Baseball

If You Want To Keep Castellanos, It’s Probably Going To Cost You Schwarber

By Sam Fels 2010 0

I guess it’s Kyle Schwarber Week here at the lab. Then again, it’s always Kyle Schwarber Week here at the lab.

There’s still a lot to be sorted this season, and even thinking about another confounding and infuriating offseason–as the next one is assuredly going to be because the Ricketts Family can’t manage a piss-up in a brewery–is a great way to make yourself miserable. But this season is already kind of miserable, and also I want to get out ahead of an already growing movement.

You can hear it in the wind, and you can see it in the sky. Greater Cubdom is starting a “Re-Sign Castellanos!” movement. You can certainly understand why, as after two weeks with the team he’s hitting .370 as a Cub and has a wRC+ of 194. He’s been a spark, at times, for a team that clearly looks like it needs it far more often than it has in the previous five years. To only focus on these two weeks is obviously a flawed process, so it’s better to be looking over the whole.

Even with this Cub-binge, this isn’t even Castellanos’s best season. That came last year, mostly because he hit the ball slightly harder. Still, Castellanos is only 27, and has at least two or three years of prime production left. The Cubs will clearly need a bat (or two), as Nico Hoerner isn’t going to be ready in 2020 thanks to his wrist problems this year. It all comes together for bringing Castellanos back.

But the issues are clearer than most want to see. The Cubs simply cannot get away with an outfield defense of Castellanos in right and Heyward in center for a full season. especially with Heyward getting a year older. J-Hey isn’t all that good in center, he won’t kill you there but he’s far from the stud he is in right. This might be especially true as the Cubs are likely to lose one of their biggest strikeout pitchers and ground-ball pitchers in Cole Hamels, who negates a bit the need for a good defensive outfield .And unless the Cubs are going to sign Gerrit Cole, that’s an issue. And they’re not going to sign Gerrit Cole (though they should). The need for outfield defense becomes slightly more acute.

Also, if you’re going off simply two weeks, you’d be tempted to hand next year’s centerfield job to Ian Happ, but that’s why we don’t do these things.

You have to project out what you think Castellanos will be. He only has a career 111 wRC+, which is good but not the kind of production one loses their mud over and centers their offseason plans around. However, if you take the last four seasons, where you could say the light went on, it’s 120. That might be a player you center plans around.

A theme that the local scene has been eager to pump is that the change from Comerica to Wrigley will boost his slugging and homers. That’s true to an extent, but how many more homers are we talking? Five at home? Maybe seven? That seems the extent. But even if you add ten more bases to Castellanos’s totals this year (five homers instead of doubles), his slugging goes up 20 points. So a consistent 115-120 wRC+ player is hardly out of the question, and with a couple bounces more than that.

But the defense. You can’t have that. The Cubs are already one of the ten-worst fly-ball defensive efficiency teams in the league. And that’s with Almora out there in center and Heyward in right a decent portion of the time. How much worse do you really want that to get?

Which means signing Castellanos puts him in left. And you already have someone there. The question one would have to ask is will Schwarber ever produce that kind of offense consistently for far cheaper than Castellanos on the open market (leaving you more money to address other concerns)? Keep in mind that Schwarber’s ’18 is about as good as Castelllanos’s current campaign (no fooling, 115 to 116). Castellanos has reached 130, and if you project that he’ll get near there again in the next three years however many times, can Schwarber ever do so? He’s only done it for 70 games four seasons ago now.

In essence, you’d basically be guaranteed a push by swapping out Schwarber for Castellanos in left, though you’d cost yourself spending power which is a concern over there because the Ricketts are so poor, don’t you know? You might do better. Depending on what the return is on any Schwarber trade, maybe you’re a better team. Or then maybe you watch Schwarber pop for 42 home runs in Tampa or something as a DH and you feel shame, especially if his trade value has been neutered over the past few seasons.

If Castellanos keeps this up for the season’s last six weeks, he’s probably looking at a $20-$25M payday per season. That’s essentially Hamels’s money, leaving you with some of Zobrist’s to play with after arbitration raises and such, along with other free agents maneuvering in and out.

This the debate. It’s not so easy, is it?

