Baseball

Yes Movement – 2020 Chicago Cubs Player Previews: We Comin’ Out The Yu

By Sam Fels 1602

Funny that this one comes a day after Steven Souza Jr. As at this time last year, Yu Darvish was viewed kind of in the same light, except with a much heavier contract and much more pressure. He was injured, and we didn’t know if he would even be upright much less effective. First he was upright. Then he was very effective. And now it’s a given he will be again. Do we know that? We don’t know anything. We’ve spent twelve years proving that.

Yu Darvish 2019

31 starts, 178.2 innings

3.98 ERA   1.10 WHIP    4.18 FIP  

11.5 K/9    2.82 BB/9

45.5 GB%   22.6 HR/FB%

91 ERA-    2.6 fWAR

Overall, the numbers don’t actually look that great for Darvish for 2019. They’re certainly good, but what has everyone excited and confident is the second half, where Darvish ran a 17-to-1 K/BB ratio, held hitters to a .254 wOBA, and ran an ERA and FIP under 3.00. Now, the 17-to-1 ratio is a completely bonkers number that would be asinine to think he could approach again. But he doesn’t have to be really good. The home run ball was still a problem for Darvish even in the second half, but that seems to be a weird spike more than anything else and should come down just because.

YES! YES! YES!: Trying to track what Darvish needs to do this year by looking at what changed for him halfway through last year can be a hilarious experience, because the dude throws like eight pitches. Which seemed to get him in trouble in the first half of last year, when he would Javy Vasquez his way through ABs and innings by having to show his entire arsenal within them. Even if he couldn’t control half or more of it.

Darvish leaned on his cutter and sinker more than his fastball when things took off, though this spring he has been going back to his four-seam which has touched 98. That seems unsustainable as Yu has never averaged more than 95 on it, but he is always tinkering to get more spin or movement and we all know the magical powers of PITCH LAB 2021 so maybe he’s found something. On any given day Darvish could have a different three pitches working than the last one, so it’s probably not even worth worrying about.

The only thing Darvish really needs to be the Cubs best pitcher is control. His first year here saw him walk nearly five hitters per nine. His first half last year was more of the same. When he stopped doing that, he was dominant. Some of that with Yu is confidence, as you can tell when he’s afraid to come into the zone or induce contact. And he still would rather strike everyone out than get grounders, so he might need to accentuate that a little more this year. But still, overall his K numbers and walk numbers were in line with what he did in his career, so it’s probably ok to expect what the Cubs got as the whole of 2019 than the last couple months of the season.

YOU’RE A B+ PLAYER: Well, the inverse of above, where Darvish can’t find the plate consistently with the fastball, or cutter, or sinker, or whatever else he might offer in the fastball category. Then he gets timid, and starts nibbling with sliders/cutters/splitters/whateverthefuckers, and the walks go up. And then a tendency to go up in the zone continues his home run problems of last year. And that’s been a trend that has risen every year for the last four, so that might just be part of the package now. But if those homers come after one or two walks, that’s an issue. If it’s the occasional solo shot, you can get around that pretty easily. Perhaps the additional smoke (WE WANT DA SMOKE) on his four-seam will allow him to pitch high in the zone with less battered baseballs heading up and over everyone’s head, but if that velocity doesn’t stick around we could be in for another homer-fest.

Additionally, health is always a concern. Yu still missed three quarters of a season recently, and missed a couple starts last year, and has only topped 200 innings twice in seven years. Starters going 200 IP is becoming less and less of a thing, and perhaps with Mills and one or two others lying around the Cubs are more buttressed for not having any starters who are going to go that far. But you also wouldn’t want to be tossing Alec Mills or James Norwood or some other jamoke for starts more than you absolutely had to.

Dragon Or Fickle?: Darvish is something of the de facto ace on this team, though really it has two high-end #2s in Yu and Hendricks and then two low-end #4s in Lester and Quintana (though Q has the potential to be more). Again, the unholy strikeout monster of last year’s second half is not what you’re going to get. But Darvish did have something click where the walks went away, and that feels like it’s more permanent. If he gets a little contact-luck he could flirt with an All-Star appearance, and “solid” feels like the absolute floor of what the Cubs will get this summer. If everything goes right, down-ballot Cy consideration is within range. The guess here is he’s just short of that, but everyone will be more than happy with what they get.

Baseball

New World Order: 2020 White Sox Player Previews: Lucas Giolito

By Andy Jonathan 1563

With the position players all wrapped up, we come to the spot on the diamond that will matter the most to the playoff hopes of the White Sox, the pitcher’s mound. From where things stand offensively for the Sox with additions made in the off-season, run production is not going to be an issue for the team moving forward. If the Sox truly have deigns of making the playoffs it’s the pitching rotation that’s going to have to step up and mow some people down.

Since we’ve gone all in with the pro wrestling analogies so far, we may as well keep it going. Every good faction in wrestling needs a leader. Evolution had HHH. DX had Shawn Michaels, and the nWo had Kevin Nash. I guess that makes Lucas Giolito the Kevin Nash of the White Sox rotation.

 

2019 Stats

Games Started: 29

14 Wins 9 Losses

3.41 ERA 1.064 WHIP

228 Ks 56 BB 24 HR

11.62 K/9 3.43 FIP

5.1 WAR

 

Last Week On Nitro: 2019 for Lucas Giolito was an amazing leap forward from his status in 2018 as “World’s Worst Starting Pitcher” (at least according to Fangraphs) to “Top 10 Starter In MLB Worthy of Cy Young Votes” (Also according to Fangraphs). He bettered his stats from the previous year in every meaningful category, but none more impressive than his K/9 rate, which jumped from 6.49 to 11.62. Giolito credits this jump to work he did in the previous off-season to completely overhaul his mechanics and delivery to give his fastball more movement and allow more pinpoint accuracy at the top of the strike zone.

