Baseball

Series Recap: White Sox Lose 2 of 3 To Angels – Living On The Bright Side

By Andy Jonathan 1335 0

BOX SCORES

Game 1: Angels 5 – Sox 4

Game 2: Angels 8 – Sox 7

Game 3: Angels 1 – Sox 5

 

 

This is just how it’s going to be for the rest of the month: ignoring a good bunch of the shit that isn’t part of the future, and analyzing the parts that will be and pulling the good from that. If this series is viewed through that lens, then it can be considered successful. The players that are going to be here next year and beyond are performing (and sometimes exceeding) to expectations, and the ones that aren’t…who gives a shit? I’m past the point of getting pissed off at Ricky Renteria and Hahn for running Dylan Covey out there to get shelled. Or getting upset when Alex Colome gives up the game in a non-save situation.

What’s important is another excellent start by Lucas Giolito, or the continued offensive successes shown by Tim Anderson and Yoan Moncada. The fact that Old Man Abreu is back to his Old Self again, and looking worthy of an extension for the first time since May. These are the things that need paying attention to, because getting pissed off at Dylan Covey? Down that path lies madness.

So my plan for the rest of the month is to keep it positive and look at the things that are going right for the Sox and their future. I may be forced to mention some stuff that is leaning on the negative side, but it won’t be the focus. This will also be campaign headquarters and ground zero for me trumpeting Tim Anderson’s candidacy for AL Batting Champ. Let the good times roll, baby!

Bullets? Not anymore. Now we have…

DANCE PARTY

 

https://media.giphy.com/media/1rRU6renDM2w8zTdWO/giphy.gif

SHAKE IT OUT

 

–Tim Anderson continues to drive the ball at a hellacious pace. Renteria gave him the day off Sunday, but he’s still sitting on an 8-game hitting streak with 7 of those games multi-hit affairs. Since the calendar flipped to August he’s slashing a gaudy .379/.395/.582 with a .977 OBPS. Granted his walk rate is 2.5% in that time, but who cares? Moncada walked a shitload more last season but I doubt you’d find anyone sane out there who liked the last season version better. Tim is slightly ahead of DJ LeMahieu right now for the AL batting lead, and it’s shaping up like must-see TV for the rest of the ride. Best of all is the fact that he’s clearly having fun while doing it. Future clubhouse leader, folks.

-Speaking of Yoan Moncada, he continues to rake at the dish as well going 6-13 in the series. I’m not a huge fan of him hitting in the 2 spot as it’s gonna limit his RBI opportunities, but Jose Abreu certainly enjoyed him being there. Moncada is batting .280/.349/.460 since coming back from the DL halfway through August. He’s also playing excellent D at the hot corner, as his UZR this season is 5.0, versus a nasty -4.9 last year when playing at 2B. Good things, people. Good things.

–Lucas Giolito had himself another ho-hum quality start again, going 7 and giving up 2 runs while merely striking out 6 Angels. He left in line for the win, but Aaron Bummer hit a bump in the road and coughed up 2 to allow the Angels to tie the game. In the 11 starts Gio has had since the All Star game he’s struck out 96 guys while only walking 18. If you’d have told me this time last year that Giolito was going to be one of the top 5 starters in the AL this season I’d have told you your brain had clearly failed but here we are. GOOD THINGS!

–Danny Mendick fired a laser beam into the Sox bullpen off of Jamie Barria in the bottom of the 5th today for his first ever home run. I don’t think it ever got more than 12 feet off the ground, and it left in a HURRY, with an exit velocity of 106 MPH. That was only to be outdone by Jose Abreu, who absolutely murdered a ball in the bottom of the 3rd inning that was estimated at 462 feet. That was Abreu’s 600th RBI and his 30th dinger of the season. GOOD ASS THINGS!

-Next up is a three game series against the Royals starting Tuesday, with even more opportunities for GOOD THINGS! White Sox Baseball: It’s Such Good Shit!

 

 

Baseball

Series Recap – Cubs Lose Three Of Four To Brewers: A Systematic Failure

By Sam Fels 1455 0

Game 1 Box Score: Cubs 10, Brewers 5

Game 2 Box Score: Brewers 7, Cubs 1

Game 3 Box Score: Brewers 3, Cubs 2

Game 4 Box Score: Brewers 8, Cubs 5

To review: the past two weekends, the Cubs had the chance to end the Brewers season, separate themselves in the wildcard race (which should only be viewed as the faintest of consolation prizes) while maintaining a gap on the Cardinals that would be easily manageable in the seven games that are left with them. And to remind you, this is a Brewers team aching to be given a lethal injection, as they’ve been nothing but .500 for 60 games now.

All the Cubs managed to do was make themselves the team that needs to be put out of its misery, keep everyone involved, and maybe make the Cardinals, the definition of a mediocre outfit, out of reach. They did so a shining example of how every level of this team has failed from the end of last season (importantly, not during it). The ownership that wouldn’t spend, the front office that needed to be bailed out by cash because of all its mistakes, the manager who doesn’t see the game or his team for what it is, and players who have refused to grow, or change, or adjust, and are simply not good enough.

