After taking care of one of the teams that made the last road trip hell with a three-game sweep of the Pirates, the Cubs will try and right previous wrongs against this year’s definite bogey team, the Reds. The Cubs have lost all three series to these assholes, who are something of an analytic darling with their subpar record but glittering run-differential. They seem intent on proving why that’s the case against the Cubs this year, which has been infuriating.

The Reds come in after getting knocked all around Coors Field for three days, giving up 19 runs in the last two games (though they won one of those as they scored 17 one night). That won’t help the Cubs much, as they’ll get the Reds three best starters in Gray, DeSclafani, and Castillo tonight. Gray and DeSclafani have been on particular rolls the past month, calming down the walks which had been a problem earlier. It’s been the reverse for Castillo, who has walked nearly six hitters per nine innings over the past 30 days. That said, his last two starts against the Cubs and Brewers have seen him throw 14.2 innings while giving up a run, so he’s probably found it again. Goodie. Just what we need.

The Cubs simply couldn’t get Joey Votto out last time, and then it was a rotating cast of miscreants that came up with big hits, notably Phillip Ervin. He went 5-for-10 with a homer in the last set, and seemingly all of them came at the biggest moments. It’s been that way in every game against the Reds this year seemingly, with the Cubs nominating a new doofus in red the hero of the day when they can least afford to.

The Cubs scored more than enough runs to sweep the Reds last time, but were unlucky to lose Cole Hamels before the second inning ever started, which forced whatever is parading around in Mike Montgomery‘s skin these days to come in and offer up sacrifices to the gods. Their bullpen weaved some magic in the finale of that one, and we can only hope that won’t happen this time around. Carl Edwards is likely to return at some point during the series, which would be a boost of some kind, assuming his head his screwed on tight.

If there’s been a soft spot on the Reds of late it’s in the pen, with only Michael Lorenzen and his Farnsworth-tight pants being consistent the past month. The Cubs got to Raisel Iglesias the last time they saw him, but he’s put up four scoreless outings since. David Hernandez and Amir Garrett have walked the park lately, so if the Cubs need to catch-up or add-on in the late innings for the next three days, they’ll have to display the same patience they discovered against the Pirates this weekend.

The Cubs have opened up just slightly with the sweep, having a 2.5-game lead now on Milwaukee and three on the Scum. With the Brewers having to deal with the Braves this week, this feels like an opportunity to open that up even more, especially as it’s the Pirates and Giants after this and neither are exactly inspiring (though the Giants have played better of late). We’ve been asking for months now but it’s time to turn it on, all the way up.

Baseball

Reds Spotlight: Stamp Your Form, Sonny

By Sam Fels July 15, 2019 1175 0

Yankees fans have always had players they irrationally disliked. Any acquisition is supposed to be THE ONE that returns the Yanks to their rightful place atop the MLB forever, or so they would have you believe. And if they don’t become that, they are forever discarded as trash, with “Yeah well he didn’t do it in the Bronx so it doesn’t count.”

Gray had a rough September upon his arrival in New York in 2017, with a 4.58 ERA and even worse peripherals as he came to terms with the far different environs of Yankee Stadium than from the Coliseum in Oakland. In the East Bay you can actually give up a fly ball without it sending off sirens, but as we know that’s not the case in New York.

Gray wasn’t much better last year in pinstripes, as he was definitely spooked by the previous experience, as his walks tickled four per nine innings, by far the highest of his career. He still wasn’t that bad, worth 1.6 fWAR last year for a playoff team with a 4.17 FIP. But that wasn’t good enough for the Yanks front office, which was eyeing upgrades in the rotation to run with Sale, Eovaldi, and Price in Boston (which has worked out, you’d have to say). So Gray was moved to Cincinnati, which isn’t exactly a more forgiving park for pitchers.

Hasn’t mattered to Gray this year, who was an All-Star, has lowered his ERA by a run and a half, his FIP by a full run, and upped his strikeouts by nearly two per nine innings/seven percent. Gray has only given up nine homers, including only four at his home park where hitters can generally sneeze and get one over the fence (or is that just Cubs pitchers?). So how has he done it?

Gray has eschewed a sinker/cutter he was using in New York, and has opted for more four-seam fastballs. He has not approached the levels of fastballs he threw in his prime years in Oakland yet, but he’s back over 50%. He has rediscovered some velocity though, throwing it harder than he ever has at 93.9 MPH.

And like a lot of other pitchers, Gray has tried to live higher in the zone than before, trying to get past hitters and their new and fancy uppercut swings. Visual evidence you require? We got it:

That has seen a slight uptick in whiffs on his fastball, and gotten more pop-ups and fly balls, at least of the weak variety in the latter.

