General Cubs Chit-Chat

[squally1313]

Maybe said a different way, here's the fWAR per 600 PA of most of the position player group from just last year:

 

Schwindel 5.5

Madrigal 3.6

Wisdom 3.7

Ortega 2.9

Hoerner 2.8

Contreras 2.6

Gomes 2.6

Villar 2.5

Happ 1.5

 

Plus a few guys who have been at that level more than once in the past in Frazier and Simmons, plus Suzuki. If we got repeat performances from half of that group I'd be very happy, but the conversation here is taking justified pessimism about any individual one of them and assuming that's how it's going to happen for all of them and that's just not a realistic expectation.

 

Combining this and your earlier post, where are the 4-5 spots that you're expecting 3+ wins? Are you relying on Wisdom and Schwindel? On the perpetually (and currently) injured Madrigal? I assume Stroman, I don't think you can expect that out of Hendricks based on pretty much all the projections out there. Catcher...maybe. Suzuki...sure, why not. That's 2.5 and then two 30 year olds in their first full year and whatever Madrigal is.

[Backtobanks]

I feel like when people talk optimistically about the team, relatively, it's about how the offense is built to be that high floor/low ceiling mix that is theoretically attractive coming less than a year after tearing down the old guard. But the starting rotation is really, really bad, and I don't know what the optimistic view point is there.Yeah we have a lot of bullpen arms and maybe eventually after we weed out all the bad ones we might end up with a decent mix, but they are going to be worked to the bone on non-Stroman days. And even then, the path to 'contention' is mostly paved with 'look how bad the rest of the division is! plus maybe Burnes gets hurt like most pitchers do!' It's just not at all exciting. Thank god for Wrigley.

 

I don’t think it’s “really, really bad.” Hendricks and Stroman should combine for 6+ WAR, he’s hurt but once Miley is healthy he’s probably good for 1-2 WAR, Mills/Smyly probably add another 1-2 WAR, then if we can get anything out of one of the young guys (Keegan, Kilian, Steele, etc) it’s a decent enough rotation. Not super high end/ceiling but there’s enough there for it to be middle of the pack like ~10 WAR 15thish in the league. Nothing to be excited about and they should’ve done more but I can see the rotation being decent enough and I have faith the bullpen will be plenty good.

 

Setting aside the 6+ WAR prediction for Stroman/Hendricks (which I'm skeptical amount), the issue with the Miley/Smyly/Mills predictions is that the only way they put up that kind of production is just through volume. Their whole skill set is just 'mediocre when healthy'. There's almost no chance that one of them pops into some sort of top 30 starter in the league. And yes, I know Miley had his best year in 9 years last year and ended up at #30 for fWAR, but he's already hurt.

 

To TTs point, sure, a couple of Hendricks/name your offensive dude might pop up to 3 WARish, and by June you might figure out which guys are 1.5 win guys and which guys are terrible, but I don't see any 4.5+ guys. If you could run the numbers and strip out the worthless players and throw a roster of 80% 1.5 guys and 20% 3-3.5 guys, great, that would be boringly effective in a crappy division. But you can't, and we'll basically just be doing the bullpen experiment everyone loves where by the end of the season we have terrible overall numbers but we've 'finally found a good mix'....but with the whole roster.

 

Stroman and Hendricks combined have averaged below 4 WAR the last three years.

[Backtobanks]

 

Why oof? That's right in the range I would expect them. Lower end of that range but still in there. Like the article points out the Cubs have built a high floor/low ceiling type of team IMO. It's hard to really project them so I'd expect most "experts" would go conservative on them.

 

 

It wasn’t an “oof” of surprise, it was an “oof” of ESPN reinforcing the awfulness of the roster.

Their rosters at AAA and AA aren't in great shape either. It's Davis and a bunch of relievers and not much else. But don't call it a rebuild.

 

The sad part is that there were so many players available (trades and free agents) that could have made this team "decent", even without spending a ton of money.

[Cubswin11]

FG position power rankings:

 

Catcher: 13th (and the player most likely to be traded!)

First base: 24th

Second base: 17th

Shortstop: 24th

Third Base: 26th

Left Field: 15th

Center Field: 21st

Right Field: 6th

DH: 24th

 

This is the good part of the team! It's Seiya and....???

