General Cubs Chit-Chat

[Brian]

As a woman who adopted an orphan from Ethiopa and has a charity that partly benefits education in Africa, I'd be interested in how she justifies it. .

 

You're a what now

 

I guess that is clunky wording, I guess "As a ....." statements are usually people talking about themselves, but it seemed fine as I was typing it.

 

To be clear Heidi Hamels and Cole adopted a girl from Ethiopia and run a charity that benefits children's education here and in Africa. I would think someone that did/does those things should have a problem with Donald "horsefeathers hole countries" Trump

Edited July 25, 2019 by Brian

[CyHawk_Cub]

 

I'd rather not think about it either.

Same. My wish as a fan? I wish that I only had to think about the crazy/awesome/borderline stupid horsefeathers Javy does on the base paths; that the height of my ire would be during ridiculous debates about Bryant's clutchiness, or Maddon's lineups. But once this horsefeathers becomes known, I simply cannot memory-hole it, wish it away and not have it impact my opinion of someone, whether they're a star athlete, owner, spouse of either, etc.

 

Yeah, the point is sports are supposed to be an escape. It's just that, for me, I refuse to dismiss inconvenient truths to convince myself it's all in good fun and entertainment.

[Bryants Disco Ball]

Also, before anyone starts to be disappointed in Cole Hamels, it might be interesting to find whether he supports Trump. I know of couples where the dumb ass in the family supports him and the spouse hates him.

 

My opinion also is more harsh on people who still fully support him than who voted for him in 2016. I get how some would have just gone along with their party or didn't like Clinton, and didn't really know what many of us already did about the racist-in-chief. But now? Well, now I think if you fully support him you are piece of horsefeathers. Perhaps Hamels' wife or Cole himself supported him in 2016 but no longer do. It's possible.

 

Sorry for getting political. I never have even cared about politics until dumb ass got voted in, and when he finally leaves, I will go back to not caring. Which I'm not proud of, of course. But provided we just have a normal person in office, I will be good.

[jersey cubs fan]

Also, before anyone starts to be disappointed in Cole Hamels, it might be interesting to find whether he supports Trump. I know of couples where the dumb ass in the family supports him and the spouse hates him.

 

My opinion also is more harsh on people who still fully support him than who voted for him in 2016. I get how some would have just gone along with their party or didn't like Clinton, and didn't really know what many of us already did about the racist-in-chief. But now? Well, now I think if you fully support him you are piece of horsefeathers. Perhaps Hamels' wife or Cole himself supported him in 2016 but no longer do. It's possible.

 

Sorry for getting political. I never have even cared about politics until dumb ass got voted in, and when he finally leaves, I will go back to not caring. Which I'm not proud of, of course. But provided we just have a normal person in office, I will be good.

The reference was to donating to his reelection campaign, so it's not an old thing. And it's been made clear in the past that they share the belief.

[Bryants Disco Ball]

Also, before anyone starts to be disappointed in Cole Hamels, it might be interesting to find whether he supports Trump. I know of couples where the dumb ass in the family supports him and the spouse hates him.

 

My opinion also is more harsh on people who still fully support him than who voted for him in 2016. I get how some would have just gone along with their party or didn't like Clinton, and didn't really know what many of us already did about the racist-in-chief. But now? Well, now I think if you fully support him you are piece of horsefeathers. Perhaps Hamels' wife or Cole himself supported him in 2016 but no longer do. It's possible.

 

Sorry for getting political. I never have even cared about politics until dumb ass got voted in, and when he finally leaves, I will go back to not caring. Which I'm not proud of, of course. But provided we just have a normal person in office, I will be good.

The reference was to donating to his reelection campaign, so it's not an old thing. And it's been made clear in the past that they share the belief.

 

Oh, sorry. Thought she had donated to his first election. That's disappointing.

[Bryants Disco Ball]

On a good note, Tom Ricketts' mom gave an anti-Trump campaign $3 million back in 2016.

 

But, of course, then Trump threatened the family.

[JudasIscariotTheBird]

But why? I understand the sentiment about Trump, but why would you waste energy caring about something like that?

Because they make the world a worse place and I am against the world being worse.

 

I couldnt imagine going through life worrying about other people's political opinions. There has to be thousands of things I'd rather spend my time being mad about.

I don't consider sending money to the Trump campaign a run-of-the-mill "political opinion." There are levels to this hate-your-preferred-sportsball-team's-players game.

[Cubswin11]

Almora’s DRS went down by 1 from 4 to 3, which isn’t surprising given the horsefeathers ups he had in SF.

[Cubswin11]

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[snoodmonger]

I pretty much assume every white baseball player is a Trumper until proven otherwise.

