Baseball

Indians Spotlight: All The People That Died Died Are Jose Ramirez

By Sam Fels 1259 0

To give you some idea that the NL MVP debate last year was kind of silly, Jose Ramirez had a season that completely dusted both Christian Yelich and Javier Baez, but didn’t come close to getting the award in the American League thanks to Mookie Betts and Mike Trout being alive and playing there. And Ramirez did that even though he stopped being counted among the living somewhere in August ’18. Sadly for the Tribe, he hasn’t located the Village Of The Oxygen Breathing again this year either.

The fact that Ramirez put up an 8.0 fWAR season last year despite going into the tank for the last six-to-eight weeks clues one in  just how good he was before. Going by just the first half, JR went .302/.401/.628 for an OPS of 1.028. That’s alien type stuff, and at just 25 he and Lindor looked set to anchor the right side of the Cleveland infield from here until the Earth melts (like, literally. It’s not that long and they could easily play until then).

But something happened in August, and Ramirez has yet to recover. He hit .245 last August, and then .174 in September. He just stopped hitting line drives, or the ball hard at all. Where did it all go?

There doesn’t seem to be one answer. Did pitchers start treating him differently? Yes, that’s for sure. Ramirez definitely saw significantly less fastballs in the season’s last two months, and last year those were replaced by change-ups and splitters and various other offerings that are considered “off-speed.” Combined with sliders and curves, basically not-fastballs, pitchers found something to exploit. In the season’s last eight weeks last year, Ramirez hit .083 on sliders, .115 on curves, and a Blutarski-like .000 on splits.

Ramirez has seen just about the same diet starting this year, and looks to have come in prepared for that. His batting averages on splits, curves, and sliders are all above .280. He hasn’t really hit them for a ton of power, but it hasn’t been embarrassing. But now he’s hitting .141 on fastballs. He’s popping up more fastballs by far than he did last year, which lets you know he’s behind. So in a sense, it looks like Ramirez has been caught in between for four months spreading over two seasons. Which is really hard to do.

Injury has to be a part of it though, doesn’t it? Ramirez did hurt his knee at the end of spring training this year, and it was later claimed it wasn’t serious. But can this trainwreck be explained by a completely healthy body?

Because the contact Ramirez has been making has been declining as well. Last year in July, Ramirez’s average exit velocity on fastballs was 90.6. In August it was 88.1. In September it was 86.5, which honestly is Heyward-like. This year started out back at over 90 MPH on fastballs in April, but has sunk back down to 87.5 in May. Offspeed pitches are on the same downward trajectory, whereas his force on breaking pitches (sliders and curves) is actually trending up. It’s clear what he’s sitting on, but it’s leaving him vulnerable to fastballs and pitches that are supposed to look like fastballs until they aren’t.

It makes yet another question for the Tribe, who very well might be facing blowing it all up at the trade deadline. The offense is a puddle. the outfield is a mess, they’re already 9.5 games behind the Twins, and Corey Kluber and Mike Clevinger are already on the shelf. Ramirez is remarkably cheap, signing an extension $40M over the next four seasons and that’s if the two team options at the end are exercised. He’s only 26, and this can’t be forever, right? That contract certainly buys Cleveland a bunch of time to let him figure it out…or makes him awfully attractive for a team that thinks it can reclaim the soul he lost.

Clearly the Indians aren’t going anywhere (nor my fantasy team) if Ramirez doesn’t ever hit again. Can you rebuild around the guy who had a major hand in putting you in the rebuilding spot in the first place?

Everything Else

Stanley Cup Final Game 2 Recap – Oh For F–k’s Sake

By Sam Fels 1901 0

I suppose on a day when yet another professional sports team gets in bed with BarfStool it’s only right they get their dicks kicked in at home, which is essentially what the Bruins did despite the game going to overtime. This series is certainly make everyone taste their own bile, with the Bruins off the ice and the Blues on it, but here we are and now the Blues have won a Final game for the first time and nothing feels right and pretty much everything sucks. They should just cancel this thing tomorrow and the overwhelming majority of people would be happy.

I guess I have to clean it up.

-The Bruins aren’t going to win many games, if any, when their top line is getting turned over by the other team’s top line. Which is exactly what happened last night, as Schenn-Swartz-Tarasenko turned that trick. Not helping the cause at all, and the one thing we pointed out the Bruins had to do from Game 1 to 2, was sending out Zdeno Chara behind Bergeron to deal with that threat, because he isn’t up for it. Check out Tarasenko’s goal for further proof if you need, where he looked like your elderly neighbor trying to get a weed out of the yard. It’s trickier after Grzelcyk got hurt and the Bs were down to five D and still only gave Clifton 16 minutes, but you know you’ve got a matchup wrong when the other team is going to go running for it when they get the home ice on Saturday. And you can bet your ass St. Louis will. If Chara ever starts a shift anywhere but the offensive zone, fire Bruce Cassidy into the nearest landfill, which in St. Louis is always right down the block.

-Torey Krug is the only blue-liner to come out with any credit and in the black possession-wise for Boston, and that’s mostly because he’s already driven the Blues into frothing madness and they spend his entire shift trying to hunt him down like it was a fox hunt. This will only get worse in front of the braying rabble and their truck nuts, and the Bruins will score off a rush through that space at least once.

-To pin it all on Chara and the Bs ineptness isn’t fair. I thought the Blues would have to step back and basically trap, and they did so at times. They also were able to turn up the volume on their forecheck, which you can do once or twice but not convinced for a whole series. If anything, the rust everyone was worried about looked like it was more present in Game 2 as adrenaline got the Bruins through Game 1. They definitely looked too relaxed at points and it was no match for the fury of the other group.

