Baseball

We Know Your Nature – 2019 Cubs Player Reviews: Anthony Rizzo

By Sam Fels 1666 0

We move up the diamond a little to first base, where we find the Cubs captain. It should have been such an inspirational story, and yet the Cubs found a way to fuck up Anthony Rizzo hitting the shit out of the ball on one leg in a series they had to have. Instead they got swept. There’s your season right there. Let’s go through The Main Ingredient’s 2019…

2019 Stats

.293/.405/.520

27 HR  89 RBI

11.6 BB%  14.0 K%

.390 wOBA  141 wRC+  .925 OPS

-6.9 Defensive Runs Saved 

Tell Me A Story: If I told you in March that Rizz would set a career-high in batting average and on-base,  and have his best slugging in three years, you’d probably think the Cubs got a hell of a lot closer to 90 wins than they did. You’d probably think they’d have been over it. It wasn’t discussed much before the season, but Rizzo had something of a small slide in ’17 and ’18, especially 2018 where everything had dipped below the level he had set (such as .380+ OBP or .500+ slugging and such). As I will probably say with every review here, we don’t know how much to slide the bars for the baseball filled with gremlins, but we can safely assume this was a bounce-back year for Rizzo. Even if he didn’t need that much bouncing back.

Rizz was able to raise his line-drive rate, which is good. But his fly ball count went down and his ground-ball rate went up because of it, which is less than  good. According to Baseball Savant, there was a significant drop in his launch angle this year. Now that could be an intentional adjustment Rizzo made to hit more line drives, or it could be something else which would start to push you toward frowny-face. Also, even with the ball as it was, Rizzo’s exit-velocity didn’t really move from last year, which is curious. Which also plays into how the Cubs as a team just didn’t hit the ball very hard. If he were doing the same things, you’d think that would jump up even a little just given the nature of the thing. Still, it’s not like Rizzo heavily outperformed his expected batting average or weighted on-base, hitting those on the nose with his actual numbers this season.

If there was a big difference in Rizzo this year, it was his work on bendy stuff. Rizzo came into 2019 with a career average of .235 on sliders, .259 on curveballs, and .294 on cutters (which are really just baby sliders). Those numbers this year were .294, .305, and .429 with much higher slugging as well. And it doesn’t appear to be noise either as all three of those have much higher line-drive percentages than his career norms, so this was something Rizzo was focusing on.

Even more encouraging, considering Rizzo’s age, is that he was deadly on inside pitches this year. Here’s his career slugging by zone before the year and then this year:

You don’t think of Rizzo yanking outside pitches over the wall, because he stands so close to the plate it doesn’t look like they’re outside pitches. This year he turned on the pitches that jammed him even more. The worry with players crossing the age-30 threshold is that they can’t catch up to velocity and can get jammed inside. Neither of those things were a problem for Rizz this year.

If there are red flags with Rizzo, it’s health. 6-4 first-basemen who have had back issues for three straight years now should make anyone breathe a little deeper for a moment. This year was by far the most amount of games he’s missed. Some of that was due to a freak ankle injury, which isn’t anything chronic. The rest was the back issue in August and April, and now that he’s in his 30s that’s probably just going to be a thing that happens. When it starts to slow down his performance, that’s anyone’s guess.

Contract: Rizzo has two team-option years left at $16.5M each.

Welcome Back Or Boot In The Ass: Face it, there would be a small to medium uprising if the Cubs ever thought of moving Rizzo. Given his production and salary, he would have huge value of course, but this is essentially the heart and soul of the team. The real debate will be in two years when he’s a free agent and also 32, but let’s table that as long as we can. Given his adjustments, it’s hard to see Rizzo falling off a table production-wise in 2020, unless that back causes him to miss more than just 10-15 games a year.

Perhaps the only thing new we’d want to see from Rizzo is something we can’t quantify and don’t actually see–which means we’re only guessing–is his leadership of the team. It’s not that he isn’t a leader, because he’s THE one. But this team played loose all year, in the bad way, and we know that Maddon’s style caused some of that. But players should hold their teammates accountable too, and Rizzo hasn’t really been that type of guy. He’s a loose, fun dude too. And while he might seem boisterous to us from the outside and leading things in the dugout, those in the know will tell you he’s not really a hard ass ever or trying to keep the team coloring within the lines. That’s mostly going to come from the new manager, but it wouldn’t hurt that if inside the clubhouse there’s a sword that needs swinging, it’s Rizzo who’s doing it. But this is nothing more than a minor complaint or tweak.