But still, giving up fly balls in Cincy can be a death wish, so Gray had to find a way to get more grounders for what’s a pretty good infield defense, especially now that Scooter Gennett is back. Gray is getting a career-high ground-ball rate this year, up five percent from last year as a Yankee.

Gray has gotten that through his curve and slider, which are just two versions of the same pitch depending on how much he takes off and puts on it. Both have seen a 10% increase or so in grounders, playing off the focus on being high in the zone or above it with the fastball.

After his travails in New York, eyebrows were moving upward when the Reds signed Gray to a three-year extension immediately upon getting him. However, now the $10M per season he’ll be earning after this one seems a bargain, taking him until he’s 32. With Gray and Castillo locked in for the next few years, the Reds might actually have the base for a good rotation for the next little while. When have we ever said that?

Baseball

Series Recap – Sox Get Swept By A’s: Meh.

By Andy Jonathan July 14, 2019 1736 0

BOX SCORES:

Game 1: White Sox 1 – A’s 5

Game 2: White Sox 2 – A’s 13

Game 3: White Sox 2 – A’s 3

Well shit. That’s not exactly how I would’ve drawn up the start to the second half of the season, but whatever. The Coliseum has always been a house of horrors for the Sox for as long as I can remember, and this turned out no differently. The Sox forgot how to hit during the All Star break, and Dylan Covey forgot what the strike zone looked like so he could avoid it with the cookies he was serving up. All in all it was a pretty shitty weekend of baseball for the Southsiders, and on top of that Brock Lesnar has the goddam title again. Ugh.

NUMBERS DON’T LIE

– Lets start with the positives, shall we? Reynaldo Lopez looked pretty damn good today. Moved his fastball in and out of the zone, located his changeup and slider and basically kept the A’s hitters off balance for most of the day. I’ll take 6 innings of 1 run ball from him every damn start of the week and twice on Sunday. He even left with the lead after Eloy launched number 17 to the deepest part of that goddamn canyon they play in. Granted, Evan Marshall gave that up 3 pitches into the next inning but whatever.

– Luis Robert had about 32 RBIs in his first weekend at AAA and (seriously) started off his career there with a grand slam. I can hear Rick Hahn practicing mumbling excuses for why he’s not here in September already.

– That’s about it for the positive stuff. The Sox suddenly turned into a bunch of pool noodle armed weaklings in the first 2 games. They banged out 17 hits in those 2 games, approximately ZERO of which went for extra bases. That’s pretty mind boggling right there. I’m willing to chalk that up as an aberration if you are.

– Dylan Covey flat out sucked to high heaven Saturday. There’s no other way to put it. He claimed he was too amped up to be facing his old team, but maybe he’s just not meant to be a starter. He’d make a great opener, though. If only there was a cool baseball story this weekend that illustrates how valuable an opener can be to a team with no 5th starter. Oh well.

– Nova once again gave up too many home runs, which really has been his only problem as of late. If he can cut down on those, I guess he’d make an OK 4th starter here. Not gonna hold my breath, however.

– Jose Rondon sucks. DFA his ass into the sun when Timmy gets back, which hopefully isn’t too far away as he’s apparently begun baseball activities in his rehab back from a high ankle sprain.

– This series sucked, but I’m not going to look too deep into anything. If the Sox have trouble scoring against the Royals this week and their collection of recycled arms then I may sound the alarm. Otherwise I’m just going to forget this weekend happened and redact it from the official scoresheet. Moving on.

Baseball

Series Wrap – Cubs Sweep Pirates: I’ll Have More Of That, Please

By Sam Fels July 14, 2019 1485 0

Game 1 Box Score: Cubs 4, Pirates 3

Game 2 Box Score: Cubs 10, Pirates 4

Game 3 Box Score: Cubs 8, Pirates 3

That’s about as perfect of a start out of the All-Star Break as you could have asked for, aside from one Pedro Strop two-seamer that still hasn’t landed. And even that didn’t end up mattering. Three quality starts. A lot of offense, from a lot of places. Kris Bryant binge. Other than Strop, clean enough work from the pen. No dumbass mistakes. And suddenly, just like that the Cubs have some breathing space atop the NL Central. Nice how that works, eh? Let’s run it through.

The Two Obs

-Let’s start with the only bad aspect, and that’s Strop. At least he didn’t give up a wall-scraper. Strop’s velocity on his four-seam is down this year, significantly. FanGraphs has it nearly two MPH, BrooksBaseball has it at about one MPH and a half slower. Which has led to Strop trying to use a cutter or two-seam, and a splitter more. You see the results. Everything but the slider is getting tagged right now, and the way the two-seamer to Marte leaked up and in just like it did to Eloy is concerning. Strop can’t throw all slider, though maybe he should think about just doing it mostly. In ’15 and ’16 he threw it nearly half the time. What do we have to lose here?

