of the fabric is that you can look at clouds while watching it. So occasionally you’re going to yell at them. Now that that’s out of the way…

It seems every season, especially of late, once or twice a week some major writer or publication or site is producing something where it’s just some former player–perhaps incontinent, perhaps not, but I’m betting on the former–bitching about how the game has changed and it wasn’t his way in his day and this game sucks and they can’t watch it. Funny enough, they seem to watch it enough to get quoted in these stories, don’t they. Just in the past couple days, Pete Rose, who is a rapist it needs to be pointed out, got a platform to bemoan the status of the game.

Not even hockey has the regularity of aged yahoos and and shitheads come out of whatever forest hut they’ve been inhabiting to proclaim the game was better back when their brains were spilling out over the red line. You get them, but not as often, and also they’re kind of laughed out of the building because of how much faster and more skilled the game is now and people enjoy it. Also, maybe it’s because older hockey players have a much harder time locating three sentences and assembling them than old baseball players do.

Baseball does have a problem in that no sport is more beholden to its past, or traditions. Which might be why it’s falling behind, although it remains to see how that will play out over years as less and less kids play football and look elsewhere. I suppose one of the fascinations of baseball is that it’s the one sport where we can, somewhat, compare players across eras. Like, we know that Dick Butkus would have been killed by second down in today’s game, given the size and speed of players now versus when he played. Baseball doesn’t, or didn’t, have that.

But baseball also seems to refuse to acknowledge that its players have changed. No longer do you see a guy who is, “just a ballplayer.” John Kruk isn’t around, and try and find someone who looked like Aaron Judge in 1975. They throw harder, they swing harder, they’re in better condition, they do everything better. This is hardly a bad thing.

While I may frown upon the messenger, the idea that the game today is a tougher watch, or not as enjoyable, has at least a little merit. But it also shows no patience, because sports and games change and evolve and it’s usually hard to see what things will look like five or ten years down the road.

But my favorite card to be played by the particularly-addled is something like this:

 

Like, if every team in baseball were simply to throw away their analytics department, we’d simply forget what it all said and how it was better to go about winning baseball games. Why is it that more and better information is only scary to old white guys?

Do you ever hear this shit in the NBA? Ok, when it comes to the Houston Rockets, you do, because James Harden can be hard to watch even though he’s a phenomenal player. But the Rockets are hardly the only team that stress threes and layups, and only want a mid-range jumper in certainly situations. And there’s far more movement in NBA offenses now than there was before. Maybe I don’t pay close enough attention, but does the press roll out Jack Sikma every so often to tell us how much he misses a solid bounce-pass?

Certainly no one complains about the greater offense in the NFL now. The only complaint you get about football is that the refs don’t have much idea what they’re doing, but with all the tweaks to the rulebook and replay, it’s a wonder why we think they should.

Whenever something is wrong in baseball, it’s the eggheads’ fault. Always. They fouled up something beautiful, by merely trying to improve it. And if we took them all out to some island and had them all shot, baseball would return to its glorious roots. Because if there wasn’t some nerd in the front office, Bryce Harper would just try and punch a single over the head of the shortstop every AB?

Nightengale’s tweet is utterly hilarious, as pretty much anything that leaps to undeserved freedom out of his gaping maw, because it’s always crusty old baseball men bemoaning they don’t have a job anymore. It reminds me of seeing Lita Ford complaining about how Nirvana ruined her career and wondering when anyone would want the empty-headed rock she specialized in back (that has nothing to do with The Runaways, mind). First off, Gregg Popovich and Bill Belichik are constantly reinventing their teams and styles to stay on top. Fuck, the Pats have had like eight different offenses in this run, and generally are on the cutting edge of innovation. Even when they go retro, as they did in last season’s Super Bowl, it’s to counteract something innovative on the other side.

Coach K doesn’t count because college sports are rigged, evil, and creepy. All he has to do is open the door, watch the best athletes in the country roll through, and then spend the season trying to fuck that up as best he can (and he usually succeeds at that. Coach K sucks and if he were the coach everyone thinks he is he’d have like, 12 national titles).

Baseball has the most amount of people who can’t let go of what was, which is why it has a real problem looking forward and trying to project where the game will go and how it can steer that correctly. It’s constantly trying to claw back what it had, even though that time is gone. It needs to face forward and decide where it wants to go and how to get there. And it can’t do that by giving such voice to those who have been left behind.

