Baseball

This Is Your Mess, Theo

By Sam Fels 1742 0

I was actually going to save this post for when the Cubs collapse/utter failure was complete, which looking at the schedules is probably going to happen against the Cardinals, and possibly even in St. Louis. And after a summer following THAT team winning a Cup, that’s a little more than I can handle right now.

Still, when I saw the Tribune this morning, and saw Theo Epstein calling for his team to “turn it on,” it felt like the time was now.

Most Cubs fans have been waiting for the Cubs to kick into another gear all season, except for that one stretch in mid-April to May. But after 131 games, one would have to think this is what the Cubs are, a team that basically specializes in flattering to deceive.

The exact quote:

“We’ve been waiting to put it all together and be the best version of ourselves, and I think we all know in this clubhouse it has to happen really soon for us to get to where we want to go,” 

But the question you have to ask is whom exactly is this addressed to? The team’s core? Well, Willson Contreras is hurt, but even with that all of Bryant, Rizzo, Baez, and Contreras are performing at or beyond the level of last year. Baez’s recent slump has taken him below his ’18 campaign, but as he’s had to play every single goddamn day because Theo failed to locate an adequate backup shortstop–or one that isn’t a complete dickhead and is also not adequate offensively–maybe you could excuse that a bit. And again, last year’s performance won 95 games.

Is it the rotation? Who is performing below expectations in the rotation? Jose Quintana has propped the staff up over the last month. Hendricks is way better than he was last year, though not at his career bests. Hamels was great until getting hurt. Yu took a half season to figure it out but are we honestly suggesting he has somewhere more to rise to after walking exactly one hitter in a month? I hate to break it to Theo, but this is what Jon Lester is now at 35. Sure, they haven’t been as consistent as you might have hoped, with each having a stretch of being an avalanche. But each have also had a stretch of dominance, and overall they’re top-five in the NL in ERA and FIP. Isn’t that about where you had them before the season? Didn’t that sound like it would be more than enough in March?

No, the reason this team is trying to run a race with a sprained ankle is the supporting cast Theo put around that core turned out to suck deep pond scum. Albert Almora can’t hit. Kyle Schwarber is a poor man’s Joey Gallo and only if you squint really hard. They’ve gotten nothing from second base, and losing Ben Zobrist shouldn’t have turned that spot into GWAR’s giant void. Ian Happ is looking like the version that got sent down again.

Do we have to go through the bullpen again? Do we have to go through the complete lack of cheap, young, power arms that Theo has failed to produce other than maybe Rowan Wick? I don’t think we have to.

When Theo talks about turning it up, he’s essentially asking his core to play at career-high levels. And for a month, that can certainly happen. Except one’s got a bad back, another is probably exhausted, and another is on the shelf with hamstring-twang. So…maybe that’s a longshot?

Later in this article, Theo goes on to complain that the Cubs have lost their approach and ways from when they were hot early in the season, that all-field, grind-out-ABs gauntlet that he thinks they should be. But what’s clear is that they’re not. They haven’t been for a long time. They’ve cycled through hitting coaches trying to deflect from that, but at some point it ain’t the arrows, son. These are your hitters. They’re either too stubborn or too stupid or just not equipped.

When the epitaph of this season is written, whenever that might be, it’ll be a measure of how much the supporting cast failed. Maybe the Cubs didn’t get an MVP-level performance from any of the main four, but it would be hard to make the case they didn’t get enough if anyone else had come along for the ride. But Jason Heyward’s barely .800 OPS isn’t enough (and it’s not even that now, but don’t dare move him from the leadoff spot because he’ll get cranky!). Same goes for Schwarber. Trusting Almora, Bote, and Russell after exactly none of them had ever put up even an average offensive season in the majors isn’t about “turning it on.” It’s about them not being good enough.