The results were nothing less than phenomenal, as his 5.1 WAR was second on the team only to Yoan Moncada‘s 5.7 tally. The stats could’ve been even better, but a lat strain caused him to be shut down early and miss his final 3 starts of the year (2 of which would’ve been against the moribund Tigers offense). That likely cost him a few AL Cy Young votes, but ultimately his progress in 2019 is far more important than any award and he’s cemented as the White Sox ace for the next 5 years unless a resurgent Michael Kopech takes it from him.

Too Sweet! (WHOOP WHOOP): Best case scenario for Lucas Giolito this season is he continues his upward rise towards the top of the American League pitching lists. He’s able to stay healthy, and avoid the post All Star break slump that ended up costing him about a half point of ERA in 2019. He breaks the 275 K plateau, bumping up his WAR for the season to above 6, making him the first Sox player to crack that ceiling since Mark Buherle almost did it in 2005 with a 5.9 season. He also finishes top 3 in AL Cy Young votes, and secures his 2nd All Star Game appearance.

If his delivery arm slot holds up and he’s able to replicate the successes of last season, I’m certain Rick Hahn will reach out to Giolito’s camp and begin discussions for a contract extension. While I don’t think the deal would end up nearly as team friendly as the one signed by Chris Sale back in 2013, there would still be value for both sides of the aisle by having the team buy out his remaining arbitration years. Keeping Giolito in a Sox jersey for as long as possible would reduce the sting of being forced to send the team’s previous young ace away.

You Fucked Up! You Fucked Up!: Worst case scenario for Lucas Giolito has already happened, and it was called the entire 2018 season. I’ll throw up his stats from that godawful year as a comparison to the 2019 ones above:

Lucas Giolito 2018 Statline

Games Started: 32

10 Wins 13 Losses

6.13 ERA 1.48 WHIP

120 K 90 BB 27 HR

6.49 K/9 5.56 FIP

Just looking at those numbers sends a cold shiver down my spine. Having personally watched multiple Giolito starts in 2018, I can say those numbers were all very well deserved. Thankfully, Giolito’s underlying numbers last season supports his turnaround as being genuine. He actually had worse batted ball luck in 2019, based on his .273 vs .268 BABIP numbers. While nothing is impossible, I certainly would bet on the 2019 Lucas Giolito showing up this year as opposed to the 2018 version.

The other thing that could derail his season would be injuries, but seeing as though he’s already had Tommy John surgery the odds of that recurrence would be pretty low. Other than that, he’s been pretty durable throughout his career with the last few weeks of September being the only extended time missed. Fingers crossed this trend continues.

Bah Gawd That’s Giolito’s Music!: This season is going to be more of the same for Lucas Giolito. I would fully expect any innings restraints to be off him, so barring any major time missed for injury I would think he’d eclipse the 200 inning mark for the first time in his career.

Adding in the new high in innings would also give him the chance to blow past the 250 strikeout line, which when factoring in the framing skills of Yasmani Grandal seems all the more likely (I also feel like I’m going to be talking about Grandal a lot during the pitching portion of the previews, in a very good way).

My final stat line for Giolito looks something like this:

17 w 8 L/3.32 ERA/1.14 WHIP/266K/64 BB/25 HR/3.38 FIP/6.1 WAR

Home runs are always going to be an issue for pitchers who ride the top of the zone like Lucas does, aided and abetted by the bandbox nature of The Down Arrow. As long as he can keep those under 30, I see no reason for a huge jump in any of his peripheral stats. The defense behind him could definitely be an issue, as outside of Luis Robert in center field there isn’t much in the way of plus defenders there until Nick Madrigal makes his triumphant entrance at second base.

With some reinforcements coming in behind Lucas in the rotation, this season looks like it could be the sequel to his triumphant coming out party in 2019. Strap in, everybody. Looks like it’s gonna be a fun year of baseball on the South Side.

https://twitter.com/PitchingNinja/status/1035329322012291072?s=20

 

Baseball

Yes Movement – 2020 Chicago Cubs Player Previews: Steven Souza Jr.

By Sam Fels 1430

There’s probably more attention on Steven Souza than he would have ever guessed, or anyone who knows him would have guessed, simply because he was the only signing the Cubs made this year for the lineup (Jason Kipnis very well might not count). He’s also more of a symbol, which isn’t really fair to him as it has nothing to do with him, because it’s deflating that he’s the type of player the Cubs claim they’re only able to sign. Low-cost, low-risk, possibly high-reward. But you only sign those players when you have basically everything else set. The Cubs don’t. And they kind of need Souza to not only make it through the season without all of the king’s horses and all the king’s men being called, but they need him to produce. So they can say it’s “low-risk” but it kind of isn’t.

Steven Souza Jr. 2019

There wasn’t one

That’s the problem. And he didn’t even really play in 2018, either, with only 72 games chalked up. Souza missed all of April ’18 and basically all of June too, so he comes in with a very spotty health outlook. You have to go back to 2017, with Tampa, when Souza was a 3.4-WAR player thanks to a power surge where a quarter of his flies left the yard. He also totaled up 16 steals, which he won’t in Chicago thanks to his knee being discarded Reese’s wrappers at this point. So really, what the Cubs are asking is can he still hit the ball really hard, which he did once upon a time.

YES! YES! YES: Souza, to be effective, has to balance out his copious amounts of strikeouts with walks and power. He’s done that exactly once in his career, though again, we’re only talking about really three and a half years in the majors. Luckily for the Cubs, that was in his last full season, though that’s getting farther in the rearview. The good news is that Souza was making loud contact before the baseball became filled with flubber, so if he’s healthy it’s not really getting out over your skis to expect him to hit the ball really hard again. He’s able to do that without a bunch of wind blowing in on him at Wrigley to start the year, and he piles up a few more homers than one might expect.

Souza wasn’t a platoon guy before, but he’ll be one here. In his one standout season, he hit lefties and righties equally as well, though he didn’t generate the same power against lefties as he did pitchers from the other side. He’ll have to do that here, otherwise the Cubs will be basically sending out two Almoras against left-handed pitching.