While we read too much about trades that didn’t work out for the Cubs, remember the Cashner-for-Rizzo one helped get Josh Byrnes fired. We’ve got at least two more years to not worry about first base. And probably a lot more than that, before Rizzo’s #44 is on the right field foul-pole.

Baseball

It’s A Maddon World

By Sam Fels 2282 0

He’ll never say it, I’ll never prove it, but I can’t shake the feeling that Theo Epstein has been thinking about this day since somewhere around Game 6 against Cleveland. That was the night that Joe Maddon first panicked, up five runs with Jake Arrieta on the mound. That necessitated Aroldis Chapman coming in to get four outs, after he had throw 2.1 innings in Game 5, and of course left him scorched for Game 7. And then there was the pulling of Kyle Hendricks for little reason (not no reason, you could squint and see it) the next night. We don’t need to re-litigate this. You know the story.

But it felt like then Theo realized that Joe wasn’t going to manage the team as he saw the game. And it feels like that only got worse. Which maybe is why on the day after the most accomplished manager in Cubs history, and the most accomplished we might ever see, I don’t feel much of anything about his departure.

There’s two competing outlooks on the past couple seasons that probably have me stuck in the middle on the whole thing. The first is that I refuse to buy the argument that the ’18 team underachieved. 95 wins with half of a Kris Bryant, a hole in the rotation until Hamels showed up (and that’s with Chatwood in there) a bullpen disintegrating throughout the season, that played for 45 straight days. It’s being judged on two games at the end of the season, which seems wholly unfair based on the 162 before. We know the Cubs front office was upset about the handling of Brandon Morrow at the end of May. That has always screamed of ass-covering for a truly bad signing that had every chance of not working out, which it didn’t. That goes along with my feeling that the ’17 team didn’t underachieve either, given that Schwarber wasn’t quite ready for a starting role, Happ and Almora in center was iffy, Baez hadn’t achieved his higher plane yet, the entire pitching staff regressed, etc.

On the opposing side, whatever last year is categorized as, this was a season where the Cubs were supposed to play with urgency and have something to prove. Yeah, we can go back and forth on the offseason and the roster construction all day. That doesn’t change the fact that the players on the roster played looser, less focused, far more mistake-prone than they’d ever been under Maddon. The Cubs were simply not as locked in as they’d been, and it cost them games. In the field, on the basepaths, and on occasion with runners on base, the Cubs were simply not a tight enough unit. That’s on Maddon. This team did underachieve.

Did the Cubs set up Maddon to fail by not extending him, and essentially telegraphing their intentions before the season even started? Probably. But if Maddon truly had a hold on this team and everyone’s loyalty and attention, the constant looseness just would not have happened. That doesn’t mean the Cubs had totally tuned him out or were ignoring him, but they weren’t as attentive to his message. I get the impression they still liked him without totally buying in to whatever he was selling anymore. That generally only goes one way from there. So it feels necessary.

As with any manager or coach firing, Maddon isn’t wholly responsible for what went on here. We’ve spent all summer talking about the failures in ownership and the front office and what they provided. The bullpen at the start of the season was simply negligent. None of the younger players were ever ready to take on an everyday role. The hitters simply refused to change their approach ever.

I guess you could put some of the blame on the lack of development of some of the young players on Maddon. That’s a stretch though when he’s the manager for Rizzo, Byrant, Contreras, and Baez who have all flourished under him. Maybe they’re just such supreme talents it doesn’t manager what the manager is, but I have a hard time buying that and you’d have a hard time selling that.

Perhaps my general shoulder-shrug on this is I don’t think baseball is like hockey or football where there’s like five good coaches and you’re fucked if you don’t have one. You can find another manager. They’re out there, though I’m queasy about it being David Ross, which has a feel of placating the masses about it, whatever his managing acumen might be.

