Baseball

Series Preview – Angels vs. Cubs: Shorn Of All The Fun

By Sam Fels 1226 0

vs.

RECORDS: Angels 7-6   Cubs 4-8

GAMETIMES: Friday-Sunday 1:20pm

TV: NBCSN Friday, ABC Saturday, WGN Sunday

PROBABLE PITCHERS

Tyler Skaggs vs. Cole Hamels

Chris Stratton vs. Kyle Hendricks

Trevor Cahill vs. Tyler Chatwood

Probable Angels Lineup

David Fletcher – LF

Andrelton Simmons – SS

Albert Pujols – 1B

Jonathan Lucroy – C

Taylor Ward – 3B

Kole Calhoun – RF

Zack Cozart – 2B

Peter Bourjos – CF

 

Probable Cubs Lineup

Albert Almora – CF

Kris Bryant – 3B

Anthony Rizzo – 1B

Javier Baez – SS

Willson Contreras – C

David Bote – 2B

Mark Zagunis – RF

Kyle Schwarber – LF

Note: Against right-handed starters Sat. and Sun. expect to see Heyward in center with Descalso at 2nd and Zobrist in right

After winning their first series of the year, the Cubs turn right around and host the Angels of Somewhere, a team shorn of all that makes it interesting. Which is fine, because the Cubs need wins so they’ll take boring as they can get for now. And they’re not without drama themselves.

We’ll start with the Northside Nine, who last night lost their backup catcher Victor Caratini to a broken hand for at least a month, and more likely six weeks. Of course this turned Cubs twitter, always anxious to paint their lives as a dark, dark room, in to the most obnoxious Cure fans around. Why oh why they pontificated, didn’t the Cubs sign a third catcher? Why must we suffer with Taylor Davis for a month? Please, unleash me from this hell and give me the sweet release of the great darkness beyond!

Fuckin’ eh, shut up.

One, almost no team has three catchers. Any catcher goes down, you’re almost certainly going to have to toss some tomato can out there once a week. Yes, I remember 2016 as well. That was an accident, because Montero and Ross were signed the season before you’ll recall, which is also the season Willson Contreras started tearing up the minors out of really nowhere. He didn’t give the Cubs much choice. That’s generally how you end up with three catchers.

Third, even the max six weeks time frame, that’s probably at most 12 Caratini starts. How much value, even with how well he was playing, do you think Victor Caratini has over 12 starts? Yes, Taylor Davis blows and he’s got a little league swing, but he’s also not a double-amputee. I’m fairly sure he can catch the ball. This isn’t the disaster Cubs fans are so desperate to make it.

Anyway, other than that, after getting Jose Quintana on track and at least moving Yu Darvish toward it, it would be lovely if Kyle Hendricks followed the trend on Saturday, especially with Lester out, and especially as the Chatwood Experience awaits on Sunday. A battery of Tyler Chatwood-Taylor Davis. Remember kids, the Cubs have new executive suites!

To the Angels. Before the year, you probably thought, “Hey! Mike Trout and Shohei Ohtani at Wrigley! That’s exciting!” Well sorry, fucko. Ohtani isn’t back until May and Trout tweaked a groin earlier in the week while the Angels were stuffing the Brewers. He won’t play today and is iffy for the weekend.

Those aren’t the only injury concerns for the Halos. Andrew Heaney went boom again, and Justin Upton ended up with turf toe in the season’s first week and is out until possibly July. Certainly June. So yeah, stripped of all that, this becomes a very ordinary outfit. Unless watching Albert Pujols try and scramble his unorganized collection of bones around first base in an NL park entertains you, and it should. The grounds crew should have a large dustpan nearby.

That hasn’t stopped them from winning six in a row over the Rangers and Brewers, mystifying the Cubs I’m sure. But it can also be inspiration, as the Angels started 1-6 and this early that’s how quickly things can look rosy again. It’s hard to know what the expectations were for this team, as they look to be well behind the A’s and Astros in the division, which doesn’t put you anywhere near a wildcard.