Forgetting to construct a bullpen isn’t about running in a lower gear for the fuck of it. Trying to rebuild it with Derek Holland and David Phelps isn’t about finding a switch. That doesn’t mean lavish amounts of money needed to be spent, and when the Cubs tried that it got them Operation Model Brandon Morrow or the weirdness of Craig Kimbrel with no spring training or first half. It’s about creativity and maybe finding a failed starter or two around who do have two pitches but can’t negotiate a lineup twice. Or producing some fire-breather from within who you know will only be around a max of three years but you enjoy it anyway. Theo did exactly none of this.

That doesn’t mean something silly or unforeseen can’t happen. Russell or Schwarber could binge for three weeks. Contreras could return and not miss a beat (and his Sept. ’17 when coming back from the same thing suggests it’s hardly an impossibility). Rizzo’s back-knack could just be a small thing. And that might be enough.

But as far as who has “underperformed?” No, there really aren’t that many, if any, who can have that label attached to them. More likely, those players are exactly what you see, which isn’t good enough.

Baseball

It Seems Simple, But It’s Actually Not

By Sam Fels 1507 0

First off, let me say right at the top that I’m guilty of this as anyone, as baseball is perhaps the last outlet where I regularly leave any rationality behind and just want to stomp my feet, whether in anger or joy. So I know what I said yesterday, but after a night to think about it, I think I’m at least back in the neighborhood of lost rationality. It’s at least an area code away.

After a weekend sweep, watching every grounder the Nationals hit find a hole, them never striking out when the Cubs absolutely needed them to, it would be easy to point out that difference between the two teams and say this is why the Cubs are where they are and the Nats are where they are and why they seem pointed in such opposite directions. Except even after that sweep, they’re four games apart, which I could just as easily point to their top of the rotation being better than the Cubs top of the rotation, and the Nats getting far more dates with the Marlins than the Cubs do and moving along (they’re currently 10-3 against Miami).

Yes, the Nats do put the ball in play more than the Cubs do, and the Cubs whiff a lot more than the Nats do. And that’s certainly an issue. Is it THE issue? Not so convinced.

Sure, the more balls you put in play the more chance you’re going to find a hole. But there’s also a chance that you find someone’s glove for a double play, especially when it’s on the ground as often as the Nats were this weekend. Jose Quintana gave up five earned runs in just four innings, four earned, and he didn’t give up one hard-hit ball. Sorry, he gave up one, according to FanGraphs. 75% of the contact he gave up was on the ground. On another day, that’s probably seven innings of shutout ball, assuming Anthony Rizzo wasn’t having a backiotomy on the field.

Yes, I know, the more balls you put in the play the more will turn into hits even if you’re percentages are the same. I was good at math, can’t you tell? But is finding holes with your grounders really a skill? It’s not. The Nats as a team have a BABIP nine points higher than the Cubs, good for second in the NL, non-Rockies division. And yet if you go by contact, team-wide, the Cubs make the same exact kind of contact the Nats do. Since the Nats went nuclear from June 1st on, their BABIP is 15 points higher than the Cubs, and they’ve hit the ball slightly harder, but have also made more soft-contact than the Cubs.

Of course, with that added BABIP the Nats jus have more of a sample, as they strike out far less (about 6%). So yes, you are right to bemoan the Cubs lack of ability to not strike out when it matters, but it’s more complicated than just getting the ball in play. I don’t know that the Cubs would be all that much better off with grounders instead of strikeouts, given they really have little team speed. They’d have to get awfully lucky, let’s say.

Digging deeper, much like Kris Bryant, the Cubs just don’t hit the ball very hard. Since that June 1st date, they rank dead-ass last in hard-contact rate as a team, and are 12th overall in the NL. Strangely, right ahead of the Nationals. Only Castellanos since he came over has a hard-contact rate over 40%, And 40% is just about the median rate in MLB right now. How can a team with Baez, Contreras, Bryant, Rizzo, and Schwarber not hit the ball all that hard collectively? And this is where their whiff-rate doesn’t come into it, because it’s solely about when they do make contact.

Right now the teams that sit atop the hard-contact rate standings in MLB are the Dodgers, Twins, Brewers, Cardinals, Rangers, with the Braves and A’s right behind that. That’s four first-place teams out of eight, and another playoff team, with only the Rangers and Brewers being outliers. Your bottom five are the White Sox, Orioles, Mariners, Mets, and Pirates.