“Adapt or die.” MLB would be wise to use those words from a movie about just how in fact it began to move forward once.

Baseball

Is Kris Bryant Still Hurt Or Just Weird?

By Sam Fels 2684 0

Well that’s easy. Bryant is weird, in that he might be the blandest person in baseball who really only just wants to play baseball. But I’m not here to discuss whether this guy is the human interpretation of beige or not.

And I’m certainly not here to claim that Bryan is bad, or disappointing, or anything remotely close. He’s been the Cubs best player in fWAR, and in wRC+. In the former, he’s the 7th-best player in the NL, and in the latter category 10th. So if I were to call these kinds of performance disappointing, I’d be perhaps the biggest asshole in the world (and I yet may be). Bryant has an outside shot at having his fourth 6.0+ WAR season, which would be every season he’s been healthy. He’ll have to hustle, but it’s possible. Also, since he came into the league, the only two players better than him are Mike Trout and Mookie Betts, in terms of WAR.

Clearly, Bryant is still very, very special.

Still, I have thought all season that with baseballs flying everywhere, former squeegee-holders now surpassing 30 homers, that it’s a touch weird that Kris Bryant isn’t anywhere near his career-high in homers or slugging. His career-high in homers was 39 in his MVP-year of 2016, and he’s at 25 now. It’s not that he couldn’t go nuclear in the season’s last six weeks here, and get up around that 39 number. It’s just unlikely, along with improving his slugging some 19 points to get to the .554 mark, also from 2016.

When digging into this a bit, it was a little startling to see that Bryant doesn’t really hit the ball all that hard.

Bryant’s hard-contact rate is 35%. That ranks 61st in the National League, which is only 16 spots ahead of last of all qualified players in the league, and really doesn’t compare to the likes of Yelich and Bellinger, who are over 50%. Bryant also only has a line-drive rate of just 19.5%. That’s not that far off his career-mark of 21%, and you’ve never really think of Bryant spraying line-drives everywhere. Actually, in his injury-ravaged season of ’18, he had a 25% line-drive rate, but that could be attributed to his shoulder problems and an inability to get the ball in the air as he had before.

Still, Bryant is hitting more grounders than he ever has, which can’t really be explained away as good in any fashion. If you go by exit velocity, his 87.6 MPH average is very pedestrian. It’s behind by two MPH what he did in 2016, but again, this is a season where the baseball is souped up with nitrous to be labeled all over the field.

In fact, if you go by StatCast, Bryant is lucky to have the numbers he does. His expected slugging and weighted on-base, based on the kind of contact he’s making, are both some 40 points below what his actual slugging and weighted on-base average are. Bryant’s 17.7% home run per fly ball rate is a little high, but not obscene to what he’s done before. But again, in this environment, it feels like it’s a touch low.

One angle could be is that Bryant, at least this season, has developed something of a hole in his swing up in the zone:

Bryant for his career was still pretty deadly high and high and inside in the zone, and that hasn’t been the case this year. I don’t think however, that if he were getting to those pitches as well it would do something about his contact numbers. It would affect his slugging and homers, at least you’d think so. He would be hitting more of those towering homers that just never seem to come down, that you’re picturing in your mind right now.

Still, Bryant only has one season of making hard-contact over 40% of the time, which again, was his MVP year. And for comparison, his 40.6% hard-contact rate that year ranked fifth in the NL. That mark would be 15th now (tied with Kyle Schwarber, strangely).

There is something about Bryant’s swing and style that just don’t make you think he should be hitting the ball viciously hard every time, while still being awfully productive. Again, the numbers are the numbers and no one should be upset with what Bryant has given.

There’s just this feeling that the atmosphere has changed, more and more hitters have caught up to what Bryant was doing, and he hasn’t geared up with them. Essentially putting up the same numbers and rates with this baseball suggests moving backwards a bit, or that he’s not completely healthy either. Being weak high in the zone, which he wasn’t before, could also suggest that shoulder isn’t quite 100%, but that’s just speculation. And last year, when he was definitely hurt, he was actually worse lower in the zone.

Look, this is Kris Bryant we’re talking about. GALACTUS. There might be only one player in the NL you’d even consider trading him for (Bellinger, and that’s mostly due to age). It just seems weird that Bryant isn’t putting up Belinger or Yelich numbers when everything is bent for him to do so.

