Baseball

Words, Words, Words…

By Sam Fels 1591 0

You thought we were done with this in the winter. But oh no, fucko…

You may remember we went through all this in the offseason, when Theo Epstein said that they would listen to any offer for any player, which basically meant that if the Angels offered Mike Trout to the Cubs for Bryant, they’d have to take that seriously. Most people took it to mean the Cubs were actively shopping Bryant, which was hardly the case. In reality this is a great way to get eyeballs on your article, which is the name of the game these days.

I want to believe this is the same thing, and it likely is. Whatever my complaints about Theo and Jed Hoyer’s latest work, in no way are they now stupid enough to believe they can get anything more than 75 cents on the dollar in a trade for Bryant. One, no team would ever trade three good players on their roster for Bryant, and if they would those three players would not equal one Kris Bryant.

Second, any trade for any kind of “futures,” even if those futures are right on the cusp of the majors, would essentially be punting the next two seasons or more, which is not where the Cubs are. Because the main problem with trading Kris Bryant is that you no longer have Kris Bryant. Again, I don’t know how often and how much I have to stress this, there are only like two or three or four players that fill in the gap of Bryant–Trout, Bellinger, Betts, and we’ll throw Yelich on there, except Bryant has been Yelich-good for longer.

The real issue is that if the Cubs let Bryant walk or move him because they won’t sign him to what he deserves, you should turn in your fandom forever and raise a giant middle finger to the Ricketts Family (though we all probably should have already, but that’s life as a fan).

The fear within the walls of Wrigley, if they even rise to fears, is that Scott Boras has decided to make them an example of what will happen when you tinker with service time when a player is coming up, and we’ll take Bryant away to exact his revenge. This is utter bullshit, because Boras clients just take the best offer that’s out there. Or maybe they think Bryant himself has his heart set on leaving to go be a Dodger or Angel or Diamondback, something closer to home. Again, I’ve never heard anyone suggest this, but it’s the kind of thing you can convince yourself of if you’re trying to rationalize not paying him.

There’s always been a doomsday scenario with the Cubs in 2021, leading in to the 2022 season. Anthony Rizzo, Bryant, Javier Baez, and Kyle Schwarber all will be free agents. If everything went according to plan, it could cost north of $100M to keep four players. Of course, Lester’s salary will be off the books by then, though you’d definitely still be stuck with Heyward. And we know how miserly the Ricketts family has already gotten. Also, Epstein’s contract is up at the same time, and he may just decide he’s taillights.

However, even speculating on what ownership is going to want to do, or can do, is kind of folly, because the CBA expires the same season. We have no idea what the luxury tax system will work, even if there will be one, if there will even be baseball considering there very well might be a strike, and an arduous one. Trading Bryant because of fear of a salary in a system you can’t possibly predict would be the height of idiocy.

At the end of the day, you don’t just produce Kris Bryants. They’re generational talents, and that’s why we call them that. If he costs $35M, or $40M a year, you pay him and figure out the rest. The Angels figured that out with Trout. The Dodgers certainly will in time with Bellinger. The Red Sox will be sorry when they don’t with Betts (I suppose I have some time for a Betts-for-Bryant deal, but if the Sox don’t want to pay Mookie they’re not paying Bryant, and vice versa).

This is utter nonsense, and it will be if the Cubs actually listen and consider it. Thank you for your time.

Baseball

This Is Your Mess, Theo

By Sam Fels 1754 0

I was actually going to save this post for when the Cubs collapse/utter failure was complete, which looking at the schedules is probably going to happen against the Cardinals, and possibly even in St. Louis. And after a summer following THAT team winning a Cup, that’s a little more than I can handle right now.

Still, when I saw the Tribune this morning, and saw Theo Epstein calling for his team to “turn it on,” it felt like the time was now.

Most Cubs fans have been waiting for the Cubs to kick into another gear all season, except for that one stretch in mid-April to May. But after 131 games, one would have to think this is what the Cubs are, a team that basically specializes in flattering to deceive.