I would love to tell you the Cubs are finished and you can go about your lives. My hunch is that they’ll death spasm for a week to make the last week or two matter or something, and all that will be is a chance for all of these systematic failures to rear their ugly head again.

Let’s review it all. They win the first game, because the offense isn’t quite bad enough to go quiet for four games. But then Cole Hamels, who clearly was rushed back from an injury that he had struggled to come back from before, had to hump it up to even crack 90 MPH and was labeled. Ok, that happens. It happens too much to this team but it happens.

Saturday night is everything. It was their third look in just over a month at Gio Gonzalez. Their manager, who clearly electrocuted himself in his office before the game in some bizarre experiment, starts Albert Almora at leadoff, even though he might as well go up there with a fish. Almora along with everyone else still hasn’t figured out that Gio is not going to come inside, or to the middle of the plate, or even to the outside corner, unless you make him. But there’s everyone trying to yank the baseball out to Minocqua and rolling out to third or short, including Almora in a huge spot after the Cubs got two on with no out. Inning over.

This is after you’ve learned Javy Baez is probably done for the year, and while breaking a thumb is no one’s fault, he was breaking down long before that because the front office provided no depth to get him a day off other than Addison Russell occasionally, who is too stupid to go up there with a fish (or the manager’s utter terror to even try Bote at short for a game or two). So your offense is limited, and gets shut down by Gonzalez once again. Your manager, while attempting to turn discarded sunflower seeds into wine, says that his team struggles against Gio because they keep expanding their zone. Did he bother to tell his players this? Did they not listen if he did? Either way, this seems like a flashing light about why the door is going to hit Joe on the ass on September 30th.

Still, thanks to Yu Darvish, you’re in it, and generate a rally against Josh Hader. You take the lead, but Kris Bryant can’t extend it because he’s on one leg and has been for a month at least, again because the depth provided hasn’t allowed him to get the additional week or two off he clearly, desperately needs. He hasn’t hit a fastball above his mid-thing hard for weeks. And he can’t. Somehow, Ian Happ is good enough to pinch-hit against Hader but not good enough to start against Gonzalez ahead of Almora, despite having one of the best handles on the zone on the team.

Then Joe Maddon goes to work. Brilliant, glorious, galaxy-brained work. You’re up one in the 8th of a game you really need. It’s 2-3-4. This is not a time to match up. This is not a time to get cute. You send your best guy out there, and figure out how to get the thoroughly unimpressive bottom of the Brewers order in the 9th later. You do not send out David Phelps, something you found in the Toronto storage room. You do not send out Derek Holland, who has earned nothing while being here, much less the right to face the reigning MVP in the 8th inning of a tie game. You send out Wick. You send out Kinztler, that’s all you have. And because of the mishegas in the 8th, you only assure yourself of having to face Yelich again in the 9th.

Your “backup” shortstop, the one with cold oatmeal for brains, makes an error to let a runner on. You get through Grandal by some miracle, and then you walk Yelich. He’s all that’s left. He’s basically all they have. The manager himself said he’s like Bonds now, except he didn’t treat him like Bonds. You don’t walk him, baseball thinking be damned. And when you don’t do that, you allow Yelich to do stuff like this:

That’s a good pitch. Maybe it’s a little high, but it’s barely ticking the zone. But Yelich doesn’t miss right now. He hasn’t missed in two years. There isn’t away around him. Fairly sure there’s a way around Eric Thames. Just a hunch.

After that…well who cares? Jon Lester is your fifth starter and you get whatever you can, which sometimes isn’t much. And it’s truly symbolic that in the 5th, when everything went off, was a result of the Brewers doing exactly what the Cubs refused, or can’t, or both to Gonzalez, and that is just taking those pitches on the outside to right field over and over. Eventually you’ll get the mistake you want when the pitcher is wary of that. Goodnight.

I’m genuinely angry I have to keep watching this team. They’re not enjoying it, we’re not enjoying it, and everyone wants to just go home and be done with it. Do I think an utter collapse would cause changes? Not the ones you want. The Ricketts Family told you when it became public how Tom sold the purchase to Daddy. They’ll sell out Wrigley no matter what. That’s why they bought the team. They have all the buildings now. There was an urgency once, otherwise you wouldn’t hire the best available front office mind in Theo Epstein to overhaul your whole operation. But there isn’t now. They’ve got the property, they’ve got their channel, and they’ve got their one bauble to point to to justify it all. Whatever comes this winter is more likely to resemble deck chairs, or a move backwards.

Oh sure, Maddon will go. Maybe that’s enough, but I don’t know what a new manager does with the players from the system who have proven inflexible and not up to the standard of the Dodgers or Braves, or now not even the Cardinals. Those players were threatened withe expulsion last winter, but they’re all still here. There are no young pitchers coming to save the day. Alzolay will basically have to be a mutli-inning bullpen weapon due to his lack of innings. That’s it. That’s all there is. And Gerrit Cole or an opting-out Strasburg aren’t coming through the door either.

Just shoot it, this season. End the misery.

Hockey

You Ain’t Shane, You Ain’t Mook – ’19-’20 NHL Team Previews: New York Rangers

By Sam Fels 1944 0

The Rangers attempted to hit warp-speed on their rebuild with a couple big signings and one big draft pick. That’s all it takes in the NHL. And thanks to a mediocre division, the Rangers could be poised to make a big move. They’re not there yet, as far as being in the glitterati, but they are suddenly worth watching again. Where the lights shine bright and all that.