Then again, this is probably complaining about the back of Penelope Cruz’s knee or something.

Baseball

Series Preview – Sox at Twins: Again?

By Andy Jonathan 1506 0

vs.

 

Records: Twins 76-48   White Sox 55-68

Gametimes: Monday/Tuesday 7:10, Wednesday 12:10

TV: Monday WGN, Tuesday/Wednesday NBCSN

Where The Wild Things Are: Puckett’s Pond

 

Ugh, these assholes again.

Since the last meeting between these two teams (in which the Twins took three of four from the Sox) life has been somewhat of a mixed bag for the Towering Terror of the Twin Cities. After winning the series against the Sox, the Twins took two of three from Miami and swept the Royals. All good, right? Well then the Braves came to town and took the series against them, then shortly thereafter Cleveland showed up and not only took three of four, but tied them for 1st place in the Central in a Sunday afternoon matchup that saw Carlos Santana plunge the dagger in Taylor Rogers heart with a walk off grand slam in extra innings that wiped out a nice Twins comeback in the bottom of the 9th.

Unfortunately the dagger wasn’t made of silver, because since then the Twins have won five of six, including a four game sweep of the Rangers this past weekend and have retaken first place from the Tribe (who now sit 2.5 games behind). They just won’t die. The Twins still sit at 4th best in the AL for hitting, having fallen behind the Yankees only because the Yankees played the Orioles seven times so far in August alone. The Twins still inexplicably lead the entire league in slugging percentage at .499, almost a full .010 ahead of the second place Yankees. The fact that they’re able to power the ball so much when they play so many games in their stadium with the cavernous outfield is even more impressive. Marwin Gonzalez has caught fire after a slow start, having hit .362 since the page flipped to August. Max Kepler continues to hit for power, mashing 10 taters since he last saw the Sox. Byron Buxton is still on the IL with a laundry list of maladies, this time with his shoulder. It’s severe enough that the Twins aren’t expecting him back until at least the beginning of September.

The rotation for the Twins is still scuffling a bit as Kyle Gibson and Jose Berrios both have seen their respective ERAs rise more than a point in the month of August. Michael Pineda has returned from his stint on the IL and righted the ship, having only given up 11 runs since the beginning of July, and despite his peripherals looking hilariously bad Jake Odorizzi has a 2.08 ERA so far this month and managed to shut down the Tribe in their only win that series.

The Twins bullpen has been a mixed bag since trading for some fresh faces at the deadline. Former closer now LOOGY Sergio Romo has appeared in nine games and given up three runs in that span, all in one game against the Braves. The other big acquisition Sam Dyson has gotten shelled out of the gate with his new team, giving up seven runs in 3.1 innings. In addition to that, closer Taylor Rogers hasn’t been as sharp as he was in May and June. He got charged with the loss against the Indians mentioned above and blew two other saves since the trade deadline. With Dyson being so shaky his job seems safe for the time being, however.

As for the Sox, they seem to have corrected the offensive malaise that infected them throughout the entire series with Oakland, having pounded out 40 runs in their last seven games. Ivan Nova has continued his excellent run since the All-Star break, having only given up 12 earned runs in 53 innings since the beginning of July. This has included some starts against pretty stalwart offenses like Houston, Philly, Cubs, and these Twins. I’ve said since the beginning that Nova would be a fine 5th starter on a contending team, and he’s making his case to stick around to see that possibility. The Sox will also toss out Lopez and Giolito, both of whom have had pretty good success since the break.

The key to this series is the same as it was against Houston last week. The starters need to keep the Twins big bats off the board, and the offense take advantage of a middling bullpen where they can. It’s looking like Yoan Moncada will be back for this series after his rehab stint in Charlotte, which will be a nice boost both offensively and defensively. Having him and Leury Garcia back in the lineup will make the Sox offense as potent as it’s been all year. Well, at least until Luis Robert gets here in a few weeks. Fuck the Twins, take two of three from them.

Lets Go Sox!

 

Baseball

Twins Spotlight: Rick Hahn

By Andy Jonathan 1613 0

Seeing as though this feels like it’s the 63rd time these two teams have played each other so far this season (with still an additional series to go after this), I figured I’d eschew the normal Twins Spotlight this series and talk a little about the NBCSN podcast our Sox Overlord Rick Hahn went on last week. In said podcast, Hahn was asked if he was ever active on social media at all and what he thought about the general pessimism of Sox fans on Twitter. What follows are direct quotes lifted from the podcast:

“…If I was 12, 13 years old, I’d have some strong assed opinions of what my favorite teams were doing, and I’d make sure I’d probably post them on Twitter and be a pain in the ass.”