The exact quote:

“We’ve been waiting to put it all together and be the best version of ourselves, and I think we all know in this clubhouse it has to happen really soon for us to get to where we want to go,” 

But the question you have to ask is whom exactly is this addressed to? The team’s core? Well, Willson Contreras is hurt, but even with that all of Bryant, Rizzo, Baez, and Contreras are performing at or beyond the level of last year. Baez’s recent slump has taken him below his ’18 campaign, but as he’s had to play every single goddamn day because Theo failed to locate an adequate backup shortstop–or one that isn’t a complete dickhead and is also not adequate offensively–maybe you could excuse that a bit. And again, last year’s performance won 95 games.

Is it the rotation? Who is performing below expectations in the rotation? Jose Quintana has propped the staff up over the last month. Hendricks is way better than he was last year, though not at his career bests. Hamels was great until getting hurt. Yu took a half season to figure it out but are we honestly suggesting he has somewhere more to rise to after walking exactly one hitter in a month? I hate to break it to Theo, but this is what Jon Lester is now at 35. Sure, they haven’t been as consistent as you might have hoped, with each having a stretch of being an avalanche. But each have also had a stretch of dominance, and overall they’re top-five in the NL in ERA and FIP. Isn’t that about where you had them before the season? Didn’t that sound like it would be more than enough in March?

No, the reason this team is trying to run a race with a sprained ankle is the supporting cast Theo put around that core turned out to suck deep pond scum. Albert Almora can’t hit. Kyle Schwarber is a poor man’s Joey Gallo and only if you squint really hard. They’ve gotten nothing from second base, and losing Ben Zobrist shouldn’t have turned that spot into GWAR’s giant void. Ian Happ is looking like the version that got sent down again.

Do we have to go through the bullpen again? Do we have to go through the complete lack of cheap, young, power arms that Theo has failed to produce other than maybe Rowan Wick? I don’t think we have to.

When Theo talks about turning it up, he’s essentially asking his core to play at career-high levels. And for a month, that can certainly happen. Except one’s got a bad back, another is probably exhausted, and another is on the shelf with hamstring-twang. So…maybe that’s a longshot?

Later in this article, Theo goes on to complain that the Cubs have lost their approach and ways from when they were hot early in the season, that all-field, grind-out-ABs gauntlet that he thinks they should be. But what’s clear is that they’re not. They haven’t been for a long time. They’ve cycled through hitting coaches trying to deflect from that, but at some point it ain’t the arrows, son. These are your hitters. They’re either too stubborn or too stupid or just not equipped.

When the epitaph of this season is written, whenever that might be, it’ll be a measure of how much the supporting cast failed. Maybe the Cubs didn’t get an MVP-level performance from any of the main four, but it would be hard to make the case they didn’t get enough if anyone else had come along for the ride. But Jason Heyward’s barely .800 OPS isn’t enough (and it’s not even that now, but don’t dare move him from the leadoff spot because he’ll get cranky!). Same goes for Schwarber. Trusting Almora, Bote, and Russell after exactly none of them had ever put up even an average offensive season in the majors isn’t about “turning it on.” It’s about them not being good enough.

Forgetting to construct a bullpen isn’t about running in a lower gear for the fuck of it. Trying to rebuild it with Derek Holland and David Phelps isn’t about finding a switch. That doesn’t mean lavish amounts of money needed to be spent, and when the Cubs tried that it got them Operation Model Brandon Morrow or the weirdness of Craig Kimbrel with no spring training or first half. It’s about creativity and maybe finding a failed starter or two around who do have two pitches but can’t negotiate a lineup twice. Or producing some fire-breather from within who you know will only be around a max of three years but you enjoy it anyway. Theo did exactly none of this.

That doesn’t mean something silly or unforeseen can’t happen. Russell or Schwarber could binge for three weeks. Contreras could return and not miss a beat (and his Sept. ’17 when coming back from the same thing suggests it’s hardly an impossibility). Rizzo’s back-knack could just be a small thing. And that might be enough.

