Baseball

We Know Your Nature – 2019 Cubs Player Reviews: Victor Caratini

By Sam Fels 1633 0

Quite the year for Victor, who started spring training as something of an afterthought and now could very well be in line for a starting job in 2020, be it here or elsewhere as trade bait. Has he earned that? Let’s find out…

2019 Stats

279 PA

.266/.348/.447

11 HR  31 RBI

10.4 BB%  21.1 K%

.338 wOBA  108 wRC+  .794 OPS

+4.3 Defensive Runs Saved

Tell Me A Story: When the Cubs were in Mesa, most every Cubs blogger and fan was losing their mud over the fact that the Cubs didn’t have a backup catcher. One of 2018’s major problems was Willson Contreras playing far too many games and tiring out, and Caratini’s brief cameo didn’t really convince anyone. It went from that in March to Caratini playing well enough in the season’s opening weeks that everyone found more mud to lose (it’s getting unhealthy now) when he broke his hand and had to miss a month (but hey, it gave us the Taylor Davis grand slam against the Cardinals. Boy it seemed so innocent then). And now it’s ended with some calling, or just thinking the Cubs think, that Caratini is absolutely a viable option to take over as starter if the Cubs move Contreras for pitching or centerfield help. As the one true Jokes would say, “Oh what a day what a day…”

So how was Caratini able to go from an offensively-absent seat-filler to a productive hitter? Becoming extremely patient certainly helped, as Caratini nearly doubled his walk-rate from ’18 to ’19 and was well above league average with that 10.4% mark. While Caratini still chased the same percentage of pitches out of the zone (though he did so at well below league average), he became far more aggressive on pitches in the zone. This saw him up his hard-contact rate to about a third of the time, which isn’t great but was definitely better than he’d been. And like with everyone else, we don’t really know how to adjust these numbers for the baseball.

Perhaps more encouragingly is that Victor was able to hit a range of pitches. He didn’t just hit mistake fastballs, though obviously one can make a career out of that. Victor did most of his work on fastballs but also mashed on changes and sliders, including a .622 slugging on the latter. Curveballs from right-handed pitchers were a bit of an issue, and one he might see more of with greater playing time.

Defensively, Victor improved massively as well, doubling up Willson’s framing numbers in about half of the time, which is where some people’s focus is centered. Victor doesn’t have nearly the arm that Willson does, but he bought his pitchers a lot more strikes, and was actually up among the best in the league in framing runs even though he hardly played full-time. So the question for the Cubs will be which is more important as we roll along here.

Contract: Team control for next season, arbitration eligible in 2021

Welcome Back Or Boot In The Ass: Most certainly welcome back unless some other team makes a generous offer for him. Considering he costs nothing at the moment, at worst he’s one of the better backup catchers in the league. The question will be whether the Cubs think he can be a starter, depending on if they have an inclination to see what’s out there for Contreras. Caratini is 26, so while his experience level suggests there could still be some growth, his aging curve suggests this is probably about what he’ll be. And that is a very good receiver with only a passable arm at best, and just about a league-average hitter. Over a full season he might be a 2-2.5 WAR player. But then that’s really only a tick or two below what Contreras was this season, though that’s partly due to injury and his framing problems earlier in the year.

The Cubs could carry Caratini as a starter with a few adjustments. One, a heavy return on Contreras. Two, they’d have to get more offense from second base and center field, or just a lot more offense from one of them. Third, they’d probably have to have a backup with a big arm for Lester starts, and whoever ends up being in the rotation aside from Darvish, Hendricks, and Q. Otherwise teams in big games will run all over Lester.

There isn’t a lot of air to Caratini’s stats, so a major regression doesn’t seem on the cards offensively. He doesn’t whiff a lot, which the Cubs will be curious about. He doesn’t have an alarmingly high BABIP or anything. But he also doesn’t hit the ball very hard. And remember, to give him the starting job you’d be giving one of the best offensive catchers in the game, which just don’t come around that often. It’s a big risk. Does Caratini’s framing and contact make it worthwhile? A lot of variables here, but it would not be a surprise if the Cubs bet that it does.