“The executive side of me, you know, obviously finds it somewhat unfortunate. Whether it’s because certain things leak out creating issues with potential trade partners, or it starts issues internally with a player’s name being out there you have to deal with…”

“…There’s some areas right now, whether it’s White Sox blogs or the Twitter universe or whatever that just everything is negative. The glass is always half empty. And there’s almost like this momentum towards feeling they want the rebuild to fail because they can say ‘I told you so’ more so than they want to celebrate a championship, and that’s unfortunate.”

“It’s one thing to be critical and scrutinize and take the facts and eventually then decide ‘I don’t like this. It’s another thing, and it’s a little bit fed by this age of Twitter to have this instantaneous 45 second response of ‘this is horseshit’ ya know, without even thinking anything through. Which is fine, because whether it’s next year or the year after or whenever this run begins and we start getting closer to having parades around here…all that will be forgotten.”

 

Huh. Those are some…interesting opinions there. While my first instinct here is to get fired up and write 12 paragraphs of “fuck you” retaliation to these statements, I’m going to do what Rick Hahn wants us all to do and take a pause an analyze what he has to say in the podcast.

Right off the bat, Hahn goes right for the timeless putdown used by jocks against nerds everywhere, implying that everyone complaining on Twitter and other social media outlets are 13-year-olds sitting in their mom’s basement bitching about everything. It wouldn’t shock me if Hahn fantasized about doing the scene in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back where they get the list of people who talked shit about them online and go house to house punching movie nerds in the face. That being said, pretty much anyone who’s ever been on Twitter has had that fantasy, so I have to give Rick that one. If I had my druthers, I’d spend the rest of my life going house to house kneecapping every chud on Twitter who thinks trolling is hilarious.

The second quote is where I start to have an issue with some of his opinions. The implication that Twitter causes Hahn headaches in the way he does business is somewhat unacceptable. This past off-season the rumor was the Sox either had a deal in place, or were close to one with the Dodgers for Joc Pederson and it was leaked on Twitter which resulted in the Dodgers pulling out. Hahn himself spoke about it previously back in March with Chuck Garfien on his podcast. In it, he implies that the ask from the Dodgers changed after the information showed up on Twitter. I can somewhat feel for him here, at least a little bit because that has to be frustrating as fuck.

That being said, my issue with it is the fact that the call is coming from the inside of his own house. I get being pissed about the deal being torpedoed, but if someone in the Sox front office is leaking details about this deal to Twitter, then he has bigger issues than Twitter. That’s like getting mad at a dog for sniffing another dog’s ass. It’s just what they do. Twitter spews out a shitload of rumors, a microscopic portion of which end up being true. I suppose the leak could’ve come from the Dodgers side of the camp, but I don’t know why they would then pull out of the deal. If that was the case the deal must not have been that solid anyways. Does Twitter suck? Absolutely. It’s a fucking hellscape where your soul goes to die 145 characters at a time. Doesn’t mean that absolves the Sox front office for blabbing about potential deals before the ink is dry on the paper.

The third quote deals with an area that I myself am part of, the Sox blog-o-sphere. Hahn is of the opinion that overall we bloggers have the overall attitude that leans toward the dark side. That the glass is always half empty for us. To this point, all I can say is “no fucking shit.” Look, I get that constantly hearing negative stuff online about the team you’re personally trying to build can piss you off. I really do. That being said, Hahn should perhaps try and look at it from our prospective, which is that the Sox have been absolutely brutal to watch more often than not these last few years. That combined with the kind of injury luck the Sox have had the past few years has a tendency to make a fan of a team supremely pessimistic.

I totally understand that we are in the middle of a rebuild that was necessitated by years of Kenny Williams attempting to delay the inevitable by trading the prospect cupboard bare, and we all knew there were going to be some lean years ahead. To imply that I want the rebuild to fail just so I can keep complaining about it is disingenuous. You think I WANT the team to stay like this? I want to keep watching AJ Reed and Yonder Alonso flail about when it could be Luis Robert? That I want to waste my time watching Welington Castillo look like he’s being attacked by fire ants behind the plate when I could be watching Zack Collins develop at the major league level? I have no interest in any of that shit whatsoever. I’m negative online because I’m tired of the Sox sucking worse than the drain in Marlon Brando’s bathtub. When the team has a possibility to suck less and it’s squashed because you want another year of team control on a guy murdering AAA pitching right now (or this time last year with Eloy) it’s not because I want the rebuild to fail, it’s because I really fucking want it to succeed.

