Cubs
Pirates
The baseball season is so long, that we have a need to identify certain games or plays that signaled something, otherwise we’d have to admit we’ve just spent six months kind of watching the same thing over and over. Especially when it’s a team like this Cubs team that can never spend that much time being bad or good. It’s all dependent on location. Combine it all so far and you get a big bunch of mediocre, a colorless canvas, something that just kind of makes you make a sound like, “PHWA?”
You only can “identify” these moments in review, and that’s only when something much bigger happens at the end. Tell me, what was the defining moment of the 2017 season? I can’t really think of one, because that was a 92-win season that ended in the NLCS rather meekly. Wade Davis striking out Harper to end the series before (oh, the symbolism)? Max Scherzer’s inning? Certainly can’t think of much during the season.
I suppose last year has one, and it’s Carl Edwards Jr. throwing up all over what should have been the biggest home run of the season, Anthony Rizzo off Josh Hader to take the lead. Get that one win, and then you win the division and we see where it goes. Sometimes they’re easy to find, but then again it doesn’t really matter if the Cubs find one more win anywhere else along the six month season.
So yeah, there’s a huge urge to label last night’s dance quintet/cycle as the moment that will tear apart the season and send the Cubs spiraling to a .500 record or thereabouts, Maddon off into his RV, possibly Theo into the sunset to wait for his Hall of Fame berth, and whatever else. Certainly the symbols were all there–the player the Cubs refused to even try to sign (and rightly, honestly), the bullpen meltdown, the managerial what-ifs, the middle infield defense, I could keep going.
But you forget that the Cubs rolled into The Zit after what seemed like one of the biggest wins of the season, the comeback one over their bogey team Cincinnati. And they responded to that by three lifeless or dumbass games. So it honestly wouldn’t be a shock, and truly fitting, but following the worst loss of the season by three ho-hum, whatever wins over the already-quit Pirates. And then that will be a .500 road trip which won’t be great but isn’t disaster and we’ll be right back where we started. And the whole season has been just about ending up back where we started.
And they’ve done this before. I thought they were pretty much left in the shit after biffing a road trip to Milwaukee and St. Louis. They swept the Brewers and took two of three from the A’s, an AL playoff contender. I thought that might spur them. They then came up with these seven games of pure brilliance. They roared out of the All-Star break. That road trip they fucked up I just mentioned followed. That roaring out of the break followed a road trip they limped out of as well. They keep doing this.
“Momentum” in baseball is either non-existent or non-quantifiable. I can never decide. In the end, you win seven in a row because you’re playing well and you get a little luck. And you lose seven or eight in a row because of the opposite. The Cubs aren’t good enough to do the former and not bad enough to do the latter. If they were a winning team, their lack of spikes in the EKG would be cited as just staying on an even-keel, a quiet cool, a steady confidence. Because they’re a gray, shapeless life form at the moment, it’s easy to label them as lifeless, as bored, as unengaged. And they’ve looked all of that at times, as all disappointing teams do.
But I don’t know which one they are, I don’t think anyone else does, and more importantly I don’t think they do either. This Cubs team has just kind of existed through this season. It’s just there, standing in the corner, eating just the right amount of appetizers and drinking just the right amount of free booze without indulging and barely talking to anyone while also not appearing creepily aloof (can you tell who I am at parties?).
And that’s what I would guess would happen now. They’re not so stupid as to not take the two or three games this Pirates team will just hand you because that’s a thing they do now. And then they’ll return home and probably win more than they lose because that’s what they do. And then they’ll head on the road and lose more than they should. And they’ll just continue to Billy Pilgrim their way through this campaign until it ends, and still the most likely scenario is them standing on top as the Cardinals and Brewers more violently thrash about to go nowhere even harder than the Cubs.
It could be by next week you’ll barely remember last night. Or by the middle of September you won’t. There’s a small possibility it’ll become a comedic note, one we giggle about after the Cubs actually do turn it around and the Phillies continue to go straight to the middle. Most likely, it’ll just be something that happened. as pretty much all of this season has been.
Game 1 Box Score: Phillies 4, Cubs 2
Game 2 Box Score: Phillies 11, Cubs 1
Game 3 Box Score: Phillies 7, Cubs 5
If you’ve come here for a rant and rave…well, you might get one. I’m not sure. I don’t really plan on it, but it might just happen. Once you start talking about this team, the anger and bile just tend to flow.