Football

Tight End Reliability Puts Bears In Tight Spot

By Brian Schmitz 1188 0

Be honest with yourself for a second. Do the Bears have anyone of their roster that can be trusted to play and contribute at the tight end position this season? The answer is no. And it’s not even close. Adam Shaheen blows, and if being flat out bad isn’t enough, he’s always hurt. Shaheen was the 45th player selected in the 2017 draft and has struggled athletically to play in the new NFL. The position has morphed into an extension of a Wide Receiver. Slow, plodding, block first Tight Ends are no longer an NFL commodity. This fact is especially true in Matt Nagy’s uber-creative, hair on fire, offense. When he was drafted, Shaheen was compared to Antonio Gates, he is now more comparable to Kevin White. With his height, a healthy Shaheen can be a valued red zone option, especially when he’s split out wide against a shorter corner. However, he will never be the type of guy who can stretch the field, which what was expect when you select a TE in the second round. Here are Shaheen’s career stats against a list of the tight ends that were drafted after the 3rd year pro from Ashland College, whatever the fuck that is:

 

Pick #

 Games Receptions Yards TD
Adam Shaheen 45 19 17 175 4
Jonnu Smith 100 29 38 415 5
Michael Roberts 127 23 13 146 3
Jake Butt 145 3 8 85 0
George Kittle 146 31 131 1,892 7
Jordan Leggett 150 15 14 114 1
Jeremy Sprinkle 154 27 7 54 2
Eric Saubert 174 30 5 48 0
Bucky Hodges 201 0 0 0 0
Mason Schreck 251 6 0 0 0
Jason Croom FA 15 22 259 1
Ricky Seals-Jones FA 25 46 544

4

The actual stats are not terribly bad in comparison to the others, but keep in mind that every single one of these players was drafted in the 4th round or later. As if that doesn’t paint enough of a picture of a player that can be classified as somewhere between a stretch and a bust, here is a list of All-Pro players that were selected after Shaheen:

  • JuJu Smith-Schuster
  • Alvin Kamara
  • Kareem Hunt
  • James Connor
  • Eddie Jackson
  • Tarik Cohen
  • George Kittle

Seeing the names Cohen and Jackson on this list saves some face for Ryan Pace, but these guys were chosen in late rounds, where it’s perfectly acceptable and often genius to take a flyer on a guy with some hidden upside. The 2nd round is not the place to try to show people how smart you are, in fact, it’s a draft place that can get you fired for failures.

If you were to re-do the 2017 NFL Draft, I do not see a scenario in which Shaheen gets selected anywhere sooner than round 5. Overvaluing a player in the draft happens almost 50% of the time; guys simply don’t work out sometimes, that’s just what happens. What really hurts the Bears is that Mitch Trubisky could really use that reliable, possession-type tight end that could serve as a safety blanket similar to what Jason Whitten was to Dak Prescott at the end of Whitten’s career. Hot routes and third read tight end receptions are the types of plays that extend drives. This is currently a glaring hole in a Bears offense that desperately needs this role to be successful.

The blame for the lack of a reliable tight end does not, however, fall only all on the fragile shoulders of Adam Shaheen. 2018 free agent signee Trey Burton had himself a very strong regular season, accounting for 54 catches for 569 yards and 6 TDs. Then the playoffs started and Burton was either physically or mentally unable to play in the most important Bears game since 2010. This very odd occurrence was then followed by an offseason and preseason in which Burton has still not fully recovered from a minor surgery that reported took place sometime in March, almost six months ago.

There is no question, that if healthy, Burton will be a weapon for Mitch Trubisky. However, that is a huge “if,” Each guy has about three weeks left until the opener to get healthy, until then, the entire organization and fan base cannot feel comfortable relying on Burton or Shaheen.

Baseball

Series Recap: Sox Take 2 of 3 From Astros – No, Seriously

By Andy Jonathan 1154 0

BOX SCORES

Game 1: Sox 2 – Astros 6

Game 2: Sox 4 – Astros 1

Game 3: Sox 13 – Astros 9

 

 

Raise your hand if you thought the Sox would win the season series against the best team in baseball by taking 4 out of the 7 games and scoring 33 total runs against them. Bullshit, put your arm back down and go sit in the back. Well, if nothing else the Sox like to make me look stupid (not a hard thing to do, but still) after I fretted about the Astros raining death down upon them this series. Granted the Sox got a little lucky with Gerrit Cole exploding his hammy in the bullpen before game 2, and Alex Bregman not being able to go at all on Tuesday night, but you know what? Credit where it’s due, the Sox took advantage of all of that and came away with a pretty solid series win all told.  Sometimes baseball is weird, sometimes it’s stupid, and sometimes it’s pretty damn fun. Then sometimes it’s all 3 of those things and the Sox take the season series from the AL’s best team.