Some have speculated that Theo wants a hard-ass. Does that even exist anymore? Does that really work? I look around at the best teams and I don’t see any red and nude managers. Dave Roberts? A.J. Hinch? Aaron Boone? Alex Cora? Brian Snitker? I don’t think players respond to that anymore. I hope that’s just speculation. Sure, things seemed like they got too relaxed with Maddon, and you want a tone set for the whole season. That’s all the Cubs need, I think. They don’t need Sargent Hartman in blue pinstripes.

Perhaps that feeling of “it just had to be” comes from Maddon himself. He seemed to make it clear that he didn’t think he had much more to give to this team yesterday, though maybe that was just dealing with the situation. He certainly couldn’t ignore all the mistakes his team made throughout the season and how he couldn’t seem to stop it. It doesn’t feel like five years is a very long time for someone’s shelf life to run out, but things move quicker now.

Maybe that’s just the shelf life on Maddon, too. He only won 77 games in his last year in Tampa, though there are obviously other considerations there. Perhaps it’s something about his style.

Still, he’s the manager who ended our GREAT BURDEN. The Cubs don’t win it without him, even if you only want to credit him for creating an atmosphere that allowed the players to take all of that head on which had asphyxiated every other team before them. With something as huge as 108 years, just as it was with the 86 in Boston, you have to have a team that can smile and laugh at it all the way through while the rest of us are losing our minds and screaming about why they aren’t. You have to find a team to embrace the ridiculousness of it and not treat it like a plague. Maddon did that. His name will live forever here because of it. He as the perfect guy at the perfect time for Rizzo and Bryant and Baez and Contreras and Hendricks and everyone else.

And now he’s not. And that’s ok. I’d trust the front office to get this one right. It’s a job most everyone would want. There’s still a ton to work with here, especially if the that front office doesn’t get silly and do something just to do something this winter.

Thanks for everything, Joe. It was quicker than we thought, but it was everything it was supposed to be.

 

Baseball

Series Preview – Cubs vs. Cardinals: And Now, You Will Watch This

By Sam Fels 1233 0

vs.

RECORDS: Cubs 82-77   Cardinals 90-69

GAMETIMES: Friday 7:15, Saturday 6:15, Sunday 2:15

TV: WGN Friday, Fox Saturday, ABC 7 Sunday

OUR EXECUTIONER: Viva El Birdos

PREVIEW POSTS

Depth Charts & Pitching Staffs

Cardinals Spotlight: The Next One

Two years ago, which seems like an eternity now, the Cubs came into St. Louis in the last week of the season. They put the NL Central to bed in front of their greatest enemy, and then the next night ended the Red Menace’s flickering wildcard hopes even though the game meant nothing to them. Fate can be cruel.

Having ended the Cubs playoff hopes, the Cardinals will likely celebrate taking the NL Central right in front of them and their fans deluded enough to enter the gates for this one. Perhaps an interested or even breathing Cubs team could knock the Cards down to a date with Max Scherzer on the road on Tuesday night, but that is not this Cubs team. It’s also incredibly beat up now, which won’t make for much of an excuse as they watch that celebration.

The Cubs will roll into this one with Anthony Rizzo, Kris Bryant, Kyle Hendricks, Yu Darvish shelved for the season to protect themselves from themselves. Cole Hamels is only getting a start to try and prove to prospective suitors in the winter he’s not in fact dead. The lineup is going to be utterly hilarious, and you can already hear the Brewers bitching about it from Denver. This is what the Cubs have become, and it does not feel good.

The Cards still have plenty at stake. They need to match whatever the Brewers do in Denver to avoid a 163 and/or wildcard, plain and simple. That’s motive enough you would think. So Dakota Hudson and Adam Wainwright are the first two out of the chute, with Jack Flaherty waiting for a 163, wildcard, or Game 1. It could be any of those. He could even go Sunday if the Cards need it. Considering the lineup the Cubs might put out that day, he could throw a perfect game in 80 pitches.