Defensively, at least going back three years now, Souza was a plus in right field in Tampa and utterly horrible in center, but the Cubs won’t be asking him to play center much if at all. Again, given the health problems the past two seasons the Cubs will probably be happy if he can stand in center and not have his shins shatter for the whole season, and when he plays the Cubs could feature Almora in center and Happ in left which would could cheat over to him a touch. Again, no miracles out there expected, but competence will do.

YOU’RE A B+ PLAYER: First and foremost if things go TWANG! or BUST! on him, the Cubs’ “depth” absolutely erodes instantly. You’d be looking at Heyward playing every day, or Almora or Happ shifting to right against lefties. Or Bryant would have to play the outfield far more often, and you’d have holes at third and second, or at best you’d be “fine” there unless Nico Hoerner is actually a star (probably not) and pitchers keep throwing David Bote low fastballs just because he’s such a nice guy. It’s all a problem.

If healthy, but Souza can’t balance out his Ks with on-base skills he becomes a sucking sound anyway. He’s not going to hit for average, and his leg injuries might have sapped him of the ability to hit for power. So far he’s managed a couple doubles in Mesa, but spring training is hardly an indicator. The worrying thing is that in the one season when Souza was a weapon, most of his power came against breaking pitches. So did most of his whiffs. Which makes you think he just got a lot of mistakes to hit. And hey, you can make a career out of just hitting mistakes and that’s what the Cubs are hoping. But when your best numbers are on change-ups high in the zone…you can’t count on getting a bevy of those and at a constant rate.

Dragon Or Fickle?: This one’s hard to call. It’s hard to even know what Souza was as a player before he became bionic. He’ll tell you his 2018 was ruined by injuries, and of course he never made the post last year. When last seen healthy, he would be exactly what this team needs. But no one can tell you if he was that consistently. I don’t think he’ll be Descalso bad, and of course there’s the fear of his troubled body in the hands of a Cubs medical staff that couldn’t keep anyone healthy last year.

You’re probably looking at what he was in his first two years in Tampa. A part-timer with a little more pop than you would usually get from that role, doesn’t immolate himself in the field, and is worth about 1.0 fWAR. Maybe gets some BABIP luck or some friendly winds and is worth a touch more. And I think most would take that from a fourth or fifth outfielder.

Baseball

Yes Movement – 2020 Chicago Cubs Player Previews: J-Hey What Can I Do

By Sam Fels 1627

It says something, though I’m not sure what, that in a winter when the Cubs main objective was to lower their payroll there was barely a whisper about moving Jason Heyward. After all, there can’t be a player who’s had more of a disconnect between his production and his paycheck. But some of that view of his production is skewed, by fans and by other teams. Some of it is use. Some of it is that Heyward has been such a mensch even while struggling that some people don’t want to say anything bad. Let’s see if we can’t cut through to the truth and what Heyward can be in 2020.

Jason Heyward 2019

147 games, 589 PA

.251/.343/.429

.328 wOBA  101 wRC+

11.5 BB%  18.7 K%

-1.7 Defensive Runs

1.9 fWAR

Heyward’s 2019 numbers are tempting to reduce to this: .264/.365/.456 for a 115 wRC+. That’s his marks against right-handers only. It’s not dominant, but it’s more than useful. Heyward’s inclusion against lefties was partly down to the failures of others (Almora, Happ for the first four months), and maybe that won’t be necessary now. His defensive mark, the first negative of his career, was due to having to play center more often than ever before in Chicago. Again, that shouldn’t have to happen this year, but still could. Perhaps no player’s worth is going to be more determined by how he’s used, and how he has to be used, than J-Hey’s.

YES! YES! YES!: The optimal outcome is that Happ and Almora and Souza keep Heyward’s appearances against lefties to a minimum. Perhaps this is where the new three-batter rule comes into effect for Heyward, as there will be less and less LOOGYs around to ruin his last one or two ABs of a game. I suppose lineup construction would also come into this, where if Heyward were surrounded by righties it would be even harder to get lefties out of the pen to him. The make-up of the Cubs likely everyday lineup seems to make this likely. He could hit 9th with Bryant behind him, or between Contreras and Bote/Hoerner/whoever in the sixth spot.

Heyward’s production against righties has improved every year he’s been a Cub — 75, 94, 100, and 115 wRC+ marks. I don’t know that he can get up much higher than last year’s, but given his contact-type numbers last year you could also safely say it won’t sink too much either. Meanwhile, his four seasons here have never seen him be any good against lefties, so the Cubs should try and write off that possibility as much as they can.

His defense isn’t as much as a given. Even in just right field, his UZR and UZR/150 has dropped every season he’s been here, and at 31 in August he just isn’t going to be able to patrol center regularly (few in their 30s can, is what we’re learning. That doesn’t mean Cubs fans should expect him to look like Castellanos’s “Attacked By Bees” style out there in 2020, and maybe losing the wear and tear of starts in center helps a bit. He’ll still be a plus out there, he just might not be a force there anymore.

YOU’RE A B+ PLAYER: Again, this has more to do with what goes on around Heyward than himself. If Happ and/or Almora fall on their face again, he’ll have to play more center than is ideal. If Souza can’t form a decent platoon with him in right, he’ll have to play against lefties more often. While he’s only 30 right now, this is still Heyward’s 11th season, and those miles pile up. Restricting his workload a bit is probably key to keeping him fresh and spritely when he is playing. All of these are also dependent on everyone’s health. One injury in the outfield and the Cubs will have someone doing things that are going to be a bit out of water for them–Souza every day, or Almora every day, or Heyward every day and in center. Any of these things weaken the Cubs’ bottom of the order in a hurry, and their outfield defense. And the Cubs don’t have that margin for error.

Dragon or Fickle?: It’s always a bad idea to predict health for a team, especially when Souza has a bionic leg already. An injury or missed time for Souza the Cubs could probably deal with by having Happ slide to right and Almora in center against lefties. Anyone else and it gets tricky. But that’s what the Cubs are counting on.