So yes, the Cubs do whiff and chase a lot, and that’s a problem. But they’re not doing enough when they do make contact either, which might be just as big of a problem. How can in our year of the lord JUICED BALL, only Schwarber be on a pace to blow by his career-high in homers? Or he and Contreras nearing career-highs in slugging? Again, the whiffs and lack of contact come into it, but that much?

The Cubs have hit a good amount of homers at 203, yet they’re 11th in doubles. And I would argue only ranking 5th for this team in homers and slugging…it’s not enough. And only some of that can be blamed on the wind mostly blowing in at Wrigley and the weather being barf until the middle of June.

It’s a dual-track problem, and they’re most likely not going to solve it in the next 32 games. Which means this is probably going to get bumpier.

Baseball

Series Recap – Nationals Sweep Cubs: Capital Punishment

By Forklift 1939 0

How the entire weekend looked, down to the white spy having a hole in his bat

Game 1 Box Score: Nationals 9 Cubs 3

Game 2 Box Score: Nationals 7 Cubs 2

Game 3 Box Score: Nationals 7 Cubs 5 (11 innings)

So a couple weeks ago I run into Fels at a Cub game where the As just completely steamrolled the Cubs. Me, kind of missing writing, and also being in possession of spectacularly bad judgement, decide to tell Sam, “Hey, lemme know if you ever need anybody to write about the Cubs.” So he reaches out after Friday’s shit fiesta and asks if I’d like to recap. I figure, sure, I’m going Saturday anyway so why not?

The Cubs have had this habit all year of turning Wrigley Field into their own ivy-covered death star, obliterating teams that have the audacity to come in with any idea of winning games or series, using homestands to lift them into first place, and making us all think they’ve finally turned the corner, and all the talent they have would finally start translating into wins, before shattering those illusion on the subsequent road trip. I guess winning the last two games away from the Friendly Confines threw the schedule off, because they spent this weekend being perfectly generous hosts to the Washington Nationals, up to and including letting them have the last beer and slice of pizza.

Let’s…

Baseball

Is Kris Bryant Still Hurt Or Just Weird?

By Sam Fels 2684 0

Well that’s easy. Bryant is weird, in that he might be the blandest person in baseball who really only just wants to play baseball. But I’m not here to discuss whether this guy is the human interpretation of beige or not.

And I’m certainly not here to claim that Bryan is bad, or disappointing, or anything remotely close. He’s been the Cubs best player in fWAR, and in wRC+. In the former, he’s the 7th-best player in the NL, and in the latter category 10th. So if I were to call these kinds of performance disappointing, I’d be perhaps the biggest asshole in the world (and I yet may be). Bryant has an outside shot at having his fourth 6.0+ WAR season, which would be every season he’s been healthy. He’ll have to hustle, but it’s possible. Also, since he came into the league, the only two players better than him are Mike Trout and Mookie Betts, in terms of WAR.

Clearly, Bryant is still very, very special.

Still, I have thought all season that with baseballs flying everywhere, former squeegee-holders now surpassing 30 homers, that it’s a touch weird that Kris Bryant isn’t anywhere near his career-high in homers or slugging. His career-high in homers was 39 in his MVP-year of 2016, and he’s at 25 now. It’s not that he couldn’t go nuclear in the season’s last six weeks here, and get up around that 39 number. It’s just unlikely, along with improving his slugging some 19 points to get to the .554 mark, also from 2016.

When digging into this a bit, it was a little startling to see that Bryant doesn’t really hit the ball all that hard.

Bryant’s hard-contact rate is 35%. That ranks 61st in the National League, which is only 16 spots ahead of last of all qualified players in the league, and really doesn’t compare to the likes of Yelich and Bellinger, who are over 50%. Bryant also only has a line-drive rate of just 19.5%. That’s not that far off his career-mark of 21%, and you’ve never really think of Bryant spraying line-drives everywhere. Actually, in his injury-ravaged season of ’18, he had a 25% line-drive rate, but that could be attributed to his shoulder problems and an inability to get the ball in the air as he had before.