 

Bullpen: 23rd

 

Starters should come out tomorrow. Just wall to wall depressing, with all of one exception.

That catching tanking seems really light. Contreras/Gomes combined for almost 4 WAR last year which would be too 3-5 at the position. Zips projects them for 3.6 WAR, it’s a top 4-7 catching set up in MLB, imo and should be good for 3.5-4.5 WAR or so on a reasonable projection with a little more ceiling potential.

[Cubswin11]

 

I don’t think it’s “really, really bad.” Hendricks and Stroman should combine for 6+ WAR, he’s hurt but once Miley is healthy he’s probably good for 1-2 WAR, Mills/Smyly probably add another 1-2 WAR, then if we can get anything out of one of the young guys (Keegan, Kilian, Steele, etc) it’s a decent enough rotation. Not super high end/ceiling but there’s enough there for it to be middle of the pack like ~10 WAR 15thish in the league. Nothing to be excited about and they should’ve done more but I can see the rotation being decent enough and I have faith the bullpen will be plenty good.

 

Setting aside the 6+ WAR prediction for Stroman/Hendricks (which I'm skeptical amount), the issue with the Miley/Smyly/Mills predictions is that the only way they put up that kind of production is just through volume. Their whole skill set is just 'mediocre when healthy'. There's almost no chance that one of them pops into some sort of top 30 starter in the league. And yes, I know Miley had his best year in 9 years last year and ended up at #30 for fWAR, but he's already hurt.

 

To TTs point, sure, a couple of Hendricks/name your offensive dude might pop up to 3 WARish, and by June you might figure out which guys are 1.5 win guys and which guys are terrible, but I don't see any 4.5+ guys. If you could run the numbers and strip out the worthless players and throw a roster of 80% 1.5 guys and 20% 3-3.5 guys, great, that would be boringly effective in a crappy division. But you can't, and we'll basically just be doing the bullpen experiment everyone loves where by the end of the season we have terrible overall numbers but we've 'finally found a good mix'....but with the whole roster.

 

Stroman and Hendricks combined have averaged below 4 WAR the last three years.

???

 

21: 4.7 combined

20: Stroman sat out due to COVID and didn’t pitch but Hendricks put up 1.9 in ~80 innings so pitching at a 4 win pace himself in the shortened year

19: 8 combined

18: 4.8 combined

17: 5.9 combined

16: 7.5 combined

[squally1313]

FG position power rankings:

 

Catcher: 13th (and the player most likely to be traded!)

First base: 24th

Second base: 17th

Shortstop: 24th

Third Base: 26th

Left Field: 15th

Center Field: 21st

Right Field: 6th

DH: 24th

 

This is the good part of the team! It's Seiya and....???

 

Bullpen: 23rd

 

Starters should come out tomorrow. Just wall to wall depressing, with all of one exception.

That catching tanking seems really light. Contreras/Gomes combined for almost 4 WAR last year which would be too 3-5 at the position. Zips projects them for 3.6 WAR, it’s a top 4-7 catching set up in MLB, imo and should be good for 3.5-4.5 WAR or so on a reasonable projection with a little more ceiling potential.

 

Well yeah, if Contreras and Gomes get a combined 868 PAs next year at catcher, they could maybe sneak into the top 3-5 at the position.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

Oh this took too long to write so I'll combine:

 

Combining this and your earlier post, where are the 4-5 spots that you're expecting 3+ wins? Are you relying on Wisdom and Schwindel? On the perpetually (and currently) injured Madrigal? I assume Stroman, I don't think you can expect that out of Hendricks based on pretty much all the projections out there. Catcher...maybe. Suzuki...sure, why not. That's 2.5 and then two 30 year olds in their first full year and whatever Madrigal is.

 

Suzuki, Contreras/Catcher, Hendricks, Stroman were the 4 I'm most confident in. After that I have measured optimism in Happ, Frazier, Miley, Wisdom, Hoerner, and Madrigal, in no particular order.

 

To TTs point, sure, a couple of Hendricks/name your offensive dude might pop up to 3 WARish, and by June you might figure out which guys are 1.5 win guys and which guys are terrible, but I don't see any 4.5+ guys. If you could run the numbers and strip out the worthless players and throw a roster of 80% 1.5 guys and 20% 3-3.5 guys, great, that would be boringly effective in a crappy division. But you can't, and we'll basically just be doing the bullpen experiment everyone loves where by the end of the season we have terrible overall numbers but we've 'finally found a good mix'....but with the whole roster.