If they get it, then Heyward will be the solid player he’s been the past two seasons. Reduced time means that 2.0 fWAR is probably what you’re looking at if everything goes well, along with the slowly declining defense (should be noted Statcast still likes Heyward defensively a lot). And you could certainly do a whole lot worse than that.

And hey, if it works, maybe you open up a market for him next winter to avoid having to trade players that are more important. But let’s run that kitten over when we get to it.

Baseball

New World Order: 2020 White Sox Player Preview – Nomar Mazara, or the Appeal of Past Potential

By Wes French 1524

Rick Hahn made it a point to call out Right Field as at or near the top of his shopping list for the 2019 off-season. It was well chronicled how historically awful the White Sox were in 2019 at the position, but if you’re unaware they were on pace for a worst-in-history 54 wRC+ before a couple big games in September saved them from immortality. So what was the solution as the team looks to turn the page on the down years of the rebuild and march toward the post-season? A post-hype, RHP mashing/LHP flailing Nomar Mazara. Hahn is eager to prove his club can unlock the untapped potential of the former mega-hype prospect from Texas…

2019 Stats

.268/.318/.469

6.0 BB% 23.0 K%

19 HR 66 RBI 69 R

.327 wOBA 94 wRC+ 0.5 WAR

-4 DRS

LAST WEEK ON NITRO: Mazara turned in his fourth MLB season in much the same fashion as the three that preceded it – by underwhelming. Nothing if not consistent, Mazara posted another season of mediocre production while crushing RHP to the tune of 13 HR/110 wRC+ in 302 ABs and bowing to the whims of LHP with just 6 HR/55 wRC+ in 127 ABs. Mazara seemingly is what he is at the plate at this point, with 64 of 79 career HR coming off RHP and a career 53 wRC+ against LHP that screams for a platoon. Mazara actually went backward in some ways in 2019 as he turned in the worst K/BB ratio of his career with a career high 23% K rate and 6% BB rate.

Mazara is also mediocre (at best) in the field, turning in a -4 DRS and keeping with a theme of being somewhere between -3 and -6 DRS for his career in RF. Nomar was slowed a bit by left oblique strain that kept him to only 116 games played, the lowest of his four full seasons in the bigs. No real speed to his game, Mazara appears to be a curious choice to end the RF woes all on his own.

TOO SWEET! TOO SWEET! (WHOOP WHOOP): Mazara, still just 25 as of late April, finally taps into the unrealized potential that scouts and industry prospect hounds drooled over as he assaulted the minors en route to Texas in 2016. The former top-25 prospect finally figures out how to crush all pitchers the way he’s been able to against RHP (for sizable stretches), allowing him to set a career high in games played and homers as he goes over 150 and 30 for the first time.

“So, sometimes, you need to lean a little more heavily on your scouts, sometimes need a little more heavily on the analytic side. And there’s some projection, especially with younger players involved.” Hahn is rewarded for acquiring such a young player that just never could seem to put it all together and helping him to realize all that potential. Mazara even turns in a passable RF defensively, aided by Luis Robert covering a nice big chunk of Right Center on a regular basis.

YOU FUCKED UP! YOU FUCKED UP!: Mazara is, in fact, a bit worse than what he appears to be. Every once and a while he drives a mistake deep into the Chicago Summer night, but all too often it is he that is the mistake. LHP remains the bane of his existence, exploiting the holes in his swing so harshly that Mazara finds himself in a platoon with Leury Garcia (or Nicky Delmonico??) by June. The K/BB ratio gets even worse as he devolves to a 25%+ K rate and becomes an expensive LH power pinch hitting option off the bench in August and September as the Sox find more a defensively capable replacement at the trade deadline in their quest to reach the first post-season berth in over a decade.

Mazara is then non-tendered in the Winter and drifts through the majors on short term deals with whichever team’s GM convinces himself that his staff can solve this human puzzle. After ‘flirting’ with the top of the market in Mookie Betts and George Springer, Hahn inks Marcell Ozuna to a four-year, $65M deal a year after he probably could’ve had him for 5/70 instead of spending prospect capital on the allure of what Mazara could’ve been.

BAH GAWD, THAT’S MAZARA’S MUSIC!: I tend to think Nomar Mazara is what he is after over 2,000 Major League at bats and he’ll become Hahn’s most regrettable move of the 2019 Winter. Regrettable might not be the right choice of word, considering the cost of Steele Walker(Texas Ranger) probably has a ceiling for essentially what Mazara is right now. This just feels too much like the type of move you make when you’re a year or so out from contention, trying to catch lightening in a bottle and get a few years of cheap-ish quality labor out of a corner OF spot. The problem is that while the Sox may be a year out from REALLY contending, they went ahead and filled basically every other hole they needed to with what amounts to major upgrades, leaving a little more to be desired from the absolute pit that has been Right Field.

This is not Mazara’s fault, and maybe he does have something left to show us. I think it’s foolish to think he’ll give anything more than a .260/.315/.450 line and a wRC+ around 90 overall, and it’d have been a good idea to have a platoon to hit LHP and realize his best usage. Maybe that’s the real plan, that this is the way Garcia gets at bats after he’s moved off 2B for Madrigal in May or so. Garcia did turn in a 110 wRC+ in 183 ABs against LHP in 2019…so a combined 110 wRC+ between the two would be nearly 40 points higher than 2019 amalgamation of shit that was White Sox Right Fielders.

We’d all happily take that, especially if it’s part of a playoff formula.

 

 

Baseball

Yes Movement – 2020 Chicago Cubs Player Previews: Maybe He Won’t Put Us In AA

By Sam Fels 1464

Perhaps we should have known things would go a little backwards on the Cubs in time when this regime’s first ever draft pick turned out to hit a bunch of ground balls, didn’t walk much, and was surprisingly slow. Kind of everything they told us they wouldn’t do when they walked in the door. Albert Almora has probably blown his chance to be a full-time centerfielder here. But he still very well might have a role to play with this team, and maybe as a part-time player he could possibly flourish. He’d hardly be the first. That’s the hope, anyway.