Moving to the last and most terrifying quote, Hahn implies that when the run truly begins all will be forgiven we will get to watch a bunch of parades. This may be true, because I would be hard pressed to argue with a guy who built a championship squad from the nothing that was here. The issue is the quote implies that the Sox are going to BE a championship quality squad, which also implies that the front office is going to be able to fill the holes in the roster through free agency. For a guy who has shown the inclination to go dumpster diving to fill needs rather than shopping at Best Buy, the thought that the Sox are going to be throwing parades seems to be based on filling holes internally rather than on the market. He implies that the Sox run is going to begin “next year, or the year after that or whenever”  and that says to me that the timeline for the rebuild is in flux and seems to have been pushed back. Granted, I may have been hearing just what I wanted to hear about timelines from him in the past, but this quote does not inspire much confidence in the rebuild from here on out. Hopefully I’m just reading too much into this, and he was just speaking off the cuff, but I wonder.

Overall, most of what Hahn is saying in the podcast feels more like an “I’m not mad, YOU’RE the ones who are mad” comment and that he’s sort of just shouting at the rain. I get that, because that’s how I feel writing about this team sometimes. The internet is a shitty place, and it can wear on you after awhile. If Rick Hahn wants any of that to change in the slightest, the Sox are going to have to do more than tell us “Don’t worry, the good times are coming soon” and actually show us that they are through their actions. I would love nothing more than to watch the Sox dominate the AL Central for years to come, and to contend with the Astros and Yankess and Red Sox in the postseason. I want that in the worst and best way possible. If that makes me pretty negative when I’m sitting through the Sox losing three of four to the Angels when they really could’ve swept them I guess that’s fair. It’s going to be the norm until the Sox front office shows me that I should be something other than that.

 

 

 

Baseball

Series Recap – Cubs Take Two Of Three From Pirates: At Least It’s Over

By Sam Fels 1245 0

Game 1 Box Score: Pirates 3, Cubs 2

Game 2 Box Score: Cubs 2, Pirates 0

Game 3 Box Score: Cubs 7, Pirates 1

It was inches away from being a sweep, and coming home with a 5-5 road trip, which would not have been acceptable given the circumstance but wouldn’t have felt like some punitive prison punishment that this has turned into. And yet, despite all their cock-ups and idiocy, the Cubs end this roadie in first place, though having to share it. And they’ll return home for six games, where they’re 12-3 since the break. And while they do that, the Brewers and Cardinals will be throwing their fake teeth and harvested manure at each other, so if the Cubs continue to play at home as they have they’ll be gaining games on someone. Thanks to the balloon-handedness of the division, and despite their own nincompoop ways, they still have it all in their own hands.

Right then, let’s…

-I guess we’ll start with Friday night’s what-have-ya. First off, you should never be muzzled by Joe Musgrove like that unless you’re intentionally trying to do so. The Cubs didn’t much look interested Friday night, which is a luxury they’ve lost with all the other games they’ve spent trying to light their own farts.

But hey, Maddon even got away with letting Tony Kemp bat, against a lefty no less, and you get the lead. There was sone consternation about bringing Brandon Kinztler straight from the DL into this bonfire, but what choice was there? Cishek and Kimbrel are hurt. Strop is broken, and along with Wick was part of the monk-immolation in Philly the night before. Really, the only mistake was Kintzler not throwing the ball down the middle to some rookie hitting .196 and seeing just exactly how far he could hit it.

-There was also daggers being tossed at David Bote, and the whole rigamarole about using Bryant as a defensive replacement is a touch weird. Bote is just unlucky to get another ball like that, and one if he even fields cleanly he might not have a play on. This is just sequencing again. Whatever the faults of Bote, defensively he’s been just fine, and more so at third. Proclaiming him a plague on society is overly strong.

-The Cubs didn’t look all that more interested against Steven Brault either yesterday afternoon, but  the Pirates can’t even take two games in a row that they’re being handed. Lester made some huge pitches and dodged and weaved out of trouble, and while he’s not what he was and probably won’t be again, he still can pull these efforts out when the Cubs need them most.