LET ME IN

 

NUMBERS DON’T LIE

-Let’s start with the Sox pitching, shall we? Dylan Cease went game one and took the only loss of all the starters, which includes Ross Detwiler (remember when I said baseball was stupid?). Despite getting hung with the L and walking more people than he struck out, this might have been his best outing in awhile. He gave up a leadoff bomb to George Springer, then a single to Altuve and a double to Michael Brantley (remember when the Sox didn’t want him in the off season?) to bring up Yordan Alvarez. Renteria got all galaxy-brained and issued the intentional pass to him, bringing up Yuli Gurriel, who bounced into a 5-4-3 double play to end the inning. He gave up another solo shot in the 3rd to Altuve, then proceeded to retire 11 Astros in a row before Wellington Castillo did his best Benny Hill impersonation behind the plate, allowing 12 passed balls and letting the game get out of hand. I don’t mind the 5 walks Cease issued (2 of which were of the intentional variety), as nobody works the zone better or strikes out less than the Astros. This was a building block start for Cease, no doubt about it. I’m excited to see where he goes from here.

-Ivan Nova went the distance and gave up 1 unearned run to the best offense in baseball (remember when I said baseball was weird sometimes?). He kept the ball down all night, threw first pitch strikes, and kept the Astros hitters on their heels. This will probably last long enough for Hahn to give him an extension, then he’ll turn back into a pumpkin. For now though, I’m gonna enjoy the ride in the new Chevy Nova.

-Tim Anderson had a Tuesday night to forget, going 0-8 and committing 2 errors in the field, one of which was the only run the Astros scored in the second game. Tim tried using his athletic ability instead of setting his feet and threw the ball about 8 rows deep over Matt Skole’s head. He didn’t let it get him down today, however. He went 4 for 5 with 2 doubles and a triple. More please!

-Eloy hit a ball 6,000 feet today and knocked a dude unconscious who was drinking a Modelo on the fan deck. The best part was Jake Marisnick going back to the wall and making a jump at the ball, only to have it land about 40 feet past and 20 feet up from him. Smooth.

-Don’t look now, but Jose Abreu may be heating up again, going 6-11 with 4 RBI and more importantly 2 walks. Just in time for Yoan Moncada to come back and give him some space. It also helps when…

-James McCann decides to drop it like its May again, going 4-9 with the series clinching grand slam on an 0-2 count from a hanging slider off legit shutdown reliever Ryan Pressly. He doesn’t make mistakes to right handed hitters very often, and McCann made him pay dearly for it. Awesome stuff.

-Ryan Goins can stay when Nick Madrigal and Luis Robert finally get called up. I’m kinda done with Yolmer.

-Next up is a 4 hour plane ride out to sunny California to visit Mike Trout and the Los Angeles Angels of Disneyland. Bastards will probably get to ride all the new Star Wars rides before I do. Let’s see if the Sox can build on this great series or if they slide right back into the Sarlacc Pit.

ONWARD

 

 

Baseball

Can We Turn Kyle Schwarber Into Joey Gallo?

By Sam Fels 1490 0

It’s an admittedly random comparison. I spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about Kyle Schwarber, because I am lost and perhaps helpless. Still, I’ve spent a fair amount of time defending Kyle, rooting for Kyle, hoping this week or this game or even this plate appearance is the one that opens the floodgates for him.

But it hasn’t happened. Schwarbs is still hitting under .240. He’s still slugging under .500. His wRC+ is a mere 107, which is hardly bad, but this offense needs more from left field than that. Especially when Schwarber is not going to provide really anything defensively.

I thought of Gallo, because Schwarber is still on course for 30 homers, 35 if he were to have one more binge this season. That’s something. Homers out of nothing is what Gallo used to be. Gallo of course hit 40 the past two seasons, but while he was doing that he was failing to reach a .210 average or even a .340 OBP, which Schwarber eclipsed last year. Still, there are some similarities.

They both walk more than average, although this year Gallo has walked a ton. They both strike out a lot, but Gallo strikes out far more often than Schwarber. But Gallo is hitting .253 this year, slugging nearly .600, with a 145 wRC+ and on his way to a 4.0 WAR season, something we’d all die for Kyle to become.

Kyle is eight months older, so if you’re hoping for just natural evolution or aging, that’s out. Schwarber does hit the ball hard, but he’s not hitting it as hard as Gallo. Gallo has rocked a 45+% hard-contact rate before the baseball became flubber, and is over 50% this year. Schwarber is around 40%. This has allowed Gallo to run a .368 BABIP, which is obviously high but when you’re hitting the ball as hard as Gallo does, it’s not that high.

Now, it would be easy to say that Gallo just hits the ball harder, is stronger or has a more natural swing or whatever. But if you travel into the StatCast lands, you’ll see that Schwarber’s and Gallo’s average exit velocity are almost identical (92.5 MPH for Schwarber and 93.0 for Gallo). Though Schwarber probably has gotten a boost from the baseball, as this is new territory for him whereas Gallo has always done this. Still, they’re on the same plane, now, so let’s work with that.