 

I agree that star-power is the biggest weakness here, it's why I really wanted them to get Seager or Correa. Having said that, even at the 4.5 level you still see a fair amount of pop up performances. In the last 2 full seasons guys like Tyler O'Neill, Cedric Mullins, Brandon Lowe, Max Kepler, Jeff McNeil, and Ketel Marte have made that jump without being blue chip prospects, to say nothing of more famous player development examples like Muncy and Turner in LA. Not likely and still a big challenge to be a consistent playoff contender though.

 

I also agree that it's more likely than not that this year's win total lags the end of season quality of the roster, but on a team that was unlikely to challenge for a title I think that's a feature more than a bug in how it portends a bigger leap the next year. The main thing would be if it's a 76 win team that ends like an 82 win team or a 66 win team that ends like a 72 win team, I believe it's much more likely to be the former than the latter.

 

Lastly, I know it's a throwaway line but I'd push back on the idea that because there isn't a 5 win stud that the team would be boring even if effective. Some of the most fan favorites are players who aren't necessarily at the tippy top of performance charts(don't have to look any further than Willson for a great example), and in a lot of these cases we're talking about prime aged guys and/or players who would be repeating good performance so you would have less worry about it being unsustainable for 2023. Could they have done more to make 2022 exciting, both in their competitive odds and in the names on the roster? Absolutely. But if Frazier becomes Ginger Schwarber for a few years by ripping 30 bombs from DH I don't think people are going to yawn their way through it because he's not hitting 50.

[UMFan83]

FG position power rankings:

 

Catcher: 13th (and the player most likely to be traded!)

First base: 24th

Second base: 17th

Shortstop: 24th

Third Base: 26th

Left Field: 15th

Center Field: 21st

Right Field: 6th

DH: 24th

 

This is the good part of the team! It's Seiya and....???

 

Bullpen: 23rd

 

Starters should come out tomorrow. Just wall to wall depressing, with all of one exception.

That catching tanking seems really light. Contreras/Gomes combined for almost 4 WAR last year which would be too 3-5 at the position. Zips projects them for 3.6 WAR, it’s a top 4-7 catching set up in MLB, imo and should be good for 3.5-4.5 WAR or so on a reasonable projection with a little more ceiling potential.

 

Seems like a lot of room for them to be wrong. Schwindel will probably turn into a pumpkin but he has a high ceiling based on what he showed last year (though his defense will weigh him down from a WAR perspective). Hard to say what to expect from Nico and Madrigal considering how oft injured they are, and stupid no-vaxer should be a WAR machine defensively depending on how much he plays. None of these projections like Wisdom's profile (and neither do i lol) but he has some upside. The OF actually projects fairly well. And finally I'm assuming that the bullpen is ZIPS least accurate position group to project. The Cubs have built adequate to good bullpens from table scraps for years now. The only thing I trust more than the Cubs ability to build a solid pen is the Ricketts ability to do the wrong thing.

[squally1313]

Oh this took too long to write so I'll combine:

 

Combining this and your earlier post, where are the 4-5 spots that you're expecting 3+ wins? Are you relying on Wisdom and Schwindel? On the perpetually (and currently) injured Madrigal? I assume Stroman, I don't think you can expect that out of Hendricks based on pretty much all the projections out there. Catcher...maybe. Suzuki...sure, why not. That's 2.5 and then two 30 year olds in their first full year and whatever Madrigal is.

 

Suzuki, Contreras/Catcher, Hendricks, Stroman were the 4 I'm most confident in. After that I have measured optimism in Happ, Frazier, Miley, Wisdom, Hoerner, and Madrigal, in no particular order.

 

To TTs point, sure, a couple of Hendricks/name your offensive dude might pop up to 3 WARish, and by June you might figure out which guys are 1.5 win guys and which guys are terrible, but I don't see any 4.5+ guys. If you could run the numbers and strip out the worthless players and throw a roster of 80% 1.5 guys and 20% 3-3.5 guys, great, that would be boringly effective in a crappy division. But you can't, and we'll basically just be doing the bullpen experiment everyone loves where by the end of the season we have terrible overall numbers but we've 'finally found a good mix'....but with the whole roster.