In a perfect world, Carl Edwards would just come back from his rehab, you’d stick him in that slot and let Strop work things out in lower leverage spots for a while. But this is Carl Edwards we’re talking about here. He’s always looking for an excuse to fold in on himself like a flan in a cupboard. Still need answers out there.

-To their credit, you would have been forgiven if you thought Strop’s chum to Marte would signal another one that would get away. Instead, the Cubs locked down for once, just got another run immediately and closed it out. And they did it with timely baserunning and hitting, with Bryant knowing exactly where the outfielders were and getting a great jump on Heyward’s single. That’s a team a little more locked in, though Bryant was never really at the center of those problems.

-Look, Yu Darvish’s splitter was back, thrown about 10 times on Friday and got whiffs on 75 percent of them. He used his slider more, though I think his slider and cutter are probably the same pitch and it’s just how he accentuates it. The 36 sliders he threw were the most since that start against the Marlins where he couldn’t find the 5th. Hopefully he’s unlocked something here.

-Contreras’s homer in Saturday’s 1st inning is almost certainly the result of the ball. He didn’t get full extension on it, seemed to even get under it a touch, and sliced it into the third row. But hey, who’s complaining?

-Jason Heyward with six hits, two game-winners on the weekend, and an .833 OPS. Thanks much.

-I don’t know if Robel Garcia is any good. I know it’s worth finding out. And I’m not sure Nick Castellanos is that much of an answer, though he should at least be cheap.

-Just enough change-ups from Quintana today to keep the Pirates off balance. He got a bit Fiendish Kung Fu Treachery’d in the third, but settled down the rest of it. Again, quality starts is all this team really should require.

-It worked out, but I’m still furious about Joe actually thinking a Rosario-Bell matchup on Friday was a good idea, because the fury helps to plug the hole within me.

-Given what Caratini has provided and there’s been no need to burn Contreras, I would expect Willy to have a huge August and September.

Onwards…

Baseball

Series Preview – A’s Vs White Sox: To The Coliseum

By Andy Jonathan July 12, 2019 1760 0

VS.

RECORDS: A’s 50-41 White Sox 42-44

Game Times: Friday 9:05/Saturday & Sunday 3:05

TV: Friday & Saturday NBCSN/Sunday WGN

Still Bashin’ Bros: Athletics Nation

PITCHING MATCHUPS:

Game 1: Mike Fiers vs. Chevy Nova

Game 2: Chris Bassit vs. TBD (Probably Dylan Cease)

Game 3: Brett Anderson vs. Reynaldo Lopez

PROBABLE A’S LINEUP:

1. Marcus Seimen – SS

2. Robbie Grossman – LF

3. Matt Olson – 1B

4. Khris Davis – DH

5. Matt Chapman – 3B

6. Josh Phegley – C

7. Ramon Laureano – CF

8. Mark Canha – RF

9. Franklin Barreto – 2B

PROBABLE WHITE SOX LINEUP

1. Leury Garcia – SS

2. Yoan Moncada – 3B

3. Jose Abreu – 1B

4. James McCann – C

5. Eloy Jimenez – LF

6. Jon Jay – RF

7. Yolmer Sanchez – 2B

8. Ryan Cordell – CF

9. Zack Collins (hopefully)- DH

So now begins the back nine of what can be considered a fairly successful first half for the White Sox, despite the sub .500 record. There are a couple of storylines that bear watching, mostly the usage of the younger members of the Sox roster from here on out. Kicking off the 2nd half is a series against the Oakland A’s, a team with playoff aspirations and the record to back it up. They’re currently locked in a battle with the 2 Texas based teams, jockeying for position in the AL west. The smart money is on the Astros to sew it up on the back 9, and the regression monster finally coming for the surprising Rangers. This leaves Team Moneyball to take their standard spot as the other AL wild card team, destined to be smoked by Tampa Bay or Boston.

The A’s have made it this far mostly living off their surprising starting pitching, anchored by Mike Fiers and the surprising Frankie Montas, though I guess it’s not THAT surprising since he just got popped with an 80 game suspension for performance enhancers. Fiers actually has been one of the better AL starters since May, tossing a No-No earlier. He currently sports a respectable 3.87 ERA, with a 1.10 WHIP. He doesn’t strike many people out, but he keeps the ball in the yard, especially at the canyon-esque Coliseum he calls home. He’s also a giant dickhead, and is probably upset he’s missing out on a chance to throw at Tim Anderson’s head. Brett Anderson and Chris Bassit have also been solid, even if most A’s fans couldn’t pick them out of a police lineup. Their bullpen is also lights out, and is set to eclipse the 6.0 WAR they put up last season during their surprising wild card run. Fangraphs currently has them as the most successful pen in the majors so far this season. Closer Blake Treinen has for the time being lost his spot to Liam Hendricks due to a rotater cuff strain, but should resume the gig now that he’s off the IL. He wasn’t exactly lights out before the strain, however, posting a 4.17 ERA and blowing 4 saves. His slider, which had been his out pitch in previous years, has been ditched for a new cut fastball. Apparently it’s not cutting enough, because it’s being hit harder than any other of his offerings.