-Use Chatwood for multiple innings more often. Thank you for your time.

-Kris Bryant to the rescue again on Saturday, but it still feels like he’s having a weird season. Given the baseball and what others are doing, shouldn’t he be heading for a career-high in homers too? Or anywhere near it? Or are the 39 in his MVP year the aberration? His slugging is the second-highest of his career, so you can’t complain, it just seems like it would have been more.

-Since July 1, Jose Quintana has been the seventh best pitcher in the NL in terms of fWAR and FIP. But keep stabbing yourself in the heart about Eloy Jimenez and his .293 OBP.

-I would like to think getting to do something as goofy as play in Williamsport for a night and hang out with the kids will remind this team what it’s like to have fun again, but I became way too cynical about these sorts of things way too long ago to truly mean it.

Onwards…

Baseball

Series Recap: Sox Lose 3 of 4 To Angels – And Lo, The Angels Hath Smoted The Sox

By Andy Jonathan 1179 0

BOX SCORES

Game 1: Sox 7 – Angels 8

Game 2: Sox 7 – Angels 2

Game 3: Sox 5 – Angels 6

Game 4: Sox 2 – Angels 9

 

Smited? Smote? I dunno, but “cast back into hell” also works for the way the Angels pummeled the Sox pen this weekend. This is one of those series where if Rick Hahn had any interest in making the Sox good this year this series is at minimum a split and most likely they take 3 of 4. It’s frustrating because it doesn’t have to be this way, and doubly so because the front office doesn’t seem to care what we think. Meanwhile Zack Collins, Luis Robert, and to a lesser extent Nick Madrigal continue to steal the lunch money of the middle school children in AAA and would be almost instant upgrades over players on the major league roster but instead we get to sit here and scream at the rain. Tiger isn’t going to change his stripes just because we want him to put a better product on the field, but I digress.

I actually had pretty high hopes for this series based on the way the Sox had played against the Astros, and losing 3 of 4 to an Angels team that’s had trouble getting anyone out since the calendar flipped to August definitely hurts. That being said, if you sift through the rubble there are actually a few positives to take away from this fetid pile of baseball excrement. Let’s take a look, shall we?

 

 

NUMBERS DON’T LIE

 

-I said in the preview that if the Sox hit and the starters were able to hold the Mighty Trout off the scoreboard they would stand a good chance of winning this series or at least splitting. Well, that turned into somewhat of a mixed bag for results. Lucas Giolito picked up where he left off, going 6 strong innings and striking out 11 Halos en route to the only win of the series for the Sox. It’s good to see that the bumps in the road he encountered just before the All Star Game are now merely a memory, as the last 2 lineups he’s faced have been stiff challenges. On the other side of that coin, Reynaldo Lopez couldn’t get Mike Trout out to save his life. That in and of itself is not much of a shock, as the number of pitchers who have the same distinction could fill up the Cook County phone book. What was unfortunate for Lopez was that the offense didn’t show up until after he left, and the fact that he had to leave was because Wellington Castillo is a burning clown car behind home plate. Lopez had multiple chances to get out of the 5th inning unscathed but Castillo got crossed up twice behind the plate and it kept the inning alive and 3 runs scored. Castillo has been hitting better of late but he’s just plain terrible behind the plate and I have seen enough.

-Dylan Cease pitched decently today, but made a few mistakes with his curve and they haven’t landed yet. He still struck out 6 and looked in command of his stuff for the most part, though Trout got the day off so take that for what you will. I still feel like Cease is going to end the year on a tear and get everybody excited for him in spring training where he will get bit by a brown recluse spider and his pitching arm will become necrotic and need to be amputated.

-Hector Santiago was fine and his 4.2 innings were fine until Evan Marshall showed up and did his best Rick Ankiel In The 2000 NLDS impression and walked everybody including the churro guy working behind 3rd base. Marshall’s peripherals have been teetering lately, and the axe finally fell this series. He managed to get 1 guy out in the 2 games he appeared in. Meanwhile he walked 3 and plunked one. He only got charged for 1 ER Saturday night thanks to a Goins error, but we all know it was his fault and he should feel bad.

-James McCann has shaken off the malaise of late July and early August to get back to mashing dongs. Eloy likewise had a very good series going yard twice and notching his first career triple, scoring (who else) McCann. Abreu and Timmy continue to hit as well, and the imminent return of Yoan Moncada bodes well for this offense going forward.