But as far as who has “underperformed?” No, there really aren’t that many, if any, who can have that label attached to them. More likely, those players are exactly what you see, which isn’t good enough.

Baseball

Series Preview – Twins At White Sox: Groundhog Day

By Andy Jonathan 1318 0

Twins VS

Records: Twins 79-51   White Sox 60-70

Gametimes: Tuesday/Wednesday 7:10, Thursday 1:10

TV: Tuesday/Thursday: NBCSN, Wednesday WGN

Circle This, Bert: Puckett’s Pond

 

Seriously, just GO AWAY.

Not much has changed in the 5 goddamn days since Lucas Giolito punched the Twins in the chest and ripped out their heart like Kano in Mortal Kombat. The Twins had an off day then took 2 of 3 from the Tigers, then had ANOTHER off day and jumped on I-94 and headed down here. They gave up 18 runs to the Tigers (which is like giving up 6 goals to the Wild in NHL 19 on rookie level), but managed to score 21. So it seems their starting rotation still has the yips but their league leading slugging percentage is still at or above .500 which is bonkers.

Miguel Sano has managed to drag his batting average up to .244, which is pretty amazing considering he was below the Mendoza line in June. He’s now slashing .244/.337/.579 and is averaging a home run every 2.45 games. Human Death Star Nelson Cruz is still obliterating anything left in the zone, and some shit outside of it. Over his last 15 games he’s hitting .370/.414./.870 with 7 dingers and 21 RBIs. Maybe pitch a little carefully around him. Max Kepler and Marwin Gonzalez have both slowed down a bit, but Jorge Polanco keeps plugging along.

On the other side of the ball the Twins pitching is still giving up hits at an alarming rate, as only Michael Pineda has been able to keep the ball in the yard consistently. Jose Berrios, once untouchable, is now very touchable (wait, what?) having given up 45 hits and 14 walks in his last 41 innings. The other starter for the series is Jake Odorizzi, and he’s been barely acceptable in his last 7 starts, only going a total of 35 innings and giving up 20 ER in that span.

For the Sox, the story remains the same. The starters have to keep the ball in the yard, and try to go at least 6 innings to keep guys like Bummer, Marshall and Fry fresh as they may be needed during Boss Ross Detwiler‘s start. Lucas Giolito is rapidly filling the void left by Chris Sale, as his starts have become Must See TV. Dylan Cease gets another chance to show his stuff against a legit murderer’s row of hitters. If he can replicate what he did in innings 2-6 of his last start, things are looking up.

Yoan Moncada is really the only difference on offense for the Sox, albeit a huge one. His two dingers in the series against the Rangers showed how his leg is feeling, and he should get a chance to do more damage against a reeling Twins staff. Jose Abreu and James McCann look to continue their resurgence, and Tim Anderson just keeps doing Tim Anderson stuff. Now would be a nice time for Eloy to get his OBPS back in the .800 area, as the Twins are vulnerable to the long ball.

Another series win against these assholes would be glorious, lets make it happen. Don’t stop now boys.

Let’s Go Sox

Baseball

Twins Spotlight: Farming For WAR

By Andy Jonathan 1305 0

I sincerely hate the Minnesota Twins, but I have to give them credit where it’s due. In an age where the way you build an MLB team has changed completely from buying through free agency to building through youth and farm systems they’ve managed to land at the forefront of that particular revolution. It’s hard to say if they read the tea leaves correctly 5 years ago and just kept doing what they were doing, or if they just lucked into this by being cheap everywhere but their scouting, but either way it’s working out at an annoyingly high level.