Previous Cubs Reviews

Willson Contreras

 

Baseball

We Know Your Nature – 2019 Cubs Player Reviews: Willson Contreras

By Sam Fels 1509 0

Figured I’d start these off with the player I feel, and somewhat fear, is going to be the name you hear most in trade rumors. Seems like the Cubs, both fans and front office, have forgotten what a unique toy they have in #40. But he also might be the most expendable, even if he isn’t all that expendable.

2019 Stats

.272/.355/.533

24 HR  64 RBI 

9.3 BB%  24.9 K%

.368 wOBA  127 wRC+ .888 OPS

-0.3 Defensive Runs Saved

Tell Me A Story: Ok, so here’s the thing. How many catchers had a better wRC+ than Contreras this season? One, that was Mitch Garver (one of the 27 Twins to hit 30+ homers out of nowhere for no reason, in case you were wondering). How many catchers had a better OPS? Again, one. Again, Garver. Again, for no reason. So you’re dealing with basically a unicorn when it comes to offense from catchers in Willson. Since he became the full-time starter in 2017, the only catcher with a better wRC+ is Yasmani Grandal, and no one has a better wOBA. He’s a genuine treasure, with at least the bat. We’ll get to that in a second, though.

The problem for Contreras in the 2018 campaign is that his power went to the land of wind and ghosts. He only hit 10 homers, and slugged .390. We knew it was strange then, and probably something that wouldn’t continue. Willson’s hard-contact rate was below 30%. Maybe he made an adjustment, or maybe he was carrying an injury the whole time. Whatever it was, all of his numbers jumped this year back to what we know they should be, and in fact were career-highs. You have to normalize it with the golf ball being used every day, but still felt like he was returning to the norms of his first season and a half in the Majors.

There was a lot of discussion about Willson’s defense, specifically his framing, throughout the season. And a good portion of it is noise, but let’s work it through. It’s been two seasons since Willson posted a positive Defensive Runs Saved mark. One part of that is the league is now so aware of his arm, that he almost never gets to use it. When he does, he seems so excited by the opportunity he’s lasers it into the outfield more often. So he doesn’t get much of a chance to throw out runners to boost that metric.

The other part is obviously framing. But here’s the thing, midway through the season Contreras’s framing stats were all in the negative. He ended the season on the positive side of the ledger, though still some way behind Victor Caratini. Or at least close to it, depending on whose numbers you use. It’s something he was clearly working on, made an adjustment, and if the Cubs were to hire…oh I don’t know, David Ross as a manager, he would have someone with him every day to work on it with. He probably will never be Grandal back there, but he can be good as there’s still time for him to upswing.

The issue for Contreras is the contact. His contact in the zone and overall still lags behind league average, and this is something the Cubs are obviously going to try and improve somewhere next season. He’s always lagged behind, and in the season’s dying embers he seemed to be a poster-boy for poor approach with runners on, and one I was happy to echo. The Cubs have to improve their contact skills somewhere, after all.

Contract: Arbitration eligible for next three seasons. Likely to earn $5M or so.

Welcome Back Or Boot In The Ass?: This is so hard. Again, you just don’t find catchers who can hit like Willson, and the defense can and probably will improve if he wants it to. Even as he heads into arbitration, he’ll make nothing compared to the production you get. If Grandal is basically the same guy, at least offensively, he makes at least three times more than what Willson will likely get in his first arbitration spin and even that was considered low-ball.

Except all of that is also why he probably carries the most trade value. And unlike Schwarber, you probably don’t have to pay through the nose to replace him, as you have an in-house candidate in Caratini. He’ll never hit for near the power of Contreras and runners might pass out from joy when he’s catching Lester next year, but he’s the better framer and makes more contact. You’d still be downgrading the position, even more so if robot umps are in our near future, but not so much you couldn’t justify it.