-David Krejci showing up at some point would be nice.

-Schwartz threw up a 78% Corsi and an 81% xGF% going out there against Chara, if you’d like to know the scope of the problem here.

-Tuukka Rask made some of his own messes last night, as his rebound control was less than stellar. It prolongated too many Blues possessions and the overtime winner, though on a delayed call, was an example of something that could have been smothered earlier.

-Curious to see what Anointed Genius Berube does Saturday, as Pietrangelo was used exclusively in the offensive zone last night. If they’re going to choose to send Parayko and Edmundson at Bergeron every shift in St. Louis, I think that will go well for those of us who want this to be over quickly.

-Oskar Sundqvist’s hit was bad, I don’t know if it’s suspension bad but then again if you’re trying to eliminate this thing from hockey it has to be. There was never a point where he didn’t see Grzelcyk’s numbers, it was also late and useless, and the NHL is going to have to start erring on the side of harsh instead of lenient if it ever truly wants change. Which it probably doesn’t.

-Sammy Blais doesn’t do anything but run around like an idiot and get knocked on his ass. What a perfect representation of everything it is to be a Blue. He’s Tom Wilson without any of the whimsy.

Let’s just hope that was a one game belch.

Baseball

Series Wrap – Sox Sweep Royals: KC Trash Edition

By Andy Jonathan 1332 0

 

Game 1 Box: Sox 2, Royals 1

Game 2 Box: Sox 4, Royals 3

Game 3 Box: Sox 8, Royals 7

 

 

The Sox managed to sweep a moribund KC team this week with some excellent Giolito pitching, solid offense in games 2 and 3, and a little help from Mother Nature in game one.  What does it all mean?  In the grand scheme of this season, not a whole hell of a lot.  The Royals are intentionally bad, with not much in their future that’s going to change the situation (unless watching Billy Hamilton bat .185 is your thing), and the Sox are 3 starters away from having an average MLB rotation.  That being said, the series was pretty fun, with some added spiciness tonight to add to an already simmering Hate Stew for these two teams.

 

TO THE BULLETS

 

-RIGHT TO THE SPICE!  With Tim Anderson missing the first two games because of a sore wrist, it looked like we might not get a continuation of the shenanigans that occurred the last time these two teams met.  That ended up not being the case, as Tim was in the lineup tonight and the first pitch from Glenn Sparkman sailed right over Timmy’s eyebrows and off the visor of his batting helmet.  Granted this was probably not an intentional pitch (it was a changeup that Sparkman lost the grip on and not a 4 seamer), but with the officiating crew well aware of the dumb shit that went down a few weeks ago, home plate ump Mark Carlson wasted no time sending the moon faced Sparkman to the showers.  This prompted Ned Yost to stop digging in the dugout trash long enough to come out and vomit some old timey coachins on home plate, but Carlson was not to be swayed.  Much to Anderson’s credit he kept his cool and walked down to first, later to get the last laugh in the bottom of the 8th, when he laced a double off a good Ian Kennedy slider to put the Sox ahead for good.

 

-Timmy shouldn’t have had to be so heroic however, but the continued mismanagement of the pitching staff by Renteria lead to the Sox blowing a 7-1 lead.  Going into the 6th, it was pretty clear that Rey Lopez was running out of gas.  That combined with the dreaded 3rd time through the order lead to him being charged with 4 runs in the inning.  Lopez ended up going 5.2 and throwing 118 pitches, 32 of which came in the 6th when it was clear he didn’t have it anymore.  Jace Fry and Marshall came in and performed admirably, but then it was KHT (Kelvin Herrera Time) and all of a sudden the game was tied.  It wouldn’t shock me to see Herrera on the IL here shortly, as he hasn’t been right since he tweaked his back awhile ago.

 

-Alex Colome had himself a heck of a series, getting the win in the continuation of game one yesterday, then getting the save later that night.  Tonight he was called on again to close out the win as well, pitching a solid 9th for his 11th save of the year.  With the emergence of James McCannonballs as a legit (at least for now) backstop, the trade that brought Colome here can be viewed as one of Hahn’s better moves in the past few offseasons.

 

-Lucas Giolito is now officially A THING.  It looked like his start against the Astros might have been a mirage if you watched the 1st inning in game two.  He started out pretty wild, walking one and plunking one, then giving up a bomb to Alex “Soul Stone” Gordon.  After that shot, Gio pulled his shit together and mowed the Royals down for the next 7 innings, never throwing more than 16 pitches in an inning.  His changeup is a thing of beauty, and his fastball has some pretty hilarious movement on it.  Top that off with 2 more offspeed pitches and he looks like a legitimate “top of the rotation” kinda guy.  To think this time last year I watched him give up 8 runs in 1.2 innings to a god awful Orioles team.  It’s a very welcome change.

 

-Jose Abreu and Yoan Moncada are hitting for power again!  They’re both still striking out too much, but I have a feeling once the weather settles into a warm pattern those folks sitting in the first 10 rows of the OF need to pay attention.  Moncada’s dinger tonight was also opposite field, which is awesome to see him taking what the pitcher is giving him.

 

-Eloy is still seeing nothing but a steady diet of sliders and curveballs.  When he gets his eyes timed with his wrists he’s gonna be right back to murdering the ball, mark my words.