Without Trout, absolutely no one in this lineup is hitting. As you know, Pujols died five years ago, Kalhoun is striking out a third of the time, Simmons might as well go up there with a coloring book, and Justin Bour seems to only have mastered two of the three true outcomes so far, and that’s the two where nothing happens. Tommy La Stella had a nice half-week there for a minute, but that’s been about it offensively for the Angels. Zack Cozart is hitting .033. That’s a thing.

Which means they’ve had to do it with pitching, though it’s also hard to see how. They’re getting more miracles out of Trevor Cahill, who looks like he struggles to actually throw the ball 60 feet but here we are. Matt Harvey has gone back to being the utter disaster he was for two years before a half-revival in Cincinnati, but don’t worry it’s not like anyone can party in Southern California or anything. He’s given up 14 runs in his last two starts. Skaggs has been ok, but he doesn’t strike anyone out nor does he get a ton of grounders so one wonders how long this will last. That puts them praying for the safe return of Heaney, which is Beckett-ian.

Which means it’s been yeoman work from the pen, and that is the case. Hansel Robles (who uses the Undertaker theme and hence is now my favorite player), Ty Buffrey, and Cam Bedrosian have been unhittable so far, and Justin Anderson and Cody Allen are carrying 0.00 ERAs as well. They’re already third in the AL in appearances, and fifth in innings. But they also have the best pen ERA and fifth-best FIP. They don’t want to go to this well too often but while it’s working no one’s going to bitch.

If there’s a team that Hendricks can find it against, it should be this one. The offense probably needs to do its work in the first five innings, and that might be harder than you’d first think with both Skaggs and Cahill going. But then again, it’s fucking Skaggs and Cahill. Let’s get a move on already.

Baseball

Series Wrap – Brewers win 2 of 3 from Cubs: Too Much Ain’t Enough

By Sam Fels 1258 0

This is something we’re going to attempt throughout the baseball season. 162 game wraps are dizzying for you to read and us to write, so it’s a little easier on everyone if we just go by the series. 

When you score 10 runs, you’re supposed to win. Somehow, within the season’s first week, the Cubs have lost twice when scoring 10 runs. Well, not somehow. We know how. Which is what makes a routine 4-2 loss when you get Hader’d a little more frustrating than it should be. Because if you get the win that’s supposed to be automatic when you get a touchdown and a field goal, you shrug off the loss in the finale. Now you don’t. Anyway, let’s bust through some quick notes before I adjourn for Wrestlemania.

–Jose Quintana told everyone in Arizona he wanted to throw his change-up more this year. I don’t think six in an outing quite counts. That’s all he managed in his Friday immolation. When Q only goes with fastball-curve, it gives him no room for error whatsoever. It’s obviously not an instant process to incorporate a new pitch and gain confidence in it, but this was kind of a slow start.

-Until Kris Bryant goes nuclear, there’s always going to be a fear that he’s not healthy. And just like when he came back last year, it feels like he can’t deal with any velocity. It says he’s hitting .300 on fastballs this year, but he’s whiffing at a quarter of the ones he swings at. Could be just a slump.

-Of course, the bullpen remains the main story. It destroyed any hopes on Friday, and made things way more interesting than they had to be on Saturday. I’m not a body-language guy and mostly think it’s bullshit, but I’m guessing a real big reason Carl Edwards Jr. was sent down on Saturday morning was that he was expressly looking helpless on the mound Friday. You can’t look like you’re lost. Crash Davis told you this. “Act cocky, even when you’re getting lit up.” If you don’t look like you think you can get anyone out, then you’re almost certainly not going to.

-On the plus side, Willson Contreras continues to murder the ball and isn’t trying to pull everything. Jason Heyward even came up for air, but I won’t be fooled again. Talk to us in July.

-At least the pen found something on Sunday. Baby steps to the elevator.

-Not gonna worry about Hendricks too much. He’s always been something of a slow starter. Again, the margins of error are so small, and that pitch he threw to Yelich couldn’t have been more inviting if it was wearing a neglige on the way to the plate.

Onwards…

 

Baseball

Series Preview – Cubs vs. Braves: There’s Only Been Three Of These

By Sam Fels 1253 0

vs.