 

I agree that star-power is the biggest weakness here, it's why I really wanted them to get Seager or Correa. Having said that, even at the 4.5 level you still see a fair amount of pop up performances. In the last 2 full seasons guys like Tyler O'Neill, Cedric Mullins, Brandon Lowe, Max Kepler, Jeff McNeil, and Ketel Marte have made that jump without being blue chip prospects, to say nothing of more famous player development examples like Muncy and Turner in LA. Not likely and still a big challenge to be a consistent playoff contender though.

 

I also agree that it's more likely than not that this year's win total lags the end of season quality of the roster, but on a team that was unlikely to challenge for a title I think that's a feature more than a bug in how it portends a bigger leap the next year. The main thing would be if it's a 76 win team that ends like an 82 win team or a 66 win team that ends like a 72 win team, I believe it's much more likely to be the former than the latter.

 

Lastly, I know it's a throwaway line but I'd push back on the idea that because there isn't a 5 win stud that the team would be boring even if effective. Some of the most fan favorites are players who aren't necessarily at the tippy top of performance charts(don't have to look any further than Willson for a great example), and in a lot of these cases we're talking about prime aged guys and/or players who would be repeating good performance so you would have less worry about it being unsustainable for 2023. Could they have done more to make 2022 exciting, both in their competitive odds and in the names on the roster? Absolutely. But if Frazier becomes Ginger Schwarber for a few years by ripping 30 bombs from DH I don't think people are going to yawn their way through it because he's not hitting 50.

 

I'm terrible at splicing up the quotes, but will try to keep this somewhat in order.

 

1. There's very little support for Hendricks being a 3 WAR guy at this point. His 2021 was just very bad in pretty much every way. Happ I can see, has the pedigree and obviously the ability to be the best player in baseball for a week at a time. Miley hasn't pierced that boundary in 10 years and is already hurt. The rest are mysteries, optimistically.

 

2. Pointing to 8 guys, league wide, over the last two years is not exactly optimistic (and Ketel Marte was technically 2019). Trying to point to player development given our history is even more grim.

 

3. In both of the 'how we end the season' you're generally at a point in August where you're selling off the top performers anyways, right? It's hard for me to imagine, even with the six month 'figuring out the roster' process, selling off some of your best players 4 months in and still ending up 6 wins 'better' than your actual record.

 

4. It was a hypothetical that can't happen realistically, because you are inevitably going to throw hundreds of ABs/innings at bad players, especially with this roster. And without a stud (or, god forbid, studs plural) to offset that, you aren't going to be able to ride your lovable bunch of 1.5-3 WAR guys to anything more than a win total topping out at 85. In the NL Central in 2022, that might play! But I'm not going to get excited about it because with the resources we have, it could have been approached so much better.

[Sammy Sofa]

Yeah, there seems to be some repeated bad faith false positive takes here on Hendricks by dudes who clearly know better. Acting like he's basically a lock to be a good starter is pretty horsefeathering flimsy based on his most recent history.

[squally1313]

FG position power rankings:

 

Catcher: 13th (and the player most likely to be traded!)

First base: 24th

Second base: 17th

Shortstop: 24th

Third Base: 26th

Left Field: 15th

Center Field: 21st

Right Field: 6th

DH: 24th

 

This is the good part of the team! It's Seiya and....???

 

Bullpen: 23rd

 

Starters should come out tomorrow. Just wall to wall depressing, with all of one exception.

That catching tanking seems really light. Contreras/Gomes combined for almost 4 WAR last year which would be too 3-5 at the position. Zips projects them for 3.6 WAR, it’s a top 4-7 catching set up in MLB, imo and should be good for 3.5-4.5 WAR or so on a reasonable projection with a little more ceiling potential.

 

Seems like a lot of room for them to be wrong. Schwindel will probably turn into a pumpkin but he has a high ceiling based on what he showed last year (though his defense will weigh him down from a WAR perspective). Hard to say what to expect from Nico and Madrigal considering how oft injured they are, and stupid no-vaxer should be a WAR machine defensively depending on how much he plays. None of these projections like Wisdom's profile (and neither do i lol) but he has some upside. The OF actually projects fairly well. And finally I'm assuming that the bullpen is ZIPS least accurate position group to project. The Cubs have built adequate to good bullpens from table scraps for years now. The only thing I trust more than the Cubs ability to build a solid pen is the Ricketts ability to do the wrong thing.