 

-Leury Garcia started out the year with a brutal stretch, but over the past few weeks has turned things around completely.  He’s a Marwin Gonzalez-type player, with value all over the diamond and can also provide a little offense.  His robbery of Jorge Soler tonight was a well-timed thing of beauty, resulting in Soler tipping his cap to the diminutive center fielder.  I still don’t care for him leading off, but you can do a lot worse than him right now.

 

-Yonder Alonso is now batting .172, which is exactly what you want out of your fucking cleanup hitter.  /wanking motion.

 

-Next up is a 4 game series with the Tribe, with 3 of those starts featuring some form of Banuelos, Covey or Nova.  I’m sure Jose Ramierez will be hitting .340 by Monday.

 

 

 

Baseball

Series Wrap – Cubs Lose Two Of Three To Astros: Below Class

By Sam Fels 1227 0

Game 1 Box Score: Astros 6, Cubs 5

Game 2 Box Score: Astros 9, Cubs 6

Game 3 Box Score: Cubs 2, Astros 1

Earlier today, Sahadev Sharma on The Athletic wrote a piece about the contrast about how the Astros pitching staff, rotation and pen, is built on missing bats and striking everyone out, and the Cubs is built on soft contact and grounders. And he stated how the difference was the ‘Stros “outclassing” the Cubs. Which I objected to at first, because hey, the Cubs could have easily won both of the first games and once they revamp the pen later in the year they’ll be more set to do that.

But then you remember the Astros were running out the B-team, and it feels a lot more apt. No Springer, no Altuve, no Correa, missing Verlander, and you realize the Cubs didn’t come close to seeing the real force of this team. Which hurts. Maybe it’s a bad stretch, and doesn’t mean anything. That’s generally how baseball works. And did we learn anything new? The Cubs offense is good, but when the rotation goes odd colors in the sun the pen isn’t anywhere near in a condition to pick up the slack. You knew that going in.

But hey, there’s Kyle Hendricks.

Let’s clean it up:

The Two Obs

-Let’s get it out at the top. I am heavily tempted to blame the lack of netting from foul pole to foul pole on the richest, asshole-iest customers who would say something like, “Well I pay the most money so I don’t want a net in my view!” for the kind of abomination that Albert Almora, and really both teams as a whole, had to go through tonight. But the thing is, if that kind of thing had been stated by season ticket holders in the first few rows, or corporate entities as they mostly are today, I feel like we’d have heard more about it. I think this is something ticketing departments around the league assume would happen but really don’t that often.

I know there are plenty of industries where it takes a disaster for things that seem so simple to change actually to change. I can’t say hockey got this right, because it took a little girl dying for them to do so. But with the netting behind the nets in hockey arenas, it’s the same reaction as the extended version in parks now. You walk in, see it, and say, “Oh, that’s new.” Then you sit down and don’t notice any difference in the view you had before after two minutes. My season tickets at the UC for the Hawks has been behind the netting, and I’m in the 300 Level where I would be in next to no danger without it. I’ve never noticed it making any difference in my viewing experience, and I honestly only think about it when something like this happens.

If there’s honestly any collection of ticket holder who throws a bitch at the idea of netting in front of him (and I’m sure it’s a male if they exist), do us all a favor and put cayenne pepper on his balls and leave the rest of us alone. Players have been screaming for this for decades now, and it’s specifically so they don’t have to go through what Almora went through tonight. Think about why this happened, and how truly stupid it is at its base level, and then wonder about how anyone goes about their day.

-All right, to the baseball. We’ve been through Hamels and Lester’s problems already, which makes it all the more impressive that Hendricks stood there and turned everything away in a place where every baseball looked like a Top Flite. The Cerebral Assassin has been sprinkling in his curve more and more as the season has gone on, and tonight he dropped his coup-de-grace when he put Marisnick down in the 7th with two on and two out on an 0-2 count. He’s never thrown that pitch in a big situation before, and if this is a new thing he can count on…well, the mind reels. It’s time Cubs fans accept that if the Cubs don’t have an ace. Hendricks is as close as they’ll get right now. He’s the stopper for sure.

-Javier Baez had a rough series, and he’s going through that phase where he’s pulling off everything. It’s frustrating to watch, because when he was leading the league in opposite field hits and homers he’s been an MVP candidate. So why try to pull everything?

-I’ve had enough of Alex Bregman, thanks.

-While I wasn’t looking, Addison Russell suddenly has representative offensive numbers. It doesn’t make anything ok, but as we live in a world where Daniel Descalso died, Russell probably is gong to get the majority of starts at second now.

-Unless David Bote can, who might actually be a major leaguer which I never would have guessed.

-Brad Brach is not going to happen.

-Me, I’m pounding Dillon Maples until it works. Because he’s my guy, he’s got the best stuff, and this is his now-or-never. He either gets it now or he’ll never. Fuck, Chatwood got there, maybe, right?

Onwards…

Baseball

Let’s Try And Feel Better About Jon Lester…And Probably Fail

By Sam Fels 1231 0

Ok, so it was less than a month ago that I was writing about being hopeful about Jon Lester. I never said I would ever make sense or be consistent. Lester might have said he would be, in some ways, but I’m just following him. Also, wasn’t it just yesterday I was here trying to make myself and maybe one or two others feel better about Hamels’s last three starts? This one is a little more dispiriting, as Lester had the Astros’ B-team lineup in front of him last night and still gave up seven runs. I was particularly galled in the 6th, with the Cubs have clawed back into the game, Lester wouldn’t give in to Derek Fisher ahead of Alex Bregman, clearly the biggest weapon the Astros had last night. I know Lester’s whole thing is that he never “gives in,” that “giving in” is for weaklings, and “giving in” is what’s ruining this country and whatever else. Still, it’s your last batter of the game, and it’s Derek Fisher. I’m finding out what he can do instead of what whatever clown comes out of the pen can do against Bregman (which took one pitch to find out and the conclusion wasn’t good).