The A’s hitters, while not the murderer’s row offered up by the Dodgers or the Twins (ugh. Really?), can still hurt you top to bottom. They currently sit right in the top third of the league in hitting according to Fangraphs, and the team BABIP actually shows they’ve been the victim of some bad luck thus far. Matt Chapman leads the way again, building off his impressive breakout season last year. He’s already knocked out 21 dingers thus far, and maintains an .887 OBPS, which is exactly the type of player that gives Billy Beane night sweats. Khris Davis, though hampered by some injuries so far, continues to provide pop in the heart of the lineup. Old Friend Marcus Seimen continues to provide much improved D up the middle, and has added a little pop to his game, slugging .105 above his career average. Even though Timmy has SS locked down for the future, this trade still stings seeing what Seimen has turned into.

As for the Sox, while it was fun seeing Giolito, McCann and Abreu in the All Star game (despite Jose going GIDP in his only at bat) it’s time to get back to doing what they do best: sit just below .500 while playing entertaining baseball for most of the time. With no starter officially listed for Saturday yet, one would have to assume it would be start #2 for Dylan Cease. If not, I guess we get to see more of Hoss Detwiler, though Covey may be available as well. I’d much rather Covey slot into long relief, as it seems to be his destiny on this club. Nova gets the start tonight, and it will be interesting to see if he can build on the little streak he had for himself before the break. With 2 of the 3 A’s starters set to be RHP, this would be a good time to give Zack Collins a few starts either behind the dish or at 1B to give Jose a breather. Will it happen? With Palka being sent back down, you’d think so but we shall see. Having a few extra days off will probably help a few of the Sox starters, as nagging injuries to Leury and Yoan could’ve used the extra time.

While the Sox -71 run differential screams 2nd half regression, some of that could be mitigated by having more than 2/5ths of an actual MLB starting rotation. Either way, I’m hopeful for the future (and a Luis Robert September callup) and excited to see what the trade deadline and the 2nd half brings to the team. Time to crank it up, fire it up.

Let’s Go Sox!

Baseball

A’s Spotlight: BeaneBall

By Andy Jonathan July 12, 2019 1352 0

As far as GMs with the most name recognition in baseball, there are none more famous than Billy Beane. There certainly aren’t any out there who are played by Brad Pitt in a major motion picture. Yet what most people don’t realize is that Beane isn’t even the GM of the A’s anymore. A few years back, Beane was promoted from GM of the A’s to president of baseball operations, and David Forst (his handpicked successor) was installed as GM. For awhile Beane disappeared from the public eye as Forst gave more and more of the interviews. This became even more noticeable when the A’s entered into a slide of 3 straight years of finishing at the bottom of the AL West. Was Moneyball dead? Was Beane full of shit all along? Could the A’s pull themselves out of the cellar without a payroll of more than $30 million dollars? Turns out the answer to all of those was an emphatic “maybe.”

The 2018 season for the A’s resulted in a gigantic turnaround that saw them finish six games behind the 2017 WS winners Houston and score themselves a wild card birth. Granted, that wild card birth resulted in a 7-2 thrashing at the hands of the Yankees, but at least some life had been shown by the once scrappy team. The A’s were able to claw themselves back into relevance with timely hitting and a loaded bullpen that was completely rebuilt by Beane and Forst in the previous offseason. Subscribing to the formula made successful by Cleveland the previous year, they loaded up with Juerys Familia and Shawn Kelley. They also had Blake Trienen and his career year anchoring them down in the 9th inning. Fangraphs had them with the 6th best bullpen in the league with a total of 6.0 WAR. Compared to the previous year when they were 23rd in the league with 1.9 in WAR. That’s a gigantic turnaround, and (credit where its due) that’s due to some smooth moves by Forst and Beane.

This offseason he started out by prying super utility guy Jurickson Profar away from the Rangers, then adding even more to his misfit bullpen by signing Old Friend Jokim Soria to a 2 year deal. He also attempted to shore up a weak looking rotation by signing Mike Fiers, Brett Anderson and Marco Estrada to low cost deals. He also signed Khris Davis to a long term extension, one of the most expensive contracts ever given out in his tenure with the A’s.

So where did signing all of these “Beane Guys” get them? Well the A’s rotation, despite most fans needing google to identify most of them, has been one of the best in baseball. Mike Fiers (yeah, that same guy who exploded Giancarlo Stanton’s jaw awhile back) threw a no hitter earlier, and Frankie Montas and Brett Anderson were on pace for career years. At least until Montas was busted for performance enhancing substances a few weeks back. Davis is doing Khris Davis things, and the other found talents in his lineup (Matt Chapman, Matt Olson, Josh Phegley) continue to hit for both power and average. Even after all of these years, the A’s are still able to cobble together playoff-caliber teams from the spare parts of other clubs and this season appears to be no different.