Just looking at their current roster (which as of today still leads the league in team slugging percentage) it’s chock full of home-grown talent that includes the following on offense: Miguel Sano, Max Kepler, Eddie Rosario, Jorge Polanco, Byron Buxton, Mitch Garver and Jake Cave. The total WAR of that science lab creation of slugging so far this season is 17.1.  In comparison to the WAR generated by the homegrown talent of the White Sox offense (which is 27th of 30 in the league for slugging) is merely 9.3 (Eloy, Abreu, Moncada, Anderson, Yolmer and Engel). That’s not a very sightly set of stats for the Sox offense, and it paints the Twins in a pretty impressive light. HOWEVER! If you go back to the same group of players for the Twins last season, you get….9.7 WAR from those guys combined. Take those numbers and add in the fact that the Twins were 78-84 last season makes the differences between the Sox and the Twins a little easier to swallow, and maybe even adds a slight feeling of hope in there.

So you have the 2019 White Sox, who are pretty close to what the 2018 Twins were: Some high level prospects with a ton of talent and not a lot of major league experience combined with an untested pitching staff and shitty hydra for a 5th starter. Does that mean the Sox will lead the league in slugging next year? Probably not, but it provides a little insight into just how much time in the oven baking a professional team takes. It’s been forever since the Sox had to create a contender this way, so fans can be forgiven if they’ve forgotten how this type of rebuild goes. You’d have to go back to the early 2000s to find a team that was as built from the bottom up as this one is now.  Just look at this chart that shows top 10 Sox minor league prospects from the past decade (as decided by MLB.com). Be warned, it’s not a pretty sight.

Hahahaha Trayce Thompson and Courtney Hawkins…good times, good times. That chart before the 2017 time frame is like looking directly into the Ark of the Covenant, except when you look into the Ark your head explodes so you don’t have to see a list with Jared Mitchell in the top 5 prospects anymore. Things after 2017 start to look much, much better (unless your name is Carson Fulmer), and resembles an actual major league farm system.

Now look at the same chart, but for the Twins:

God dammit I fucking hate them.

If there were a blueprint for how to build an MLB team through quality scouting and franchise-wide patience, it would look exactly like that. Even the guys who aren’t with the Twins anymore are pretty quality. Aaron Hicks, Oswaldo Arcia and Ben Revere were/are all serviceable MLB players (In the case of Hicks, a little more than “serviceable”). In addition to that, they still have 2 top 20 ranked prospects in Royce Lewis and Alex Kirilloff sitting in AAA waiting for their chance. The Twins think so highly of both these players that they passed at legit chances to upgrade their struggling starting rotation a few weeks ago because teams were sniffing around those two.

The Twins have always done it this way, ever since Terry Ryan took over as GM for them back in 1995. He engineered many of the Twins teams that I absolutely despised in the early 2000s by using the “New England Patriots” method of shipping off players just before they were due to get paid for younger, cheaper talent. He snagged Johan Santana off the Marlins in the Rule 5 draft. He traded eventual Sox Legend AJ Pierzynski to the Giants for Joe Nathan, Francisco Liriano and Boof Bonser (best fake name ever). He also increased the money the franchise spent on scouting for the first time in decades. Ryan stayed with the Twins until 2016 when Thad Levine was hired away from the Indians after their loss to the Cubs in the World Series. Levine was cut from the same cloth that Ryan was, having helped build Cleveland into the contender it was through the same methods Ryan did. He helped draft Carlos Santana, Francisco Lindor, and Jose Ramierez so he knew how to build through the lower levels of the minors.

The Sox in that same period continued along the path that Kenny Williams set them on in 2006, consistently trading away promising young talent for one last gasp after another, year after year, until finally the team had no choice but to trade away the best pitcher in the history of the organization to jump start a clinically deceased farm system. Now that the team started the season ranked 4th overall in the league for their minor league system, the question that falls before Rick Hahn and company is can they develop players they draft? They’ve been able to trade for other team’s well scouted minor leaguers, and had pretty good success bringing them along. The Sox international scouting crew has been nothing short of aces so far, but the continental US team has been pretty hit or miss. Has Nick Hostetler done enough at the lower levels to reap the kind of benefits the Twins have done for decades? Is Chris Getz the guy to guide the next round of Sox prospects to AAA and beyond?