Much like Hamels, Lester’s last three starts have been bad. 14 innings combined, 16 earned runs, four homers, 25 hits. That’s a whole lot of woof. When we last looked at this, we noted that Lester’s BABIP on the season was a hilariously low .231. Well, now it’s .333, which is also way above his career-average. The last three starts, that number is .411. That’s not just a violent market correction. That’s a market correction that is zippering open your chest and feasting on your liver nightly.

But it’s not like some or most of that isn’t deserved. If Lester qualified through innings, he’d had the third-highest hard-contact rate against right now. That’s not necessarily a death-sentence, as the one right behind him is one Madison Bumgarner, and he’s having at least a respectable season. Though Bumgarner also resides at Oracle Park, which requires a bazooka to get a ball out of most nights. Shane Bieber, Cleveland’s hot new thing, is also around this mark, and he’s got a 3.11 ERA that’s real. So does Robbie Ray, but both ray and Bieber strike out more hitters than Lester does. Still, it’s much higher than it’s ever been and that’s worth worrying about.

We also noted in that last post that Lester has gone to his cutter far more this season, and is trying to use it on both sides of the plate instead of just in on the hands of righties. It hasn’t always worked, and the last three starts…well…

Lester has gone away from using the outside corner with his cutter the last three starts, and when he hasn’t gotten it low and inside, he’s getting murdered. Lester has decreased the use of his cutter the last three starts, upping the use of his change and fastball. But the fastball hasn’t been doing much better, with a .571 slugging against in those three starts. He’s also getting next to now whiffs on it.

Lester had made reference to Sahadev Sharma in The Athletic that he just feels off, and this searching for a release point the past three starts speaks to that a bit:

On the plus side, Lester’s velocity has been climbing a bit in the past few starts. On the downside, it’s still down overall this year. It might just be that Lester doesn’t throw hard enough anymore to miss his spot at all, and that righties seem to be getting to fastballs off the plate inside suggest that.

We’ll have to see what Lester does in the next few starts to change, whether that’s more cutters trying to nick the outside corner or junking it up a bit with curves and changes. The Cubs are going to need something.

Everything Else

Bettman’s Address Is Always Good At Saying Nothing

By Sam Fels 1676 0

I don’t expect to get much out of Gary Bettman press conferences. His address at the start of the Final is never quite like Roger Goodell’s at the Super Bowl, though he never says anything much ever either. Something about being a commissioner, you just have to be really good at saying nothing. Unless you’re Rob Manfred, and you end up saying the wrong thing a good portion of the time. But hey, better than Bud Selig… I think?

ANYWHO…

A good portion of Bettman’s presser was about replay, as apparently we’re supposed still be in a rage over Timo Meier’s hand-pass even though the Blues didn’t lose another game that series (like they were supposed to). Bettman hit all the right notes about “balance” and “pace and rhythm” of the game and such. But you know, the more I think about it, the more there is a limit to what you can review and how it might not be something that keeps expanding until infinity. Maybe.

One, I still pretty much think that the challenge system is ridiculous and far inferior to an additional official in a box with a bank of screens communicating with the refs on the ice via headset. However, the challenge system has kind of relegated the offsides review to the hail mary that it usually is. Coaches banking a delay of game penalty on it has kept them from just throwing any challenge out there and losing just a timeout. That really shouldn’t be discounted. As far as losing that timeout of goalie interference, well, one would actually have to define what goalie interference is and they haven’t gotten there yet.

Still, when it comes to goals, what are we really talking about here? Kicked in, goalie interference, crossed the line, high stick (which seemingly never gets called). Right now, that’s it. That doesn’t seem a huge scope of things that adding hand-passes and whether the puck went out of play before a goal would make this a mountain that a bunch of rich people will die on of possible reviews (Topical!). And the puck going out of play could probably mostly be solved with the nets above the glass being white instead of black, as the lighting in most arenas makes a ripple on a black net really hard to see but much easier on a white one.

That seems possible. Restrict it to hand-passes in the offensive zone and let’s go. All goals are reviewed anyway, we’ve already gotten accustomed to that. I still don’t know why all sports haven’t employed a 30-second limit on reviews (well, I know why the NFL did because they figured out they could cram in another ad or two). If I can tell on my couch after a look or two if something is clear or not, so can they.

As far as reviewing delay of game calls or shots to the head…again, a 30-second clock or simply a video ref radioing down without the need of the refs to go to a phone would solve a lot of this. Yes, NHL arenas can’t get loud but if European soccer refs can manage, so can NHL ones. But that would depend on how seriously the NHL wants to crack down on hits to the head.

I also still contend that moving one ref or both off the ice and to a perch above the glass would solve a lot, as they would spend no time protecting their face or trying to get out of the way of play and could actually watch the action full-time. But I’m not going to sit on a hot stove waiting for that one.

-Bettman also addressed the CBA, which is looming. I’ll give him that he doesn’t pin peace on the NHLPA exclusively, while still firing an opening salvo, saying that both sides have things they’d probably like to change but overall everyone is doing well.