All of the above are hallmarks of a Billy Beane-led team. So while he may not be in front of the cameras now nearly as much as he used to be, his muppet David Forst is clearly still under his orders. Nothing truly changes with Beane’s thrift shop approach to building and maintaining a MLB franchise. There’s no doubt it’s had it’s successes, but wins have never translated into attendance for Oakland. Granted, a fair amount of that blame can be put on their converted football stadium and the continuing haunting of the outfield by the ghost of Al Davis. Some of that is just the lackadaisical approach to fandom most of the Bay Area takes to pro sports. I would pin most of it on his team’s reliability to flame out in the opening rounds of the MLB postseason. As it stands right now the A’s are on a collision course with Tampa Bay, the team currently doing Moneyball better than the creator of it, and I would expect Oakland’s journey to end no differently than in past seasons. You can practically set your watch to it. So in the end, he can hide behind the scenes, but he can never truly escape the fact that to win in MLB these days, Moneyball alone gets you nothing but an average baseball movie starring Brad Pitt and the guy from the GIF making the “nah man, stop it” motion with his hand.

Baseball

Series Preview – Pirates vs. Cubs: No Time For Silliness, Dr. Jones

By Sam Fels July 12, 2019 1162 0

vs.

RECORDS: Pirates 44-45 Cubs 47-43

GAMETIMES: Friday-Sunday 1:20

TV: NBCSN Friday, WGN Saturday, ABC 7 Sunday

CANDELARIA’S CADRE: Bucs Dugout

PITCHING MATCHUPS

Chris Archer vs. Yu Darvish

Jordan Lyles vs. Jon Lester

Trevor Williams vs. Jose Quintana

PROBABLE PIRATES LINEUP

Adam Frazier – 2B

Bryan Reynolds – LF

Starling Marte – CF

Josh Bell – 1B

Melky Cabrera – RF

Colin Moran – 3B

Kevin Newman – SS

Jacob Stallings – C

PROBABLE CUBS LINEUP

Kyle Schwarber – LF

Javier Baez – SS

Kris Bryant – 3B

Anthony Rizzo – 1B

Victor Caratini – C

Jason Heyward – RF

Robel Garcia – 2B

Albert Almora Jr. – CF

The Cubs begin the post-break schedule, hoping the rest and now shorter half of the slate will rouse them from their season-long slumber/malaise/absence of give-a-fuck. Perhaps the sight of the team their manager is trying to drum up a rivalry with out of nothing will act as the greenie they need.

And that will be the main story for the weekend, whether the Pirates and Cubs get into more mishegas about pitches inside and whether or not they are throwing at each other. Maddon was clearly trying to get some jump from his team with his theatrics over the July 4th holiday, but his team certainly needed it. There’s no question that Clin Turtle is something of a red-ass, and the Pirates do seem to find themselves in the middle of these more often than other teams. They’ve already been in it with the Cubs and Reds this year, and other teams had something to say.

You’d like to think the Cubs have bigger fish to fry. They’ve dicked around all season and yet find themselves in first, but they can’t expect the Brewers and even Cardinals to keep their head inserted in their rectum for the rest of the year either. It would seem over the top to try and get your manager fired by missing out on the playoffs by open lengths, and if the Cubs were going to make that move anyway they would have done it this week. So Maddon and his team are stuck together, if indeed that’s what it is, so they might as well get on with it.

To the more important stuff. There was a moment there when Yu Darvish looked like he might be turning a corner, probably around when he struck out 10 Dodgers. But he hasn’t put in a quality start in the three since then, though he hasn’t gotten shelled in that badly in any of them either. The Cubs need him to start putting up quality starts again. From there it’ll be Lester and Quintana, and you know the story with them.

But really, it’ll be about whether or not the Cubs get hits when they need them, and can they find any reliever who can keep them in the game when they’re behind. A couple more hits and they at least split with the Pirates last week and take both of the games from the Sox. When they can line up Kintzler-Strop-Kimbrel you feel pretty good. But when trailing by a run and they have to roll out whatever’s left of Cishek and doofus-du-jour, they have problems. And they’ll have to solve them.

Thanks to a more than functional staff and Josh Bell, the Pirates are still in this (along with the Cubs and Brewers’ incompetence). With Reynolds and Newman joining the lineup, they’ve become uber-annoying for pitchers to navigate. But it’s enough of that, the Cubs just have to start beating whoever is front of them now, no excuses. Even if that starts with they highly tedious Pirates and Reds on this homestand.