Justify it depending on the return, that is. Just like anything else, you can’t trade Contreras just for the sake of it. You won’t have another like him behind the plate for years, and we know this because the Cubs didn’t. But if you can get a starter that slots ahead of Quintana and Lester for him or more, you would have to think long and hard about it. Maybe even a long-term solution in center, though I have no idea who that would be. And when I say starter, I’m thinking like Thor. And don’t tell me you couldn’t get the Mets to bite on that one, because you can get the Mets to bite on anything.

Or the consolation is you bring the best or second-best hitting catcher in the game back, have him keep working on his defense and take your .900 OPS or thereabouts and get on with your life. Doesn’t seem so bad.

Baseball

Series Recap – Zombieland

By Sam Fels 1665 0

It’s strange, because there’s not much more that’s new to say. I’ve written series recaps before that pointed out how that given series was a perfect demonstration of the systematic failure at every level of the Cubs this year. Ownership, front office, managing, training staff, players. Every single thing has simply not been up to par this season, and in some ways the Cubs are getting exactly what they deserve in the most humiliating fashion. And yet, I bet you and I are a lot more upset about it than the Ricketts family right now.

The thing I kept coming back to is arrogance. Arrogance of the whole organization that things would simply work out because it was the Cubs doing it. The arrogance of Theo Epstein that he would be able to buy his way out of all the mistakes he’s made, and then having no plan when he couldn’t. The arrogance that any player coming through the system would come good, simply because it was the Cubs system. The arrogance that not producing one pitcher until Rowan Wick would be fine. The arrogance of the manager who simply refused to learn how to adapt to a game that has rapidly changed on his watch. The arrogance of players who have burned through three hitting coaches now because they refused to change anything they did in the biggest situations. The arrogance of a medical staff that waited a week to get Javier Baez an MRI, or had Cole Hamels clearly pitching hurt for a month, which had its knock-on effects, or Kris Bryant on one leg for longer than that, or the more I can keep mentioning.

And that has led to a season of Hail Marys to try and save it. Calling up Ian Happ before he had really dominated at Iowa was a Hail Mary. Robel Garcia was a Hail Mary. Ben Zobrist after four months out was a Hail Mary. Craig Kimbrel with no spring training was a Hail Mary. Anthony Rizzo on one leg was a Hail Mary, though one that ended up pretty much working. The Cubs didn’t have a foundation, so they just had to throw everything they could at the wall.

And it’s come to a head over the last six games. And funny enough, it starts with the starting rotation, which was supposed to be the one thing they could count on. For weeks, Jon Lester has been a fifth starter, and given his age and odometer, that’s not really surprising. Jose Quintana decided that looked like fun and didn’t want to stick around for more than three innings. Hamels as previously mentioned.

Which meant that even a September bullpen was charred, to the point where the Cubs had no choice but to let Yu Darvish try and finish this one out today. There was no one else. It led to rushing Kimbrel back when he clearly was not ready on Thursday or yesterday. It led to Joe Maddon having to make a lot of in-game decisions, which isn’t what you want. Which is why you have a Make-A-Wish like Danny Hultzen trying to pull Q’s ass out of a jam yesterday to give up a lead.

Yesterday’s game is a stinger in another way, as when the Cards did take that 5-3 lead they did it by simply lining a single up the middle or the opposite way with men on base. If the Cubs had taken that approach more often this season and only trying for the world-ending bomb when it was on offer, where might they be? Nah, we’ll just whiff on another high fastball. It’s going great for us.

But hey, the offense put up eight runs yesterday. They just can’t string any innings from the pen together. Here’s a question, how does Tyler Chatwood throw a third of an inning this series? Is he hurt too? The Cubs had a chance to have a multi-inning piece all season with him in the pen, to shield all the things they didn’t have. Maddon refused because he doesn’t see the game that way. Let’s try James Norwood some more.