-Game 4 of this series the Sox looked like they wanted to be anywhere but SoCal, and played accordingly. I can only hope they’re a little more geared up to face the Twins this week or it could be ugly.

-The rotating cast of characters in the booth with Jason Benetti this weekend was very entertaining. I enjoy Benetti and Stone quite a bit, but switching things up occasionally can be fun and this was. Listening to Bill Walton call his first ever MLB game was the equivalent of watching your buddy get shitfaced for the first time and laughing at him trying to strike up a conversation with the water fountain outside your dorm. Ozzie is entertaining as ever, but also has some quality insight that’s delivered in the way that only Ozzie can. Ken Tremendous (AKA Michael Schur of Parks and Rec, The Office, and The Good Place fame) was very very good, and I would absolutely like to have him be the permanent substitute for Stone any time he’s away. Alas, he’s a busy man so this was probably a one off, but awesome all the same.

-The other thing this weekend did was prove that Jason Benetti is an excellent announcer, as he was able to adjust his style constantly and keep the broadcast not only listenable but very fun. If you haven’t heard him call basketball games for ESPN, he’s excellent there too. My fear is that the NFL is going to realize that and lure him away from the Sox with big money, but for now I’m just going to enjoy it while it lasts.

-Next up for the Sox is the fucking Twins again. God I hate them.

Baseball

Series Preview – Cubs vs. Pirates: Because They Say You Have To

By Sam Fels 1050 0

vs.

RECORDS: Cubs 64-57   Pirates 50-70

GAMETIMES: Friday 6:05, Saturday 12:35, Sunday (In Williamsport) 6:10

TV: WGN Friday, ABC 7 Saturday, ESPN Sunday (oh boy)

THE ALREADY DEAD: Bucs Dugout

I can’t decide if it’s better that the Cubs get right back at it tonight at whatever the fuck that was in Philly or if they should have to stew on it for a day, like a child sent to his room. The fear is that whatever hangover/malaise/soul-death is emanating from those three games carries over and the Cubs continue to play like the undead. Which still might be enough against this outfit, as the Pirates have called it a season but keep showing up because it’s mandated. Fuck, both of these teams feel like they’re here this weekend merely because they have to be.

This series takes place in two locations, as Sunday night they’ll decamp for Williamsport to add to The Little League World Series, which in no way has gotten creepy and weird tanks to television and sponsor money. It also could be considered child abuse to make kids watch the Pirates right now.

Because this team is a bloated carcass being poked with a stick some kids found. They’ve gone 11-27 over the past six weeks, put up a 4-18 stretch after the break and clearly just want things to be over. They’re fighting with each other and their coaches. When they’re not doing that they’re fighting with other teams. Or they’re throwing at people, leading to the aforementioned bullshit. In the middle, they suck at actual baseball. Or at least they suck at pitching it.

The offense has been somewhat ok over the last month. Bryan Reynolds and Starling Marte have hit over .330 in that span. Josh Bell has cooled off but can still pop here and there. The rest of the infield is a major issue, as Colin Moran, Kevin Newman, and Adam Frazier are basically taking cardboard up to bat right now. Get through the outfielders and Bell, and this team can’t really hurt you.

The pitching staff is where the fun starts. With Jameson Taillon now down for good and for next year as well, there’s just no frontline starter here. They are “guys” at best, with Chris Archer decomposing in front of everyone’s eyes. The Cubs will see Musgrove, Brault, and Keller, the latter of which has some eye-popping numbers at AAA but is far from the finished product. Brault is just back from the IL and has been getting turned into pudding since. There are no monsters here.

It’s even better in the pen, where everyone hates Felipe Vasquez because he’s actually good and the rest are Kingston coal bags. Michael Feliz has been all right over the past month, but the rest of the crew have hitters sprinting to the plate. And apparently Kyle Crick and Keone Kela are raging assholes that have the rest of the team unable to wait to get to their offseason homes. A very healthy outfit here.

Which should make it the perfect tonic for the Cubs, who haven’t won a road series since there was snow on the ground. If they can’t get it together, no matter the morale, against this collection of fuckwits and dipshits for at least two wins, you can give up hope. The Pirates are begging for it to be over and would just like you to help them along to the back of the barn where they can be put out of their misery.