Still, Bryant is hitting more grounders than he ever has, which can’t really be explained away as good in any fashion. If you go by exit velocity, his 87.6 MPH average is very pedestrian. It’s behind by two MPH what he did in 2016, but again, this is a season where the baseball is souped up with nitrous to be labeled all over the field.

In fact, if you go by StatCast, Bryant is lucky to have the numbers he does. His expected slugging and weighted on-base, based on the kind of contact he’s making, are both some 40 points below what his actual slugging and weighted on-base average are. Bryant’s 17.7% home run per fly ball rate is a little high, but not obscene to what he’s done before. But again, in this environment, it feels like it’s a touch low.

One angle could be is that Bryant, at least this season, has developed something of a hole in his swing up in the zone:

Bryant for his career was still pretty deadly high and high and inside in the zone, and that hasn’t been the case this year. I don’t think however, that if he were getting to those pitches as well it would do something about his contact numbers. It would affect his slugging and homers, at least you’d think so. He would be hitting more of those towering homers that just never seem to come down, that you’re picturing in your mind right now.

Still, Bryant only has one season of making hard-contact over 40% of the time, which again, was his MVP year. And for comparison, his 40.6% hard-contact rate that year ranked fifth in the NL. That mark would be 15th now (tied with Kyle Schwarber, strangely).

There is something about Bryant’s swing and style that just don’t make you think he should be hitting the ball viciously hard every time, while still being awfully productive. Again, the numbers are the numbers and no one should be upset with what Bryant has given.

There’s just this feeling that the atmosphere has changed, more and more hitters have caught up to what Bryant was doing, and he hasn’t geared up with them. Essentially putting up the same numbers and rates with this baseball suggests moving backwards a bit, or that he’s not completely healthy either. Being weak high in the zone, which he wasn’t before, could also suggest that shoulder isn’t quite 100%, but that’s just speculation. And last year, when he was definitely hurt, he was actually worse lower in the zone.

Look, this is Kris Bryant we’re talking about. GALACTUS. There might be only one player in the NL you’d even consider trading him for (Bellinger, and that’s mostly due to age). It just seems weird that Bryant isn’t putting up Belinger or Yelich numbers when everything is bent for him to do so.

Then again, this is probably complaining about the back of Penelope Cruz’s knee or something.

Baseball

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

By Sam Fels 1992 0

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Baseball

Can We Turn Kyle Schwarber Into Joey Gallo?

By Sam Fels 1479 0

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Baseball

Series Recap – Cubs Lose Two Of Three To Cardinals: The Cows Could Produce A Run By Now

By Sam Fels 1554 0

Game 1 Box Score: Cardinals 2, Cubs 1

Game 2 Box Score: Cubs 2, Cardinals 0

Game 3 Box Score: Cardinals 8, Cubs 0

Here’s what will definitely happen. Either in the postgame tonight or before the game tomorrow, Joe Maddon will tell the press that the Cubs have to get back to grinding out at-bats. They have to dig out some offense. They have to fight through this. And then they won’t, which either means Joe is telling them this along with whatever hitting coach they’ll fire this time around as a smokescreen, and they’re not listening. Or he’s not even bothering to tell them and is going straight to the press, because he knows and the players know he’s getting punted no more than five minutes after the final out of the season.

Here’s what very well might happen. The Cubs will peter out somewhere, either after Game 162 or in the Division Series or coinfli flip game after the balloon-handed nature of both the Brewers and Cardinals gifts them a spot somehow. And either Theo Epstein will find out the purse strings are still being yanked by the Ricketts and he’ll walk, or he’ll hope letting Maddon walk is enough of a cover again to mask that his system has produced exactly his dick in his hand since 2016 or so.