That’s where it stands. the ultimate humiliation for the Cubs. Who knew it could fall so far in just two seasons? We thought a sea-change had been engineered, and yet here we are forced to watch yet another installment of St. Louis getting one over the Cubs. Perhaps it’s an image that will serve to light a fire under next year’s team, but they’ll need more than that. What is pretty clear is that this is Joe Maddon‘s last series as a Cub manager. Though every fan has been back and forth on what Maddon is and what maybe he should have been, what he definitely was is the most successful manager in the team’s history. It hardly seems like it was only five years ago that his hiring signaled something new about the Cubs, the combination of hope and expectation. If this is how it ends, no matter how you feel, you can’t deny it’s bene a ride.

That article can be written another time, though. And it will.

On a sentimental level, it’s perhaps the last time we’ll see Nicholas Castellanos in a Cubs uniform. There are others who could be doing so for the last time as well. That’s a worry for another time. This is just about getting through it, or pretending it isn’t happening as I’m sure a lot of you will understandably opt for. Some pains are too great to endure first hand. Just knowing it’s happening is enough.

 

Baseball

Series Preview – Cubs vs. Pirates: And Now, The Denouement

By Sam Fels 1150 0

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RECORDS: Cubs 82-74   65-91

GAMETIMES: Tuesday-Thursday 6:05pm

TV: Tuesday/Thursday NBCSN, WGN Wednesday

THE DAMNED: Bucs Dugout

SERIES PREVIEW

Depth Charts & Pitching Staffs

Pirates Spotlight

Oh right, the Cubs have to finish out the schedule.

It’s hard to think of a more funeral dirge atmosphere than the next three nights at PNC Park, where the zombified Cubs will stand around and stare at the long dead and white flag waving Pirates. It’s hard to believe it was only 10 days ago that the Cubs throttled the Pirates so hard at Wrigley that you genuinely believed they were ready to close the season with a flourish. It seems like it was last season or even longer. But that’s all it was. Baseball can be so cruel.

Oh sure, the Cubs could run the table here and the Brewers could get Sonny Gray‘d and Luis Castillo‘d in Cincy and suddenly the last weekend might matter somewhat. But does it? What would a miracle run get the Cubs? One more game with no Kris Byrant, a one-legged Anthony Rizzo, and a one-handed Javy Baez? There’s only so much one team can carry. It’s probably for the best if everyone just goes home.

On the surface, the Cubs have a question if Cole Hamels will make his start on Thursday. It probably hinges on whether the game is for anything, which it likely won’t be. But considering how bad Hamels has been while hurt, considering it’s the Pirates either way, and considering if it’s even a question, you can probably look for Alec Mills to take that start and Hamels to start looking up real estate listings in Orange County.

Anthony Rizzo probably isn’t far from being sat for the rest of the season either, though he will insist on playing until there is absolutely no point. Other than that, I’m not sure what to tell you. More experience for Nico Hoerner? A last chance to see Ben Zobrist? Likely Nicholas Castellanos too?

As for the “always could be worse” department, the Pirates are currently the whole thing. You saw them simply get bludgeoned at Wrigley. They followed that up by getting swept at home by the equally moribund Mariners where they scored six runs. They then got swept without every really breathing in Milwaukee, losing the first two games of that one by an aggregate 20-2.

This team clearly gave up somewhere in July, and yet they’ve let Clint Hurdle continue to mummy his way thorough this season. One relief pitcher went on the DL for good after punching another reliever. Then it turned out the reliever he was punching was a rapist. That’s just one story from the second half of the season, one in which the Pirates will end up losing more than 50 games.

Josh Bell has flattened out. So has Bryan Reynolds to a point. Joe Musgrove has been ok, but other than that it’s been a cavalcade of janitors and train-hoppers that have filled out the lineup and pitching staff. Where this team is going is anyone’s guess. Bell has yet to prove he’s someone you build around. Reynolds seems much more like a complimentary piece. There’s no one in the rotation with Taillon out until most likely 2021. There aren’t really any prospects to get excited about. It could be real ugly on The Confluence for a while.

The schedule says they have to do this. Expect the games to match. Almost there, though.