Let’s get one thing straight, no matter what you’re thinking about Joe Maddon, any selection of brain-addled morons should be able to get six outs with a five-run lead. I was actually with Joe after seven, thinking that pulling Yu there with an extra day of rest will leave him full tank for his next couple starts after that. And hey, it’s five runs. If you think he should have left Yu in for the 8th, I don’t think you’re wrong. There shouldn’t be a wrong answer, because it’s a five-run lead with six outs to go. There are tons of ways to get those.
The one problem I would point out is that once you hit Kemp for Darvish, then he should stay in the game. He’s your best second baseman defensively, and that’s what matters. Happ has no range and no hands. I don’t want to get too upset with Bote, because he’s not really supposed to play short but has to once a blue moon.
So yeah, I’m not advocating for him to be on the team ever again, but all those who kept wailing about why Addison Russell was still playing even though he was going up to the plate with a toothbrush, it’s defense. He was good at second, despite the errors you remember and were looking for. It’s hard to remember too many other games that the Cubs lost because they were simply bad defensively, but aside from mistakes. Sure, they’ve made errors and bad decisions, but that came from everyone. Just being unable to actually play the position…well here you go.
And Joe even has his hands tied with the pen. Kyle Ryan and Rowan Wick have probably the ones you can count on most there lately. They couldn’t get it done. Now you’re into the clown’s mouth, literally. Strop’s fastball has been missing to arm-side all season, and he had no business trying to throw it inside because of that. He doesn’t have the control. Start it above the zone in the middle. But no, that’s too simple.
Six outs. Anyone should get six outs with five runs to play with. You have to actually work to blow that. And all the Cubs did.
As for the rest, I’ve seen enough of Albert Almora Jr. for my life. Tuesday’s loss pivoted on him trying to yank another hairball that human sweat-stain Jason Vargas coughed at the outside corner, when it’s all he can do. Almora shouldn’t be playing, which is weird to write after just complaining about the defense. He can play late in games then, but Happ’s bat is probably more needed, especially with Heyward and Baez at least ailing.
You have to do better than two runs off Jason Vargas, with his jersey yellowing by the third inning. Is that on Joe? Can they blame another hitting coach? Or maybe it’s that Theo and Jed filled out the lineup with players who aren’t any good? Just a hunch.
I thought about writing something today about the home and road splits, except on the ground it’s basically the starters have been much better at home than the road, and Wrigley has played to the pitchers more this year. That’s the big number you see. They score the same amount of runs, basically. The bullpen sucks just about anywhere. So whatever.
Still, maybe it’s because they lose on the road all the time now, but maybe it’s because they just don’t like being around each other. Sure feels that way. At home they get to go to their own homes. On the road they’re stuck with each other. But that’s a stretch. A guess. I don’t really know. No team looks like it’s having that much fun when they’re getting their dick kicked in on the road night after night.
The easy call is to say it’s Maddon’s fault. I don’t see it. I think this team is maxed out. He has had no bullpen to work with, whatever missteps there have been in games here and there strategically. Everyone he turns to out there is either terrible or hurt or both. I don’t know what he’s supposed to do.
Is it his fault that his starters seem to share the belt of “Tonight’s my night to get turned into dog vomit?” It seems like they do that at least once per turn through the rotation. It’s not his fault that he wasn’t provided any depth that this team had enjoyed the previous four seasons. You can blame the front office. You can blame ownership. They’re both at fault.
I would say one of Maddon’s strengths, and a bigger portion of a baseball manager’s job than we think, is to create a comfortable atmosphere and keep players loose. Well, the front office decided he can’t do that anymore, so what’s left? A bunch of players on edge with not enough talent to just stroll through the regular season and ease those fears through wins they just accrue because they’re that good. The talent base isn’t Maddon’s problem.
Me, I’m curious to see if this is the breaking point. If this is the finally the point in the season where someone like Rizzo or Bryant (not his style) or Baez (old enough?) closes the doors to the clubhouse and tells everyone to get their head out of their ass and start playing like it. Would it matter? With this pen in this condition? I guess we could find out. They can either look at this as the bottom and decide it’s time to knock it off, or they can use it as an excuse to quit.