2018-2019

32-36-14  78 points (7th in Metro Division)

2.70 GF/G (24th)  3.26 GA/G (23rd)

46.0 CF% (30th)  47.1 xGF% (24th)

19.4 PP% (17th)  78.2 PK% (27th)

Goalies: Whatever excitement is surrounding the Rangers has to be tempered by questions about how much Henrik Lundqvist has left. He will turn 38 at the end of the season, and his .907 SV% last year was the worst mark of his career. The year before he was at .915, which would probably be good enough for the Rangers team to take a step forward. His Vezina-contending days are almost certainly over, so the Rangers have to calibrate if he can just be league average or a tick above. This was not a good team in front of him, and he saw a ton of rubber, but Lundqvist is going to have to be better if the Rangers are going to turn things around.

If he doesn’t, it’s going to back David Quinn into a corner, as he’ll be the first coach to have to deal with whether or not to cede some of King Henrik’s starts to a kid. Alexander Georgiev was pretty good last year at .914. There is some hope that he can take over when Lundqvist decides to move on, but the Rangers and Quinn in particular do not want the headache of expediting that process. Henrik isn’t the type to cause a stir, but his position has also never been under question.

Defense: The big splash was trading for Jacob Trouba in the offseason. Trouba seemed to shrink from a top pairing role on a genuine Cup contender in Winnipeg, though some of that could be attributed to hating the city and coach he played for. This is where Trouba wants to be, and he certainly has the capability of being a top-pairing guy, certainly more than anyone else here.

The Rangers blue line is starting to skew pretty young, with Adam Fox, Libor Hajek, and Brady Skjei all poised for roles on this team. The hope would be they can start to steal minutes from Marc Staal, who is absolute toast these days, and Brendan Smith, who remains the worst player in the league. Anthony DeAngelo still needs re-signing, but he would be more youthful zest on this team, and would make the Rangers pretty dynamic going forward along the blue line. The question is if any of these guys can play defense, and no one has the answer for that one.

Forwards: It’s not often you can add two-thirds of a real top line in the NHL, but that was the summer for the Rangers. They signed Artemi Panarin and got to draft (Boers voice) Kaapo Kakko. There are your wingers on the top of the roster for years. Do they have a center to play between them? Mika Zibanejad is going to get a shot, and there have been times in the past when he’s flashed that capability. He had 74 points last year playing with nothing like Kakko and Panarin. That bumps Chris Kreider and Pavel Buchnevich to the second line, where they almost certainly belong. That is until Kreider is traded, which most in the know on Broadway seem to think is an inevitability. It’s after that where things get icky.

Ryan Strome is the wrong Strome. Vladimir Namestnikov has yet to prove to be much of anything other than a guy in both New York and Tampa. Filip Chytil has a lot of growing to do. Matt Beleskey is here, which is always an indication that your forwards have been hauled out of the back of the storage room. One line and two thirds of another one is not really enough to be a playoff team. They will hope Lias Andersson helps out with this, but is that enough?

Prediction: There is enough here to be way better than 78 points. But way better can be 88 points, which won’t be close to a playoff team. Even with the additions of Panarin and Kakko, there doesn’t feel like there’s enough scoring here, especially if Kreider is going in midseason (depending on return). The defense has a chance to be really exciting, in both senses of the word. They can’t say the goalie is a sure thing either, given Henrik’s age and creakiness. There is a lot of hope and anticipation here, but that doesn’t mean it translates into an avalanche of points. They’ll make a run at a playoff spot, but probably run out of gas in March and come up comfortably short. But with another move or two after that, they’re set up to be a real thing quite soon.

Hockey

You Ain’t Shane, You Ain’t Mook – ’19-’20 NHL Team Previews: New York Islanders

By Sam Fels 1815 0

There was no bigger surprise team than the Islanders last season, as Barry Trotz took a contract dispute from DC up the Acela and then proved he can turn just about anything into a useful team. But his boss, Nosferatu, blames free agency for the global warming he assuredly doesn’t believe in, and the Isles look like they’re just going to count on running it back again. Will it work? It’s hard to think a Trotz team will ever be bad, but catching lightning twice has eluded just about everyone in history. Let’s learn about the Islanders.

2018-2019

48-27-7  103 points (2nd in Metro)

Won 1st round over PIT, lost second round to Carolina

2.72 GF/G (22nd)  2.33 GA/G (1st)

47.8 CF% (26th)  51.2 xGF% (12th)

14.5 PP% (29th)  79.9 PK% (19th)

Goalies: The Islanders lost one half of their tandem that anchored this team last year, as Robin Lehner toddled off here in July. The Islanders are going to attempt to take the whispers of Trotz and Mitch Korn and apply them to Semyon Varlamov. Varlamov was very up and down in Colorado last season, eventually losing his job to Philip Grubauer. That was kind of his whole career in Denver, where he flashed Vezina form at times and then was one of Jack’s French girls at others. But overall, he’s got a career .915 SV%, and considering how all Trotz teams make it easier on goalies, it would be reasonable to expect some good numbers from him.

