General Cubs Chit-Chat

[WrigleyField 22]

 

Theo just came down from his WS bender.

[Thed Hoyerstein]

 

Theo just came down from his WS bender.

 

so it's Jed's fault

[Hairyducked Idiot]

Yeah I have to admit its pretty shocking to be here after where we ended the 2016 season at. Not saying it wasn't worth it (it totally was) but its been 3 seasons and there isn't much young talent to be excited about, much of the players we expected to get better got worse or stagnated, and our entire pitching staff is about to enter the retirement home

 

We didn't wanna hear it then, but aging curves have always been younger than people think and they keep getting younger. Players do not, on average, continue getting better into their late 20s. It's very reasonable for a guy to have his best season at age 23 or 24.

[Brian]

lol did the Cubs poach the Braves organist?

 

[tweet]

[/tweet]

[Banedon]

lol did the Cubs poach the Braves organist?

 

[tweet]

[/tweet]

 

Gonna guess it's another Atlanta sports team.

[jersey cubs fan]

that sort of thing is more welcome in modern day america but still a challenging environment. Good for him

[Derwood]

QUIZ TIME!!!

 

Name every player who played for the Cubs in 2019

 

https://www.sporcle.com/games/Zipcity/every-cubs-player-2019

[UMFan83]

QUIZ TIME!!!

 

Name every player who played for the Cubs in 2019

 

https://www.sporcle.com/games/Zipcity/every-cubs-player-2019

 

Stopped playing when it wouldn’t accept “piece of horsefeathers woman abuser” as an answer

[Ding Dong Johnson]

I only got 40. Roughly 37 more than Javy would get though.

[Little Slide Rooter]

I was bored and ultimately wound up at Lester Strode’s Wikipedia page. This was the final sentence:

 

Despite being one of the few openly black bullpen coaches in the league, Strode is not believed to be a managerial candidate for the team. [6]

 

Can anyone else spot what’s wrong with this sentence?

[jersey cubs fan]

I was bored and ultimately wound up at Lester Strode’s Wikipedia page. This was the final sentence:

 

Despite being one of the few openly black bullpen coaches in the league, Strode is not believed to be a managerial candidate for the team. [6]

 

Can anyone else spot what’s wrong with this sentence?

yes

[GaryWoods]

I was bored and ultimately wound up at Lester Strode’s Wikipedia page. This was the final sentence:

 

Despite being one of the few openly black bullpen coaches in the league, Strode is not believed to be a managerial candidate for the team. [6]

 

Can anyone else spot what’s wrong with this sentence?

 

So I take this to mean that there are a few closeted black bullpen coaches out there?

[Cubfanintheknow]

I was bored and ultimately wound up at Lester Strode’s Wikipedia page. This was the final sentence:

 

Despite being one of the few openly black bullpen coaches in the league, Strode is not believed to be a managerial candidate for the team. [6]

 

Can anyone else spot what’s wrong with this sentence?

 

So I take this to mean that there are a few closeted black bullpen coaches out there?

[Rex Buckingham]

couple of questions...

1. Do you think the ball has really been "de-juiced" this postseason?

2. If yes, do you think that carries over into 2020?

3. How do you think that impacts the Cubs?

 

My opinion on 3 is that it should theoretically help the Cubs, because our power hitters (KB, Rizzo, Javy, Willson, and Schwarber) don't seem to hit a lot of cheap HRs, but our pitching was hurt a lot by the HR ball - especially Yu, who gave up the 8th most in MLB this year. And it seemed like Kyle would get bit by the HR ball badly in his blow-up games.

[Clem Fandango]

Yu has always kind of been susceptible to long balls though, granted he was in Texas, but still.

[GaryWoods]

Yu has always kind of been susceptible to long balls though, granted he was in Texas, but still.

 

It just comes with the territory for pitchers who keep the ball in the strike zone. Fergie Jenkins was always among the league leaders in home runs allowed.

[Bertz]

I do think a de-juiced ball would help the Cubs offense, which was basically the crux of my last foray into the Schwarber thread, but I don't think it specifically helps or hurts our pitching staff. Like Yu and Strop got burned by the juiced ball, but the team as a whole was middle of the pack in HR/FB.

[Clem Fandango]

I do think a de-juiced ball would help the Cubs offense, which was basically the crux of my last foray into the Schwarber thread, but I don't think it specifically helps or hurts our pitching staff. Like Yu and Strop got burned by the juiced ball, but the team as a whole was middle of the pack in HR/FB.

 

The thing that will forever upset me about the juiced ball era and the Cubs is that all these other teams had guys who struggled to reach 20 home runs crushing 30 dongs a year and our two biggest HR threats, Rizzo and Bryant, can barely reach 30. I know Bryant had his shoulder issues and he was plenty valuable as was, but a fully healthy Bryant should have no issues hitting 40+ in this juiced ball environment and Rizzo shouldn't be struggling to reach a number that guys like Ketel Marte and Yuli Gurriel and Kole Calhoun and Mitch Garver reached with relative ease.

 

Meanwhile, our biggest benefactor from the juiced ball was probably Jason Heyward who hit 21 homers and managed to boost his offense to replacement level production. Huzzah.