The Sox farm system was absolutely decimated by a plague of injuries this season that bordered on the biblical, so the only grade that can really be given so far is “incomplete.” It will be very interesting to see how Zack Collins, Nick Madrigal and Andrew Vaughn fare at the higher levels in the next few seasons as they have the potential to solidify the Sox lineup like Kepler and Polanco have done for the Twins thus far.

Fingers crossed.

 

Baseball

Series Preview – Cubs vs. Mets: There’s Danger Here, Sherri

By Sam Fels 1155 0

vs.

RECORDS: Cubs 69-61   Mets 67-61

GAMETIMES: Tuesday-Thursday 6:10

TV: NBCSN Tuesday/Wednesday, ABC 7 Thursday

OUR DAY WAS RUINED: Amazin’ Avenue

PREVIEW POSTS

Depth Charts & Pitching Staffs

Mets Spotlight

It feels like this season is on the precipice now, doesn’t it? And three games in Queens only exacerbates that. Queens. The Black Cat. Victor Fucking Diaz. The Goddamn Mets. Arrieta running out of gas in ’15. Daniel Motherfucking Murphy. If they asked you where any Cubs season was most likely to come totally unglued, you’re picking right off the 7 train and you know it.

The Cubs sit three games out, which feels significant, though the Cardinals won’t get to play the Rockies and decomposing Brewers the rest of the season. They’ve just come off getting swept at home, and are now staring down the gun of the meat of the Mets pitching staff. Their lineup feels like it was exposed against the Nationals, though that’s just three games. They have a whole bunch of questions and a dearth of answers. That teetering feeling is real.

So what do the Cubs have to get past here to remain on terra firma? They already spent a week not getting Jeff McNeil out earlier in the season, so that’s on the list. It’s not a great offense in Queens, as past Alonso and McNeil there isn’t that much. Michael Conforto has the sweetest swing and looks like he should hit .330 every year, but he hasn’t yet though he still gets on base a ton. J.D. Davis has juiced the lineup a bit from left field, though he probably should be playing third, but it’s a top-heavy crew. Still, Alonso already has 41 homers and can get the Mets close to a lot of wins by himself. When the Cubs need big out against him or McNeil or Conforto…well, you know the drill.

A string of Marcus Stroman–Noah Syndergaard–Jacob deGrom is just about the last thing you’d ask for when you need at least two wins, but the Cubs blew the chance to get past the Nats when they didn’t have to see Scherzer or Corbin and actually came out tied with Strasburg. So now they have to do it the hard way. Stroman doesn’t get the mass amount of grounders he used to, and has had pretty big walk problems. Thor and deGrom are Thor and deGrom though, so Hendricks and Lester are just going to have to be at the top of their games. No other way around it.

And if you can hang close with the starters of the Mets, the bullpen is aching to give it all back to you. Edwin Diaz has been a mess all season, same goes for Jeurys Familia, and they’ve been making up the rest along the way. Of late, they’ve been counting on Justin Wilson for big outs, which is a choice. Luis Avilan has been good the last month, but never count on Mickey Callaway to make the right choices at the right times. Again, this is the Mets. You have to allow them the platform to be the Mets.

And they come in licking their wounds as well. They just got swept at home by the Braves and their wildcard hopes are on the line here. They’re two games behind the Cubs, which is something the Cubs have to be aware of now. Since that big streak to get back into things they’re 5-7, so they need to find it again.

There’s also the road woes to consider for the Cubs, which eventually might be their undoing. On the other side, they did win their last road series in Pittsburgh/Williamsport. We keep saying it’s time for the Cubs to stand up, be counted, show what they really are. But at this point, it’s hard to conclude they’re anything else than what they’ve shown. Which means if they continue their wayward/doofus ways this week, they may find the division is already over. And then the questions they’ll have to answer are a lot harder than the ones they biffed after last season.