At the end of the day, I don’t know how upset at the offense I can get when Baez is out, Bryant is clearly hurt and not on cortisone shots anymore, and Rizzo is also on one leg. Might have helped if Willson Contreras took a pitch this week, which he didn’t. But it’s the rotation, rotation, rotation. It left Yu without a net. Final nail.

When you lose four one-run games, and as many as the Cubs have this year, it’s easy to point to luck, and that’s part of it. The bigger part for this team is the pen and they simply don’t make all the plays like they used to. They find a way to give up another run, or keep an inning going, or walk a guy to keep turning the lineup over. They haven’t been as locked in this year as they have been, and they’re now a middling defensive team. This is a big deal. It’s mostly the outfield, as the infield still ranks among the top in groundball efficiency. You’ve got to make the plays. The Cubs didn’t today, they haven’t a lot, and they lose.

They’re going to win less than 85 games, likely. That should never, ever happen with this roster.

Heads will roll now, unlike the only-promised bloodletting of last offseason. Maddon’s toast, to be replaced by whatever automaton that will run the team exactly how Theo sees it. I guess that’s fine, though I wonder how Theo sees the game now. It’s felt like he’s been caught and passed by other front offices, and without an unending checkbook, he can’t find a way back. We’ll see. For the first time here the daggers will be out this winter and a heavy focus on what they do.

There will be talk of trading a major piece. I don’t see how you get equal value for any of them and not create a hole in your lineup you can’t fill properly. If I had to wager, Contreras’s name will be the one you hear most, and I guess if you get a genuine centerfielder out of it, and maybe a pitcher, you’d have to listen. I don’t know that Victor Caratini wouldn’t be exposed with a full slate of ABs, and just how many .900+ OPS catchers do you think there are out there?

Still, these questions would have easier answers if the Cubs had produced anything out of their own system the past few seasons. The Dodgers can’t fit all of them in. Neither can the Astros. The Yankees had a whole team injured and might end up with the best record in the game. You have to keep reloading. The Cubs gave you Robel Garcia.

And I don’t know the future is any brighter in that sense. It would be the same mistake the Cubs made on Almora, on Happ, even on Russell back in 2015, to just hand the 2nd base job to Nico Hoerner in Mesa. He has too little experience. But the Cubs might have to given financial restraints. Which are in place because they’ve blown so many big contracts.

There’s a way out of this. But it’s an awfully dark tunnel to get there, with a lot of pits and wrong turns that have to be avoided. I can’t tell you I’m 100% confident the Cubs can negotiate it, given what we’ve seen over the last eight months.

But as always…

Onwards…

Baseball

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

By Sam Fels 1257 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

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

By Sam Fels 1139 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 Sweep Brewers: In Some Ways This Is Worse

By Sam Fels 1349 0

Game 1 Box Score: Cubs 6, Brewers 2

Game 2 Box Score: Cubs 4, Brewers 1

Game 3 Box Score: Cubs 7, Brewers 2

I think I dislike this team more when they beat the shit out of opponents now than I do when they lose.

Because that looked effortless. That was a display of what we thought/think is the gulf in class between these two teams. The Brewers, especially after the injuries they’ve had, can’t come close to the starting pitching the Cubs have. We saw that in ways last weekend as well. So they scored five runs, and only three of them off the Cubs trio of Quintana, Hamels, and Darvish.

But the difference is the Cubs offense treated the Brewers starters, except for Gio Gonzalez because of course, as they’re supposed to be treated. And the only difference is that they were at home instead on the road, which you’ll never convinced me should be that big of a factor and is just something weird. The Cubs came into this one game ahead of the Brewers and they’ll leave it four ahead now, which for a team like Milwaukee that has about two starters right now is a little more than it sounds.

Especially today, when the Cubs were happy to just take things to the opposite field and take their walks and get the hits they needed to make this one pretty uncompetitive after the second inning. Hell, they even got good bullpen management today with Chatwood getting the old school save, something we haven’t seen enough of.  Fuck, they got seven runs today with no Bryant or Contreras. IT COULD NOT BE ANY SIMPLER, LUANNE!