Baseball

Series Recap – Cubs Lose Two Of Three To Reds: You Can Only Dance For So Long

By Sam Fels 1376 0

Game 1 Box Score: Cubs 8, Reds 2

Game 2 Box Score: Reds 4, Cubs 2

Game 3 Box Score: Reds 3, Cubs 2

The reason I usually take some time before any recap of game or series is it’s best to do your best to see the depth of something. So while I was ranting and raving on Twitter, and being at the last two games certainly didn’t help increase any level-headedness, and this team has been an infuriating watch except for a three week stretch in April and May, at some point you can’t outrun what you’re missing. And this Cubs team is missing Anthony Rizzo and Javier Baez. That’s two perennial All-Stars on a team that was already offensively spotty.

Sure, it hurts more after you put up 55 runs in four games. But you don’t get to play the Pirates every day. Sometimes you run into Sonny Gray, which I think we all can accept to a point.

That doesn’t make one goddamn hit off Tyler Mahle acceptable or palatable or something you can just shrug off. Even though the Cubs have been pulling shit like this all season, you thought the momentum they had carried from before or the urgency of the situation would click them into some sort of alertness. But we keep saying that, and it doesn’t happen. Kris Bryant’s cortisone has worn off, and he looked awful at the plate tonight along with a dumb base-running decision. Jason Heyward has backed up all of September and is back to what he’s been his entire Cubs career. We could go on.

It’s just upsetting, no matter how hard you try and rationalize it, because the call before the season (as I keep repeating) from the front office was that the Cubs had to “lock in” on certain games to get the wins they didn’t get last year (even though they got 95). Getaway days, chances to sweep, chances to win or split a series. Well now they had to have this, and they came up with one hit on hardly the Reds top starter and another three against a pen that’s been leaky. They’re not locked in. They’re just middling.

And now they have to take three of four this weekend to even keep the division debate alive. Split and they’re down three with a week to go. It won’t be enough. And they’ll have to do it against a starting staff that’s perfectly built to expose the lack of Rizzo and Baez and also the shortcomings in their rotation (unless Hamels can rediscover health and Q his form from August). That doesn’t mean it isn’t possible It’s just going to be really hard. And this team hasn’t wanted anything to do with hard all season.

All right, let’s…

-The urge is to go off on the bullpen, but Joe Maddon is doing the best with what he’s got. He’s missing his closer, who hasn’t been all that good anyway. Steve Cishek was down. Brandon Kintzler is hurt. That’s the whole top of the pen. Sure, maybe bringing in Pedro Strop into a big situation was the height of optimism, but the bottom of the order is the kind of situation you do that in because your options are limited. You need Wick or Ryan, which is a statement, for the meat of the lineup. There’s just no other way to go.

-Doesn’t mean you need to walk Peraza twice in the late innings, helping to keep turning over the lineup.

-Somewhat fitting, if you’re a masochist, that Jose Iglesias got the winning hit. He was the shortstop available for a song to back up the middle infield when the Cubs opted for another season of Addison Russell and his recovery they were so invested in (which we’ve heard nothing about since the season started).

-You’re running out of time. Is it the worst idea to see if Happ can’t give you better ABs than Heyward right now? The outfield defense might kill you, but Happ’s ABs are at least more battling than Heyward’s and are you really confident that Heyward can find it with ten games to go?

I can’t escape the feeling that there are just too many obstacles in front of this team, either provided by the front office and ownership before a ball was thrown in anger, or the injuries now, for them to get through. You can’t miss two top-of-the-order hitters and the top of your already undercooked pen and think you’re just going to rip through the rest of the season. They couldn’t find a way past the Padres with Rizzo, for fuck’s sake. Feels like a split with the Cards that give them nothing is what’s coming, before the final insult in St. Louis that will have you tasting battery acid all winter.

I pray that I’m wrong.

Baseball

Series Preview – Reds vs. Cubs: After The Destruction…

By Sam Fels 1239 0

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Records: Reds 70-80  Cubs 81-68

GAMETIMES: Monday-Wednesday 7:05

TV: NBCSN Monday, WCIU/ESPN Tuesday, WGN Wednesday

NOT READY FOR FULL-TIME DALTON YET: Blog Red Machine

DEPTH CHARTS & PITCHING STAFFS

Note: Due to scheduling and traveling, there isn’t a Reds Spotlight today. Picture one in your head if you must. Maybe Votto’s regression or Aquino’s 12 wRC+ in September. Choose your own adventure. 