RECORDS: Cubs 1-2   Braves 0-3

GAMETIMES: Monday 6:10, Wednesday and Thursday 6:20

TV: NBCSN+ Chicago Monday and Thursday, WGN Wednesday

DIRTY SOUTH TAKE: Talking Chop

PROBABLE PITCHERS

Kyle Hendricks vs. Sean Newcomb

Jon Lester vs. Julio Teheran

Yu Darvish vs. Max Fried

Probable Cubs Lineup

1. Albert Almora Jr. (R) CF
2. Kris Bryant (R) 3B
3. Anthony Rizzo (L) 1B
4. Javier Baez (R) SS
5. Willson Contreras (R) C
6. David Bote (R) 2B
7. Ben Zobrist (S) LF (Schwaber against the righty Teheran)
8. Jason Heyward (L) RF
Probably Braves Lineup
1. Ender Inciarte (L) CF
2. Josh Donaldson (R) 3B
3. Freddie Freeman (L) 1B
4. Ronald Acuna Jr. (R) LF
5. Nick Markakis (L) RF
6. Ozzie Albies (S) 2B
7. Brian McCann (L) C
8. Dansby Swanson (R) SS
The apparent circus that the Cubs are going to be all season rolls into the ATL tonight, towing the collective raging angina of the fanbase. Just about everything you didn’t want to see go wrong for the Cubs did in Texas, and that’s going to prevent exactly no one from using two games as a symbol for what the whole season will be and as impetus to demonstrate how outraged they can be. If you’re already tired, I don’t blame you. This season has every chance of being The Unblinking Eye for merely the noise around it, not even what’s happening on the field.
Freshly inked Kyle Hendricks (contract, not tattoos, but wouldn’t that be something?) will make his season debut tonight, and seems to be about the only sure-thing on the Cubs. It might fly in the face of modern pitching thinking, but Hendricks is just going to roll up with those hangdog shoulders, his kid-being-forced-to-eat-vegetables expression, and outthink and out-craft lineups pretty much every start.
Thanks to Jose Quintana‘s rescue of Yu Darvish on Saturday, his first start of the season won’t come until the weekend, so Lester and Darvish will remain on regular rest. Darvish has some work to do to earn trust, where his picky, corner-seeking, possibly afraid-of-contact ways will have to be shelved in order for outs. We already did the Chatwood thing and don’t feel the need to relive it.
And the bullpen…you know what? Let’s just not right now.
To Atlanta, who spent their first weekend of the season getting giggy-stuffed by the Phillies in Philadelphia. Not exactly the time you wanted to catch the Fightin’s, with the whole buzz thing going on there. Anyway, this is their home-opener. Considering the Phillies’ splash, the Nationals signing Corbin and being spurned, and the Mets doing Mets things that always gets amplified, you might have forgotten it was the Braves who won this division last year. And this is still last year’s team with Josh Donaldson added to it, essentially.
What the perpetually red-assed Donaldson is anymore is the question. He has had serious injury problems the past two years, but at least flashed his old self in Cleveland for the season’s last six weeks. Then again, he’s only two years removed from a 5-WAR season in Toronto, and three removed from a 7-WAR one. The calf problems he battled are ones you’d like to think he can get past. It’s the shoulder ones that kept him out of the field for long stretches that are worrisome, and knocked nearly 100 points off his slugging last year.
Still, if they can get 75% of what Donaldson used to be, and add that to Acuna, Albies, and Freeman, that’s a hell of a base. Brian McCann will be around to make sure no one has any fun. Markakis had a career season in his mid-30s, and then fell victim to baseball’s war on money for anyone who doesn’t own a team. Inciarte catches everything.
Maybe it’s the rotation that keeps people from getting back to the Braves as the pick to repeat in the East. It’s a little pedestrian, at least until some kids pop. Sean Newcomb walks too many guys. Mike Foihaldkhalns is battling elbow-twang. Julio Teheran missed his window on being something other than “a guy.” Kyle Wright, and especially Bryse Wilson and Touki Toussaint are the hopes to come up and make it something more.
The pen is also looking more functional than inspirational, with near-Cub Arodys Vizcaino the closer and Chad Sobotka, Jonny Venters and his arm made of puddy at this point, and Not Rocky Biddle forming the hub of it. Again, the kids could be used here later in the year to give it more muscle. Max Fried, who starts the last game, could be someone who does that as well.
The Cubs could use some easy wins after the past two games. Sadly, the Braves aren’t pushovers. Your fatigue will probably last.