Leave the bean-ball nonsense behind. The real work is at hand. Onwards…

Baseball

Pirates Spotlight: Josh Bell Got The Ill Communication

By Sam Fels July 12, 2019 1284 0

As Josh Bell turns the National League into ash and dust, it’s important to remember that he was always projected for this. Of all the prospects the Bucs have debuted over the years–Marte, Polanco, Meadows, one or two others–Bell was the one with the most hype when he arrived. He never really showed this kind of power, but this kind of average was the thought.

A year before his call-up, Bell tore AAA apart in 35 games at just 22-years-old. He hit .347 and slugged .501 in that brief stint, and then backed that up when he started the ’16 season in AAA with .295/.382/.468 in 114 games. That earned him a call-up for the end of the season in Pittsburgh, as they tried to salvage whatever they could from the wreckage that Jake Arrieta and Kyle Schwarber had wrought the previous October.

Bell’s first full season in the majors wasn’t bad. He popped 26 homers, while maintaining plus-walk and strikeout rates. But other than walking a bunch and those homers, he didn’t do much else, hitting only .255 which kept his on-base down. And that was basically the story last season, though Bell only managed 12 homers.

Clearly, things have changed this year. And it probably has to do with Bell’s new “GRIP IT AND RIP IT” attitude at the plate.

Bell is swinging at 5% more pitches outside the zone, a whopping 13% more pitches inside the zone, and overall has increased his swing-rate 7% more to nearly 50%. It’s led to more swinging strikes than at any point in his four seasons at The Confluence, but no one seems to care as long as it comes with the very loud noises he produces. You can accept strikeouts when you’re providing souvenirs a good portion of the time.

To go along with that, Bell is pulling the ball more than ever. Last year he only pulled about a third of his contact. This year’s it’s 43%, more than his rookie year when he had those 26 homers, and now he’s got 27 with 73 games to go. That’s also seen his hard-contact rate at nearly 50%, and that’s from either side of the plate.

The selling out to yank anything into the river at PNC has made a difference in where pitchers can go. You used to be able to go inside and high in the zone to Bell. No more:

You would think being this swing-happy and pull-happy (so happy!) would leave Bell vulnerable to breaking pitches. But the big improvement in his game is his work on curves and sliders. For his career he hits .233 and .216 on them respectively. This year it’s .400 and .308. It used to be that you could get Bell on breaking pitches in the zone, but that’s not the case anymore. He’s not missing them, and you see the destruction he has wrought so far.

Physically, Bell has calmed down some ticks and triggers in his swing, which he always seems to be changing his first couple dances in the majors. Ben Clemens in May at Fangraphs had a pretty good breakdown of it, but the nutshell is that Bell is keeping his feet straight instead of an open stance and just being calm before the pitch.

All of it has made Bell one of the more feared sluggers in the NL, and he certainly looks the part looming over the plate with his 6-4 frame. So basically Bell can look forward to being the next Pirates star to be shipped out for peanuts before Bob Nutting has to actually spend any money. Good times.

Hockey

Summer Doldrums – Projecting How the Blackhawks Will Do This Year

By John Pullega July 11, 2019 2340 0

An active first two days of the week with the Dach signing on Monday and the curious-at-best Jokiharju trade Tuesday. The Hawks still haven’t traded Artem Anisimov, and I guess that that’s not horribly urgent, but it would make more sense if they did than if they didn’t. It might be hard for the Hawks to find a trading partner for a plodding third-line center with a $4.55 million per cap hit for the next two years who’s wide dicked his way into 20 goals three times in the past four years. But then again, Brandon Motherfucking Manning DID get a two-year deal for seven figures only to be traded and demoted last year, so I guess anything is possible. BUT THAT’S NOT WHY YOU CALLED.

Because summer is categorically the worst season of the year, we’re left thinking about all the ways Chicago hockey can either surprise us or go entirely ass up this fall. We’ve done a lot of looking at the ass-up side of things, so maybe we can try to look at potential positives for your 2019–20 Chicago Blackhawks.

We like to lean on advanced stats to make points about why guys who seem underwhelming really aren’t (Brandon Saad) and to bitch about why guys who suck shouldn’t be getting the praise they do (Duncan Keith over the last two years). That’s what we’re going to do for this little exercise, because it’s only fair, and on the off chance that if Pierre McGuire ever reads this his stupid bald head might simply evaporate from his meek and mealy body.

Earlier this week, Sean Tierney (@ChartingHockey) posted a projection model, which you can play around with yourself (phrasing). The model uses WAR (wins above replacement) data from Evolving Wild (@EvolvingWild) and prospect data from Manny Perry (@mannyelk). In short, the model tries to predict a team’s full-season WAR based on different line, pairing, and goalie combinations. It also tries to predict how many points teams might get in the standings based on those lineups.