He’ll pair with Thomas Greiss, who flourished behind this team last year at .927. He and Lehner had high expected-save-percentages thanks to the ultra defensive system, but both exceeded that in actual save-percentages. Greiss has done this before, but hasn’t been able to back it up. He won’t be asked to carry the load here though, and again, goalies under Trotz rarely shit a chicken unless their hip falls off.

Defense: Again, the exact same crew you remember from last year, though this time with a full season from the promising Devon Toews. They’ll hope for another step from Ryan Pulock, as Nick Leddy really struggled for most of the year to push the play. Scott Mayfield and Adam Pelech are about as solid as you can ask for without doing much you’ll remember. Johnny Boychuck will pair with Leddy as he has for the past five seasons, but time seemed to catch up to him last year. As we cannot hammer enough, this defense gets a lot of support from the forwards, but was somewhat exposed by the speed and possession of the Hurricanes last year. Both Trotz and Lamoriello don’t want much to do with puck-moving d-men here, so they’re lucky in that they don’t have a prime one. Still, in a conference that requires you to get past Carolina or Toronto or Boston or Tampa, it probably takes more than obstinance to do so. Maybe Noah Dobson gets a look? That would be a real stretch.

Forwards: Stop us if you’ve heard this before, but it’s the exact same crew as last year. The only addition to it has been Derick Brassard, or whatever pod person is occupying his body now as he hasn’t been productive in the last three seasons at least. Which leaves Mathew Barzal and his missing T to carry the mail on the top line next to Anders Lee and Josh Bailey. Brock Nelson anchors the second line, and after that it’s a whole bunch of grunts and agriculture. Only one Islander forward managed more than 60 points last year (Barzal) and only three had 20 goals or more. And one of those was Casey Cizikas, who shot nearly 20%, and that’s not going to happen again. The Isles will hope to smother and bore their way to a playoff spot again.

Prediction: It’s not wise to go against a Trotz-led team, but the margins are so thin for this bunch. They limit good chances, even if they don’t limit attempts. There’s just so little scoring here, and if they don’t get water-tight defense, the percentages are going to go against them. Neither Varlamov or Greiss is really capable of taking a full starter’s load at this point, so if one falters the whole system might sink underneath them.

Luckily for the Isles, the division blows hardcore. The Caps and Pens are on the downsides of their cycles, with only the Canes looking like their pivoting up beyond the Isles. The Devils day may yet come, but not this season you wouldn’t think. And you can catch a lot of teams cold in January and February when they can’t locate the fucks to give to work hard enough to deal with a Trotz trap. Still looks short to me, but I said that last year too.

Baseball

Series Preview – Angels vs. White Sox: Wave As You Go By

By Sam Fels 1259 0

vs.

RECORDS: 65-76   White Sox 62-78

GAMETIMES: Friday 7:10, Saturday 6:10, Sunday 1:10

TV: NBCSN Friday/Saturday, WGN Sunday

WALLY’S WORLD: Halos Heaven

PREVIEW POSTS

Depth Charts & Pitching Staffs

Angels Spotlight: Shohei Ohtani

It could feel like the Angels and White Sox are in the same place, given they have pretty much the same record and are both going to finish this year up the track. They have teams to catch that feel like they’re going to be around a while (though the Twins are a lot more unstable than the Astros), and it’s been far too long since either team was exactly relevant.

But as this week in Cleveland proved, the Sox have an upward trajectory you can at least see if they’re not fully fastened on yet. Whereas the Angels have been here forever, perennially stuck in not going forward or backward but most certainly not going anywhere. And the Sox don’t have the guilt of wasting the career of perhaps the greatest player to do it as the Angels do.

So, in a complete disservice to Mike Trout, these two teams will run out three more games on the schedule against each other this weekend on the Southside. The Sox hope for more than this soon. Trout hopes for more than this just anytime, given how long he has committed to Orange County now.

And that’s the thing with the Angels,. They don’t have a plethora or even a helping of young players that portend to anything more than this. They do have some expensive vets draining money and at-bats, and firmly ground the team in mud. One of this upcoming offseason’s big dramas will be the Angels trying to lure Gerrit Cole home, if they will and how hard. He certainly could help a lot, and with the better health of Shohei Ohtani that would give the Angels rotation a serious boost.

But that’s not enough on its own to catch the Astros, or even a wildcard spot considering how far ahead the Yankees, Rays, Red Sox, A’s, and Indians are now. Perhaps the latter will fall, but their slack might be picked up by the White Sox themselves. And you don’t build a team hoping for just a wildcard spot.

The lineup needs so much help. Only Brandon Marsh from within the system might help next year, and the Angels have a lot more holes. Catcher, 1st, 2nd, possibly third (David Fletcher might make that his own) and one of the corner outfield spots if not both. The Angels can’t spend their way to improving the lineup enough, or at least won’t. And they’ve tried that in the past, and it got them here.

Worse yet, there aren’t a lot of pieces they can flog to restock. Trout would have been one, but would have signaled a complete start-over which they didn’t want to do. There’s no pitcher they have to move, and really no position player either. They basically have to ace every draft and wait. That’s essentially what they’re doing now.