So why is this so hard? Can’t you do this most of the time? Fuck, even three more weeks of play like this probably wins the division as long as you don’t vomit blood the rest of the year. It just can’t be that complicated.

Anyway, to it…

The Two Obs

-Of course, it can’t all be roses with the Cubs. Contreras’s injury hangs over all, and that looks to be of the three-to-four week variety, maybe more if you want to be safe. We saw this injury make the 2017 season end something of a slog. While Victor Caratini has been serviceable, this is where you fear he’ll be exposed.

It would be easy to rant and rave about the Cubs having three catchers not a week ago, and Maldonado at least gives you the defense. But there’s not much you can do about that now, and Kemp probably gives you the same value. Hell. Taylor Davis can catch the ball at least.

The Cubs could more easily survive if Bryant was healthy, which one day off isn’t going to make him. And now there’s less chance of an IL stay for him to try and get healthy. Rizzo’s four hits today are how you make up for it, Castellanos helps, and Schwarber binge wouldn’t go amiss either.

-I was not a fan of Maddon’s handling of the staff on Saturday, but he got away with it. In the sixth, after the Cubs were never going to get more than five out of Hamels, he sent out David Phelps to deal with the top of the Brewers lineup. It went about as well as you would have thought, though it’s not like Cain crushed his infield single. To me, that’s the big point in the game there, and the thought should be by the time the top of the lineup rolls around again it’s the 9th and Kimbrel is dealing with it anyway, or it’s the 8th and Kintzler is. And to be fair to Phelps, Braun’s RBI single was a piece of shit desperation heave that the other nine times out of ten is an out. Still, I’d rather have Wick or Ryan working through the top of the lineup and then Phelps dealing with the top, and I don’t really care what inning it is.

-Everything Castellanos hits has been a line drive of late.

-Why did it take this long to just let Heyward bat leadoff? I know he’s hated it in the past but he seems amenable now and well, look how it’s going.

-Quite the world when Ian Happ is considered a defensive replacement.

Onwards…

Baseball

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

By Sam Fels 1427 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

Series Wrap – Cubs Swept By Cardinals: And Here Come The Pretzels

By Sam Fels 1313 0

Game 1 Box Score: Cardinals 2, Cubs 1

Game 2 Box Score: Cardinals 7, Cubs 4

Game 3 Box Score: Cardinals 2, Cubs 1

It’s always important to breathe at a moment like this. Sweeps at the hand of those from Mos Eisley tend to accentuate the emotions and anger and whatever your particular grievance is with the team at that time. So it is tempting to say that the offense completely sucks, even though it doesn’t. Or that the rotation isn’t good enough, even though they didn’t do anything wrong this weekend. Or that the pen is an absolute abomination…and that would be correct.

The Cubs lost three coin-flips essentially, one caused by a three-hour rain delay which I’m more and more convinced shouldn’t be a thing that exist unless they have to. Both teams looked pretty damn flat this afternoon after a very late night last night, and the Cubs just made one ore two more mistakes and lost the last one.

It’s still important to note that this team is fourth in runs in the NL, second in wOBA. It might not feel like it right now, especially when they just got bladdered by a corpse, but they were also unlucky. Three of those line drives find holes on another day, and then what are we talking about?

It’s definitely a rough patch, 2-8 in their last 10, but that happens. The encouraging thing, if you need, is that the rotation bounced back which is probably the most important thing going forward. Let’s run it through:

The Two Obs

-It seems a bit silly to complain about the bullpen and its handling on a night when the Cubs scored one run, but that’s Friday for you. Miles Mikolas still has that in the bag on occasion, even if this year has been a struggle for him. But I don’t know why anyone would be in a hurry to get to Dillon Maples when there’s already a guy on base, and I’m a Maples guy and want him to be given every chance and more to finally nail down a spot (he probably won’t ever but I’m a hopeful sort). Mike Montgomery isn’t a situational lefty, and yet because he’s the only one out there besides Ryan (who blows but more on that in a sec) he keeps being used as one. I would trust Monty to get through Wong and Bader, though to be fair to Maples he did strike out Bader and didn’t get a call. But now the bases are loaded and you have to do something dumb and Cishek doesn’t really get strikeouts that much and here we are.