You bet your ass I played around with shit.

There are countless ways to guess at how the lineup for Beto O’Colliton will shake out. So I compared three potential lineups for the Hawks. I used Scott Powers’s most recent projections for the first one. I used my own projections for the second. And I used what I think would be an ideal lineup, based on the Hawks’s current roster, for the third. As you’ll see, this model gives a ton of room for hope, even if some restrictions apply. I used all the default TOI% projections for forwards and D-men, and adjusted the goalie splits to 50/50 instead of 70/30.

The Powers Projection

For this projection, I used Scott Powers’s most recent predictions for how the lines would shake out. He’s in the know, he’s trustworthy, so this is as good a place to start as any.

The first thing you might notice is that the Hawks project to end up with about 99 points in the standings with the Powers projection. That’s pretty good. In fact, that’s playoff good for last year. Colorado, Vegas, Dallas, and Columbus all made the playoffs with fewer points last year. Winnipeg, Carolina, and St. Louis all made it with 99 points.

There are a few caveats to this projection (and all of them, really).

The first is that we assume that the Bird Boys split time in net perfectly evenly. We’re doing this because that’s the feeling we get about what will happen based on the reports we read and on Crow’s injury history of late. With a perfectly even split, the model prefers Robin Lehner to Crow, likely based on Crow’s relatively poor overall stats over the past two years caused by various head injuries and historically bad defense. Interestingly, the model projects that if Lehner were to get up to 70% of the starts, his ProjFSW climbs all the way up to 8.2. This makes sense, since other than his one dry heave in Buffalo in 2017–18, Lehner’s looked as good or better than Crow statistically over the last four years. In fact, they both have a .918 SV% on their career. So if the end is nigh for Crow, Lehner is a solid—if not better—replacement for him on the ice, even if he is a shithead.

The second assumption is that Dominik Kabulik produces like Dominik Kahun did. Kabulik wasn’t available in this model, so I used Kahun as a stand-in, since Kahun’s 37 points and 0.8 WAR seem entirely conceivable for Kabulik to hit, based on how well the Hawks scout European players.

The Powers projection shows that the Lehner signing could be the difference maker for this team (if we get the version from last year at least) and that if the Hawks are truly committed to playing Seabrook on the third pairing, it will only be a disaster, rather than an unmitigated disaster. As constructed by Powers, this team could make the playoffs if everything goes perfectly.

The Pullega Projection

In this version of reality, we roll with what I think the Hawks will do, based solely on instinct and what I’ve read. Again, pretend Kabulik gives you Kahun numbers coming up. With the recent trade of my sweet boy Henri Jokiharju, it’s much more likely that Brent Seabrook plays more minutes than he should on the second pairing, because more grind something something. That’s also why I think we’ll see Shaw start out on the top line with Toews and Saad, even though Shaw is a better fit on the third line. I’d be surprised if Colliton throws Kabulik on the top line, but then again. With this projected lineup, if everything goes perfectly, the Hawks project to get 95 points, which makes them a bubble team.

The Ideal Projection

So as I was writing this, Bowman traded Jokiharju, which is an incredibly stupid move given the context of the Hawks’s situation (i.e., the defense is an atrocity and Harju was decent at worst last year. Get red-assed with me here.) This definitely means that the Seabrook playings will continue until morale improves. But just for the hell of it, I plugged in Adam Boqvist. With this lineup, the Hawks project to be a 104-point team, which likely puts them in the playoffs pretty easily.

But as with all ideals, everything has to break perfectly. Kirby Dach has to stay and be good, and there’s no indication that he’ll stay regardless. Shit, Harju got traded for William Nylander’s younger, dumber, lazier younger brother—in what might be Stan’s most meta “getting the band back together” moment ever (Nylander’s father played for the Hawks for a few years in the late 90s–early aughts)—after being the best D-man on the team (small sample sizes be damned) just the other day. And having Boqvist play definitely shuts Seabrook out, which isn’t going to happen, maybe not even after Seabrook’s contract expires. Finally, this model really likes Olli Maatta, which may goose the projections a bit, but that might be confirmation bias on my part. If Maatta’s as good as the projections say, there’s hope with this ideal.

Projections can be fun, but they require a lot of things to go perfectly. And outside the de Haan trade, assuming his shoulder heals nicely and quickly, it’d be really hard to describe this offseason as anything even close to perfect. But we’re trying to be positive, for a change if nothing else.

In all, the forwards project to be good, just like last year. The goaltending projects to be better because of Lehner falling into their laps. And the defense has shown improvement, but we’re still skeptical about a lot of things, particularly de Haan and Maatta’s health, Maatta’s mobility, and the ever-present living eclipse that is Brent Seabrook.

The projections are kind. We can hope the reality reflects it.