Anyway, they roll into Chicago after getting dumped on for three games by the A’s in Oakland, capping it off by blowing a 6-1 lead in the last two innings yesterday afternoon. It’s not a pleasant bunch at the moment.

The Sox will send out Giolito to carry out the momentum of yesterday’s wind, and Dylan Covey will save everyone the horror of watching Ross Detweiler start tomorrow night. They will hope the signs of life from Eloy and Collins are carried out a little more, before everyone gets to feast on a lot of Tigers and Royals before the season closes out.

Baseball

Angels Spotlight: Ohtani Tani, Doo Doo Doo Doo Doo

By Sam Fels 1230 0

When Shohei Ohtani returns to the mound next year, as it seems likely he will, it probably won’t have the fanfare of his arrival. Ohtani came to these shores hitting dingers and throwing serious smoke from the mound, and somehow in the back of your mind but steering your acknowledgement anywhere else you knew that something like this couldn’t last. It’s simply too much at one time, and of course it wasn’t too long before his elbow went twang.

Ohtani has been rehabbing his elbow after offseason Tommy John surgery throughout the campaign, even while DH-ing since the middle of May when he came off the injured list. The plan is for him to have a normal offseason and to pick up in spring training as a starter and DH again. Of course, the question is will this be enough for the Angels.

Even with his plus-fastball, Ohtani was something of a mid-rotation starter. He had a 3.57 FIP which gets toward #2 range, but will he be able to maintain that if he can no longer use his split-finger? That’s a pitch that’s been linked to serious elbow stress, and he might have to drop it to keep his ligaments intact long term. Maybe not, but those aren’t questions we’ll get answered until next season.

You can’t go very far without hearing whispers that Gerrit Cole is desperate to head home to California in the offseason as a free agent, and the Angels are no less anxious to bring him home. Anaheim (never calling them LA) haven’t had a frontline starter since God knows when. Put it this way, Jared Weaver is their 4th-leading pitcher in career WAR. It’s not exactly a hallowed history.

Adding Cole and a returning Ohtani would certainly boost the Angels, but would it ever be enough to catch the Astros? The past three seasons, the Angels have been 21, 23, and currently 26 games behind the benchmark in the whole AL, much less the AL West. Are there any combinations of moves a team can make to make up 20 games in one offseason? Probably not.

Which means a multi-season project you’d have to think. Which Ohtani can be a part of, but he does require a team to be built a little differently. The Angels went to a six-man rotation last season to accommodate what he was used to in Japan, as well as maximize the amount of days he can DH. He doesn’t on the day before, or on, or after he pitches, so essentially he can DH about half your games. Perhaps they can play with the day before or after, but even in a best case scenario he’s only hitting two-thirds of your games. Which means another player has to rotate into the spot, and possibly another into the field, and every team would like that depth and flexibility but it doesn’t just grow on trees.

As a hitter only, Ohtani has been pretty weird this season. He’s been absolutely crushing the ball in terms of the contact he makes, with basically a 50% hard-contact rate and an average exit velocity of 92.5 MPH. Both marks are top-1o in the league. And yet Ohtani has seen a 72-point drop in his slugging from last season to this. And that can mostly be attributed to half of his contact being on the ground. You can get a lot of hits that way, Ichiro had a few, but it’s hard to pile up a lot of bases that way. His 6.1-degree launch-angle is one of the lowest in the league.

Pitchers have used their fastball more to the outside on Ohtani this year, which might be a reason his slugging is so much higher when he goes the other way. But his slugging when pulling the ball this year to drop 223 points. Like we said, weird. Maybe that has something to do with the elbow?

That will be the key for Ohtani next year, at least at the plate. If he can start turning on balls again, and make himself dangerous to all fields, then he can be a decent supporting act for Mike Trout in the coming years. If he continues to try and spell his name on the infield grass and dirt, he’ll only be a passable DH moving forward.

Football

Three Things We Learned From Week 1

By Sam Fels 1574 0

Hello there. This is something I did at FanSided last year, except FanSided is evil and you deserve it more here. This isn’t meant to be totally serious, because nothing with the Bears can ever be totally serious. If you’ve come for hardcore analysis, you’ll have to wait on that. But at least now I don’t to worry about fucking slideshows and tagging photos correctly. Much more my style. 

10 Days Is Far Too Long For A Narrative

Because you know that’s what you’re going to get. Adding three days between games means everyone is going to talk about PRESEASON for 42% longer than they normally would have, and what they normally would have would have been insufferable anyway. Most of the bleating about starters not taking reps in four games that don’t mean anything and can only get you hurt is going to come from guys who went through two-a-days while getting cat o’ nine tail’d by a very angry dipshit with sunburns on 75% of his body, and they’re going to take those regrets out on someone on TV and in print. And if it’s not those guys doing it, it’s guys who wanted to be those guys doing it, or guys who went drinking with those guys doing it, and so on.

Yeah, the Bears offense looked like shit last night, and so did the Packers’. Neither did anything with the real jerseys on in August, and it’s easy to connect those two things. It’s probably not even wrong, though it seems to ignore that the Bears did the same thing last year and the offense looked pretty zippy when it came out in Green Bay before Matt Nagy somehow turtled under his visor (and let’s face it, the reason the Bears lost is because Nagy didn’t keep wearing the fedora he entered the stadium with throughout the game).