But if they quit, it won’t be on Joe. At least not completely. It’ll lie with the front office that failed to buttress a roster that wasn’t the sure thing they wanted you to believe it was. A front office that bought into its own products far too much, and ones that haven’t helped. It’ll be the fault of ownership that for reasons they have yet to explain to anyone decided it couldn’t spend to secure the bullpen and maybe a bench player or two. And maybe the players that are here felt just a tiny bit abandoned by those above.
There’s been a malaise to this team. If you want to use those intangible reasons for tonight’s and this week’s performance, I won’t stop you. Or you can simply look at a pen that is missing its three top arms and simply doesn’t have enough after that. Maybe both are right.
Onwards…
VS 
RECORDS: White Sox 54-65 Angels 59-63
Gametimes: Thurs/Friday: 9:07, Saturday 8:07, Sunday 3:07
TV: Thursday – Saturday NBCSN, Sunday WGN
We Got Rocks In Our Outfield: Halos Heaven
So as the White Sox finished up a season series yesterday against the Houston Astros, they begin one today against an Angels team that has had a pretty rough start to the month of August. The Angels kicked off the month by losing 8 in a row before finally breaking through against the Red Sox last Saturday. They currently sit at 3-9 for the month, and have given up 86 runs so far, culminating in a series loss this week to the Pirates where they gave up 24 runs in 3 games.
The Angels starting pitching has been brutal this season, as only the Phillies, Mariners and Orioles have had worse stats than them so far. The team ERA is an unsightly 5.07, and the entire unit has been worth a measly 5.1 WAR as a whole. The Sox for comparison have garnered 8.5 WAR with a team ERA of 4.85. Not a ton better, but if you just look at the last month the Sox have fared much better, going from 18th in the league to 9th in team pitching. The Angels actually get worse in that span, going from 4th last to 3rd.
Most of the Angels issues stem from the fact that Tyler Skaggs, their statistical leader in most starting pitching categories, tragically passed away last month in his hotel room on the road in Texas. At the time, Skaggs was the team leader in innings pitched and strikeouts. It also can’t be dismissed that his passing had an effect on the overall morale for the starting 5. The other pieces are young and mostly untested, the best of which is probably Griffin Canning. Canning was actually having a pretty solid rookie campaign until it was derailed by elbow issues a few weeks ago. Before that his ERA sat in the 4.15 range, and his strikeout totals were fairly impressive. He’s your atypical fastball-slider combo guy, who has a decent change to round out his arsenal, though he doesn’t throw it very much.
The one thing the Angels do well his hit the piss out of the ball. They’re 5th in the AL in hitting, and most of that is due to Mike Trout. He’s having another of his atypical MVP-caliber years, currently leading the whole damn league in hitting (yet again). For a good chunk of the season he was behind Christian Yelich and Cody Bellinger, but they’ve fallen off slightly and that’s been enough for Trout to go sailing by them. The rest of the squad can hit the ball too, as 3B David Fletcher is having an excellent breakout campaign. He’s currently slashing .284/.343/.738, which isn’t all that impressive power-wise but he gets on base at a good clip and sets the table for the bigger bats behind him in the lineup. Shohei Ohtani hasn’t let Tommy John surgery stop him from being the power threat the Angels thought he’d be when they signed him over from the Japanese league. He’s still slashing .294/.356/.868 with 15 dingers and 45 RBI thus far. He’s also a threat on the basepaths, as he’s swiped 10 bags so far giving him a solid chance at 20/20 honors. Justin Upton is also here, though you wouldn’t know it by his stats. He’s had a rough go of it since missing 2/3rds of the season with a turf toe injury he sustained back in spring training.
As for the Sox, after yesterday’s exciting win they had to jump on a plane and head west to a new time zone. Rick Renteria hasn’t set his rotation past tomorrow night’s game but we will kick it off with Reynaldo Lopez and Lucas Giolito. I would assume that Dylan Cease will probably be skipped in the rotation and Saturday will be a bullpen day with Nova going on Sunday. The Sox bats seem to have come to life recently, and the Angels pitching staff is the perfect choice to continue that streak. They’ll have plenty of chances to hit the ball around, and if Lopez and Giolito can keep the ball off the mountain in left center field the Sox stand a good chance of at least a split in this series. Keep that momentum rolling while you can, because the Twins wait on the other side of this one.
LETS GO SOX!