Albert Almora Jr. 2019

130 games, 363 PA

.246/.271/.381

.271 wOBA, 64 wRC+

4.4 BB%  17.1 K%

-1.1 Defensive Runs

-0.7 fWAR

Well, that’s all terrible.

Almora had simply a disaster of a season, which caused Jason Heyward or Ian Happ to play much more in center than anyone had anticipated. And Almora can’t argue he wasn’t given a chance, because he was basically given the starter’s share of ABs in the first half…and he grounded it to short. And as we know, Almora isn’t going to beat anything out. Even his defense fell, though few believe that’s his permanent state. It was only a year ago he was worth 3.4 Defensive Runs, so that’s probably an anomaly. The Cubs aren’t counting on him now other than to relieve Heyward or Schwarber the duty of hitting against lefties once or twice a week.

YES! YES! YES!: We’re already getting “Best Shape Of His Life!” stories out of Arizona, as well as comments on how we’ll he’s hitting. Which means dick, because Almora has looked good in spring before. The first objective for Almora is to stop hitting the ball on the fucking ground. He’s seen over half of his contact turn the ball green the past two seasons, and you can’t make a living that way. The problem for Almora is at least last year, when he did hit the ball in the air he didn’t hit it very hard, leading to a .184 average on flies. I feel like we’re getting to that point when Homer was training as a boxer and Moe told him, “Ok, maybe punching isn’t your thing.”

Perhaps the commentary on the shape Almora is in is to increase the authority with which he hits everything, and that can only help. Really what Almora has to do is just be a line-drive hitter. He’s not going to bash 20-25 homers but spraying liners all over could see him get back to near a .300 average which he’s teased before. And he has to hit around that to be productive, because he probably isn’t going to walk much. Almora has never had an excessive line-drive rate in the bigs, but that needs to be the goal.

As you might expect with someone who hits the amount of grounders Almora has, he struggles with pitches on or just off either corner and below his waist:

So lifting those pitches is paramount, and Almora is already good at the top of the zone. That appears to be the crux of his work in the spring. Almora has also said he was in a bad mental place last year, which is fair enough. Getting to the ball more directly is a good idea, as coming out and around it was causing his grounder problem (same thing for Heyward in the past).

Almora had a rough go last year against lefties, but that was just part of the whole detritus. In the past he’s been more than effective against them, and only seeing them at least to start the season could be a boon.

YOU’RE A B+ PLAYER: Every spring is littered with stories about a guy being in better or different condition, or changing his swing or approach, or how well he’s doing in games that don’t count. This used to be Jason Heyward’s territory. Obviously we’re not going to believe it until we see it. If Almora can’t lift pitches low in the zone for at least line-drives and continues to pound things into the ground, his Cubs career is pretty much going to be over. He’s also going to need to improve his defense from last year, though that’s the easier task for him. He’ll see a lot of late-inning action out there with Happ sliding over to left when the Cubs have a lead.

Dragon Or Fickle?: I would guess that if Almora is restricted to only platoon-duty, with the occasional spot start else well, and no one gets hurt to force him into the lineup every day, he can basically be David Bote – Outfield Version. Which means he’ll be fine. Nothing more, nothing less. I don’t think his defensive game is going to be a minus again, because his instincts out there are just so good even if his feet aren’t all that quick. And mostly playing against lefties, he should be able to be average or more. And maybe that’s all he is. Maybe he forces his way into more playing time. But if he earns that, he earns that.

Baseball

Yes Movement – 2020 Chicago Cubs Player Previews: Corpse You Up!

By Sam Fels 1374

Well, seems pretty convenient to do this on the day that FanGraphs essentially did it for me. But that’s how the cookie crumbles. There’s a lot riding on Ian Happ, and it seems a shaky boat to put your inventory on. But that’s how the Cubs wanted it. And maybe it’s just crazy enough to work. If Happ hits, the lineup goes at least six deep with at least solid contributor Heyward behind it and dude that’s totally fine in David Bote. If Happ doesn’t hit…then you get more Albert Almora. No one wants that. Not even Albert Almora. Or Peter Criss.

So let’s go through it.

Ian Happ 2019

58 games, 156 PA

.264/.333/.564

.368 wOBA  127 wRC+

9.6 BB%  25.0 K%

2.9 Defensive Runs

1.5 fWAR

What this article only makes passing mention of is that before that last week of the season, or last two weeks, Happ’s numbers were pretty ugly. That they could swing so wildly with just a handful of ABs is proof of what playing just a third of the season can do. Maybe that last week in an indicator of what he can do. Maybe the month before it is a better one. Maybe that first couple weeks he was up, when he did hit as well, are. Who the fuck knows? Still, in a third of a season he was worth that WAR, which would have him running at a 4.0-WAR season over a full campaign. If he is indeed that guy. Which no one knows.

It’s gone unnoticed, but Happ was actually a plus-center fielder last year, which means he was better out there than Almora was, and that’s supposedly the one bonus of having Almora. Now, I don’t think Almora is actually a negative outfielder, and last year was just one of those things, but the improvement in Happ’s game there should be noted. Again, it’s a small sample, but we’re talking about a guy who’s only 25 and only gaining experience at a position he’s barely played for three seasons. He’s never going to be prime Lorenzo Cain out there, but he doesn’t have to be given Wrigley’s tight environs. Only Pittsburgh is a center field he’ll spend extended time in that’s cavernous, so he just has to be fine. And he’s been that. And could be more.

YES! YES! YES!: For Happ to have a successful campaign, it’s not that he has to be what he was the last week of the season when he was Mike Trout for a week. He doesn’t even have to be quite what his overall numbers were last year over a full season, but that would be nice. And he’s capable of that. He’s also capable of being left-handed Almora. But we’ll get to that.