 

Baseball

Finally Some Good News: The Cerebral Assassin Signs Up

By Sam Fels 1353 0

It’s mostly been a spring training of gritted teeth, looks of disdain, and exasperated sighs out of Mesa, Arizona. This was not an offseason the filled any Cubs fan with glee, or even hope–of which is something we used to never even approach “E” on the tank–and the actual tossing of balls and swinging of bats didn’t do anything to lighten that. Manny Machado didn’t arrive. Neither did Bryce Harper, and it was only four or five months ago that was a foregone conclusion. In fact, no one arrived except Daniel Descalso and a couple of guys who max out at 30 pitches a week.

Once the Cubs sat out the winter, they also seemed to be sitting out extension season. Which actually made sense, as there was no one pressing who needed to be re-upped. But when your fanbase is already fed up with inaction, anyone doing anything elsewhere is cause to get even more so. Goldschmidt, Trout, Verlander, Arenado all re-upped, and meanwhile the Cubs had ass firmly planted on hands.

Or so it seemed. Today, both Kyle Hendricks and Jacob deGrom extended their deals with their teams. And I think it’s kind of poignant they did so on the same day. Because they’re a lot more alike than you think. And the $13.7M average on this ($12M next year and $14M the three years after to go along with the $7.4M he got through arbitration this year) is actually a steal.

The headline on this is that since 2016, there are six pitchers with a better ERA than Hendricks. They are Chris Sale, Noah Syndergaard, Corey Kluber, Jacob deGrom, Max Scherzer, and Clayton Kershaw. Four of those guys make north of $30M per year or are about to, and Thor will join them soon enough (assuming his arm doesn’t actually splinter into pure gas). To get Hendricks at less than half of that is…well, it’s a trick.

Oh I know. ERA doesn’t mean what it once did. Those guys strike out the world, and figure to for the foreseeable future. There are less variable, if any, with them. Hendricks depends on his defense and movement and deception and his margin for error is always thinner than a pubic hair. I get it. And yet he’s danced on that edge for three seasons now without falling off. Maybe it’s just who he is?

Hendricks may not send everyone back to the dugout immediately with their tail between their legs, but he does have the second-highest soft-contact rate in that same timeframe of anyone. CC Sabathia is the only one ahead of him. Which means he runs a lower-than-most BABIP, or Batting Average On Balls Put In Play (15th). Yes, he’s always had at least an above-average infield behind him. But that’s A) by design and B) given the age of Baez, Bryant, and Rizzo, that doesn’t figure to change. Only second-base would seem to need a refreshing.

Even if you go by FIP (Fielding Independent Pitching), which seeks to take the defense out of the equation, Hendricks ranks 21st in the past three seasons by that measure. Right ahead of names like Bumgarner, Greinke, and Archer. Again, this isn’t really an accident.

If you were just to compare him to another pitcher to sign his extension today another season away from free agency in deGrom, it’s really weird to say. Yes, deGrom has a Rookie Of The Year and a Cy Young to his name, as well as odd capitalization. deGrom is also a year older, and their career ERA+ are 144 for deGrom and 134 for Hendricks. deGrom’s WHIP is 1.07 for his career and Hendricks’s 1.11. Their FIPs are 2.81 to 3.32. No, Hendricks isn’t deGrom, but he’s also probably a whole lot better than just half as good, as their new salaries would suggest. Also Hendricks does have top-3 Cy season on his resume, just for funsies.

And the Cubs need the savings. Cole Hamels is here for this season only. Jon Lester is off the books come November 2020. So will Jose Quintana. And the Cubs have exactly dick coming through the system to replace those guys, with only Adbert Alzolay having any chance of making the rotation, and he missed over half the season last year. The Cubs are going to have to go out and get more pitching, if there’s any to be found given the state of free agency now, and it’s going to cost. Having to not pay Hendricks what he could have easily made an argument for might be a life-saver.

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