-Going over the woes of the pen is probably useless at this point. Everyone knows and there’s little that can be done via trade for another couple weeks at least. Even a Kimbrel Hail Mary doesn’t do anything until July. But it’s just laughable how the Cubs boasted about the amount of arms they would have between here and Iowa and almost none of them are major league pitchers. Ryan isn’t. Brach probably isn’t anymore. Edwards might not be on his bad days. Maples hasn’t proven it. Neither is Webster, Cedeno, or Collins.

-Saturday’s game goes haywire because of the weather delay. It was about how far Chatwood could go, which wasn’t far, but he’s actually been effective this year and is probably allowed a wonky one. There’s just nothing to be done after him, and Strop’s return isn’t a cure-all.

-Rough weekend for my guy Schwarber. He can’t strike out with the bases loaded on Saturday and it looks like the things are snowballing on him again. He remains simply awful with anyone on base, which actually backs up the logic of leading him off, but you wonder how much longer the Cubs can wait on him. It’s been two and a half seasons for him, and the over-glow of a few singles in the World Series can’t count for anything. I still think he has a big boom within him, but I would also say he’s got a month or six weeks to show it, otherwise the Cubs might want to monitor how the Reds handle their Dietrich-Gennett jam at second (probably by just sitting Winker or Puig and playing both and not sending either here, honestly).

-How does a team in the majors not know how to run a rundown or pickoff? The Cubs always make at least too many throws or outright fuck it up more than any team in the league. Only cost them the game today.

-For all the gifts his arm provide, Contreras has had a bad defensive year. He’s been a subpar framer for a few years now, has been lazy blocking balls far too often, and today’s error was another the Cubs can’t have. That doesn’t mean he should be benched or anything, it’s just something we’re going to live with. Teams are rarely going to run on him or even stray off bases that much, so the arm which made up for his defensive deficiencies elsewhere doesn’t even come out of the holster that often.

Onwards…

Everything Else

Series Wrap – Cubs Stomp Some Guys: I See Your Sister In A Sunday Dress

By Sam Fels 1253 0

Game 1 Boxscore: Cubs 7 – Marlins 2 

Game 2 Boxscore: Cubs 4 – Marlins 0

Game 3 Boxscore: Cubs 6 – Marlins 0

I suppose, if I were just taking the Cubs words at face value, the last game of this series would be the kind of one they referenced at the end of last year or in spring training this year as the ones that got away from them last season. Where they lost focus or didn’t quite close out the past couple seasons like they did in 2016. They’ve said it, but I’m not sure how much I buy it when you put together 95 wins with a banged-up roster. But whatever, if they say it they probably believe it to an extent. So the Cubs didn’t let up, didn’t check out against a team full of future gym teachers and possibly current squeegee-men. Cole Hamels certainly wasn’t in any giving mood, and the Cubs have their first series sweep of the year and are looking at being .500 with a series win against Arizona.

Let’s clean it up.

The Two Obs

-These are the kinds of trips through the rotation that the Cubs envisioned when this all started. Darvish still couldn’t quite there, as it should not take 96 pitches to get 17 outs against whatever is masquerading around as Marlins these days. But hey, it was only two runs. I don’t think I’m a big fan of him talking about maxing his velocity when he’s coming off an arm injury and what makes him special is the diversity of his pitches, but at this point I think we’re all just going to take the ride with him and be done with it.