[PackLandVA]

Lovely gown. Is that Cool Whip?

 

I believe it's actually pronounced:

 

http://33.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m0lg16pJFm1rrsioho6_250.gif

[We Got The Whole 9]

This might not go over well. I may not have taken the most scientific approach to this or taken all painstaking efforts to back up my hypothesis. You're free to rip this apart. I'm sure Tiger will have a go at it and show me the error(s) in my ways.

 

But anyway I have been feeling like we are largely a fastball or nothing hitting offense. I brought up yesterday how we are 15th against sliders and 22nd against curves, and Cubswin11 asked if this is unusual or something each teams fanbases believe is exclusive to them when it's really not. I looked at pitch values for the top offenses in the league, and I looked at the statcast data for our regular hitters. The only place I can find slash lines for specific pitch types is baseball savant. If anyone knows of another source, please let me know. Because this was kind of a pain in the ass as I had to go into each individual players page to find the info.

 

So here goes. First the pitch values for the top offenses that we should aspire to be(at).

 

Twins crush fastballs better than the entire league, are 7th against sliders, 3rd against cutters, 5th against curves, 6th against changes, and 8th against splitters. The only team in baseball that is top 10 against every pitch type. This is probably why they have 30 more HR than the field. Can we hire their hitting coach when Maddon gets canned?

 

Dodgers are 2nd against fb, 3rd SL, 16th CT, 14th CB, 8th CH, 2nd SF

 

Red Sox - 3rd FB, 1st SL, 9th CT, 6th CB, 14th CH, 7th SF

 

Yankees - 4th, 6th, 4th, 15th, 4th, 4th

 

Astros - 9th, 2nd, 6th, 2nd, 11th, 12th

 

Cubs - 6th, 15th, 15th, 22nd, 12th, 19th

 

So theres 5 offenses that pretty clearly handle most pitch types quite well. The Cubs non-pitchers entered today slotted in at 7th in MLB with a 109 wRC+. That is clearly great, but I feel like the talent is there to be even better.

 

So I wanted to see just how good/bad our hitters are at hitting non-fastballs, by traditional slash lines, and expected stats. So this is what I have to go off of, from savant.

 

Breaking (slider, curve, knuckle, other)/Offspeed (split, change, fork, screw)

 

Willy:

 

318 BA/568 SLG/404 woba/363 xwoba. Says he has gotten incredibly lucky on breaking pitches according to his batted ball data; probably due to an average launch angle of 8 degrees and a whiff rate well over 30%

 

On offspeed he is 270/568/386/282 (!). He has an XBA of 170 and XSLG of 321... 6 degree LA, but this is only on 30 batted balls as teams haven't thrown him too much offspeed for some reason. Still wow at that great fortune.

 

KB:

 

216/392/307/315 on breaking.

Maybe not too unusual. I dunno, I have been hard on KB in the past but I do recognize his greatness. Still he whiffs a lot on those pitches and doesnt do much damage on them.

 

306/417/363/269 on offspeed

Launch angle reaches an insane 21 degrees with a paltry exit velo of 84.1. In the last 2 years he has 1 HR on offspeed, and 2017 is the only year he hit more than 2, when he hit 6 and carried an xwoba on them over 400. Curious.

 

Rizzo:

 

283/557/389/345 on breaking. That's great. Launch angle goes to 9, down from 15 against fastballs. If we want to nitpick that is dragging him down but you will take those numbers all day.

 

284/373/325/322 on offspeed. LA again at 9 and EV at 87 pulls his xwoba way down and that's 30 points below his 2018 mark although the LA remained the same. EV down 2.5 mph from 2018.

 

We all know Rizzo is a badass.

 

Schwarber: look no further than breaking pitches for why hes not a 350 woba guy again.

 

191/383/273/298. Hes seen 500 breaking balls and put 50 into play with a PA ending on a K 42% of the time and an alarming 38% whiff rate. Ouch.

 

260/460/343/384 on offspeed which is totally acceptable. Both that and fastballs had similar results.

 

Heyward:

 

195/356/255/262 on breaking. Man that is terrible. Hes seen 370 breaking pitches and put 54 into play. 35% whiff rate and 36% K. The ****ed up part is that he has a 88 EV and 12 LA which is pretty good for power when he actually makes contact.

 

200/420/259/234 (!) on offspeed. Again his contact results to 89 and 14 but a 28% whiff and 27% K rate. Good thing he has handled fastballs because his overall xwoba is 325, and 371 on fb. The gist is that he's largely the same guy hes been with us and has been incredibly fortunate. Those numbers are bad

 

Bote:

 

217/315/252/241 on breaking. LA drops to 6 and he whiffs on them 36% of the time. Abysmal.