Players like Mike Trout come along once in a generation, if that. Someone with the combination of raw speed, athleticism and power just do not grow on trees, even these days with next level physical workouts and sciences available to athletes. Trout has throughout his 8.5 year career amassed 72.7 WAR, which is an insane stat in and of itself when you consider the next closest player in that time frame is Buster Posey from the Giants, and he’s worth a mere 49 WAR. Mike Trout is 23.7 wins against replacement better than the next best person on that list. He’s also added a Rookie of the Year award, made the All Star Game 9 times and won the AL MVP twice.
Wanna know whats almost as amazing as those stats? Since he was a rookie in 2011, the Angels have made the postseason ONE TIME. For an organization with potentially the best player in the history of the sport (an argument for another time, but yes he is) on their roster, their only postseason appearance was in 2014 where they got swept by the fucking Royals. The same Royals team where their best player in terms of WAR is Alex Gordon, with a whopping 27.1 WAR in the same time frame as Trout. Suddenly I don’t feel so bad for Jose Abreu during this rebuild.
What all this goes to show is that baseball is truly a team sport, and even the best player in the sport can’t do it all by himself. So where have the Angels gone wrong? Well for starters, their pitching staff is (and has been) utterly woeful. In the same span of time that Trout has been on the team, the Angels are 4th from the bottom in combined pitching stats. Only the Orioles, Padres and Reds have been worse during that time. Their best pitcher (and I’ll use WAR as the defining stat just to keep consistent) in that time has been Jared Weaver with 13.0 total WAR in 6 years with the team. In comparison, the Sox (who happen to be 15th on that list, dead in the middle) have Chris Sale and Jose Quintana both with far better WAR totals (27 and 21.5 respectively) in that time frame.
They also haven’t really put together a team around him that can keep opposing pitchers from pitching avoiding him. This has improved recently with the signing of Shohei Ohtani from the Japanese league, and the maturation of younger stars like Andrelton Simmons and David Fletcher. They also have Jo Adell waiting in the wings, who projects to be the next Ronald Acuna (and who went just before the Sox took Jake “I’ll Run When I’m Dead” Burger) (fuck). So the future offensively is fairly bright for the Angels, but they’re already regretting the money they spent on Justin Upton, who has been a pretty massive disappointment thus far.
This past off-season the Angels addressed their most pressing need by signing Trout to a 12 year $430 million dollar extension, essentially making the best player in a generation an Angel for life. Now I would guess they will have to spend on pitching this upcoming winter, or risk letting that player never go farther than the first round of a playoff series. You’d have to think Garret Cole and Zack Wheeler would be high up on their lists to join Ohtani, Griff Canning and Andrew Heaney as the pitching staff that just might give Mike Trout the one accolade that isn’t already on his mantle: World Series MVP. Honestly as a baseball fan I’d be rooting for them to succeed, as seeing Trout hoist the WS Trophy would be one of the cooler things for the sport.
I guess it’s Kyle Schwarber Week here at the lab. Then again, it’s always Kyle Schwarber Week here at the lab.
There’s still a lot to be sorted this season, and even thinking about another confounding and infuriating offseason–as the next one is assuredly going to be because the Ricketts Family can’t manage a piss-up in a brewery–is a great way to make yourself miserable. But this season is already kind of miserable, and also I want to get out ahead of an already growing movement.
You can hear it in the wind, and you can see it in the sky. Greater Cubdom is starting a “Re-Sign Castellanos!” movement. You can certainly understand why, as after two weeks with the team he’s hitting .370 as a Cub and has a wRC+ of 194. He’s been a spark, at times, for a team that clearly looks like it needs it far more often than it has in the previous five years. To only focus on these two weeks is obviously a flawed process, so it’s better to be looking over the whole.
Even with this Cub-binge, this isn’t even Castellanos’s best season. That came last year, mostly because he hit the ball slightly harder. Still, Castellanos is only 27, and has at least two or three years of prime production left. The Cubs will clearly need a bat (or two), as Nico Hoerner isn’t going to be ready in 2020 thanks to his wrist problems this year. It all comes together for bringing Castellanos back.
But the issues are clearer than most want to see. The Cubs simply cannot get away with an outfield defense of Castellanos in right and Heyward in center for a full season. especially with Heyward getting a year older. J-Hey isn’t all that good in center, he won’t kill you there but he’s far from the stud he is in right. This might be especially true as the Cubs are likely to lose one of their biggest strikeout pitchers and ground-ball pitchers in Cole Hamels, who negates a bit the need for a good defensive outfield .And unless the Cubs are going to sign Gerrit Cole, that’s an issue. And they’re not going to sign Gerrit Cole (though they should). The need for outfield defense becomes slightly more acute.