 

Schwindel had an xwOBA of .329 last year, 31st out of 56 first basemen with at least 200 PAs. And like you said, offense is his calling card. Simmons has not been a 'WAR machine' defensively the last two years, but hey, maybe at 32 he'll get some of that quickness and arm strength back. He's totally healthy in spring training right? Wisdom, 40.8% strikeout rate. And yes, the last couple of years by the time September rolls along our bullpen seems fine, but that's after it had sucked most of the year and then for whatever reason by next spring we end up back in the same spot.

[Bertz]

FG position power rankings:

 

Catcher: 13th (and the player most likely to be traded!)

First base: 24th

Second base: 17th

Shortstop: 24th

Third Base: 26th

Left Field: 15th

Center Field: 21st

Right Field: 6th

DH: 24th

 

This is the good part of the team! It's Seiya and....???

 

Bullpen: 23rd

 

Starters should come out tomorrow. Just wall to wall depressing, with all of one exception.

That catching tanking seems really light. Contreras/Gomes combined for almost 4 WAR last year which would be too 3-5 at the position. Zips projects them for 3.6 WAR, it’s a top 4-7 catching set up in MLB, imo and should be good for 3.5-4.5 WAR or so on a reasonable projection with a little more ceiling potential.

 

Seems like a lot of room for them to be wrong. Schwindel will probably turn into a pumpkin but he has a high ceiling based on what he showed last year (though his defense will weigh him down from a WAR perspective). Hard to say what to expect from Nico and Madrigal considering how oft injured they are, and stupid no-vaxer should be a WAR machine defensively depending on how much he plays. None of these projections like Wisdom's profile (and neither do i lol) but he has some upside. The OF actually projects fairly well. And finally I'm assuming that the bullpen is ZIPS least accurate position group to project. The Cubs have built adequate to good bullpens from table scraps for years now. The only thing I trust more than the Cubs ability to build a solid pen is the Ricketts ability to do the wrong thing.

 

I love Fangraphs, and there's not a better way to do something like this across 30 teams given the size of their staff, but when you really start digging in you see a lot of cracks in their methodology. They have Steven Brault getting more innings than Justin Steele, they have Caleb Kilian getting 7 innings despite projecting him as an above average starter right now, Brennen Davis getting 0 PAs this year, etc. That doesn't even get into the impacts performance have on play time. E.g. if Clint Frazier is playing at a sub 1WAR pace, he's not getting 400 PAs. This is not to denigrate their work, just that these nuances that are obvious to fans are not obvious to national writers, especially for a team that's not projected well (and will inherently get less QA)

 

It's not going to suddenly make the Cubs look like the Dodgers, but it's why ZiPS (which dynamically adjusts playing time when it simulates the season) has the team pegged at ~.500 while the depth charts peg them 5ish games worse than that.

 

Really, I think the biggest driver for how well this team does will be how quickly Ross figures out the good players vs. the bad. If you figure out roughly the right mix of players in April you can win the division. Figure it out by Memorial Day and a wildcard is very doable. After the ASB and it's going to be a pretty quiet trade deadline.

 

I think this season ends up being very much like 2014, which I enjoyed but I completely understand isn't a ringing endorsement for everyone.

[Bertz]

Yeah, there seems to be some repeated bad faith false positive takes here on Hendricks by dudes who clearly know better. Acting like he's basically a lock to be a good starter is pretty horsefeathering flimsy based on his most recent history.

 

Yeah I'm captain optimism but Kyle scares the bejezus out of me. I'm very loud and obnoxious about how home run rate is mostly luck, but that kind of truism probably isn't safe to apply to a guy like Kyle who is SUCH a low end outlier in terms of velocity.

[Cubswin11]

Yeah, there seems to be some repeated bad faith false positive takes here on Hendricks by dudes who clearly know better. Acting like he's basically a lock to be a good starter is pretty horsefeathering flimsy based on his most recent history.

He wasn’t good last year overall but his May-July was plenty good though (17GS, 106IP, 2.89 ERA, 3.89 FIP) his final ~50 innings from August-September were a disaster though and obviously most recent. Also the 2020 season he was really good and a top 20 pitcher in MLB pitching at over a 4 WAR rate (1.9 in ~80IP), 2019 he had over 4 WAR, 2018 over 3.