So how do we get Schwarber there, if we can? One change Gallo has made this year has been far great discipline. He’s swinging at almost a quarter less pitches outside the zone, nine percentage points less inside the zone. He’s been far more selective. But the thing is, his numbers now are just what Schwarber is doing, as far as what he’s swinging at. The difference is that Schwarber has better coverage, making contact on far more pitches outside the zone than Gallo does. Still, that’s not really it.

It was thought that Gallo would always suffer from shifts, and he would lose out on hits because he would keep lacing balls into infielders standing in right field. It was thought he would have to go the opposite way more often. Well, Gallo told all of that to fuck off, because he’s pulling the ball even more than he has in the past. He’s just doing so more on a line, and that’s where the real difference is. Gallo has a 25% line-drive rate, which will always drive up your BABIP, and Scwharber is at 18%. Gallo keeps his ground-ball rate around 25%, whereas Schwarber is up near 40%. That’s probably the change here. As strange as it sounds, Schwarbs needs to get more balls in the air.

Whether that will work for Schwarber is up for debate. Schwarber crushes the ball to the opposite way, slugging .765 when going that way this year, and being more damaging doing that than when he’s pulling the ball.

While Gallo can still get caught out by change-ups, the ground-ball rates on slider and curves is markedly different, with Schwarber’s ground-ball percentages some 10-15% higher than Gallo’s on those pitches. Schwarbs is going to have to find a way to get those in the air, and hard.

It may just be that Schwarber can’t consistently hit the ball that hard, or that he’ll never learn to get that contact more in the air with some violence. But his hopes, and ours, of being a plus-player kind of ride on it. Whether that’s pulling the ball to the same obscene degree that Gallo does, or whether he can find a way doing that hitting it the other way as he is now. Again, with no defensive contribution, Schwarber has to slug over .500 to be effective, and probably over .550. He has to get his average to .250, and his on-base over .37o or more. Otherwise, we’ll keep seeing these 1.0-1.5 WAR seasons, and you’d have to say the Cubs need better from that spot.

Baseball

Don’t Be Fooled by 6:40

By Sam Fels 1380 0

Baseball is strange in a lot of ways, and it being the only sport that announces the following year’s schedule before the current one is finished is way down the list of reasons why. Still, it’s a quirk that MLB has had for the past few years.

You may have caught a change to the normal slate of Cubs games, and that’s before Memorial Day and after Labor Day next season, night games will start at 6:40pm instead of the normal 7:05. It only ends up being about 10 games in total, but it does feel like some sort of trial balloon. Off the top of my head, Cleveland and the Rockies have started games before 7pm local time, as have the Giants. There may be others as well.

You heard it on the broadcast last night a bit, that the Cubs made this change because “they heard from fans” that this is a change they wanted, at least while the kids were in school. And if you think my brow isn’t furrowed about that one, you haven’t been around here for very long. Because we’ve seen this before, and it’s with one particular resident of 1901 W. Madison.

You’ll recall many years ago, the 2013-2014 season we think upon research, that the Hawks made a big stink about how they were moving all home games to 7:05 from the usual 7:30. They said the same things, that fans wanted the change, that fans wanted to get home earlier, that it would even be better for the press trying to get their game stories in for the morning paper (which upon reflection is uproariously funny). They said it was all for us.

And it lasted one season.

And the reason it lasted one season had to do with the real reason they made the switch. The Hawks thought that if they shrunk the time between when most people got off work and when the game started, they would force more people straight into the building before the game instead of people stopping at a different establishment between work and puck drop. They wanted everyone doing their pregaming in the United Center and not around it. It didn’t work. People were mostly just showing up closer to gametime, or even late, and the Hawks were actually missing out on concession revenue. So after all the hoorah they made about switching the games to 7, the following season with nary a mention they moved them back to 7:30. Your kids’ bedtimes be damned.

And the Cubs are no different. They don’t give a flying fuck how tired your kid is the next day at school because he attended a game at Wrigley. Or how late you get back to the suburbs or whatever. They’re attempting the same thing here, just not all at once.

If you work downtown, and get off at 5, catching the red line straight to Wrigley has you there what, maybe 5:30 if you’re lucky? More likely 5:45 or 6 though. But now instead of having an hour or more, you might only have 45 minutes before first pitch. Which might tempt you to just head straight into the park instead of hitting up somewhere else. Or if you really want dinner before the game, you probably want to do it as close to Wrigley as possible to cut down on transit team. Hmm, guess who owns a few of the restaurants around the park?