As Tony Wolfe points out here, when Happ gets the bat to the ball, he’s as good as there is. The contact is loud and proud. So it’s about can he make more contact. And as Wolfe says, Happ swung more without increasing his swinging-strike percentage, which is encouraging. So it would seem to be the key for Happ this year is finding strikes and not being perfect, and attacking the ones he gets no matter when he gets them.

Of course, it won’t take long for pitchers to discover that they can get Happ high in the zone:

He was also woeful against fastballs in general. He can’t simply let fastballs at the top of the zone pass because he’ll be down 0-2 all day and all year. Much like Schwarber, if he can just start taking those high fastballs the other way enough to bring pitchers down, he could go bonkers. But it would seem his entire 2020 is going to hinge on what he does at the top of the zone.

You’re A B+ Player: The path for Happ to fall down the wishing well, and hence put his entire Cubs career into oblivion likely, is he never catches up to those high fastballs and his new swing-heavy approach does start to lead to more whiffs. Happ is always going to have a somewhat bloated K-rate, just like the rest of this team. But at 20-25% that’s manageable. Anything above that it’s not, because his greater swing-tendencies will not provide the walks to balance it out. Pitchers will start attacking him up in the zone from jump street, so we’ll find out early I’m sure.

If he can’t hit, the Cubs will probably run for the theoretical better defense of Almora or stuffing Souza into right and Heyward into center if either of them start hitting. Or Bryant into right and Bote over to third if one of Kipnis, Descalso, or Hoerner hits. But look at how much moves and how thin things get if Happ doesn’t make center his. It’s all a problem.

Dragon Or Fickle?: I’m not expecting a 127 wRC+ for a year. But I would make a bet on 115-120, which will do the Cubs more than fine. I also would wager that Happ’s defense continues to improve to the point where he’s a plus out there all season, not just in spot duty in the season’s last two months. Happ made a big adjustment in pushing himself to swing more without sending his strikeouts to the moon, so getting to high fastballs doesn’t feel like it should be something beyond him. And really, he’s on the same trajectory as Schwarber. First round pick, big splash at first, and then two years of figuring it out when the league picked them apart. Happ didn’t have the knee injury in the middle. We saw what happened with Schwarber is his fourth year of playing at the top level. Perhaps it’s Happ’s turn?

MAIL YOU HOME TO MOMMA!

Baseball

New World Order: 2020 White Sox Player Previews – The Big Baby

By Wes French 1620

We open the outfield previews with the young goofball set to hit all the dingers, Eloy Jimenez. Hi Mom!

Eloy kicked off a trend of signing in the Spring so as to avoid being a victim of service time manipulation ensure a place in the starting lineup and Left Field to open the 2019 campaign. Eloy started slow, had trouble with the curve/anything breaking and seemed to be trying to hit 10-run homers the whole first month+ before injuring himself in the field (which would become his unfortunate recurring theme). Then around June something clicked and in the second half he become the baseball mashing monster we all hoped, while improving his on-base skills in the process.

Jimenez is primed for a true breakout in 2020, ready to build on his incredible final month of 2019 (1.093 OPS/184 wRC+). The Big Baby spent the offseason determined to improve his very sub-par defense and emphatically squash talk of moving to DH any time soon (“No, fuck that”).

2019 Stats

.267/.315/.513

6.0 BB% 26.6 K%

31 HR 79 RBI 69 R

.343 wOBA 114 wRC+ 1.9 WAR

-11 DRS

Last Week On Nitro: 2019 saw Jimenez open his MLB account and it was most definitely not the greatest of debuts, much to the chagrin of Sox fans. Eloy piled up ugly strikeouts and ugly routes in the outfield, telegraphing the pressure he felt as the rebuilds golden boy. Jimenez took his sweet time adjusting to Big League breaking balls, which were the bane of his existence for a good two months. These are the type of things you expect from rookie hitters, even the best of them, but the expectations were unfair and it clearly weighed on the young slugger. The good news is he was able to make adjustments and improve and excel as the season went on. He settled in, going on a tear through June after returning from his first IL stint in May to the tune of 11 HR/25 RBI in 36 games. July saw another rough stretch (and second IL trip), which coincided with the club as a whole hitting the proverbial wall, before the Big Baby compiled a strong final 50+ games to see his 2nd half numbers reach 35/15/41/.292/.328 with a 128 wRC+/.870 OPS. The overall numbers above in just 122 games make for a very encouraging overall debut, especially factoring the abysmal start.

The real sore spot for Eloy’s rookie season, literally and figuratively, was his play in LF. Sox Machine’s Jim Margalus chronicled Jimenez’s season of OF gaffes in a twitter thread and it does not disappoint in all the worst ways. To his credit, Jimenez headed to Winter Ball in the Dominican with the sole purpose of working to improve his defense and stay in the field as long as he can. The Organization seems to think he’s making progress, given that they gave a three-year extension to the aging Jose Abreu, signed Yasmani Grandal and Edwin Encarnacion and still employ plenty of other DH-adjacent bats like Zack Collins. Eloy is clearly averse to the idea and he’ll get the opportunity to prove his worth for the foreseeable future. He really doesn’t have anywhere to go but up from that -11 DRS metric, one that likely cost him a top three AL ROY finish.

TOO SWEET! (WHOOP WHOOP):  Eloy flies out of the gates in March, continuing his Sept/Oct 2019 assault on American League pitching, producing something like a .365 OBP/900+ OPS and swatting over 50 HR. The work in the field shows enough improvement to keep his DRS around -3-ish or better, helping him into the conversation for AL MVP on a White Sox team that threatens to crash the October party. He starts to pull the ball in the air more to LF, he keeps the K% closer to 20-22 and improves the BB% to 8-10 and the rest of the lineup benefits because of it. I party nearly every night.