 

Maybe those final ~50 innings mean more and it’s indicative of him starting to suck but there’s a lot of other data points recently that show he’s still plenty good.

[squally1313]

Yeah, there seems to be some repeated bad faith false positive takes here on Hendricks by dudes who clearly know better. Acting like he's basically a lock to be a good starter is pretty horsefeathering flimsy based on his most recent history.

He wasn’t good last year overall but his May-July was plenty good though (17GS, 106IP, 2.89 ERA, 3.89 FIP) his final ~50 innings from August-September were a disaster though and obviously most recent. Also the 2020 season he was really good and a top 20 pitcher in MLB pitching at over a 4 WAR rate (1.9 in ~80IP), 2019 he had over 4 WAR, 2018 over 3.

 

Maybe those final ~50 innings mean more and it’s indicative of him starting to suck but there’s a lot of other data points recently that show he’s still plenty good.

 

I mean, come on.

 

Yeah, there seems to be some repeated bad faith false positive takes here on Hendricks by dudes who clearly know better. Acting like he's basically a lock to be a good starter is pretty horsefeathering flimsy based on his most recent history.

He wasn’t good last year overall

[Cubswin11]

Yeah, there seems to be some repeated bad faith false positive takes here on Hendricks by dudes who clearly know better. Acting like he's basically a lock to be a good starter is pretty horsefeathering flimsy based on his most recent history.

He wasn’t good last year overall but his May-July was plenty good though (17GS, 106IP, 2.89 ERA, 3.89 FIP) his final ~50 innings from August-September were a disaster though and obviously most recent. Also the 2020 season he was really good and a top 20 pitcher in MLB pitching at over a 4 WAR rate (1.9 in ~80IP), 2019 he had over 4 WAR, 2018 over 3.

 

Maybe those final ~50 innings mean more and it’s indicative of him starting to suck but there’s a lot of other data points recently that show he’s still plenty good.

 

I mean, come on.

 

Yeah, there seems to be some repeated bad faith false positive takes here on Hendricks by dudes who clearly know better. Acting like he's basically a lock to be a good starter is pretty horsefeathering flimsy based on his most recent history.

He wasn’t good last year overall

Over 50% of his starts and innings he was a sub 3 ERA pitcher, he wasn’t bad the whole year was my point and maybe he’s more that May-July pitcher than the final ~50 IP from August-September that were a disaster.

[UMFan83]

That catching tanking seems really light. Contreras/Gomes combined for almost 4 WAR last year which would be too 3-5 at the position. Zips projects them for 3.6 WAR, it’s a top 4-7 catching set up in MLB, imo and should be good for 3.5-4.5 WAR or so on a reasonable projection with a little more ceiling potential.

 

Seems like a lot of room for them to be wrong. Schwindel will probably turn into a pumpkin but he has a high ceiling based on what he showed last year (though his defense will weigh him down from a WAR perspective). Hard to say what to expect from Nico and Madrigal considering how oft injured they are, and stupid no-vaxer should be a WAR machine defensively depending on how much he plays. None of these projections like Wisdom's profile (and neither do i lol) but he has some upside. The OF actually projects fairly well. And finally I'm assuming that the bullpen is ZIPS least accurate position group to project. The Cubs have built adequate to good bullpens from table scraps for years now. The only thing I trust more than the Cubs ability to build a solid pen is the Ricketts ability to do the wrong thing.

 

Schwindel had an xwOBA of .329 last year, 31st out of 56 first basemen with at least 200 PAs. And like you said, offense is his calling card. Simmons has not been a 'WAR machine' defensively the last two years, but hey, maybe at 32 he'll get some of that quickness and arm strength back. He's totally healthy in spring training right? Wisdom, 40.8% strikeout rate. And yes, the last couple of years by the time September rolls along our bullpen seems fine, but that's after it had sucked most of the year and then for whatever reason by next spring we end up back in the same spot.

 

Simmons finished 3rd in baseball in dWAR last year (per BR, haven't checked FG). About as much of a WAR machine as you can be defensively. He sucked in 2020 but a lot of people had off seasons.

 

Good point on Schwindel, never really looked into his numbers to see how sustainable his performance was. I assume flukey but I think he's started the spring continuing to hit well so I felt like there was upside.