No one can argue that everyone wouldn’t have benefitted from a rep or two more, but that won’t change the NFL preseason to not being stupid and evil and greedy. And considering the vanilla stuff all teams run in preseason games to not give anything away, I’m unsure how much it translates to when teams run their real stuff in the first game. Oh, there will be teams that look ultra-sharp come Sunday, and a lot of pointing with exclamations of, “SEE?!” But then the next week a whole different set of teams will look sharp and the teams that looked sharp will look like shit and what will be the explanation for that? It’s just annoying that there will be more space to fill.

Critics Of Mitch Will Get Through The O-Line Faster Than The Packers Did

Any rational Bears fan, if such a thing is in the wild, knew before the season that inconsistency was going to be part of the game with Mitch. I’m inclined to toss his whole rookie season out, given the horse-feed-brain nature of the coaching staff. So this is at most his 2.5th (nd? rd?) year. The fact that it came against the Packers, in primetime, in the first game of the year, after last year’s first game of the year, has this amazing ability to white-out any logic from our minds. But you didn’t become a fan to be rational and logical, and that’s ok. We save that for the rest of our lives (maybe).

What’s of more concern is that the offensive line put up as much resistance to an oncoming force as the volunteers at Wicker Park Fest. Little seemed to have been made in the preseason of the switching James Daniels and Cody Whitehair between center and left guard, and I guess I took that to mean it was always coming. And yet any blitz the Packers came up with, or even a simple line stunt…sorry, let me correctly Doug and OB that…LINE STUNT the Packers did, the entire line became a Dali painting.

We can bemoan the play-calling and QB play, and you’re not wrong, but what contributed to that was Matt Nagy not being sure what they could actually block. There wasn’t time, most of the time, to get the ball down the field, or to open up holes for a run game (that would have gone to Sec. 106’s beer vendor ahead of the three RBs on the roster, apparently). That should be of much bigger concern, because neither Nagy or Mitch are going to be able to do much if the roving hordes get to plunder and pillage in the backfield at their leisure.

Perhaps it’s just a fit and time thing, and not that Kyle Long might just be old and completely bionic at this point and Bobbie Massie never felt like he was all that good anyway. But not even Mitch can torpedo this season as quickly as a dysfunctional offensive line will.

Creativity Is Going To Spill Over At Times

I get as angry as anyone at times when Matt Nagy appears to get way too cute with his play-calling. But it’s hard to think of mad offensive geniuses who don’t. Andy Reid has been wearing that label for 20 years. Certainly all of his proteges have. You lived through the Mike Martz Route Tree (which isn’t as hard as any of the defensive systems the Hawks run, or so they’d have you believe). Brady and Belichick never get that label, but that’s something you clearly can’t recreate. Perhaps we just have to accept it’s going to happen at times and just pray it’s not at the critical juncture. Which sadly, it’s been the last two times we’ve seen the Bears.

And even if I could get past that, it’s on Nagy that his team, and himself, didn’t look ready to play. And the one that sticks out is the second delay of game penalty one a 3rd quarter drive, and getting two delay of games on one drive is some serious how-does-this-work-what-does-this-button-do shit. Somehow, in my new phase of trying to be positive and forgiving (it’s going great), I could let the first one with 10 guys on the field go, even though that’s also a sign of massive unpreparedness. I think sometimes coaches are too panicky with timeouts, and five yards–depending on field position and time–isn’t worth losing the timeout.

However, the Bears had gotten to the Packers 28 in the third, and took the second one. Was no one paying attention to the clock? Did no coach start screaming about it? Because 3rd-and-5 is something you want to keep ahead of 3rd-and-10 and is worth a timeout, especially when it becomes the line between trying a field goal or not. Or having a makable 4th down. How does everyone miss this?

If all these things are relegated to the first week and kink-ironing-out (back to the cat o’ nine tails, I see), fine. But that is some disheartening-ass shit right there.

Hockey

Pictures of Matchstick Men – ’19–’20 Blackhawks Player Previews – Erik Gustafsson

By John Pullega 1912 0

Sixty points. First-pairing minutes. A league-leading power play from middle December onward. A $1.2 million cap hit. These are some of the statistics that surround Erik Gustafsson. He’s the center of gravity that draws analytics nerds, construction-working meatballs, GMs, coaches, and agents alike to ask, “Just what the fuck are we looking at here?” Is Gus the future bedrock on the backend or is he a bum in a talented man’s clothes?

2018–19 Stats

79 GP – 17 G, 43 A, 60 P

50.24 CF% (2.1 CF% Rel), 60.8 oZS%

53.24 GF% (5.37 Rel GF%), 45.5 xGF% (0.64 Rel xGF% )

Avg. TOI 22:35

FFUD Review of 2018–19 Erik Gustafsson

A Brief History: Erik Gustafsson led all Blackhawks D-men in goals, assists, and points, both at even strength and on the PP. Of Hawks D-men who played at least 41 games (so, minus Jokiharju and Koekkoek), he led in CF% and CF% Rel. Only five D-men in the NHL scored more points than Gustafsson last year. And of course, upon his insertion as the #1 PP unit’s quarterback on December 18, 2018, no team had a higher PP% than the Blackhawks.