After 47 runs in three games and thoroughly burning any sense of self-worth the Pirates might have thought about having, the Cubs will look to keep it going against the Reds. The challenge with the Reds is they have one real live pitcher starting a game this series, and a couple ones in the pen, neither of which the Pirates can claim right now. And the Cubs might be without their linchpin.

We all are holding our breath to hear news of Anthony Rizzo, which will come down after this goes to print. Everyone’s expecting the worst, because when a player is helped off the field that generally means a week or two, maybe more. The Cubs don’t have two weeks or more, and face the apocalyptic seven games with the Cardinals. As if the Reds haven’t been enough of a headache. The simplest solution is a lot of Victor Caratini at first, though you may see some of Happ and Bryant there too. The latter gets David Bote’s bat into the lineup, though Caratini and Contreras both being in the lineup doesn’t leave you offensively short either. It just leaves you short of what Rizzo would provide.

Of course, another wonderful aspect of a Rizzo absence is more debate about the leadoff spot,, which has become the Cubs’ TIF funding. Rizzo moved there for the Pirates series, suddenly they turned into Loyola-Marymount, but now they have to figure it out again. Mostly you can count on Zobrist being there, and he can at least be representative. It’s basically a “So What Don’t You Want?” situation. Heyward has proven he can’t do it and doesn’t like it. They won’t try Bryant there, especially as he’s rediscovered some of his power over the weekend (if results against the Pirates even count). Contreras is another candidate against lefties, as long as we never see Almora there again. Go down the list and you see there aren’t a lot of answers.

Still, time moves on, and the Cubs have games to win. And as you know, the Reds are a spikier outfit than the Bucs. They’re coming off taking two of three from Arizona, seriously denting their charge to the wildcard. And they’ll have no compunction about doing the same to the Cubs. At least the Cubs will duck Trevor Bauer and Luis Castillo. But they’ll get Sonny Gray, who’s been one of the best starter in the NL and especially of late. Gray has quality starts in 11 of his last 13, and he had a 0.74 ERA in August. His two September starts have seen him give up four runs…so he’s slowing down? Maybe? We’re trying here. Needless to say it would behoove the Cubs to get Monday and Wednesday and consider anything off of Gray a bonus.

The rotation is another problem the Cubs have to solve. All of Quintana, Hamels, and Lester have been backing up for weeks now, and while they got to save the relievers who matter (such as they are) due to the offensive supernova against Pittsburgh, they don’t want to go to that well any more than anyone’s stomach can handle. Hamels doesn’t look healthy, and Lester might just be running out of racetrack in his career. They are wheezing to the finish line and have to find something this series and in the season’s last two weeks, even if it’s just a death rattle.

It’s only two games now. It’s one and a half behind DC while one ahead of Milwaukee. But if the Cubs can at least hold that two games behind St. Louis, that basically puts it all on the seven games they have left together. Let’s do that.

Baseball

Series Recap: LEAVE THE GUN, TAKE THE PRIMANTI – Cubs Sweep Pirates

By Forklift 1445 0

 

 

Game 1 Box Score: Cubs 17, Bucs 8

Game 2 Box Score: Cubs 14, Bucs 1

Game 3 Box Score: Cubs 16, Bucs 6

 

Morph

You thought you were only getting one LFO joke? HA! Morph is still a genious.

The Cubs arrived back in Chicago for their final home stand of the 2019 regular season with the stench of desparation and a shiny new shortstop who had hearts all over the City of Broad Shoulders aflutter. Fortunately, their dance card had the Pittsburgh Pirates for the first three numbers. Meanwhile, they knew down in Dogpatch the Cardinals and Brewers would be beating each other’s brains out.

Let’s…

Baseball

There Ain’t No Other Way To Make Contact…No Wait, There Totally Is

By Sam Fels 1229 0

After watching the Braves bludgeon the White Sox over the weekend, I kind of sat mystified as to how the Braves offense is significantly better than the Cubs. This could come into major relief should the two meet in the first round of the playoffs, as they would do if the Cubs flag down the Cardinals in the season’s last three weeks. Because both offenses are basically top-heavy. The Braves sport Ronald Acuna Jr., Josh Donaldson, Freddie Freeman, and Ozzie Albies at the top of the lineup. Which really shouldn’t be out-producing Kris Bryant, Anthony Rizzo, Willson Contreras, and Javier Baez. And really, in terms of wRC+ and other measures, it’s not.