-No such problems with Quintana and Hamels, who are as dialed in as it gets. Q spotted that change-up he’s been saying he wants to use more, though not as much as he probably will in the future. Hamels, being the savvy vet that he is, knew he could just pour everything into the strike zone and are this collection of extras to do their worst. Winner winner chicken dinner.

-The Cubs still haven’t gotten anything out of Bryant and Rizzo and are second in the NL in runs. Tell me why you’re paranoid again?

-While his signing was derided simply because it was the only one the Cubs made for the lineup this winter, Daniel Descalso is hell of an upgrade on Tommy La Stella so far. In fact, even if Ian Happ were to get hot I can’t quite figure out where he’d go right now anyway. And no, I don’t want to see him in center or right. Which means, as we thought all along, it might come down to a debate between him and Schwarber in left. But that’s not a problem for now.

-Contreras only had one hit today. What a bum.

-Please don’t make me start believing in David Bote. I’ve been here too many times.

Onwards…

Baseball

Series Wrap – Cubs Split With Angels Before It Snows In April: The Pen Is Mightier Than The Sword…For Sepuku

By Sam Fels 1106 0

It only ended up being a two-game series, as Game Of Thrones marketing has gone completely overboard and unhinged and decided to promote tonight’s season premiere with THUNDERSNOW. It was a series that saw Mike Trout stay home, Trevor Cahill not take the bump, and yet the Cubs only got one win. It doesn’t quite feel like enough, as two wins were certainly on offer. Let’s run through it.

The Two Obs

-No point in moving any farther along without addressing the bullpen, once again. The Cubs will have a streak soon, or they will need one to get back comfortably over .500. And yet it feels like to do that, they’ll have to overcome a “bullpen game,” or two, like they almost did yesterday.

I’m something of a hypocrite, which you knew by now. I’m a proponent of not really breaking the bank for relievers, because the scenery is layered with palookas and punters who throw 95 and show up for 45 pitches per week. You can find them anywhere. You’re supposed to be able to produce them relatively easily, because your system is littered with hard-throwers who can’t find a third pitch or the stamina to be starters. The Cubs so far have produced only Carl Edwards Jr. and his mind full of spiders, but that’s another talk for another time.

But it’s still galling the relievers the Cubs have tried to move forward with on the cheap. Brad Brach has been declining for three years. Randy Rosario was terrible last year, and pretty much just given a job this year even though there’s no discernible stuff. Tim Collins is the name the EA generator gives to some player that’s too far in the future in franchise mode to be real. At least he appears to have stuff, somewhat, unlike Rosario.

These aren’t guys the Cubs thought they saw something to unlock that other teams didn’t. Pitchers that if they leaned on a pitch or hadn’t before or a tweak to a motion to get more movement or velocity. They’re seat-fillers. Rosario is especially galling, because he didn’t strike anyone out or get grounders last year and yet here we are still trying to make fetch happen.

There’s not much Joe can do, because these are the guys he has to go to.

-Hendricks’s slow start continues. He couldn’t find his fastball at all, and when he has to throw only change-ups that pitch isn’t as effective as it’s not playing off anything. He also hasn’t mixed in his curve at all which he said he wanted to do, but that just might be a good thing. Nothing to see here, yet.

-On the opposite side, Cole Hamels put on his second-straight strong start, never in trouble after the Cubs gave him three runs in the firs. His velocity wasn’t where it was last year, but with a good mix of changes and curves and cutters, and dotting that fastball, it doesn’t matter.

-Fuck off forever, Pujols.

-Contreras carried them on Friday, but he had a woeful AB in the ninth yesterday. With a base open and your run not mattering at all, you have to know you’re not getting anything in the zone. Especially as the Angels had been going to sliders out of the zone on him all day with Stratton. Know time and place and all that.

-Schwarber can’t catch a break, but he also looks as lost as he has in his career. He was just fighting off fastballs yesterday, and still ahead of the breaking stuff. In the end, it only amounts to a bad week, and now a new one.

Onwards…