No matter how you slice it, Erik Gustafsson was an offensive force last year. You don’t need a map to find that.

But his offensiveness extended to his defense—you know, the very title of his position—because he was a botched graveside burial in his own zone. This is where we need a couple maps to understand just how fucking awful Gus was on the defensive side of the puck.

A3Z tool from Corey Sznajder (@ShutdownLine) and CJ Turtoro (@CJTDevil)

This tool is fairly forgiving to Gus. The offense and own-zone exit ability are on full display. Now, look at the ENTRY DEFENSE section.

The only thing objectively bad about it is his breakups per 60 minutes. What this means is that when opposing skaters go directly at Gus with the puck, more likely than not, he won’t break the entry up. On the plus side, Gus doesn’t allow too many opposing skaters to skate into the zone with possession (i.e., not dumping it in), in terms of both raw possession entries (PossEntriesAllowed60) and the percentage of entries with possession allowed (PossEntry% Allowed).

We can’t say the same about his partner, Duncan Keith. Last year, teams tended to attack Keith on the entry with better success. This means that generally, opponents got into the zone with possession on Keith’s side rather than Gus’s.

Why talk about Keith though? Does that mean that Gus is better on defense than we give him credit for? Are we deflecting by using Keith as a comp? Do you think I’d be doing all this if that were the case, dear reader?

Charts by Micah Blake McCurdy (@IneffectiveMath)

So, we’ve established that Keith is more of a hole in terms of possession entries than Gus. It’s what happens after Gus gets stuck in his own zone that’s the menace.

These two heatmaps compare opponent shot rates with Gus on the ice (left) vs. without Gus on the ice (right). More red means more opponent shots in that area.

Both are really red, because the Blackhawks defense—and I cannot and will not ever stress this enough—is more embarrassing than having your first period in white pants. But it somehow got worse with Gus on the ice.

With Gus on defense, you’re looking at a higher concentration of high-danger shots AND more shots from the top of the circle on the side Gus plays on. Recall too that the only D-man on the ice for more high-danger goals than Gus last year was his partner, Duncan Keith. And though Keith’s heatmaps were bad, they weren’t this bad. (You can guess whose were worst on the team overall.)

In short, last year saw opponents enter the zone on Keith’s side and do a ton of damage on Gus’s side. This is their top pairing. Very good, very conducive to winning.

This is what we’ve been saying about Gus for a while. The offense and creativity are all there, but he’s stagnant ditch water in his own zone. The question is, which side of the coin has more weight?

It Was the Best of Times: Gustafsson pairs with Connor Murphy and continues his incredible offensive output. He vastly outpaces his xGF% just like last year, and the PP ranks in the top five based on Gustafsson’s vision and creativity at the point—both of which are direct results of playing with Patrick Kane more than everyone, just like last year. Murphy cancels out Gustafsson’s complete lack of ability in his own zone, and Gus’s offense far outweighs his poor defense. He scores 55 points. Essentially, the Hawks get Brent Burns lite.

It Was the BLURST of Times: Gus doesn’t spend most of his time with Patrick Kane, and he regresses to the mean. Opponents wait just a second longer to catch Gus on some of his ill-advised own-zone dangles and exploit his John Wayne tendencies. He and Keith continue to get buried in their own zone. The power play flattens out, but this time, it isn’t a result of Patrick Kane running on fumes.

Prediction: Gustafsson is an offensive powerhouse. He continues to outperform his xGF% and doesn’t see an offensive regression. The same power play unit that came to life after Gus became THE GUY continues to run roughshod, finishing in the top 10 on the year. (There’s a concern that it won’t produce, based on how the PP finished last year. I think that’s a valid concern, but I also think that it was more a result of Kane running on fumes than anything.)

There’s one huge caveat to this: Patrick Kane must stay healthy. Kane has the same sort of gap between GF% and xGF% throughout his career that we saw from Gus last year. And Gus’s performance correlates with whether he’s playing with Kane.

  • When Gus plays with Kane at 5v5, his GF% is 57.69. Without Kane, it’s 46.09.
  • When Gus plays with Kane at 5v5, his SCGF% is 56.34. Without, it’s 47.17.
  • Of Gus’s 60 points last year, his breakdown was:
    • 60 total points. 42 of them (70%) came playing with Kane
    • 42 even-strength points. 25 of them (59.5%) came playing with Kane
    • 18 PP points. 17 of them (94%) came playing with Kane

You can see similar performance tracks when Gus plays with Toews, DeBrincat, and Strome in similar situations, but they aren’t quite as extreme. All this is to say that Gus doesn’t carry it by himself. When he plays with top-tier talent, he looks like a top-tier player. When he doesn’t, he doesn’t. What’s that worth to you?

So, what the fuck are we looking at with Gus? An outstanding complementary player. A good, creative play maker. Good enough to score 60 points with the right teammates, but not good enough to create by himself. Reliant on a generational talent. A farce in his own zone. Probably most valuable as a trade piece.