For the most part, you’d have to say both sides are doing well. The owners have the 50-50 split they’ve craved. and players at the top of the chain are getting theirs. Young players, except for the truly elite, are still eating it, but that’s more a fight between players before it even gets to the owners.

So a couple simple things I would want the players to try and get without a lockout, as if there’s any hope of avoiding that. One is an NBA-style mid-level exception or two. It’s vets that are getting squeezed out by teams only concentrating on top end talent and then young, cheap talent. We see a raft of players on PTOs come training camp that really should have contracts. Something like $3-$4 million, or two $3M slots, for players that are over 27 or have seven years in the league or thereabouts.

Second, get rid of the cap recapture penalty. It was a stupid idea in the first place that I can’t believe the union went along with, and punished teams and players for what they did under a different system. It’ll open up flexibility for some teams, and end this ridiculous saga of players having to be on LTIR for four years or whatever that is just silly. Those are two things I would want, which wouldn’t break any owners.

Of course, the owners, if they were ever to agree to any of this, would want something in return. But fuck ’em. They’ve got enough.

Baseball

Why Is Hole Camels Getting His Whole Ass Kicked?

By Sam Fels 1840 0

When the PECOTA projections and others came out before the season and sent greater Cubdom into a Burning Man-like fit, a lot of what those systems saw was questions about the Cubs’ rotation. Well, not questions exactly, because computers don’t have questions they generate answers and this could turn into a philosophical debate that goes on forever about man and machine and that’s not really what we do here. ANYWHO, the Cubs starting rotation is definitely on the old side, definitely contains pitchers (other than Hendricks) who have had dips the past two years and who had peripherals that were a touch worrying.

These questions were basically not considered the first six weeks of the season, or the six weeks after the first one, where the Cubs rotation was probably the best in baseball and took the Cubs from 2-7 to multiple games up in the division. But now the Cubs have had a rough two weeks or so, a .500 road trip and a sub-.500 homestand before losing yesterday to the Astros (which tends to happen). There’s been an iffy couple trips through the rotation, which starts setting off alarm bells and if it doesn’t stop pretty soon will have bonfires and effigies and weird clothing in a desert somewhere (I’ve never been to Burning Man and don’t intend to, so I’m just going to have this very limited and comedic view of it).

Perhaps the most worrying part of the starting staff’s struggles of late is Cole Hamels. His past three starts have basically seen his nuts get kicked up into his throat. He’s only managed 13 innings, and in them he’s given up eight extra-base hits, 11 earned runs, nine walks against just 11 strikeouts, and 23 hits overall. That’s a 2.46 WHIP and a 7.61 ERA. So yeah, that’s not good. On the plus side, he remains extremely handsome.

So what’s been the issue? Clearly the control is something to be looked at, as Hamels had only walked 17 hitters in the previous 49 innings this season But we can go a little deeper.

On the plus side, Hamels hasn’t lost any velocity. His fastball has actually been at a higher MPH the past three starts than it was before, up over a 92.5 MPH average where it has been 91.2 in the three starts before. Hamels hasn’t seen any change in movement either, as no pitch has lost its drop or horizontal movement. His curve flattened out a little in his start against the Nats, but that was a one-off and has been where it has been all of the season for the most part.

There hasn’t been much of a change in usage, either. His last good start, against Milwaukee, he threw his fastball basically 70% of the time, but that was also an outlier and he’s been where he’s been all season, throwing it about just half the time.

But it’s the fastball/sinker where this issues seem to be. Or could be, if three starts are enough to go on. Check out his release point on his the fastball/sinker (which are basically the same thing for Hamels) over the course for the season:

Something of a dip, and his curve has seen the same though it was back to normal in Houston yesterday, it just didn’t get him saved from getting shelled.

Where does that result? Well, accuracy. Here’s where Hamels’s fastball was in his first eight starts of the season:

Pretty much in the strikezone, and when missing it was outside which is away from power for most righties. Basically zoning in on the outside corner, and when he did come inside it was low. Now the last three starts:

Whoops. All over the place, inside more than he’s been, not in the zone, and not surprisingly it’s inside and high in the zone where he’s getting mushed but good lately. It would seem the lower arm angle has cost him control and has led to pitches carrying inside and high to righties more often.

Once Hamels gets back to zeroing in on the outside corner again, or his arm-side corner, things should be fine. Let’s just hope he gets back there sooner than later.

 

Everything Else

From This Seat, It’s The Bruins You Should Look To

By Sam Fels 1733 0

Let’s make it clear up front: There’s nothing you should look to St. Louis for other than to make sure it’s in your rearview mirror. You can’t learn anything from sludge and drool, obviously. While I was one of many wishing the Hawks had shown the Blues’ urgency last summer, that doesn’t mean what the Blues are doing is necessarily a stable model. A hot four months with a goalie from nowhere doesn’t exactly project to sustained success and contending for baubles in the years to come. Especially with a blue line that’s getting older and couldn’t move in the first place. So it’s pieces like this from friend of the program Scott Powers that make be urpy. That doesn’t mean there aren’t things in there that are true, but the Hawks could learn a lot more from the Bruins, and that’s because they come from a much similar place. In fact, they almost come from the same one.

Cast your mind back to 2013, though it seems a lifetime ago now. It’s easy to forget just how much those two teams were alike and how much they shared the same platform. At that point, the Bruins were in their second Final in three years, the Hawks their second in four. Both had one championship. And considering how close that series was (it was inches away from a Game 7, it was inches away from a Bruins sweep, it was inches away from the Hawks winning in five, it basically could not have been any closer), they both came out of it a few sheets of paper’s distance away from each other.