Really, what this road trip has shown is that there has been a systematic failure at pretty much every level of this organization. On the biggest swing of the year, the Cubs best players all went turtle. None of them have hit. And you’d be tempted to say that’s just the vagaries of baseball, except we’ve been talking about this in some fashion for two months. Baez was dominant in the season’s first two months by actually occasionally taking a walk and going the opposite way almost as much as he pulled the ball. So he’s going to spend six weeks swinging at everything and trying to pull everything. Contreras is going to swing at the first pitch he sees. Bryan is going to have to gut out an injury that clearly should have him on the IL because the bottom of the roster is non-existent. If Addison Russell didn’t suck out loud, they could go without Bryant for 10 days. If David Bote didn’t suck deep pond scum they could go without Bryant for 10 days. But they do, so he has to play and do a pretty mean David Bote impression for six games. Anthony Rizzo is nowhere. All when they have to be here.

This team doesn’t fight. They don’t dig deep in close games and find a way to get on base, to score, to win. They find ways to lose. And maybe that’s just what happens when a team thinks no matter what it does the bullpen is just going to blow it anyway. There’s no gumption about this squad.

But why should there be? They heard their GM say that there would be changes, that production would be all that mattered. And then nothing changed. No one’s on alert. Addison Russell got another chance. So did Bote. So did Almora. So did Schwarber. Who’s on edge?

But then why would this team feel their front office and ownership is fighting for them? They watched the same team basically come back, the one that wasn’t quite good enough last year. The Cardinals added Goldschmidt. The Brewers added Grandal. The Phillies added Harper. The Braves added Donaldson.

Here’s an exercise for you. Go and watch two interviews with the Astros right after they got the news their team had traded for Zack Greinke. See the bounce. Do you think any Cubs were doing that when finding out about Castellanos and Phelps? Castellanos is only here due the failure of multiple players, not to boost something that already is working.

This team plays entitled. Like nothing will happen. Because really, it won’t. This is all set up to burn down after 2021 anyway, and everyone in the organization looks like it’s just going to sit around waiting for that.

The urgency, the desperation, the fight, the want-to, whatever you call it, you find it on this team. I can’t. They accept what’s happening to them because that’s been the nature of the whole operation. Oh sure, they’ll get wins when Hendricks or someone else tosses a gem, or Kyle Davies places a “HIT ME” sticker on a barely-fastball. And this doesn’t mean the Cubs won’t win the division, based on the aforementioned nature of their competition.

Well, maybe not “win’ it, so much as just open the front door and see that it’s been left there so they might as well take it inside. That’s what the Ricketts Family, Epstoyer, Maddon, and everyone have created here. And there’s no reason to think it will change.

This team isn’t going anywhere. Someplace might land on them, but it will still be standing still when it does. And that you can believe.

Baseball

I’m Mad As Hell, And I’m Not Gonna Take It Anymore…I Mean, I Think?

By Sam Fels 1554 0

A few caveats before you wade into the following muck. One, losses to the Cardinals make me irrationally angry. Losses to the corpse of Adam Wainwright make me more irrationally angry. This piece’s purpose is to show how two things can be true at once. It very well might not make any sense. It could also be completely wiped out contextually by the Cubs winning the next five games. Yeah, well, life is strange, said Slim.

Ok, to it.

I’ve been thinking about the ’85 Bears a lot lately, which you know if you follow me on Twitter. The parallels are getting too hard to miss with the Cubs. A life-defining, long-overdue championship. A manager/coach that is seemingly on every ad, and seemingly more interested in celebrating his style than actually managing the team. At odds with the front office. An ownership that seems content with the one. Follow-up seasons that are short of expectations. Competitors passing by and seemingly for good. Trying to balance the elation of that one night and how much it meant, that season meant, with the disappointment of what’s come after. Do I have a right to be disappointed? Am I disappointed enough? Am I erasing 2016? Did it mean too much?

It is hard to not be infuriated with this team right now. This was/is the biggest road trip of the season. They’ve fallen on their face so far, pretty much. They haven’t played like a team that even wants to win the division, much less can. The offense has simply gone away at the worst time, and there haven’t been any Scherzers or Strasburgs or deGroms doing the disappearing. It would be next to impossible to not be frustrated. How did this happen?