In other words, we’re looking at the Blackhawks’s next 6 x $6 million man.

Stats from hockey-reference.com, NaturalStatTrick.com, Corsica.hockey, NHL.com, HockeyViz.com, and the Sznajder–Turtoro A3Z Player Comp Tool

Previous Previews

Robin Lehner

Corey Crawford

Adam Boqvist

Carl Dahlstrom

Calvin de Haan

Football

Week 1 – Packers 10, Bears 3: Don’t Believe The Hype?

By Brian Schmitz 1088 0

If Super Bowl rings were given out for pre-game hoopla, over the top predictions, and general meatheadedness, the Bears wouldn’t have needed to play another game this year – “Crown they ass” tonight and have the parade tomorrow. But always remember, the hype is just that, hype. Once the game was finally kicked off, none of the peripherals mattered anymore, and this was truly unfortunate for the Bears.

In what was a harbinger of things to come, the Bears, a 3 ½ point home favorite, limped out of the gate offensively; Managing only 98 yards in the first half and looking like a unit that hadn’t had any preseason game action to get ready for actual, live, as real as it gets, fucking games. Somehow despite their impotent offense, the Bears were able to garner a 1st quarter lead with a Field Goal. Who would have believed that a 1st quarter, 38-yard Field Goal from Eddie Pineiro would be the beginning and the end of the Bears scoring output for the night?

After the Pineiro 3-pointer, the next promising Bears drive stalled out at midfield after Matt Nagy wanted to show everyone how creative he was and ran wide receiver Cordarrelle Patterson up the center’s ass on 3rd & short for a loss. If we are going to sit around and talk about how creative Nagy is and how much fun it must be to play in his system, then we must recognize when he gets too cute for his own good. This was certainly one of those instances.

A great Pat O’Donnell punt was downed inside the 10, and the defense was back on the field, which at this point in the game, was the Bears best offense. Overall, the Bears were “who we thought they were,” which is damn dominant. The Packers offense managed only 213 yards, of which 47 yards came via the run. Even future Hall of Famer Aaron Rodgers was limited to 166 yards on 18-30 passing while being sacked 5 times. This is the beautiful thing about this Bears team; the defense can keep them in every game, even as the offense is still a work in progress.

Thankfully for my eyes, a very boring and borderline unwatchable first half ended on a stalled Bears drive and a failed Packer Hail Mary. At this point, the game almost had a pre-season feel to it; penalties and mistakes everywhere, missed assignments, and general fuckery overall.

The 2nd half started with more of the same from Trubisky and the offense; another 3 & Out. At this point, the game felt like Trubisky wasn’t exactly struggling, there was just has not any room for him or the running game to operate. The general lack of offensive success that we saw throughout this game was more a byproduct of a much-improved Packers defense than it was of poor execution on the offensive side of the ball.

But then suddenly, and finally, things changed. With about 4 minutes left in the 3rd quarter, something clicked in the passing game and the offense was able to establish some momentum. Trubisky hit on a few medium/deep balls (which he has struggled with his entire career) and even though the next two drives stalled out due to penalties, some continuity was finally taking place on the offensive side of the ball. Another reason to be positive at this point was that, despite being 1-11 on 3rd down, the Bears were only down by 4 points with 9:00 remaining in the 4th quarter.

A short Mason Crosby Field Goal extended Green Bay’s lead to 7 with 5:00 remaining, and soon thereafter, we reached the seasons first tipping point: facing a 3rd & 10, Trubisky found Allen Robinson for a first down inside the Packers 30-yard line. As this impressive 13 play drive continued, was it improbable to think that, even though the Bears have scored 3 points in 55 minutes, they would tie this thing up? Hopes were quickly dashed and we got our answer immediately thereafter as Mitch Trubisky hung up a corner route and was picked off by former Bear Adrian Amos to essentially end the game.

The electricity of one of the most anticipated season openers in team history had now become a deafening silence. This wasn’t just another regular season opener, it felt different, it seemed to mean more.

In the end, the Bears lost.

To the Packers.

At Soldier Field.

On their 100th anniversary.

This one stings.

It’s extremely hard to come up with any concrete takeaways after the first game of the season, however, there are a few things to question and/or consider:
• It’s fair to blame the offensive struggles on simply being out of sync, but at what point in the game or the season can we stop making excuses for a Bears offense that was average (at best) last year and flat out mediocre tonight?

• All I heard all week is how old Jimmy Graham is and how he’s a shell of his former self. Well, I’d take this dude over any Tight End on the Bears roster. Not only was he a great red zone target tonight, he was arguably the only Packers receiver who had the ability to stretch the field.

• The number of flags and stoppages kept this game from having any flow to it whatsoever. Add this to what was a very inefficient offensive performance by both teams, and it was a shitshow from a viewing perspective.

• Allen Robinson sneaky had a 100-yard receiving game; none more important than that drive saving catch on 3rd & 10 late in the game. His 13 targets were a game high.

• Anthony Miller did not produce a single catch while only being targeted 1 time. If the Bears want to be successful this year, this has got to change.

• Tarik Cohen and I had the same amount of rushing attempts and rushing yards tonight. When you talk so much about making it a priority to get this guy the ball, why is it that he so often disappears?