[squally1313]

I do think a de-juiced ball would help the Cubs offense, which was basically the crux of my last foray into the Schwarber thread, but I don't think it specifically helps or hurts our pitching staff. Like Yu and Strop got burned by the juiced ball, but the team as a whole was middle of the pack in HR/FB.

Do we actually know that this whole ball thing hurt the Cubs offense more than other teams? I know the general theory, that guys like Schwarber, Bryant, Baez hit longer home runs than the average player, but I'm wondering if that's a team wide thing, and if it's more selective memory (people remember the bombs and think every HR they hit is 440, while filtering out all the basket shots). It'd be nice if it was true, but seems...hopeful.

[GaryWoods]

I do think a de-juiced ball would help the Cubs offense, which was basically the crux of my last foray into the Schwarber thread, but I don't think it specifically helps or hurts our pitching staff. Like Yu and Strop got burned by the juiced ball, but the team as a whole was middle of the pack in HR/FB.

 

The thing that will forever upset me about the juiced ball era and the Cubs is that all these other teams had guys who struggled to reach 20 home runs crushing 30 dongs a year and our two biggest HR threats, Rizzo and Bryant, can barely reach 30. I know Bryant had his shoulder issues and he was plenty valuable as was, but a fully healthy Bryant should have no issues hitting 40+ in this juiced ball environment and Rizzo shouldn't be struggling to reach a number that guys like Ketel Marte and Yuli Gurriel and Kole Calhoun and Mitch Garver reached with relative ease.

 

Meanwhile, our biggest benefactor from the juiced ball was probably Jason Heyward who hit 21 homers and managed to boost his offense to replacement level production. Huzzah.

 

The juiced ball pushed a lot of warning-track fly balls barely over the wall, which is why Heyward hit a dozen more basket shots than usual. Rizzo and Bryant (and Schwarber, as far as that goes) don't historically record a ton of warning-track outs, so they didn't really benefit from the juiced ball.

[David]

yeah, the way it seems to have played out is that basically the cubs had big power when most of the league didn't, and then the balls just helped the rest of the league have power too.

[Sammy Sofa]

Seems like Castellanos definitely benefited from it once he was at Wrigley.

[Bertz]

I do think a de-juiced ball would help the Cubs offense, which was basically the crux of my last foray into the Schwarber thread, but I don't think it specifically helps or hurts our pitching staff. Like Yu and Strop got burned by the juiced ball, but the team as a whole was middle of the pack in HR/FB.

Do we actually know that this whole ball thing hurt the Cubs offense more than other teams? I know the general theory, that guys like Schwarber, Bryant, Baez hit longer home runs than the average player, but I'm wondering if that's a team wide thing, and if it's more selective memory (people remember the bombs and think every HR they hit is 440, while filtering out all the basket shots). It'd be nice if it was true, but seems...hopeful.

 

I don't know where to find FB distance distribution by player, but it does show up in HR/FB rates: Here are league-wide HR/FB rates, with the percent increase over 2014 in parentheses

 

2014: 9.5%

2015: 11.4% (20% increase)

2016: 12.8% (35%)

2017: 13.7% (44%)

2018: 12.7% (34%)

2019: 15.3% (61%)

 

Now here's where a few of our guys are since 2015:

 

KB - 15.8, 18.8, 16.0, 11.2 (injury), 18.0

Schwarber - 24.2, 0 (injury), 24.0, 24.5, 24.1

Rizzo - 14.6, 16.2, 16.9, 13.6, 19.9

Javy - 6.3 (only 80 PAs), 12.7, 19.7, 24.3, 24.4

Willson - N/A (Minors), 23.5, 25.9, 9.3, 27.3

 

It really looks like it may have helped Rizzo, but those other guys just kept doing what they do. I think it makes intuitive sense too. A FB that would go 350 ft in normal conditions gains a substantial amount of HR probability with a 10% bouncier ball. But a ball that would normally go 400 ft gains very little (basically only balls hit to straightaway CF).

Edited October 16, 2019 by Bertz

[squally1313]

It really looks like it may have helped Rizzo, but those other guys just kept doing what they do. I think it makes intuitive sense too. A FB that would go 350 ft in normal conditions gains a substantial amount of HR probability with a 10% bounce ball. But a ball that would normally go 400 ft gains very little (basically only balls hit to straightaway CF).

 

Yeah, but the question is whether this is a Cubs specific thing or not. It's nice to think that all of Schwarber's home runs are no doubters, but he also blew past his career high, and I remember a lot more opposite field shots from him this year (again, anecdotally). Something like average fly ball distance would be a good start, and maybe some Statcast expert can figure that out (I couldn't). The best would be if someone took one of those spray chart gifs and figured out a way to multiply all the distances by 1.1 or whatever, and then overlayed Wrigley, kinda like how we saw when Castellanos came over. But that's a whole project.

 

Ultimately, I'm weary on thinking this will be some Cubs specific benefit if they go back to the old ball. Ignore it, everyone uses the same thing, figure out ways to make the team better.

[Tim]

Rizzo might have benefited from a couple opposite field shots that would have been warning track in previous years.