[squally1313]

He wasn’t good last year overall but his May-July was plenty good though (17GS, 106IP, 2.89 ERA, 3.89 FIP) his final ~50 innings from August-September were a disaster though and obviously most recent. Also the 2020 season he was really good and a top 20 pitcher in MLB pitching at over a 4 WAR rate (1.9 in ~80IP), 2019 he had over 4 WAR, 2018 over 3.

 

Maybe those final ~50 innings mean more and it’s indicative of him starting to suck but there’s a lot of other data points recently that show he’s still plenty good.

 

I mean, come on.

 

He wasn’t good last year overall

Over 50% of his starts and innings he was a sub 3 ERA pitcher, he wasn’t bad the whole year was my point and maybe he’s more that May-July pitcher than the final ~50 IP from August-September that were a disaster.

They played baseball in April too. Like, if you want me to set aside the numbers and try and buy into some whole 'once the team fell apart he stopped trying, but he's the most clutch pitcher in Cubs history and should go down as the best pitcher of the good Cubs era and therefore I have faith if we're good he'll be nails again'....I'd love it. But if this is levelheaded analysis, looking at his body of work and the projections done by people a lot smarter than us, expecting 3 wins is just not accurate.

[squally1313]

 

Seems like a lot of room for them to be wrong. Schwindel will probably turn into a pumpkin but he has a high ceiling based on what he showed last year (though his defense will weigh him down from a WAR perspective). Hard to say what to expect from Nico and Madrigal considering how oft injured they are, and stupid no-vaxer should be a WAR machine defensively depending on how much he plays. None of these projections like Wisdom's profile (and neither do i lol) but he has some upside. The OF actually projects fairly well. And finally I'm assuming that the bullpen is ZIPS least accurate position group to project. The Cubs have built adequate to good bullpens from table scraps for years now. The only thing I trust more than the Cubs ability to build a solid pen is the Ricketts ability to do the wrong thing.

 

Schwindel had an xwOBA of .329 last year, 31st out of 56 first basemen with at least 200 PAs. And like you said, offense is his calling card. Simmons has not been a 'WAR machine' defensively the last two years, but hey, maybe at 32 he'll get some of that quickness and arm strength back. He's totally healthy in spring training right? Wisdom, 40.8% strikeout rate. And yes, the last couple of years by the time September rolls along our bullpen seems fine, but that's after it had sucked most of the year and then for whatever reason by next spring we end up back in the same spot.

 

Simmons finished 3rd in baseball in dWAR last year (per BR, haven't checked FG). About as much of a WAR machine as you can be defensively. He sucked in 2020 but a lot of people had off seasons.

 

Good point on Schwindel, never really looked into his numbers to see how sustainable his performance was. I assume flukey but I think he's started the spring continuing to hit well so I felt like there was upside.

39th among dudes with 450+ PAs on Fangraphs. At some point I feel like I was confident the general difference between BR and FG methodology was that BR was more 'what actually happened' and FG was more predictive towards future performance, but I'm rusty and can't really define the difference with confidence at this point.

[Tim]

 

Schwindel had an xwOBA of .329 last year, 31st out of 56 first basemen with at least 200 PAs. And like you said, offense is his calling card. Simmons has not been a 'WAR machine' defensively the last two years, but hey, maybe at 32 he'll get some of that quickness and arm strength back. He's totally healthy in spring training right? Wisdom, 40.8% strikeout rate. And yes, the last couple of years by the time September rolls along our bullpen seems fine, but that's after it had sucked most of the year and then for whatever reason by next spring we end up back in the same spot.

 

Simmons finished 3rd in baseball in dWAR last year (per BR, haven't checked FG). About as much of a WAR machine as you can be defensively. He sucked in 2020 but a lot of people had off seasons.

 

Good point on Schwindel, never really looked into his numbers to see how sustainable his performance was. I assume flukey but I think he's started the spring continuing to hit well so I felt like there was upside.

39th among dudes with 450+ PAs on Fangraphs. At some point I feel like I was confident the general difference between BR and FG methodology was that BR was more 'what actually happened' and FG was more predictive towards future performance, but I'm rusty and can't really define the difference with confidence at this point.

I haven't looked in a while, but I believe what you're referring to is more true with pitching war. BR calculates that based on RA9, while FG is based on the one of the FIP metrics. I believe the difference in their fielding metrics is more nuanced than just runs vs predicted runs.