The Cubs sell over three million tickets a year, whenever they start the games. So they don’t have to care about what the fans want (and boy haven’t we seen overwhelming evidence of that this year). So their only focus is how to maximize revenue other ways. That’s all this is.

It’s not a huge difference. It won’t dramatically change lives. But keep an eye in 2021 whether they go to this full-time, or scrap it all together. And then you’ll know the real reasons why. And it won’t have to do with little Riker’s or Maya’s bedtime or science quiz in the morning, believe me.

Football

Matt Nagy’s Fixation On Kickers Will Surely Kill Us All

By Sam Fels 1402 0

I know that football coaches are obsessives beyond the point of comprehension. I get that every minute detail of the team is pored over to a degree that a lazy-ass like myself would think comes from another dimension. “Fixation” is a word that most NFL coaches are so far beyond it’s not even worth considering. And most of it is because they just feel the other guy is doing the same, even if it has no actual benefit and it wouldn’t kill anyone if these coaches actually bothered to learn their daughters’ names.

Still, the Bears’ offseason and now training camp being primarily focused on the kicking competition has been…well, there are a few words for it. Strange, annoying, needless, and inflammatory are some that come to mind. To the point where I’m wondering what’s really going on here.

Yeah, I get it. Cody Parkey made this worse by going on whatever national morning show and removing his own rib to show how much missing THAT KICK hurt him but what a big guy he was by moving on from it. That in itself is going to create more attention on the position than normal, whether the Bears booted him into the river or not (I’ll give Parkey this, he did the whole “Point To Jesus” thing after he fucked up as well, which is more than most fuck-you-pious athletes do).

But it’s gone beyond that. We had the “Kicking Cavalcade” in mini-camps, with everyone being forced to make a 43-yarder in front of the whole team. Or Nagy mentioning it while singing the stretch at Wrigley. Or his constant reminders in interviews about how the ending of last season haunts him. Or making the two kickers in camp make 43-yarders, and how the first preseason game contained a field goal of that exact length in the first half. And how symbolic that was.

We’ve been inundated with updates from all the Bears beats every day. Our Sons Of Wilber Marshall have had to address it here. You can’t escape. It’s everywhere.

Fuck right off.

At this point, I can’t help but wonder if it’s a cover. Because somewhere deep down, Matt Nagy knows that game didn’t have to come down to a makable-but-not-chip-shot kick. Somewhere, he knows if he hadn’t spent at least the first half against the Eagles calling plays with one hand around his throat and the other with the thumb somewhere sensitive, maybe the Bears are playing from on top. Maybe he knows that at the biggest drive of the season, his defense let him down and got run over by Nick Goddamn Foles and the wounded ducks he was tossing only in a general direction. He certainly would have to be aware of the former, as it would be the second straight year he spent at least a half of a playoff game making his offense run a three-legged race. If he’s not, that’s certainly a much bigger problem for the Bears moving forward.

I doubt he’s intentionally hanging Ryan Pace out to dry, but that’s certainly a knock-on effect. And while Pace is hardly perfect, he did construct a roster ready to turn Nagy into one of the most successful first-year coaches in history. Perhaps tone it down a notch there, visor?

And this isn’t healthy. What kicker is going to live up to this? Now you’ve whipped the fans into a frenzy, the press into one, and those two just keep feeding into each other. The Bears could gut the Packers in Week 1 34-3 (which they will), but if whatever kicker is chosen misses one field goal, you know what the calls will be about Monday, right?  What at least one article in each of the Trib, Sun-Times, and Athletic will be? It’s now a constant question until the end of the season, and nothing will ever be good enough until Mystery Kicker makes a winning kick in a playoff game.

Except that might not come up. Close games are inevitable in January, but they hinge on a lot of factors. Yes, field goals are directly tied to points in the way that a more adventurous call on second or third down at the 40 is not. Or a missed tackle behind the line that results in a three-yard gain instead. But teams have won the Super Bowl without needing a buzzer-beater. I know, hard to believe, but it’s true.

But still, it’s a kicker. It’s middle relief of football. You find one somewhere, he sticks around for a few years, and then you find another one. Had you heard of Aldrick Rosas before last year? Do you even know who it is now? He’s the Giants kicker and finished second in FG% last season. Mike Badgley? You don’t have any idea, and if you do it’s only because he was on your fantasy team, and he was assuredly your last pick or waiver pick-up.

They just come from somewhere. Even if it’s your team, you don’t really know where. And yeah, it’s noticeable when you pick a bad one, as the Bears did last season. It happens sometimes, but to say that’s the reason the season was torpedoed is missing the whole picture. Me? I’m much more worried about Mitch Betta’ Have My Money’s accuracy.