Also, if you’re going off simply two weeks, you’d be tempted to hand next year’s centerfield job to Ian Happ, but that’s why we don’t do these things.
You have to project out what you think Castellanos will be. He only has a career 111 wRC+, which is good but not the kind of production one loses their mud over and centers their offseason plans around. However, if you take the last four seasons, where you could say the light went on, it’s 120. That might be a player you center plans around.
A theme that the local scene has been eager to pump is that the change from Comerica to Wrigley will boost his slugging and homers. That’s true to an extent, but how many more homers are we talking? Five at home? Maybe seven? That seems the extent. But even if you add ten more bases to Castellanos’s totals this year (five homers instead of doubles), his slugging goes up 20 points. So a consistent 115-120 wRC+ player is hardly out of the question, and with a couple bounces more than that.
But the defense. You can’t have that. The Cubs are already one of the ten-worst fly-ball defensive efficiency teams in the league. And that’s with Almora out there in center and Heyward in right a decent portion of the time. How much worse do you really want that to get?
Which means signing Castellanos puts him in left. And you already have someone there. The question one would have to ask is will Schwarber ever produce that kind of offense consistently for far cheaper than Castellanos on the open market (leaving you more money to address other concerns)? Keep in mind that Schwarber’s ’18 is about as good as Castelllanos’s current campaign (no fooling, 115 to 116). Castellanos has reached 130, and if you project that he’ll get near there again in the next three years however many times, can Schwarber ever do so? He’s only done it for 70 games four seasons ago now.
In essence, you’d basically be guaranteed a push by swapping out Schwarber for Castellanos in left, though you’d cost yourself spending power which is a concern over there because the Ricketts are so poor, don’t you know? You might do better. Depending on what the return is on any Schwarber trade, maybe you’re a better team. Or then maybe you watch Schwarber pop for 42 home runs in Tampa or something as a DH and you feel shame, especially if his trade value has been neutered over the past few seasons.
If Castellanos keeps this up for the season’s last six weeks, he’s probably looking at a $20-$25M payday per season. That’s essentially Hamels’s money, leaving you with some of Zobrist’s to play with after arbitration raises and such, along with other free agents maneuvering in and out.
This the debate. It’s not so easy, is it?
BOX SCORES
Raise your hand if you thought the Sox would win the season series against the best team in baseball by taking 4 out of the 7 games and scoring 33 total runs against them. Bullshit, put your arm back down and go sit in the back. Well, if nothing else the Sox like to make me look stupid (not a hard thing to do, but still) after I fretted about the Astros raining death down upon them this series. Granted the Sox got a little lucky with Gerrit Cole exploding his hammy in the bullpen before game 2, and Alex Bregman not being able to go at all on Tuesday night, but you know what? Credit where it’s due, the Sox took advantage of all of that and came away with a pretty solid series win all told. Sometimes baseball is weird, sometimes it’s stupid, and sometimes it’s pretty damn fun. Then sometimes it’s all 3 of those things and the Sox take the season series from the AL’s best team.
LET ME IN
NUMBERS DON’T LIE
-Let’s start with the Sox pitching, shall we? Dylan Cease went game one and took the only loss of all the starters, which includes Ross Detwiler (remember when I said baseball was stupid?). Despite getting hung with the L and walking more people than he struck out, this might have been his best outing in awhile. He gave up a leadoff bomb to George Springer, then a single to Altuve and a double to Michael Brantley (remember when the Sox didn’t want him in the off season?) to bring up Yordan Alvarez. Renteria got all galaxy-brained and issued the intentional pass to him, bringing up Yuli Gurriel, who bounced into a 5-4-3 double play to end the inning. He gave up another solo shot in the 3rd to Altuve, then proceeded to retire 11 Astros in a row before Wellington Castillo did his best Benny Hill impersonation behind the plate, allowing 12 passed balls and letting the game get out of hand. I don’t mind the 5 walks Cease issued (2 of which were of the intentional variety), as nobody works the zone better or strikes out less than the Astros. This was a building block start for Cease, no doubt about it. I’m excited to see where he goes from here.