 

261/609/381/335. Hes only seen 81 offspeed pitches. That is just surprising. You'll take those results all day. The 50 point gap with his wOBA is likely due to an 85 EV. That's like Almora stuff.

 

Speaking of Almora, I was almost just gonna skip him but **** it let's dig in:

 

Overall he has a 27% hard hit rate lol

 

106/173/133/199 (yep). Hes seen breaking pitches 40% of the time. He has an EV of 82 and an LA of 7. 35% whiff rate. I mean JFC I still cant believe a Theo administration used a top 10 pick on this free swinging [expletive]. He has a 1.9 BB% against breaking, down from 2.0 in 2018 (LOL)

 

His numbers are best against offspeed, 50 points higher than against fastballs even.

 

296/556/355/379. His LA even reaches double digits. Too bad he doesnt see more of them. Btw 321/503/364/327 against FB; more than adequate. And a stellar 14.5 whiff rate.

 

I'm gonna stop at Javy. These are our regulars.

 

287/546/348/336 on breaking. Only thing to really complain about is the awful 40.9 whiff rate... but that should come as no surprise.

 

273/545/375/332... again a 42% whiff rate is bothersome but he has a 92 EV on offspeed. You gotta appreciate the hitter he is. He whiffs a lot but at least he can do damage against all pitch types when he makes contact. Something really bizarre about Javy though and if he can make an adjustment his numbers could really take off. Against breaking pitches he has an LA of 13 and against offspeed its 11 (14 and 8 in 2018), but against fastballs hes like Almora at just 5 (!) degrees. He blisters these pitches at 93.6 mph. You get that LA into the double digits and he will see a lot more balls leave the stadium IMO.

 

So that concludes my research. I'm pretty sure the non regulars don't fare a while lot better. Despite the wRC+, theres still a decently wide gap between us and the elite offenses in the league. We really have to improve on those other pitch types.

 

We also swing at the 4th lowest% of meatballs seen per statcast. I think that's bad also.

[JudasIscariotTheBird]

With Javy's high K rate a curiously low LA on fastballs, combined with high whiff and punish rates on breaking and off speed...I think he's going into most every swing looking to barrel a FB, and if its slower than that, he tries to slow his swing by upper cutting. Its easy to say (for anyone) that he could just increase his LA and get more HRs...but for Javy especially, I think its more of a feature of his approach than something you can tinker away. That he's had remarkably similar (and excellent) results for two years running, even with his insanely high K and insanely low BB rates, I don't want him to change a thing. The league can't figure him out, so let him continue to rake.

[CubinNY]

I watch almost every game, but I don't have time to follow the players. Did the Cubs upgrade enough at the deadline to not just compete for the division, but move up to an elite team. The Cards and Brewers are suck, we shouldn't be a smidge less of suck.

[Sammy Sofa]

Did the Cubs upgrade enough at the deadline to not just compete for the division, but move up to an elite team.

 

[CyHawk_Cub]

We're fucked.

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[stitchface]

We're horsefeathers.

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regardless of moves, the cubs season is quite confusing. How do you have a positive RD on the road and yet have the worst road record in the league? That seems almost impossible.

[Derwood]

We're horsefeathers.

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regardless of moves, the cubs season is quite confusing. How do you have a positive RD on the road and yet have the worst road record in the league? That seems almost impossible.

 

I count 11 or 12 one-run road losses, so there's your starting point

[NOLA]

We're horsefeathers.

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regardless of moves, the cubs season is quite confusing. How do you have a positive RD on the road and yet have the worst road record in the league? That seems almost impossible.

 

I count 11 or 12 one-run road losses, so there's your starting point

How many blown save walkoffs have the Cubs had?

[Cubswin11]

We're horsefeathers.

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regardless of moves, the cubs season is quite confusing. How do you have a positive RD on the road and yet have the worst road record in the league? That seems almost impossible.

They probably have an even better RD on the road if you take out the 1-8 start and look at it from that point on are still like 4-6 games under since then. They’re due to just have like a 7-2 or 6-0 trip.

[Sammy Sofa]

They’re due to just have like a 7-2 or 6-0 trip.

 

[Brian]

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[d_money]

Even if the Cubs win the division - I think Maddon is toast. Yes, the players have to perform but he’s at the helm. As this season unfolds, the more and more I see the FO going in a different direction.

[sweetpeteman]

The only way Maddon is back next year is if the Cubs win the World Series.

 

 

And even then I doubt it.

[We Got The Whole 9]

I'm hoping we get James Rowson back.