As a team, the Cubs and Braves walk and strikeout at almost exactly the same rate. They’ve hit just about the same amount of homers (the Braves lead in this category 218 to 213), and the Braves have hit 16 more doubles, which probably doesn’t have as great of an effect as you might think at first.

It would be easy to point to the batting average, as as a team the Braves hit nine points higher (.260 to .251). And maybe it’s just that difference that’s led to the Braves having 97 more hits as a team, but when you think about it that’s just one per game. And yes, casting your mind over the season, you can find more than a handful of games where one hit instead of one out would have made a huge difference. Maybe it is that simple, and the Cubs just need that one hit more often over the last three weeks (cue Al Pacino speech about fighting for that inch).

As you were probably about to suggest, the numbers slant even more when there are runners in scoring position. The Braves hit 16 points higher in that spot, have gotten 58 more hits, and in turn 50 more runs in that spot than the Cubs. Which means the Cubs have to do more of the splashing from downtown as it were, solo homers or homers with guys on first.

And yes, perhaps it could be that simple. But as I just pointed out at the top of this, the tops of these lineups are almost carbon copies of each other. And the supporting casts really haven’t been that much different, as Matt Joyce’s late boom has been basically the same as Nicholas Castellanos’s. The Braves haven’t had the massive black holes in spots like center and second that the Cubs have had, but they’ve mitigated that somewhat by shifting guys around. It can’t explain it all.

But looking this over more, and somewhat off of our Kris Bryant post from a couple weeks ago, the Cubs as a whole just don’t hit the ball very hard.

In the majors, the Cubs rank 26th in hard-contact rate. They rank second to last in line-drive rate. Considering the hitters in this lineup, how can that be? For a clearer illustration, the Braves have eight guys who have a 40+% hard-contact rate. The Cubs have one, and that’s the dude who came 2/3rds of the way through the season in Castellanos. The Braves have five guys with a 25+% line-drive rate. The Cubs don’t have one.  Line-drives don’t have to be necessarily the name of the game, but you’d like to think you could better than this.

And again, we can’t stress this enough, this is in a season where the baseball has been designed specifically so you can hit it ludicrously hard. Everyone is. Except the Cubs. The type of contact they make has nothing to do with their strikeouts and walk tendencies. This is just about when they get the bat on the ball. This was an issue last year too, where only Schwarber had a hard-contact rate over 40%.

It would be hard for the Cubs to raise their batting average in the season’s final throes, though anything is possible in a short stint in baseball, without raising the volume of their contact. And that’s probably the case heading into the future as well. Sure, they almost certainly don’t make enough contact, though that’s not quite as big of a problem as it’s been made out to be, thanks to some very memorable situations where the Cubs haven’t gotten the bat on the ball when they had to. But what might be just as big of a problem is the Cubs don’t make the right contact when they do.

Chili Davis couldn’t fix it. Anthony Iapoce hasn’t been able to fix it. Which leads you to believe it’s the players. But considering the lineup, this really shouldn’t be a problem. Why is it? We know they make less contact than anyone, but again, that doesn’t have any effect on how hard they hit the ball when they do hit the ball. The first instinct is to say that they make contact on the wrong pitches, but they have the lowest amount of contact outside the zone in the NL.

Whatever it is, the Cubs just don’t hit the ball very hard, and they don’t seem inclined to do anything about it. And that’s if they even know it’s a problem.

Baseball

Series Recap – Cubs Drop Two Of Three To Brewers: You Get What You Deserve

By Sam Fels 1243 0

Game 1 Box Score: Cubs 7, Brewers 1

Game 2 Box Score: Brewers 2, Cubs 0

Game 3 Box Score: Brewers 4, Cubs o

The temptation to rant and rave and declare it all over certainly is strong, and probably even justified. By the time the night ends the Cubs could be four back with 26 to go, which sounds daunting. At the same time, both the Cardinals and Cubs are so mediocre that this race probably has a turn or two left, and as long as either are in touching distance of the other when they get to the seven in 10 against each other that ends the season, nothing will be over.