Say Eloy improves his stat line to .310/.345/.540 and that’s still a marked improvement and a force. Combine this with what would be the baseline for the likes of Abreu, Grandal, Encarnacion, Yoan Moncada and Tim Anderson and you have a very, very dangerous lineup. Eloy could hit anywhere from the 3 hole to 7th, but ideally Ricky will spot him up somewhere and leave him so as not to mess with any improvements we’ve seen. This Spring he’s seen most of his time in the 5th spot, so we can assume that’s where he slots most of the year although you never really know with Ricky Renteria and his lineup blender.

There is some real speculation as to whether Jimenez will improve enough in the OF to get that DRS down so much, but he has put in the time and was much better later in the season (after he surely got a talking to for running himself into an elbow injury in July after karate kicking a wall earlier in they year). That and the addition of him making it a priority last Winter at least gives hope for a solid positive regression.

YOU FUCKED UP! YOU FUCKED UP!: The big numbers seen over the final two months were a mirage. Eloy slowly starts his season, forgetting the pitch recognition he picked up as 2019 wore on and yet again finds himself on the IL early because of a misplay in the field. He languishes through a sophomore slump, hits a paltry .240/.285/.460 and turns in an empty 25-30 HR along the way. He continues playing LF like the ungraceful elk he is while attempting to call off his CF often, who is now Luis Robert – a guy that will definitely hurt more running into that Charlie Tilson. I cry every night.

This scenario sees the fanbase and media start to question the long extension Jimenez inked in March 2019 and ponders if it’s really that great of business to dole out that kind of coin to players with no MLB ABs to their name (it still is). I do think that anything less than a slight improvement over Eloy’s final line from last season will be packaged as a disappointment from the media/fans and could hurt his mental development. This is a very tight knit core, though, one that has signed basically the entire lineup save RF for at least the next three seasons and has reinforcements in Andrew Vaughn (1B) and Nick Madrigal (2B) very close to being here for at least another six with everyone but Abreu and Grandal. Any adversity Jimenez or his teammates find will see the rest rally around them and that has to count for something.

BAH GAWD THAT’S JIMENEZ’S MUSIC!: I’m going to predict Eloy at .302/.341/.560 with 44 HR and a league leading 118 RBI. The lineup around him is vastly improved and so is his plate discipline, which leads to the breakout he’s capable of. He plays a slightly improved LF, enough so to stay out of Robert’s way and keep himself off the IL multiple times.

He could see time in a few different lineup spots, but it won’t be to his detriment as he finds cover no matter where he hits. Encarnacion dubs him his large adult son as Eloy edges him for the team lead in HRs. We all party.

https://streamable.com/j63tw

 

 

Baseball

Yes Movement – 2020 Chicago Cubs Player Previews: WITNESS ME

By Sam Fels 1190 0

I’m one of the few who take Kyle Schwarber as a given. And even I think that feeling is fragile. Schwarber gave us a half-season of a dominant hitter. But it’s only a half-season. And it took us a while to get here. Which means it feels like it could easily slip back into the whiff-happy, Dave Kingman routine again. But this is what our large adult son has always been billed as, and the organization was so patient with him to get this, it feels like this has to be the time. Will it be?

Kyle Schwarber 2019

155 games, 610 PA

.250/.339/.531

.357 wOBA  120 wRC+

11.5 BB%  25.6 K%

-7.1 Defensive Runs

2.6 WAR

Overall, the numbers don’t look gargantuan. It’s the second half that has people staining their shorts, where The War Bear went .280/.366/.631 for a 151 wRC+. And that came about without a huge spike in BABIP, or an abnormal amount of fly-balls leaving the park, and what it did involve was making more contact. Schwarber’s walk-rate dropped in the second half by a couple percentage points, but his strikeouts went from 28.3% to 21.0%. And considering how hard Schwarber hits the ball, hardest on the team, the more balls he gets in play the better it’s going to be for everyone. So can he keep it up?

YES! YES! YES!: So in order to figure out if Schwarber figured something out and that 151 wRC+ is something he can do something like that over a full season (which is obviously patently ridiculous because that would make him a top-10 hitter in the league)?

One adjustment for 2019 was Schwarber being able to take fastballs up in the zone the other way and with authority. And he was able to make more contact on them:

And in the second half, Schwarber was able to make more contact on pitches just high in the zone and a little above, and as we said, more contact means more good things for Schwarber. And you. And me. And the world. So that feels like a permanent swing change.

Which means Schwarber is going to have to be on the lookout for breaking pitches now, Considering he slugged .561 on sliders in the second half last year, and hit .267 against curves, he might have already made that adjustment. Things will always change in baseball, and eventually Schwarber will be attacked in a different way, but he seems more equipped than he was before.

The final hurdle for Schwarber is to succeed in high-leverage situations, which has been something of a bugaboo. If you believe in that sort of things, which a lot of people don’t. Overall, Schwarber was average last year in them at a 96 wRC+, after putting up…deep breath…-64 in them in 2018. So you’d have to say that was an improvement, Captain Obvious. Likely to be batting fourth behind Bryant, Rizzo, and Baez, you’d have to guess he’s going to have a chance to take a run at 120 RBI here. Even being average as he was gets him near that.

Given the thinness of the lineup, Schwarber might have to hit against lefties a fair amount of the time. Which he did well in the second half, though he did strike out nearly a third of the time as well. The Cubs could go Happ-Almora-Souza on those days…but those aren’t days you’re going to want to watch much. If he does play against lefties, it’s sliders breaking away from him that he’s going to have to watch out for. He whiffed on over half of the ones he saw.

You’re a B+ Player: The amount of ABs Schwarber has with men on base and medium to high leverage gets to his head again, and suddenly those high fastballs aren’t something he does anything with but goes back to whiffing on. Or popping out softly. He begins to lean that way, and then suddenly the curves and sliders he was waiting for are being jumped at. Which means more grounders, as his success was partly based on getting more balls in the air. He gets worse in the field, and now that he doesn’t have many chances to throw guys out with his arm, he provides even more negative value. And then it will feel the Cubs have missed on the window to cash in on him at his highest value. That sound like a lot, doesn’t it?