Hockey

This Damn Compass Is Broken And We Don’t Know Where We’re Going

By Adam Hess July 10, 2019 2852 0

Recently I have been reading The MVP Machine, a pretty interesting book about player development in baseball. The opening chapter delves into how the famous Moneyball story led to just about every team in baseball adopting a similar strategy in an effort to build their teams more intelligently. At one point they quote baseball analyst Phil Brinbaum, who once said, “You gain more by not being stupid than you do by being smart.” This quote stuck out to me as one that could apply far more to hockey than baseball, as there are far more GMs in hockey that work themselves into bad situations simply by being stupid rather than helping themselves out by being smart.

And lately Stan Bowman has been pretty fucking stupid.

Heading into this offseason, you would’ve been forgiven if you thought that Bowman’s shopping list was simultanesouly small and difficult to fulfill. Primarily, the Blackhawks were (read: still are) in need of at least two defensemen who could handle at least a top-4 assignment, or at least one or two who could play a much more competent third pair game than Slater Koekkoek and Gustav Forsling. They also could’ve used a more reliable backup/1A goalie, and maybe some forward depth or a top-six guy if they were lucky and the cost was right, but given that they were 8th in the NHL in goals scored but 30th in goals allowed last year, the defense clearly needed far more attention. So let’s call this shopping list: two defensemen, a goalie, and one or two versatile forwards.

On paper, you could easily say they’ve checked off this list. They traded for Calvin DeHann, Olli Maatta, and Andrew Shaw, and signed Robin Lehner and Ryan Carpenter in free agency. But if you’ve been paying attention, you know that even though this group consists of two defensemen, a goalie, and two versatile (used loosely) forwards, the Hawks have done very little to actually move the needle. Maatta stinks, DeHaan could be fine but might only have one shoulder, and neither of them bring anything of value in the puck-moving department which this team also desperately needed and still needs. Lehner could be a great signing, but he’s also been streaky in his career and no one will blame you if you feel icky about him given his politics. Carpenter’s contract bring almost no risk, but he’s a nothing forward and is supposed to be the PK savior apparently even though he was Vegas’ worst penalty killer. We already know Shaw sucks ass, and if you don’t think his 2018-19 production was a fluke I have a bridge to sell you.

A lot of the justification for moves like the above were that Bowman and Coach Cool Youth Pastor apparently thought this team lacked #grit and #toughness. We had “anonymous scouts” telling us that Shaw’s brand of bullshit was fine because of his contract, which it isn’t, and his contract is too much for his role. Maybe it’s the same anonymous scout that thought Top Cat was a 20-goal-max player.

But among all of this, the Hawks passed on a widely-consiered sure thing future 1D in Bowen Byram in favor of skilled but flawed center Kirby Dach at #3 overall. And then there was Tuesday when they went and traded Henri Jokiharju for Alex Nylander. The justification for these moves, both from the Hawks and from some analysts evaluating the trade, was that the Hawks are a team that likes to bet on skill even when there are question marks. And look, in some ways that is true – they did it with guys like Saad, Top Cat, and Strome, and those have all worked out well enough. There are other examples that didn’t work, too, but overall betting on skill is the correct approach, especially in the modern age of hockey.

The problem is that passing on Byram for Dach and trading Jokiharju for Nylander both represent the same mistake – passing on/getting rid of promising defensemen in order to bet on those skilled but flawed forwards. And when you have a giant pile of the Mind Flayer’s melted flesh legions on your blue line, you’re hardly in a position to do that, regardless of how you feel about Boqvist, Mitchell, Beaudin, etc.

But the real issue is that the moves in the Maatta/DeHann/Shaw vein and the moves in the Dach/Nylander vein are contradictory. It makes very little sense to simultaneously load your team up with grinders while also betting on skilled young players, because the best way to help those young players is to surround them with other skilled players. Only a maximum of four players at a time can play with Kane and Toews, and other than those two there are very few skilled veterans on this roster that can truly elevate the talent around them. Dach might not be in the NHL this year, but the Hawks should at least plan for scenarios where he is. If Nylander isn’t, the trade looks even worse. And if both of those guys end up on the roster, you can’t really construct a lineup that maximizes their help without ending up with someone on a third line who should be much higher.

All of this is indicative of a very real and very large problem on Madison St. The Blackhawks have no clue what they are doing. They admitted it earlier this year and then again after they signed Lehner – they don’t have a plan, they’re just flying by the seat of their pants and hoping it works out. They can tell us until they’re blue in the face that they’ve like Maatta and Nylander for years. They can tell us they wanted De Haan last year (if that was the case why did you not sign him instead of Brandon Fucking Manning?). There is zero reason to believe any of it is true, or that it is anything more than lip service. They are a team without a direction, and they keep making it harder on themselves to find one.

Faxes from Uncle Dale

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