Baseball

Mets Spotlight: Thor’s Journey Is Never An Easy One

By Sam Fels 1223 0

The one thing you can count on is that the Mets will always try and destroy anything special about themselves. But this being the Mets, they can’t ever be consistently successful at anything, which every so often works to their benefit. Take their acquisition of Marcus Stroman. There is no one on this planet who believes that getting Stroman was part of some short-term or long-term plan. Most believe he was insurance to make up the gap when either Zack Wheeler or Noah Syndergaard were traded mere hours later.

But neither happened. And even with Wheeler likely to move along in the winter in free agency, the Mets are better than they were for 2020 with Jacob deGrom, Syndergaard, Steven Matz, and Stroman. It certainly wasn’t the plan, but thanks to the Mets inability to always shoot themselves in the face, they’ve come out ahead.

And their handling of Syndergaard all season matches that kind of confusion and goofiness. From spring training on, Thor has heard trade rumors and whispers that the Mets didn’t want him anymore. Of course, deGrom heard the same thing during the winter, and then he ended up with a fat new contract extension. You never know which way the wind blows with the Mets.

It seems ridiculous that the Queens Club would ever consider moving Syndergaard along. After all, this is probably still the best pure stuff in the game, and in the team photo if it’s not. He’s also under team control for another two seasons after this one, so even if he gets a good settlement in arbitration the next two years he’s still probably coming in at value. He’s also only 26. Could you ever get more than 75 cents on the dollar for him? What were the Mets thinking?

Well, this is the Mets, so there’s never a guarantee they ever were. Certainly health played a role. Syndergaard missed most of 2017 with arm problems, and only made 25 starts last year. Considering how hard he throws everything, the idea that his arm would never be able to hold up isn’t a farcical notion. So naturally, because logic never applied to Queens, he’s taken the ball for every start this season. Maybe that takes its toll down the road, or maybe he’s finally matured into the burden he asks his arm and body to carry.

Syndergaard has clashed with the Mets brass in the past, as he definitely is a free thinker. But that would seem ultimately petty, at least it would for most any other organization in any sport. But again…METS.

Perhaps the Mets thought, or still think, that Syndergaard is just never going to live up to what they original hype, what the stuff suggests, and what he’s flashed in the past. Considering he’s got their repertoire, Thor has never vaulted himself into Cy contention with deGrom or Scherzer or Verlander or the like. His best season was ’17, but his strikeout rate has declined in each of the next two seasons. And his walks have increased.

However, it’s not like his stuff has got worse. His fastball averages 98 MPH, and while he’s lost velocity on both the slider and curve, that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Syndergaard has gone away from his slider more this season, but has used his four-seam more rather than a sinker, even though he threw a sinker at 97 goddamn miles-per-hour. Still, you’d think you’d get more Ks from him considering how hard he throw.

But like we discussed with Giolito earlier today, or rather opposite of that, Thor doesn’t use the upper part of the zone with it nearly as much:

Which seems a shame, because there’s gold for him higher than he’s using his fastball:

But he just doesn’t use it as a put-away pitch:

He also doesn’t use his curve enough at all, especially with two strikes, because it gets half whiffs when anyone swings at it. Just overthinking things?

Still, you’d bet on something being unlocked with Syndergaard much more than him just being a pretty good #2 starter–which admittedly is all the Mets need him for when they have deGrom. But when you’ve got this guy for cheap for the next couple years, why let him go?

It’s the Mets, so what they really want is to be cheap. And while Thor isn’t expensive yet, the prospects he would have brought back are even cheaper. And now that Pete Alonso is up, the Mets don’t have much in the minors. But still, with this pitching staff next year, and Alonso, Conforto, and McNeil in the lineup, the Mets can’t be all that far away from competing. That is if they’d stop doing dumbass things like getting Robinson Cano‘s name and wasting what little money they deign to spend. Or trying to crowbar Jay Bruce into the lineup like last year. Or playing Todd Frazier ahead of J.D. Davis at third.