Dragon Or Fickle?: I’m all in on Schwarber, making the top of the Cubs’ lineup as dangerous as you’d find in the National League (though a tad K-heavy). Something definitely clicked for Schwarbs, and at 27 now this is his time. Andrew Cieslak’s favorite Cub is going to be tearing down padding on. the outfield wall all season.

 

Baseball

New World Order: 2020 White Sox Player Previews – Tim F’n Anderson

By Andy Jonathan 1800 0

As we continue around the diamond we come to one of the more exciting (and divisive) players the Sox employ to patrol their infield, Tim Anderson.

In a season where Rick Hahn really needed some pieces of The Future™ to break out and give the rebuild a nice new glossy shine, Tim Anderson stepped up and not only gave Hahn a success story (along with Yoan and a few others), but the White Sox organization a face and an attitude they can market the living shit out of if they do it right.

While this might not need saying, I’m a complete mark for Tim Anderson. He’s exciting, speaks his mind, and plays with the kind of flash and fire that hasn’t been on the team since Ozzie Guillen left for South Beach. There is something very Pro Wrestling about Tim, and that’s probably a big reason I find myself drawn to his play. I mean, this quote is basically cutting a promo on the entire “Old School” belief system in MLB. It’s badass:

If you can’t get behind this type of swagger in professional sports, then you haven’t been paying attention the past decade. Baseball is supposed to be fun, and this is the definition of that.

2019 Stats

.335/.357/.508

2.9 BB% 21.0 K%

18 HR 56 RBI 86 R

.363 wOBA 130 wRC+ 3.5 WAR

Outs Above Average: -1

 

Last Week On Nitro: 2019 saw a career year at the plate for Timmy, with a .335 batting average and a .508 slugging percentage at the end of the year. Oh, and he also won the AL batting title, making him the first White Sox player to hold that crown since Big Frank did it the year I graduated high school (1997. Yeah, I’m old). Despite all of the above, questions still remain about Timmy. While the .335 batting average was amazing, the .357 OBP was somewhat less than stellar. With his BABIP at a pretty unsustainable .399, the question isn’t “IF” the regression is coming for his average, it’s “how much will it be”?

Defensively, Tim committed quite a few errors last year. His 26 total lead all shortstops last season, which is bad. What’s even worse is he missed almost a month and a half with an ankle injury suffered at the shitbox Fenway Park on a soggy infield, so those 26 errors could’ve ended up being a much higher number. The advanced metrics don’t like him either, ranking him 21st in defensive production in 2019 with an UZR (Ultimate Zone Rating) of -9.1.

All is not lost defensively, however. The new defensive stat created by Baseball Savant in conjunction with MLB and Statcast takes into account the difficulty of plays and the distance needed to travel to make said plays (For a good primer on the stat, click here). The league average for fielders is set at zero, and the more positive the number the better, and the more negative number is worse. For comparison, last season Javy Baez was best in the league at short with a +19, while Jorge Polanco was dead last with a -18. Tim Anderson fell just below league average at a -1. What this tells me is that Tim is an extremely athletic shortstop with great range and occasionally poor throw making decisions, which is exactly what the eye test shows.

TOO SWEET! (WHOOP WHOOP): Best case scenario for Timmy is that his BABIP only drops about .030 points, and all of the work he talked about putting in on his defense in the off-season bears fruit and he ends up a league average or better shortstop in the AL. For someone who is clearly as gifted as Tim is athletically this is not something that’s pie in the sky wishful thinking.

A Tim Anderson that hits .290/.310/.480 is going to be a monster in this lineup, which will be even stronger with him hitting in the 7 hole and not leading off like Ricky Renteria seems to think is the best course of action right now. Once Nick Madrigal is fully armed and operational at the big league level, this is gonna be where Timmy ends up. He’s never going to be a big OBP guy, and that’s absolutely fine. Being picky about pitch selection has never been his forte, and I wouldn’t risk changing it just to up his walk total at the expense of his power numbers.

I’d also like to think that him and Moncada will have more of a green light this year, so a 20/20 year is within reach if everything breaks his way. His base stealing acumen has always been more based on his athleticism than any particular feel for the art of it, but much like his OBP…who gives a shit if it works? Having a 20/20 guy hitting in the bottom third of your lineup in a best case scenario is the kind of shit that should give Jake Odorizzi and his pool noodle arm night sweats.

YOU FUCKED UP! YOU FUCKED UP!: This one is pretty self explanatory: Tim’s BABIP falls off a cliff and his numbers completely tank, resulting in the type of season that is much more Alex Cintron than Francisco Lindor. His OBP stays the same, or even drops some and you’re left with a slash line that looks something like this: .225/.252/.388. On top of that big pile of smoldering shit, his D continues to slide and he goes from slightly below league average to total liability.

Then you’re left with the younger more expensive version of Orlando Arcia except with a longer contract term. Meanwhile just to rub salt into the wound, Fernando Tatis Jr. wins the triple crown while leading the Padres to a wild card berth where they upset the Brewers in the 1st round and shock the baseball world by sending the Dodgers out on their collective asses before winning the world series. In addition, the world is dealt a glancing blow by a meteor, which knocks the planet off it’s axis sending us into a 2nd ice age. Also Brooklyn 99 is canceled and Big Bang Theory comes back.

BAH GAWD THAT’S ANDERSON’S MUSIC!: My prediction for Tim this season is this: .272/.308/.461 with 19 dingers and 82 RBI. He’s going to be a +2 Outs Above Average, and steal 18 bases while scoring 90 runs for the Sox.

Renteria is going to stubbornly keep him in the leadoff spot even after Nick Madrigal makes it to the Show, and Luis Robert starts the year on a tear, batting .309. Eventually he’ll come to his senses (around June) and put Tim back in the #7 spot where he will thrive, knocking in 58 of his 82 RBIs.

There will also be plenty more of stuff like this

And This:

And This:

Because baseball is going to be fun again.