Even yesterday, I don’t feel like I want to throw things out the window over. The Cubs made a lot of loud contact and line drives that just kept ending up caressed in leather instead of finding open spaces. That happens sometimes. It’s frustrating when it comes at the end of a season where you’ve pissed away so many games in stupid fashion, and I keep writing this. But they happen to everyone.

Today feels more toward unacceptable. A second-straight bullpen game against with the only true dominant reliever the Brewers have not coming up for air until the game was already over. Some pretty baffling lineup decisions, then in-game ones, as well as more simply bewildering performance, and an inability to simply put the bat on the ball when it matters. You just can’t have that, or you can’t if you’re trying to claim to be something it’s obvious you’re not.

But at the end of the day, this is what the Cubs are. Three steps forward, two and a half back, then two steps forward with three steps back, going nowhere.

And what should really be galling, either to the front office or the media that covers it, is this is the type of weekend the Cubs told you they needed to have more focus on, more killer instinct, before this season started, when they were reacting so bizarrely to a 95-win season. They had a chance to put the Brewers to the sword here, and basically end their season (they’ll get another chance next weekend, but don’t bet on it). And they passed. They limped away. Good thing they got rid of all those themed roadtrips, huh?

Let’s…

-Ok, let’s do today first. Joe Maddon got away with a goofy lineup on Friday because Chase Anderson is awful and Nick Castellanos had himself a day. But that was a lineup shorn of Bryant, Rizzo, and Contreras. That doesn’t mean trying it a second time was all that advisable.

Fine, Rizzo needs a day as he comes back from his back problems. Really the only move I’m talking about here is not starting Schwarber. Yeah, he’s not great against lefties, but neither are Addison Russell, or Albert Almora, or Jonathan Lucroy. Schwarbs has been just about the best hitter next to Castellanos of late, and this team can’t really go without his bat when two of the “Core Four” aren’t around. And this game could have come down to an AB or two before Craig Kimbrel had nothing.

-So then you get to the sixth, and whatever the fuck that was. It’s not like Joe wouldn’t have seen Claudio warming up, and known that pinch-hitting for Almora with Heyward (0-for-his-last-18 at that point), would see him come into the game. So he would have to know that Heyward-Claudio is what he’s going to get, and if he’s uncomfortable enough with that that he needs to bunt (NEVER BUNT), then just have Almora do it. But again, don’t bunt.

-Also, bunting in assuming that Addison Russell is going to give you a good AB next is some galaxy brain abstract thinking. Does Joe know he sucks?

-And still we go on, as the Cubs finally get a leadoff hit from Bryant, and then the next three guys strikeout. There it is right there, the main problem it’s always been. Sure, it’s not really fair to Caratini who’s been really good of late, or Rizzo who was rung up on a pitch outside the zone (LOVE THE HUMAN ELEMENT SO MUCH I’M LIGHTING MY SCROTUM ON FIRE). Heyward never had a chance because he’s bad. You can’t have any of this. Caratini has to take the walk or pull the ball. Someone’s got to get a bat on the ball. I don’t want to hear the rest of it.

-Speaking of Heyward, I don’t want to hear it anymore. He can bitch and moan all he likes but when it’s all over where you bat in the lineup shouldn’t make a damn bit of difference. The idea is always the same. So don’t tell me putting him in the leadoff spot sent him into a tailspin and don’t tell me that you can’t move him when he starts again because he’s requested that he not be. Hit the damn ball or get out of the way.

-And speaking of Bryant, his big homers against Cincy, Pittsburgh, and the Giants have masked the fact that he’s been thoroughly mediocre for a month. With Contreras out and Rizzo hurting, the Cubs need more from him. That’s if he’s healthy, and you won’t convince me he is. But a 94 wRC+ for a month isn’t good enough. The Cubs have their weak spots, and that’s not going to change. With no Rizzo, you only have Schwarber and Castellanos that have been performing at a “star” level. Again, it’s not enough.

Anyway, onwards…

Baseball

Words, Words, Words…

By Sam Fels 1566 0

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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