But it’s the Mets. You can always overdose on logic when studying them.

Baseball

Lucas Giolito Is Flyin’ High Again

By Sam Fels 1093 0

Not that he wasn’t before, exactly. Giolito has had a brilliant season, establishing himself as a true ace in the American League. One of my favorite newish (you don’t look newish) stats to look at for pitchers is expected weighted-on-base. If you followed my stuff at BP Wrigleyville last year (and you didn’t), you’ll know I have a garden gnome who specializes in statistics, and he came up with this idea of measuring types of contact and strikes and walks at the same time. Basically the two things a pitcher can control. Of course, StatCast was already doing this and we didn’t know, because we’re morons. Happy to meet you.

Anyway, xWOBA takes the type of contact you surrender–though measured in MPH instead of hard or soft percentages like we used–along with walks and Ks to measure what wOBA you should be giving up. And Giolito ranks fifth in the AL in that, behind only the Houston duo of Verlander and Cole and the Tampa duo of Snell and Morton. Pretty nice company, if you ask me.

But, as I noted back then, Giolito had a small blip in July. I attributed some of it to his change losing some fade or arm-side run, which it had. Gio had a 5.65 ERA in July, along with his highest average, on-base, and slugging against of the season. Clearly something was off, though some fiendish left-on-base numbers didn’t help either.

Clearly, that’s been corrected in August. Gio is striking out over 14 hitters per nine, only walking two, for a tidy 7.33 K/BB ratio. Hitters are managing all of a .194 average against him in the dog days, and his ERA is 2.33 with an even more glittering FIP of 2.18. His K-numbers are best in the AL in August, and by FIP or WAR he’s been the best pitcher of the month along with Mike Clevinger and Morton again. So yeah, clearly something was corrected.

But you know that’s never good enough for me. I need answers. I need facts. I need the width and depth of it. Science matters. So what did Giolito change? Was it his change? Did it regain some of that “fade” it had lost from earlier in the year? Well, not especially.

What he has done is upped its usage, and this month Gio has almost exclusively been a two-pitch pitcher. He’s been hopped-up-on-goofballs Kyle Hendricks, almost. He’s using his four-seamer 56.6% of the time in August, and boosted his change-usage five points to 31%. So, and you can get your calculators out to check this one, nearly 88% of the time he’s throwing one or the other. The only exception is his slider, as he’s basically abandoned the curve this month.

His slider has gotten more movement in August, gaining some tilt and some sweep away from righties. But that’s not really been key to his success, as it’s generating by far the least amount of whiffs-per-swing of the season (23%, when it had been over 40% all season before).

No, the real heroes here are the fastball and change, which both major jumps in whiffs-per-swing, especially the fastball, which itself is garnering 38% in August. For a fastball is borderline obscene. So what’s going on here? Well, Gio has learned what a lot of pitchers have, and that there’s salvation at the top of the zone and above it against hitters trying to lift what’s below their waist (insert some joke about a beer belly and belt-placement here).

While Giolito hadn’t shied from going up in the zone before, he’s now living up there and above (stay hydrated!….I’m sorry). And the results are the results…

This has led to his change being more effective, as hitters scramble even more to catch up to even higher heat. So when the bottom drops out of the change, even if it’s not fading as it did in the first half, you can still hear all the air go out of their swing, and possibly their souls.

But it can’t be that simple, right? Don’t worry, it isn’t! Nothing ever is! Gio is getting all those strikeouts because he’s decided his fastball isn’t just his get-ahead pitch, but his put-away pitch to lefties almost exclusively.

Secondly, he’s decided he can throw his change to give righties the Dark One as well, which he was hesitant to do before.

You can go far with fastballs on either side of the top of the zone, and change-ups meant to look like that until the last instant. Seems like GIolito has cracked the code.