I don’t want to say it’s untenable. I doubt there’s no kicker anywhere who can’t put everyone’s mind at ease within the season’s first few weeks. But it shouldn’t have to be like this. If it works as a cover for other weaknesses on the team as they get worked out…well, ok. I guess. Seems like it’s a pretty elaborate and heavy-worked smokescreen, though.

 

Baseball

Series Preview – Cubs vs. Phillies: Blow Up The Chicken Man

By Sam Fels 1171 0

vs.

RECORDS: Cubs 64-54   Phillies 60-58

GAMETIMES: Tuesday-Thursday 6:05

TV: NBCSN Tuesday and Wednesday, WGN Thursday

AND HIS HOUSE TOO: The Good Phight

PREVIEW POSTS

Depth Charts & Pitching Staffs

Phillies Spotlight

After escaping Cincinnati with a split that you’re more glad to get against a sub-.500 team than would normally make sense, the Cubs will attempt to actually surge forward on the road in the Keystone State, including one game in the middle part of the state lovingly referred to as “Pennsyl-tucky.” It starts with a three-game set against the Phillies, who are doing a damn fine impression of the Mets these days.

It all started so well for the Phils, as they were 33-24 on June 1st and atop the East. They then watched the Braves go nuclear, the Nationals not far behind, and of late the Mets have become something of a farce, all the while piling up a 23-27 record in June and July. August hasn’t started much better at 4-7. losing series to the White Sox, Diamondbacks, and Giants. Yuck.

It’s not hard to figure out why. This team doesn’t really hit all that well, nor do they pitch all that well either out of the rotation or the pen. That’s a rough combination. The offense should be better, at least that’s what you’d think when you hear the names Bryce Harper, Rhys Hoskins, and J.T. Realmuto. The latter has been everything they wanted defensively, perhaps the best actual receiver in the league. But his offense has been exactly average, as additional Ks to what he did in Florida have kneecapped him. Harper has merely been ok-to-good, but not the star he has fooled a lot of people into thinking he is every year. He pops that for seasons here and there, but not every year. Hoskins has been everything they want.

But there were too many dead spots. Left field was one after Andrew McCutchen had knee-death, which they’re trying to fill with Corey Dickerson now after getting him from Pittsburgh. They still get nothing out of center. Second base is another black hole. Jean Segura has been ok at short but he’s never going to provide much more than average offense. You know you’re in trouble when you’re trying Jay Bruce at all.

We went over the rotation’s problems, and they’e throwing out Jason Vargas and Drew Smyly in this series, both midseason acquisitions. Arrieta is sounding like he’s not going to be able to put off the surgery on his elbow bone spurs until after the season as he’d hoped to do. So they’ll have to fill that spot, and internally now thanks to the passing of the one deadline to rule them all.

The pen has been extremely beat up, as all of Seranthony Dominguez, Adam Morgan, Victor Arano, Tommy Hunter, and supposed closer this year David Robertson are on the shelf. And all save Robertson were key contributors last year. That’s part of the reason Eflin and Pivetta are in the pen now, but when you’re closing games with Hector Neris, you’ve broken the glass.

For the Cubs, they’ll hope to get both Brandon Kinztler and Craig Kimbrel back from the DL this series, though likely the former much more than the latter. They somehow have survived their reliever-ocalypse this past week, at least so far. Kyle Ryan is coming off the Bereavement List today as well, so that will help.

Other than that, the Cubs merely have to keep the momentum of Sunday’s win, which did feel important, rolling. This Phillies team is looking for a reason to roll over, and the Pirates are a roll over right now. A first successful road trip since the beginning of time, or so it feels, is just beckoning. Yes, weird things can happen at Citizen’s Bank considering it’s a launchpad, but this is a team that just gave up 25 runs to the Giants over four games, and the Giants have a couple of sock puppets and broom handles in the lineup right now.

Feast.

 

Baseball

Phillies Spotlight: The Cy Young Machine In Philly Is Very Philly

By Sam Fels 1167 0

Fourth place is not where the Phitin’s thought they’d be at this point in the season. Behind the Mets isn’t where anyone plans to be, though trying to plan for what the Mets might be is like trying to chart a Dali painting. Yes, they’re only two games out of a wildcard spot, with only two teams to leap, and two very limited teams in Milwaukee and the Cardinals at that. But they must have thought before the season, after getting Bryce Harper to defect intradivisionally (we get to make up words now), that they were the favorite in the NL East, or at least poised to run with the Braves. They’re nine games back of that outfit, so it clearly hasn’t worked.