-Ivan Nova went the distance and gave up 1 unearned run to the best offense in baseball (remember when I said baseball was weird sometimes?). He kept the ball down all night, threw first pitch strikes, and kept the Astros hitters on their heels. This will probably last long enough for Hahn to give him an extension, then he’ll turn back into a pumpkin. For now though, I’m gonna enjoy the ride in the new Chevy Nova.
-Tim Anderson had a Tuesday night to forget, going 0-8 and committing 2 errors in the field, one of which was the only run the Astros scored in the second game. Tim tried using his athletic ability instead of setting his feet and threw the ball about 8 rows deep over Matt Skole’s head. He didn’t let it get him down today, however. He went 4 for 5 with 2 doubles and a triple. More please!
-Eloy hit a ball 6,000 feet today and knocked a dude unconscious who was drinking a Modelo on the fan deck. The best part was Jake Marisnick going back to the wall and making a jump at the ball, only to have it land about 40 feet past and 20 feet up from him. Smooth.
-Don’t look now, but Jose Abreu may be heating up again, going 6-11 with 4 RBI and more importantly 2 walks. Just in time for Yoan Moncada to come back and give him some space. It also helps when…
-James McCann decides to drop it like its May again, going 4-9 with the series clinching grand slam on an 0-2 count from a hanging slider off legit shutdown reliever Ryan Pressly. He doesn’t make mistakes to right handed hitters very often, and McCann made him pay dearly for it. Awesome stuff.
-Ryan Goins can stay when Nick Madrigal and Luis Robert finally get called up. I’m kinda done with Yolmer.
-Next up is a 4 hour plane ride out to sunny California to visit Mike Trout and the Los Angeles Angels of Disneyland. Bastards will probably get to ride all the new Star Wars rides before I do. Let’s see if the Sox can build on this great series or if they slide right back into the Sarlacc Pit.
ONWARD
It’s an admittedly random comparison. I spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about Kyle Schwarber, because I am lost and perhaps helpless. Still, I’ve spent a fair amount of time defending Kyle, rooting for Kyle, hoping this week or this game or even this plate appearance is the one that opens the floodgates for him.
But it hasn’t happened. Schwarbs is still hitting under .240. He’s still slugging under .500. His wRC+ is a mere 107, which is hardly bad, but this offense needs more from left field than that. Especially when Schwarber is not going to provide really anything defensively.
I thought of Gallo, because Schwarber is still on course for 30 homers, 35 if he were to have one more binge this season. That’s something. Homers out of nothing is what Gallo used to be. Gallo of course hit 40 the past two seasons, but while he was doing that he was failing to reach a .210 average or even a .340 OBP, which Schwarber eclipsed last year. Still, there are some similarities.
They both walk more than average, although this year Gallo has walked a ton. They both strike out a lot, but Gallo strikes out far more often than Schwarber. But Gallo is hitting .253 this year, slugging nearly .600, with a 145 wRC+ and on his way to a 4.0 WAR season, something we’d all die for Kyle to become.
Kyle is eight months older, so if you’re hoping for just natural evolution or aging, that’s out. Schwarber does hit the ball hard, but he’s not hitting it as hard as Gallo. Gallo has rocked a 45+% hard-contact rate before the baseball became flubber, and is over 50% this year. Schwarber is around 40%. This has allowed Gallo to run a .368 BABIP, which is obviously high but when you’re hitting the ball as hard as Gallo does, it’s not that high.
Now, it would be easy to say that Gallo just hits the ball harder, is stronger or has a more natural swing or whatever. But if you travel into the StatCast lands, you’ll see that Schwarber’s and Gallo’s average exit velocity are almost identical (92.5 MPH for Schwarber and 93.0 for Gallo). Though Schwarber probably has gotten a boost from the baseball, as this is new territory for him whereas Gallo has always done this. Still, they’re on the same plane, now, so let’s work with that.
So how do we get Schwarber there, if we can? One change Gallo has made this year has been far great discipline. He’s swinging at almost a quarter less pitches outside the zone, nine percentage points less inside the zone. He’s been far more selective. But the thing is, his numbers now are just what Schwarber is doing, as far as what he’s swinging at. The difference is that Schwarber has better coverage, making contact on far more pitches outside the zone than Gallo does. Still, that’s not really it.