Baseball

It Seems Simple, But It’s Actually Not

By Sam Fels 1524 0

First off, let me say right at the top that I’m guilty of this as anyone, as baseball is perhaps the last outlet where I regularly leave any rationality behind and just want to stomp my feet, whether in anger or joy. So I know what I said yesterday, but after a night to think about it, I think I’m at least back in the neighborhood of lost rationality. It’s at least an area code away.

After a weekend sweep, watching every grounder the Nationals hit find a hole, them never striking out when the Cubs absolutely needed them to, it would be easy to point out that difference between the two teams and say this is why the Cubs are where they are and the Nats are where they are and why they seem pointed in such opposite directions. Except even after that sweep, they’re four games apart, which I could just as easily point to their top of the rotation being better than the Cubs top of the rotation, and the Nats getting far more dates with the Marlins than the Cubs do and moving along (they’re currently 10-3 against Miami).

Yes, the Nats do put the ball in play more than the Cubs do, and the Cubs whiff a lot more than the Nats do. And that’s certainly an issue. Is it THE issue? Not so convinced.

Sure, the more balls you put in play the more chance you’re going to find a hole. But there’s also a chance that you find someone’s glove for a double play, especially when it’s on the ground as often as the Nats were this weekend. Jose Quintana gave up five earned runs in just four innings, four earned, and he didn’t give up one hard-hit ball. Sorry, he gave up one, according to FanGraphs. 75% of the contact he gave up was on the ground. On another day, that’s probably seven innings of shutout ball, assuming Anthony Rizzo wasn’t having a backiotomy on the field.

Yes, I know, the more balls you put in the play the more will turn into hits even if you’re percentages are the same. I was good at math, can’t you tell? But is finding holes with your grounders really a skill? It’s not. The Nats as a team have a BABIP nine points higher than the Cubs, good for second in the NL, non-Rockies division. And yet if you go by contact, team-wide, the Cubs make the same exact kind of contact the Nats do. Since the Nats went nuclear from June 1st on, their BABIP is 15 points higher than the Cubs, and they’ve hit the ball slightly harder, but have also made more soft-contact than the Cubs.

Of course, with that added BABIP the Nats jus have more of a sample, as they strike out far less (about 6%). So yes, you are right to bemoan the Cubs lack of ability to not strike out when it matters, but it’s more complicated than just getting the ball in play. I don’t know that the Cubs would be all that much better off with grounders instead of strikeouts, given they really have little team speed. They’d have to get awfully lucky, let’s say.

Digging deeper, much like Kris Bryant, the Cubs just don’t hit the ball very hard. Since that June 1st date, they rank dead-ass last in hard-contact rate as a team, and are 12th overall in the NL. Strangely, right ahead of the Nationals. Only Castellanos since he came over has a hard-contact rate over 40%, And 40% is just about the median rate in MLB right now. How can a team with Baez, Contreras, Bryant, Rizzo, and Schwarber not hit the ball all that hard collectively? And this is where their whiff-rate doesn’t come into it, because it’s solely about when they do make contact.

Right now the teams that sit atop the hard-contact rate standings in MLB are the Dodgers, Twins, Brewers, Cardinals, Rangers, with the Braves and A’s right behind that. That’s four first-place teams out of eight, and another playoff team, with only the Rangers and Brewers being outliers. Your bottom five are the White Sox, Orioles, Mariners, Mets, and Pirates.

So yes, the Cubs do whiff and chase a lot, and that’s a problem. But they’re not doing enough when they do make contact either, which might be just as big of a problem. How can in our year of the lord JUICED BALL, only Schwarber be on a pace to blow by his career-high in homers? Or he and Contreras nearing career-highs in slugging? Again, the whiffs and lack of contact come into it, but that much?

The Cubs have hit a good amount of homers at 203, yet they’re 11th in doubles. And I would argue only ranking 5th for this team in homers and slugging…it’s not enough. And only some of that can be blamed on the wind mostly blowing in at Wrigley and the weather being barf until the middle of June.

It’s a dual-track problem, and they’re most likely not going to solve it in the next 32 games. Which means this is probably going to get bumpier.