The Cubs should get Brandon Kintzler back this weekend, and Craig Kimbrel shouldn’t be far behind. It won’t feel good, but take all three from this roadkill and it’s a .500 road trip and you can at least argue it’s a starting point. Otherwise, what the fuck are we even doing here?

Baseball

Pirates Spotlight: Dysfunction At Every Junction

By Sam Fels 1281 0

Everyone knew that when the Pirates were flirting with the top of the division at the beginning portion of the season it was something of an illusion. Even with a healthy Jameson Taillon, and health elsewhere, this was based on Josh Bell’s freak-onomics at the plate and some other blind, dumb, idiot luck. What no one could have expected is that the market correction would be so harsh, so violent, and so complete.

The Pirates have gone 11-27 since July 1. They’ve lost 18 of 22 at one point. They have losing streaks of eight and nine games just in the past three weeks. They have the second-worst record in the National League, with only the we-don’t-even-try Marlins propping them up.

And what’s it’s done is expose rifts, stupidity, and simply indifference at the playing, managerial, front office, and ownership levels. This is a fine mess, and maybe something a real commissioner might feel tempted to do something about. But we’ll get back to that in a minute.

Just today, The Athletic in Pittsburgh broke a story about how the Bucs have had to suspend two pitchers and one coach for insubordination. This follows their actual brawl with the Reds, caused by the Pirates either encouragement of pitchers throwing at hitters’s heads or their inability to get them to stop, or an unwillingness or lack of motivation to even try. Pitchers and players have openly balked at the Pirates still cutter-heavy teachings and shift-heavy ways, even though they’re one of the worst ground-ball producing pitching staffs in the majors.

Secondly, you can’t lose that many games in that big of a bunch without some players quitting. And yet there’s been little mention of Clint Hurdle being fired, even though he’s got open insubordination and a team that doesn’t seem to care. This runs through the Pirates organization as a whole, as when owner Bob Nutting is reminded he actually owns a baseball team he’s shown loyalty over anything else, though that could just be indifference or laziness to not even wanting to bother.

The Pirates have been unlucky with injuries, as Taillon is headed for a second Tommy John surgery, and the pen can’t seem to keep anyone upright for very long either. But that doesn’t explain it all.

The dysfunction flows upward. Neal Huntington, the GM, doesn’t seem to have worry about his job status much either, and in the interest of fairness he does have his hands tied by strict payroll limits from his owner. Still, this was a team that tried to force Gerrit Cole into their very limited view of how pitchers should work, and then sold low on him to Houston and watched him become perhaps the most dominant starter in the American League. And all that was a result of the Astros just letting him be what he wants. Michael Feliz, Colin Moran, and Joe Musgrove either are or could be nice pieces, but none are defining a team.

But Huntington has always struggled to know what he has. Only Bell has come through the system to be a star under his watch, and that was only this year. Gregory Polanco has flattered to deceive, Taillon is hurt, and he gave up on Tyler Glasnow and Austin Meadows way early to bring in the husk of Chris Archer. Sure, Glasnow has the same injury problems as Taillon, but Meadows has been a borderline star, and in the outfield where the Pirates are currently sporting Melky Cabrera. And if you’re sporting Melky Cabrera in 2019, you suck. This list could go on.

But the rot starts at the head, and that’s Nutting. There’s no better example of a MLB owner just pocketing his BAMTECH and revenue sharing money and leaving the team he owns to flounder and turn weird colors, but still produce a profit. The Pirates drew over two million fans for five years running, covering both ends of their three wildcard berths stretch. But do you remember the Bucs ever adding to those teams in an ambitious way with a free agent pitcher or hitter they desperately needed to stick with the Cubs and now Brewers? Hey, the Brewers have swung trades for Christian Yelich and signed Lorenzo Cain and Yasmani Grandal, and they’re the same sized market as Pittsburgh or thereabouts (at least in baseball terms, Milwaukee has nearly twice the population).

Nutting rarely talks to the press, and is heavily guarded when he does. So we have no idea what he thinks. Yet being in Pittsburgh doesn’t seem to hold the Penguins or Steelers back much, even if they exist in leagues with salary caps.

The Pirates have been caught and passed on the field with their once-forward-looking methods, and don’t do much about it. Their front office seems helpless to add anything with the budget they have or to rightly evaluate what’s around. Their owner doesn’t seem to care. It’s rotten in The Iron City.