I keep looking at this lineup. Is this really the best we can do not even three seasons after having the best offense in baseball? Should it fall this far this fast? You’re pinning your hopes on Robel Garcia, a tinder-swipe of a hope if there ever was one? Ian Happ?

It’s much more fun and much easier to yell at the Ricketts, and they would deserve it. But let’s cut through to the heart of it. The cash the Ricketts aren’t opening up for Theo and Jed is for them to buy their way out of the holes in the team the system they made hasn’t filled. Since 2015 and basically Javier Baez’s recall (who wasn’t their draft pick, remember, though that doesn’t mean they didn’t develop him), who has come up through the Cubs system and proven a piece? You can search all you like, you won’t find one.

But is that fair? Because after a stretch of developing or acquiring Rizzo, Arrieta, Bryant, Baez, Contreras, Hendricks, Rondon–all at least unproven before arrival–is it really the expectation you can keep at that pace? Well, yeah, because others are doing it, but that is two Cy Young finalists/winners and two MVP finalists/winners.

Still, it feels like from standing on top of the baseball world not yet three seasons ago, the Cubs have been passed by the Dodgers, Astros, possibly Braves now, Yankees, Red Sox, and you might even convince yourself or me to throw one or two other teams on there. They deservedly beat the Dodgers in six games but from that October night, the Dodgers have added Cody Bellinger, Max Muncy, Walker Buehler, Alex Verdugo, rehabilitated Joc Pederson, Hyun-Jin Ryu, and still were able to trade for Yu Darvish and Manny Machado in that time, and still have one of the best systems in baseball, with Gavin Lux just twiddling this thumbs waiting for a spot.

It feels like the Dodgers have sprinted miles ahead, with their better records in ’17 and this year…except the Cubs won more games last year in a tougher division. But they didn’t beat the Rockies at home, the Dodgers did. Am I really going to hang that conclusion on a coin-flip and the small sample size of the playoffs?

This team won 95 games last year with half a Bryant, basically no Darvish, and bullpen crumbling as the season went along like it was sent from the Acme Co. We bitch and moan about Maddon now, but sure that was actually excellent managing, no?

The Astros created their super team, swung trades for Verlander and Cole, and still have Yordan Alvarez punching holes in the sky, and Kyle Tucker and Forrest Whitley waiting. Now maybe the latter two will turn out to be nothing…but with their track record, is that what you’re betting on?

Meanwhile, back here at the ranch, it’s Ian Happ being rightly demoted. It’s the stock in Kyle Schwarber they kept telling us they had to buy that has yet to produce 1 WAR this year in his nearly fourth full campaign. It’s whatever iteration of sadness Albert Almora is today. It’s Carl Edwards being wheelbarrowed to the zoo. It’s Addison Russell hopefully being locked in a dungeon to never see the light of day. It’s ANY pitcher that doesn’t actually exist.

And what’s on the way? Nico Hoerner? The 12 minutes Alzolay will be healthy? Miguel Amaya three years down the line when everyone may have left by free agency already?

Am I going to be that guy in 25 years (no, I’ll be long dead but go with this) barking at some poor kid about how he missed out on 2016, just like I’ve heard about 1985 a zillion and a half times? Yes, I absolutely will be, because 2016 was that worth it and also very well might be all we have. And that kid will long for the season he remembers just as fondly, only so he or she can stop hearing about 2016 again. And if that season also should end for them with Rex Grossman fumbling away the World Series, boy wouldn’t the symmetry be complete?

Should there be more money? Of course there should be. They’re worth $2 billion, after all. But that doesn’t absolve the front office either. The trade for Aroldis Chapman was “necessary,” (only convinced of this after Strop and Rondon both got hurt that year, but had they stayed healthy also think they would have been enough). The Quintana trade was worth it. But as stated above, your rivals were trading for All-Stars and top of the rotation pieces. And their systems survived those culls. Yours hasn’t. Why?