And looking back and now, you could argue the same amount and quality of personnel threads each team from that time to today. Bergeron, Marchand, Chara, Rask don’t really look all  that different than Toews, Kane, Keith, and Crawford. There are margins, but the total wouldn’t be too much different. Add in Pastrnak for Boston, but we could add in DeBrincat for the Hawks and we’re still kind of the same.

So how did each get here exactly?

You know the Hawks went onto another conference Final and a Cup after that (agonizingly close to two Cups), but what you might have forgotten is that the Bruins were the Presidents’ Trophy winners in ’13-’14 and there were a good portion of people who thought we were headed for a Final rematch. The Bruins ran into Carey Price in Round 2, and also lost their minds, but that doesn’t detract from the fact they were one of, if not the, best team in the league that year. Between the two seasons the Bruins moved along Tyler Seguin, but for one season at least they had Jarome Iginla scoring 30 goals and Reilly Smith chipping in 20 to shield the idiocy of that trade. Torey Krug joined the blue line, and basically it was the ’13 team after that.

The Bs “collapse,” as it were, started the next season, while the Hawks were adding #3. And it was maybe for reasons you might recognize. Quite simply, Bergeron and Marchand didn’t score, combining for 97 points (a total Marchand passed himself this year and nearly did the previous two seasons). Trades the Bs had made started to not work out in delay, as Loui Eriksson was finished, the goals dried up for Smith. The defensive depth started to erode, as Boychuk was moved along for cap reasons and Seidenberg got old in a hurry. Some kids like Spooner and Pastrnak, in his rookie year, were not up to making up the difference yet. They would miss the playoffs.

And they would do so again the next season. Bergeron and Marchand were better, but not good enough. Dougie Hamilton was traded for literally nothing. Chara began to show his age, and the defensive depth behind him and Krug was simply nothing. There were no forwards beyond the top line. Rask was only ok.

The seeds were planted for what the Bruins are now the next year, when they racked up 95 points and returned to the playoffs, though they lost to that woeful Senators team being dragged by the dick by Erik Karlsson. But Pastrnak exploded onto the scene in his third year. Brandon Carlo made his debut. Charlie McAvoy debuted in the playoffs. That doesn’t mean there weren’t missteps in free agency or offseason, as I point to Backes, Beleskey, and Jimmy Hayes. But the roots were growing.

Over the past two seasons, the Bruins have brought in DeBrusk, Grzelcyk, and others that they turned into Coyle or Johansson or whoever else.

Now which looks more similar to the Hawks? The Bruins or Blues? Pretty obvious, no? The Bruins had an entrenched core that underperformed in some years (and if you don’t think Bergeron heard some of the same things that Toews did during his down years here then you’ve clearly never been to or read anything written out of Boston), but they held onto and filled in behind. They had a Hall of Fame d-man who could no longer dominate games, but the difference is that he eventually accepted his limited skills and role and let others take the bigger responsibilities. The Hawks haven’t gotten there yet.

And in essence, the Hawks are already in this process, it’s just that they started later than the Bruins did (as they should have) and their stars are going to be older when it’s all done. But the Hawks are loading up on mobile, skilled d-men with the hopes of relieving Keith of his duties in the next two years. All of whom are mobile and able to play with the puck, just as McAvoy, Krug, Carlo, and Grzelcyk can. There is already hope that they have some forwards to take secondary roles behind the main trio, if that trio can hold on for a few more years (also, Toews, Kane, and Top Cat are exactly the same age as Pastrnak, Marchand, and Bergeron combined).

The Bruins were in the wilderness for two to three years, depending on how you categorize that first-round exit. The Hawks definitely have been for two, and possibly three depending on how fluky you think that division winning team that got flattened in the first round was. While they thrashed about in some areas and definitely made their mistakes, eventually the Bruins waited around long enough to fill in behind their legends through their own system. The Hawks are now farther behind than the Bruins were, because they have pretty much nothing on defense at the top level. But they’re also on the same path.

Everything Else

Stanley Cup Final Game 1 Recap: Well That’s Reassuring

By Sam Fels 1520 0

As it’s the Final, we’ll give you actual recaps instead of the smartass quips we’ve specialized in the past couple months. They’ll just take a while because we have to stop throwing up first. 

If you’re watching this series while holding your nose and just hoping that it will end quickly, then last night is what you wanted. Yes, the Bruins were a bit rusty…for about 10 minutes. After that, everything we’ve thought about the Blues-their defense isn’t that good, Binnington has been fine but hardly spectacular, and the Bruins depth and star power is better–came to fruition. One game doesn’t a narrative make, but there is a lot more the Blues have to solve while the Bruins have just been doing what they have been and will only need to continue to do so. This was a complete ass-kicking for at least two-thirds of the game.

Let’s do some bullets.

The Two Obs

-You should never take anything Barry Melrose says seriously, and the biggest clue that ESPN doesn’t care about hockey is that he remains in their employ even though I don’t think he’s watched a game since 2001 (including his coaching stint), but he wasn’t the only one who was championing this series as something of a “return.” That’s only based on what the Blues only kind of are and the reputation the Bruins have even though they haven’t been that for years. But there was this idea both teams are big and bad and the idea of a lot of fast and nippy wingers with skill aren’t the way forward and that this was TRUE HOCKEY. Horseshit.