It’s a variety of factors. Harper has been merely good, not uplifting to an entire team. The pen has been pretty much a mess all season. The lineup hasn’t hit too many other places, though the acquisition of Corey Dickerson is meant to address that. Still, it’s hard not to look at what the rotation was supposed to be, what it actually is, and wonder if something is amiss.

Sure, betting on young pitchers is always a huge gamble. They get hurt, they lose control, they try things that don’t make sense, the learning curve is rock-wall steep. And they’re still getting good work out of Aaron Nola, though he’s fallen off from his second-tier in the league status of last year.

Still, when they drew it up in Florida in March, the Phillies were probably thinking Nola, Zach Eflin, Nick Pivetta, a returning Vince Velasquez, along with Jake Arrieta would make for a pretty stiff rotation. Well, Arrieta’s elbow is currently a barroom brawl of various, floating entities and might put him on the shelf for the rest of the season. Pivetta couldn’t even make the team out of spring training, even though last year he had one of the best strikeout-rates in the National League. He came up in the middle of this season, couldn’t get anyone out, and is now being tried as a late-inning weapon in the pen, while also making way for human tub of cottage cheese Jason Vargas, whom the Phils picked off the Mets scrapheap. Clearly the Mets miss him.

Pivetta’s problem is he throws basically only two pitches, a fastball and a curve. And while he throws the fastball hard, nearly averaging 95 MPH, it gets hit a ton. Hitters are waffling it to a tune of a .732 slugging percentage. And his curve doesn’t generate that many whiffs, though it does get a ton of grounders. Pivetta would do well to throw it more often, seeing as how his fastball is consistently becoming something the FAA is aware of.

It’s been a similar story for Eflin. Until July 1st, Eflin was actually pretty effective, with a 3.34 ERA. Though he had a 4.44 FIP which suggested he rode his luck a bit, it didn’t suggest he would spend all of July decomposing into a puddle of sadness. Eflin’s ERA in July was 11.88, he walked nearly five hitters per nine innings, and he was giving up 2.70 homers per nine innings. Again, Eflin really only threw two pitches, though he had a two-seam and four-seam fastball. Whatever it was, along with a slider hitters tuned him up in July for a slugging percentage over .700 on all pitches. He’s now in the pen too for science experiment Drew Smyly.

Velasquez is now in his second season removed from a major injury, and the strikeout and walk numbers look pretty good. He’s been undone by some bad sequencing, with his left-on-base percentage criminally low for a second-straight season. But he’s still got an ERA over 4.00 and a FIP over 5.00, and mostly it’s because he’s getting hit hard when he gets hit (46.1% hard-contact rate). Again, V-squared only used two pitches mostly, a fastball and a slider. He spots in a curve here and there, but only about 7% of the time. Of late, like the other two, his fastball is getting mutated into some sort of element. He only throws his slider 20% of the time, but he might consider upping it.

That’s three young pitchers the Phillies were hinging on, as well as an aging Arrieta who everyone knew was a declining value bet, and it’s left them barely .500. Something has to change a bit.

Football

Sons Of Wilber Marshall – After The 1st Preseason Game

By Sam Fels 1435 0

We gathered our Bears crew in the aftermath of the preseason opener to take a temperature. We won’t tell you about the thermometer application. And away we go?

Did we learn anything important from the Bears first preseason game?

Tony Martin: What popped for y’all? Nick Kwiatkoski still can’t cover the pass. I’m hoping the Bears go a different direction when his rookie deal expires.

-I sleep better at night knowing Ted Larsen is available in case of an injury on the offensive line. He was wrecking dudes out there last night.
-Kickers kicked some kicks! I’m so sick of all of this. If I have to see another message board post about getting that kicker from Baltimore I’m gonna finally admit I’m going bald and pay for Restore hair treatment (can you tell I was on I-90 today?).
-Ian Bunting looked okay at times, but did he play basketball in college? That makes all the difference.
Brian Schmitz: In an effort to suck myself off, I was happy to see my earlier prediction about John Franklin III come to fruition as he was all over the place last night. Franklin was 3rd on the team on tackles and contributed on both kick returns and kickoff coverage. He will be given a real chance to make this team and thus far, he’s looked good. 