It was thought that Gallo would always suffer from shifts, and he would lose out on hits because he would keep lacing balls into infielders standing in right field. It was thought he would have to go the opposite way more often. Well, Gallo told all of that to fuck off, because he’s pulling the ball even more than he has in the past. He’s just doing so more on a line, and that’s where the real difference is. Gallo has a 25% line-drive rate, which will always drive up your BABIP, and Scwharber is at 18%. Gallo keeps his ground-ball rate around 25%, whereas Schwarber is up near 40%. That’s probably the change here. As strange as it sounds, Schwarbs needs to get more balls in the air.
Whether that will work for Schwarber is up for debate. Schwarber crushes the ball to the opposite way, slugging .765 when going that way this year, and being more damaging doing that than when he’s pulling the ball.
While Gallo can still get caught out by change-ups, the ground-ball rates on slider and curves is markedly different, with Schwarber’s ground-ball percentages some 10-15% higher than Gallo’s on those pitches. Schwarbs is going to have to find a way to get those in the air, and hard.
It may just be that Schwarber can’t consistently hit the ball that hard, or that he’ll never learn to get that contact more in the air with some violence. But his hopes, and ours, of being a plus-player kind of ride on it. Whether that’s pulling the ball to the same obscene degree that Gallo does, or whether he can find a way doing that hitting it the other way as he is now. Again, with no defensive contribution, Schwarber has to slug over .500 to be effective, and probably over .550. He has to get his average to .250, and his on-base over .37o or more. Otherwise, we’ll keep seeing these 1.0-1.5 WAR seasons, and you’d have to say the Cubs need better from that spot.
Baseball is strange in a lot of ways, and it being the only sport that announces the following year’s schedule before the current one is finished is way down the list of reasons why. Still, it’s a quirk that MLB has had for the past few years.
You may have caught a change to the normal slate of Cubs games, and that’s before Memorial Day and after Labor Day next season, night games will start at 6:40pm instead of the normal 7:05. It only ends up being about 10 games in total, but it does feel like some sort of trial balloon. Off the top of my head, Cleveland and the Rockies have started games before 7pm local time, as have the Giants. There may be others as well.
You heard it on the broadcast last night a bit, that the Cubs made this change because “they heard from fans” that this is a change they wanted, at least while the kids were in school. And if you think my brow isn’t furrowed about that one, you haven’t been around here for very long. Because we’ve seen this before, and it’s with one particular resident of 1901 W. Madison.
You’ll recall many years ago, the 2013-2014 season we think upon research, that the Hawks made a big stink about how they were moving all home games to 7:05 from the usual 7:30. They said the same things, that fans wanted the change, that fans wanted to get home earlier, that it would even be better for the press trying to get their game stories in for the morning paper (which upon reflection is uproariously funny). They said it was all for us.
And it lasted one season.
And the reason it lasted one season had to do with the real reason they made the switch. The Hawks thought that if they shrunk the time between when most people got off work and when the game started, they would force more people straight into the building before the game instead of people stopping at a different establishment between work and puck drop. They wanted everyone doing their pregaming in the United Center and not around it. It didn’t work. People were mostly just showing up closer to gametime, or even late, and the Hawks were actually missing out on concession revenue. So after all the hoorah they made about switching the games to 7, the following season with nary a mention they moved them back to 7:30. Your kids’ bedtimes be damned.
And the Cubs are no different. They don’t give a flying fuck how tired your kid is the next day at school because he attended a game at Wrigley. Or how late you get back to the suburbs or whatever. They’re attempting the same thing here, just not all at once.
If you work downtown, and get off at 5, catching the red line straight to Wrigley has you there what, maybe 5:30 if you’re lucky? More likely 5:45 or 6 though. But now instead of having an hour or more, you might only have 45 minutes before first pitch. Which might tempt you to just head straight into the park instead of hitting up somewhere else. Or if you really want dinner before the game, you probably want to do it as close to Wrigley as possible to cut down on transit team. Hmm, guess who owns a few of the restaurants around the park?
The Cubs sell over three million tickets a year, whenever they start the games. So they don’t have to care about what the fans want (and boy haven’t we seen overwhelming evidence of that this year). So their only focus is how to maximize revenue other ways. That’s all this is.
It’s not a huge difference. It won’t dramatically change lives. But keep an eye in 2021 whether they go to this full-time, or scrap it all together. And then you’ll know the real reasons why. And it won’t have to do with little Riker’s or Maya’s bedtime or science quiz in the morning, believe me.