The Blues simply couldn’t handle the Bruins forecheck, because their defense is so goddamn slow. Their only d-man who can move is Vinnie Bag Of Donuts Dunn, and he’s hurt. There were turnovers galore early, which then had the Blues defense backing up at their line when the Bruins were carrying in trying to cheat to win the races down low later. Which only gave the speed the Bruins have at forward more space to the outside to carry the puck in and create, which led to the Blues never having the puck and having tire treads to remove from their chests this morning.

But the real differences in these teams, and one we’ll get to later today that the Hawks should be paying particular attention to, is the mobility of the Bruins defense. Chara was awful, the rest were very much not. McAvoy, Krug, Grzelcyk (especially), and Clifton are all at least mobile enough to open up a passing lane for themselves to evade the Blues forecheck, which has been pretty furious at times this spring. Or they just outright get away from them, and even when the Bruins are attacking the St. Lous line three-on-three or four-on-three, the Blues defense is backing up. You want to know why the Bruins dominate possession all season even beyond the Bergeron line? There you go.

-I saw a good portion of Blues Twitter saying, “We’ll be all right when we stop taking penalties.’ Because that’s a thing that’s happened the past 30 years.

–Jordan Binnington made over 30 saves, only the third time he’s had to do so this playoff run. But if the Bruins are going to toss 35 shots at him a night, this is what the Blues are going to get. 34 out of 37 saves is good. It’s not great, and that’s mostly what Binnington has done. It’ll have to be better than what the Bruins will get on the other side.

-The only unit for the Blues that wasn’t covered in their own piss by the end of the night was their top line of Schwartz-Schenn-Tarasenko, which got their two goals as well. The adjustment I would expect the Bruins to make is to get Chara out of that matchup, though it’s a risk to try it with Brandon Carlo and Torey Krug, given the latter’s defensive balloon-handedness. But Chara simply isn’t up to it and that much was clear, and you don’t want to be jumbling your pairs at this point.

For the Blues, playing this way of trying to trade forechecks is going to get them this. Their defense will get snowed in, the Bruins will get away from theirs, and they’ll spend the night chasing. It would seem their only option for Game 2 is to go Trotz and trap this up and make McAvoy and Krug weave through it. That would allow their slow d-men to back up at their line while still being protected and not leaving acres to the outside. Then they might have a chance of retrieving pucks and moving it along without getting clobbered. The more the Blues try to speed this up the more they’re going to get exposed.

Let’s hope for that, so we don’t have to be here long.

Everything Else

F*ck It Dude, Let’s Get P.K. Subban

By John Pullega 3484 0

Last week, The Maven brought up the idea of trading Brandon Saad. You should read the whole thing, but the SparkNotes version is that the Hawks might have as many as three forwards who can maybe do what Saad does for less money. This money will be important for re-signing Alex DeBrincat after next year.

While we’ve been hemming and hawing over how the Hawks need to make a legitimate run at Erik “My Crotch Is Itchy” Karlsson, it’s hard to picture the organization having the stomach to pay him the $12 million per over eight years he’ll probably ask for (and deserve). EK65 will always be the dream(boat), but you can see the Hawks balking, with DeBrincat and possibly Strome asking for the money the Hawks owe them in arrears for setting the world on fire.

With all that in mind, there are three things the Hawks should be looking to do this offseason:

1. Shore up the defense

2. Improve the penalty kill

3. Add a top-six forward

Shoring up the defense and improving the penalty kill are so far ahead of adding a top-six forward in my view that if the Hawks decided to trade Brandon Saad—who himself is a top-six winger, even if Beto O’Colliton thinks he was born for this third-line horseshit—to solve the first two problems, I wouldn’t even be mad.

I’ll stop edging you here.

Let’s offer Brandon Saad, Erik Gustafsson, and a pick/prospect for P.K. Subban.

How the FUCK Did You Come Up With That?

After the Preds were hilariously bounced from the playoffs much earlier than anticipated, the trade rumors around Pernell-Karl began circulating immediately. (Whether they’re true or not doesn’t matter right now. We’re bored and don’t really want to think about the Cup, so this is what we’re doing.) If there’s even a small consideration that David Poile would trade someone as dynamic, fashionable, and wonderful as P.K. Subban, you absolutely must make a phone call, division rivalry be damned. (As much as I’d like to use the Hartman–Ejdsell trade as proof that in-division trades can happen, what I’m proposing is a much more unwieldy beast than that.)

P.K. Subban on the Hawks definitely shores up the defense. He most likely improves the penalty kill as well.

OK, Dumbass, Why Would Nashville Ever Do That?

Let’s say you get Poile on the phone and offer Saad, Gus, and a pick/prospect. Let’s say the pick/prospect is either Boqvist or this year’s second round pick (#43 overall). Is this comparable? Let’s start with the stats.

2018–19 GP G A P CF% xGF%
P.K. Subban 63 9 22 31 53.61 50.54
B. Saad 80 23 24 47 52.69 47.27
E. Gustafsson 79 17 43 60 50.24 45.50

Last year was Subban’s worst year as a professional hockey player. He posted his lowest games-played total (not counting the season-in-a-can in 2013), his lowest assists total, his lowest points total, and third-lowest goals total. He was out for six weeks nursing an upper body injury, which no doubt contributed to his off year.

Compare that to the two players the Hawks would give up. Erik Gustafsson not only had the best year of his career by far but also was one of the best offensive D-men statistically in the NHL last year. He and P.K. Subban have exactly the same number of 60-point seasons under their belts. He’s also younger (27 vs. 30) and on a much friendlier albeit soon-to-be-ending contract ($1.2 million vs. $9 million). Something tells me you can use these points to convince Poile it’s not a bad idea.