I saw what I needed to see from David Montgomery. Seven touches for 60 yards and a TD. I’m ok with not seeing the rook again until week 1, where he should be the starting RB. 
This time of the year is backup quarterback heaven. This is where guys make teams, showcase for other squads, and most importantly, make career money as a trusted backup. Chase Daniel is everything you want in a reserve QB whom you hope will never play. Guys knows the offense and most importantly, knows his own limitations. I don’t ever want to see him on the field this year, but he’s a solid insurance policy. 
Finally, what we learned from game 1 is that the Bears still don’t know who their kicker will be. Average showings from each on Thursday were expected and unappreciated. I’m convinced the Bears week 1 kicker is not on this roster. 
Tony: JF3 looked good, but I still think he needs to be a 4 phase special teamer to make this roster. As long as you can still contribute to the open threads, I say good luck, but don’t throw out your back trying to taste your successes.
Wes French: Brian, please don’t make any permanent body modifications to go about fellating yourself for JF3’s “breakout” in preseason game one. He was impressive against some paltry competition, but I think we’ll need to see more and, as Tony alluded, especially on Special Teams if he’s going to make the cut. I’ll now flip my thinking completely and overreact to Montgomery’s performance by agreeing we should pack him in bubble wrap and make sure he gets to September untouched.

I’d go as far as to say I was bummed to learn that Baltimore dealt kicker Vedvik to division rivals Minnesota over the weekend. Fry and Piniero are leaving a lot to be desired for what has been the biggest need for Chicago. having already dealt some (potential) draft capital for not-so-steady Eddy, I’d think Pace waits out other teams and picks through those cut as preseason comes to a close later this month. 
Then again, I’ve been out of the loop for a few days, moving my life a mile away and getting sick in the process. Did I miss any glaring transactions or anything else from around the Bears/the League? I know Miller rolled an ankle but sounds like he’s a go for week one…
Tony: I’m hoping for Vedvik to have a great career in Minnesota. May he hit 100% of his kicks against Green Bay and exactly 0 against the Bears. I’m not invested in the Lions enough to even pretend to want to put an arbitrary number on this hypothetical. Seriously, the Lions are the NFL version of the cousin whose name you never bothered to learn because you only see them at holidays and you try to avoid them.

Wes, I think you’re spot on about Montgomery because the more I think about it, the more I think he should be saved for the season. However, I say that because I am super interested in how the competition for the 3rd/4th running back spot goes. I’ve been thinking a lot about it and I think the Bears are going to approach this depth chart a little bit differently, with players like Patterson being on the depth chart as either a running back or wide receiver. So, let’s say the Bears choose to keep a combined 10 of the bunch for the 53. We’ve got:
AR12
Tarik
David Montgomery
Anthony Miller
Taylor Gabriel
Patterson
Mike Davis
Riley Ridley
Javon Wims
And then one of:
Kerrith Whyte Jr/Marvin Hall/Taquan Mizzell Sr (or two if they choose to not keep a FB).
I wanna see the competition for that last couple spots heat up, and as much as I like seeing Montgomery play, I’m here for those reps!
Wes French: I would also like to see more of Whyte/Hall/Ridley/Wims in the next few weeks. I think you’re right that the personnel they have makes it a bit fluid on RB/WR roster selections, but the back end of that list is going to need to show out on special teams as well. I know I keep bringing STs up, but the offense and defense are pretty well set in terms of starters and even most backups. Anyone that has ideas on being the next man up for one of those positions is going to have to contribute via the kicking/return/punt teams in addition to showing they can step in at WR/RB/DB/LB to make this team. That makes me think a guys like Mizzell and Wims have an inside track over Whyte and Hall. The Bears did not sign Davis to play in the kicking game, and Patterson actually hurts those bubble guys with his ability to return kicks in addition to his versatility on offense. 

We haven’t talked much about the defensive side of the ball, but I think fans are sleeping a bit on the lack of depth behind the pass rushers up front. If Kyle Fitts is the best we’ve got to put in rotation after Mack/Floyd….yikes. 
Brian: You’re spot on about the defense; but I guess no news is good news. I’m extremely confident the defense will be who we think they are. 

We need to pump the brakes on Cordarrell Patterson. The guy can’t catch, which is fine, because Devin Hester couldn’t catch either, but in regards to the return game, Patterson is no Hester. I’m also suspect about his character. There has to be a reason he continues to sign one-year deals. 
Tony: I think there’s quality depth on defense since Aaron Lynch will most likely also take rotational reps, and they have solid backup ILBs even if I’m not crazy about them. The DL has a dank rotation in place, especially with Jonathan Bullard still on his rookie contract, but the secondary worries me. The depth chart after Kyle Fuller and Prince Amukamura is as bare as my fridge in college. Brian, maybe some autofellatio might lock up your boy JF3 for a roster spot. Keep us posted.
Brian: Just had to google autofellatio. 1. Gross. 2. IT is going to think I am real sicko. O well.
Wes: You brought this on yourself. I think this is a good place to wrap this one up. Until next time, take care sports fans.