And yet…we’re talking about two seasons? 2017 and 2019? Because 2018 saw them win the most games in the NL. Can we really be that upset about that? And 2017, it was kind of understood it was going to be a slog from the get-go. Then again, that’s when they told us their “second wave” would start. Well, I’m still sitting on my board in the sun, and it’s getting hot and I’m getting burned.

It’s not good enough. It was more than good enough. And here we are, stuck in the middle with this.

 

Baseball

Series Wrap – Cubs Sweep Cardinals: Pretty Good For A Bunch Of Sucks, No?

By Sam Fels 2133 0

Game 1 Box Score: Cubs 3, Cardinals 1

Game 2 Box Score: Cubs 9, Cardinals 4

Game 3 Box Score: Cubs 5, Cardinals 1

It was only a week ago before most of Cubdom was tearing their hair out and declaring it was all over people, we don’t have a prayer. Swept in St. Louis tends to bring everyone to the irrational zone. The Cubs just has a bad couple weeks, but they seem intent on backing up a bad 10-12 games with a solid month, and they certainly got off to a great start to that by taking six of seven on a homestand. The Cards came into this series with a chance to really vault themselves into the discussion. They leave 5.5 games back and under .500. The Brewers are enough to deal with, thanks.

Let’s get to it.

The Two Obs

-We’ll have to start with Kyle Schwarber, who appears primed to go on a binge. He didn’t start on Friday, but had four hits the past two days, four RBI, a homer on basically a half-swing after seeing 11 pitches Saturday, and another two doubles. The War Bear’s OPS has now crawled above .800, and his OPS from the leadoff spot is higher than Dexter Fowler’s was in 2016 so maybe everyone can shut the fuck up about Fowler for like five minutes? His ABs have been great for a while now and he wasn’t getting the results. This is what he should have gotten. I don’t think this is just a hot streak. I think this is what he is. Let’s go.

-We can go over Jon Lester’s numbers and trends all we want. Point out the added walks and the less ground balls and the harder contact. But at the end of the day, he might just be Sargent Hartman’s corollary, “Sometimes guts is enough.” He’ll have bad innings, he’ll have bad starts even. But more often than not, he’s just going to find a way. He had a bad inning last night, and then tossed five innings where the Cards didn’t even get the ball out of the infield. I’m not sure how, Don’t even know why. He just did it.

-Meanwhile, Cole Hamels on Friday decided it was time to go back to the fastball, as he threw it more than he had in his last five starts. It was mostly that and change-ups, and the Cards didn’t have much of an answer.

-The pen didn’t give up a run all series, but was only asked to cover six innings over three games. Given that workload, just about anyone can find the finish line. So keep doing that.

-You know, I spend a good amount of time bitching about Jason Heyward, but he’s still carrying an above average OPS and wRC+ and if he can hit more balls hard like he did this weekend, he’ll probably stay there. With that defense, that’s enough.

-Kyle Hendricks…man, there isn’t much more to say. He didn’t use the curve hardly at all tonight, but his new toy is going up in the zone and I have no idea how he’s getting away with it but I don’t have to. As long as you’re hitting the corners up there too, then you’ll have the success you have hitting the corners down low.

-I think we might just have to say David Bote is good. I’m not sure I believe it, but given what he’s asked to do an .827 OPS is really outstanding.

-I’m not sure this Cardinals thing is going to work out because Carpenter is actually old, Ozuna isn’t actually that good, and Goldschmidt is going to have to carry it all at some point. Totally heartbroken about it, let me tell ya.

Onwards…

Baseball

Do I Have To Give Up On The War Bear?

By Sam Fels 1756 0

While I’m not drying to put my head through various spots of drywall after this 6-12 stretch, it has become pretty clear that the Cubs inhabit a second tier of the majors. Which is…fine. It’s certainly good enough to win the division, and even make some noise in October. They’re not 6-12 bad, just as they weren’t 2-7 bad to start the year, and probably not 22-7 good in the middle there. But what’s clear is that the Astros and Dodgers, essentially the two teams the Cubs have been compared to since the whole cycle started, are in a different class than them. It shouldn’t be that way, or doesn’t feel like it should, but let’s be honest about it.