Likewise, Brandon Saad’s 47 points would have made him a top-five scorer for the Preds last year. His 23 goals would be third behind Viktor Arvidsson and Filip Forsberg. His 24 assists would also be top five on the Preds.

Based solely on last year’s numbers, this trade is a huge win for the Preds, statistically.

But of course, we can’t neglect history. P.K. Subban is without a doubt one of the top D-men of his generation. He’s been a consistent force on both sides of the puck and on both sides of the special-teams ledger. His presence on the PP is devastating, and in the four years prior to last year (2014–2018), Subban played a top role on both the Canadiens’s and Preds’s PK units: Each team’s PK finished 7th, 12th, 15th, and 6th, respectively, and in the two years a Subban team finished outside the top 10, Subban had missed at least 14 games. Neither Saad nor Gus have anything close to his pedigree.

At this point, it’s probably not a bad idea to talk about cap implications, because that could matter.

With this trade offer, the Preds would free up $1.8 million in cap space, giving them just about $9 million to play with (according to CapFriendly). Maybe they use that money to add another scoring threat in, like, Jeff Skinner, I don’t know. Fuck Nashville, I’m not doing this for them.

The point is: If Nashville truly believes it’s Subban’s fault they got knocked out so early and would consider trading him for it, Gus and Saad both provide as much or more offense than they currently have for less money. Nashville can then use that additional money to re-sign Josi or sign Duchene or Ferland or whichever other good ol’ boy they think is the missing piece but obviously isn’t. Plus, Poile might be getting itchy feet, as his team hasn’t yet won the Cup all of its entitled, illiterate, hillbilly, raising-banners-for-nothing-that-matters fans have been stealing college chants about, such is the depth of that pool of cleverness. He can MAKE A MOVE and trade his misidentified scapegoat in one fell swoop.

While Saad and Gus would be good adds for Nashville in the contexts of last year; Nashville’s need for more scoring from their forwards; and their need to replace the defensive offense Subban provides; P.K. Subban is a legitimate star who can pull the receipts out of any one of his agonizingly fashionable outfits as proof. That’s where you’d hope the #43 pick pushes this offer over the top.

I had wanted to use the #3 overall pick in this peyote-driven fantasy. As much as I love Subban (fuck, I’m offering SAAD for Christ’s sake), giving up 100-plus points AND a decent lottery ticket is probably feeling my oats a tad too much. Maybe you talk #3 if it’s an either/or with Saad and Gus, but that’s gonna complicate things more than I’m willing to get into. So you offer the #43. If they say no to that, or if they said, “No, we’d rather have Boqvist,” fine, I don’t fucking care, you can have him.

Because remember, you’re getting P.K. Subban, a proven two-way D-man who can play well on special teams. Boqvist doesn’t project to do that, and even if he ever became that, the Core will be long dead by then (or retired or whatever it is hockey players do when they’re done playing). And by all indications, the goal is to make one last run at it with this Core, specifically, Kane and Toews.

So again, the point of this trade is to shore up the defense and improve the PK, with the overarching goal of making one more run at a Cup with the Core. If the price is right, Subban might be the missing piece.

I’ve Made It This Far. What’s It Look Like?

What do the Hawks look like if something like this goes through? Let’s start by using the current roster after the trade.

DeBrincat–Strome–Kane

Kabulik–Toews–Kahun

Perlini–Kampf–Sikura

Caggiula–Anisimov–Wedin

Hayden

Murphy–Subban

Keith–Jokiharju

Boqvist/Beaudin–Koekkoek/Seabrook (Kill me)

Crow

Delia

That top four on the backend starts looking a lot better. Subban also gets Seabrook off the PK, which is an absolute must after last year’s trainwreck. You can mix and match Murphy and Harju, Subban and Keith. Having Subban back there solves a lot of defensive and PK problems. Subban also knows how to move the puck, which the Hawks have missed as Keith has aged.

This line up as you see it makes a few assumptions. First, I’m assuming that the Hawks re-sign the entire third line at $1 million per: Each of Perlini, Kampf, and Sikura is an RFA this year. This is purely a guess at what they’ll get. I’m also guessing that Kabulik brings a $2 million cap hit, because I don’t know what his contract actually looks like.

With these assumptions, the Hawks still have $11–12 million in cap space, according to CapFriendly. That’s probably not enough to both sign a top-six forward this year AND re-sign DeBrincat/Strome next year, unless you find someone willing to take Anisimov’s contract. This also asks a lot of Dominik Kabulik, but slotting him with someone he knows (Kahun) and someone he can probably trust (Toews) is about as soft a landing as you can get. It ALSO doesn’t consider what the Hawks will do about Crawford, who is a UFA after next year.

P.K. Subban would solve a ton of problems the Hawks have. He’d give them the second-best shot (after Karlsson) of shoring up the Hawks’s woeful blue line (and he might be a safer bet than Karlsson anyway). He’d keep this Core’s window open just a little bit longer.

If the Hawks could get him for Saad, Gus, and the #43 or a prospect like Boqvist, I’m pulling the trigger on that every day. For P.K. Subban, the whole package is more than worth it.

If the goal is to make one more run at a Cup with the Core, Subban can help. We’d just need Dave Poile—the winningest GM in NHL history, except in the one game that matters—to prove what a huge fucking genius he is one more time.

Stats from hockey-reference.com and NaturalStatTrick. Cap shit from CapFriendly’s Armchair GM tool.