One day in the future, we’ll do a deep dive about how the Cubs lost the high ground to the Dodgers in the NL, because they had it over them in 2016 for sure. But to put it in one line, the Cubs never created a second wave of produced players/stars after Rizzo and Bryant (throw Contreras or Baez in there if you want, though neither were “stars” in ’16). Meanwhile, the Dodgers introduced Cody Bellinger to the world, were able to be patient with Joc Pederson (or have the White Sox fuck up trading for him, your pick), now have Alex Verdugo in tow in the interim, along with reclamation projects/science experiments Max Muncy and Chris Taylor and whoever else.

And the Cubs have made bets on their products, and none have really worked out. And the one they bought biggest into was Kyle Schwarber you could argue, because there was a time and place when he would have had serious value in a trade. And now you worry they’ve held on too long and perhaps ruined that value forever, while having a player that may just never be what he flashed in 2015.

Schwarber has been able to somewhat hide under the glow of the ’16 World Series, and as much as I love the dude and still believe there’s a wildebeest in there somewhere, it’s one that annoys me. Yes, Schwarbs had seven hits after sitting out an entire season, and that is kind of amazing on that level. On another, he had one extra-base hit and strung a few singles together. And it was only 20 PAs, which is nothing. When considering what Schwarber is and what he will be, it’s best to ignore all of it.

On the other side, there’s this idea that in the two intervening seasons since he’s been a total bum. Nope. He’s been above average offensively in both, and was even a 3.0 WAR player last year, which if you can believe it made him one of the more valuable left-fielders around last year (seriously, it did. He was like sixth behind Pham, Benintendi, Rosario, Peralta, and Brantley). Schwarber hasn’t been a drag on anyone before this, he just hasn’t been the star we’d hoped.

So what’s the deal with Schwarber this year? The easy thing to say is he strikes out too much. Except he’s not striking out really any more than he ever has. And he’s walking a ton, top-15 in baseball, and walks are good. We like walks. So then the next thing to say is he’s not hitting the ball with authority. Except he is. Schwarber’s hard-contact rate is the highest of his career. So his line-drive rate. If you go by Statcast, his average exit-velocity is the highest of his career as well. In fact, his 92.6 MPH average is also in the top 20 in baseball.

Could it be that Schwarber is just unlucky? The .257 BABIP would suggest so, but it’s really not that far below his career number. Because Schwarber is one who gets gobbled up by shifting infields a lot.

If you reduce it down to May, that month was even weirder for Schwarber. He walked nearly 20% of the time, had an OBP of .345, hit everything hard… and hit .196. Could it be he’s just doomed?

Schwarber isn’t the ark-of-the-covenant-horrific high-leverage hitter he was last year, but he also still is very bad. Schwarbs has a 77 wRC+ in medium leverage situations (100 is average) and 66 in high. With men in scoring position, he’s -1. -1. Like…through the looking glass awful. And yet, all his walk or strikeout or contact numbers hardly change at all when there are men on base. He’s the same guy.

What’s clear is that Schwarber has some clear holes. Fastballs even just high in the zone and middle of the plate in he can’t get to. He also can’t hit a breaking ball. Like at all. They don’t even have to be out of the zone. Don’t believe me?

Schwarber whiffs on half the swings he takes at curves, and it’s not much better on sliders. As he leads off, he generally only sees men on base later in the game, when relievers are specially trained to throw gas high and breaking stuff after it. He’s easily identified, let’s say.

I’m just not sure what the answer is. I know it’s not Carlos Gonzalez, who has been three aliens dressed as Carlos Gonzalez for like four seasons now. I have to believe that if Schwarber continues to walk nearly 20% of the time, keeps hitting the ball as hard as he is, good things will happen.

Because a dangerous, even dominant Schwarber extends this lineup to at least a point where it can see the Dodgers. There would still be holes at second, center, and right (don’t look now but Russell is kind of hitting, as gross as it is). And the bullpen needs too much work to go chasing a bat. There aren’t enough assets for everything. Unless Schwarber becomes one of those flogged assets. Is it even possible now?