[Bertz]

For Kyle it's a real mixed bag, he's not definitely horsefeathed but he's not definitely fine either.

 

The good:

 

- His Velo was fine, actually up a smidge from 2018-2020 (when he pitched at a 3.7 WAR/180 Inning pace)

- He didn't throw a bunch more hangers, his Meatball % (balls right down the middle of the plate) was again a smidge lower than his 2018-2020 levels

- His overall exit velocity and hard hit rates were largely unchanged from prior levels, and still pretty elite

- Beyond velocity, his pitches were largely normal save for a bit of lost curveball movement

 

The bad:

 

- Statcast does NOT think he was unlucky. His expected ERA based on batted ball data was 4.99. This is because while several stats say he was the same guy, the barrel rate against him nearly doubled

- Contact rates against him were up quite a bit, both in zone and out of zone, this led to the K rate dropping to a pretty terrible 16.7%

- He had two terrible stretches, one early one late. If this were a one-off, he'd likely have stayed fine once he righted the ship

 

The generous read is that he was tipping pitches for a while there and/or he fell too in love with the belt high sinkers and changeups that he used to throw every once in a while to trick guys into swinging and missing. Both very fixable, though show how thin his margin for error is. The negative read is that he's been kind of figured out. He did sort of reinvent himself from '17-'18, maybe this version got him 2.5 years of kicking ass and now he needs to do it again or settle in as a #4.

[Cubswin11]

 

I mean, come on.

 

Over 50% of his starts and innings he was a sub 3 ERA pitcher, he wasn’t bad the whole year was my point and maybe he’s more that May-July pitcher than the final ~50 IP from August-September that were a disaster.

They played baseball in April too. Like, if you want me to set aside the numbers and try and buy into some whole 'once the team fell apart he stopped trying, but he's the most clutch pitcher in Cubs history and should go down as the best pitcher of the good Cubs era and therefore I have faith if we're good he'll be nails again'....I'd love it. But if this is levelheaded analysis, looking at his body of work and the projections done by people a lot smarter than us, expecting 3 wins is just not accurate.

The point was it seems like a lot of people seem to think what Hendricks was over those final ~50 innings is what he was all year and completely sucked, which just isn't true and what he now is for sure moving forward. He was his normal, good, Kyle Hendricks for a large chunk of the season and he was his good normal self in the most recent 3 seasons.

 

Maybe he does just suck now and those final 50 innings is what he is, but with the sell off last year maybe he just wasn't as engaged the final 2 months, maybe he was dealing with an injury, maybe fatigue set in after the shortened season, those things could be causes too and he's not permanently bad now.

 

I can't say I've looked at a ton of projections other than Zips and they have him close to 3 and Hendricks has always been a guy who outperforms projections. I just don't think we can be any more certain he definitely is bad now and barely a 1 WAR pitcher just as much as I can't be certain he's a 3+WAR pitcher anymore. I think there's data, evidence and reason to think either outcome is as likely as the other, I prefer to try and find positives and be optimistic about him. He also should have a much better defense behind him this year.

Edited April 4, 2022 by Cubswin11

[CubinNY]

I think it’s funny in a rouge’s gallery sort of way that people are having a debate about whether this is a 75 win team or a 68 win team. With the recourses of a big market team.

 

It’s a god damned embarrassment of self created suck that some of us can squint at and say maybe not that much suck but definitely suck to a large degree. At least maybe Davis will be on the team in June and we can have another bunch of Sammy watch parties as they trade Wilson and Happ and whatever pops up in the bullpen that can garner a teenage blue chipper in the Cubs everlong pursuit of relevance.

Edited April 5, 2022 by CubinNY

[Transmogrified Tiger]

1. There's very little support for Hendricks being a 3 WAR guy at this point. His 2021 was just very bad in pretty much every way. Happ I can see, has the pedigree and obviously the ability to be the best player in baseball for a week at a time. Miley hasn't pierced that boundary in 10 years and is already hurt. The rest are mysteries, optimistically.

 

That's fine, while I'm confident in Hendricks I'm not going to pretend it's a universal lock, and if he's not in your eyes that just furthers the original point that there's a ton of potential good performances but very little certainty.

 

3. In both of the 'how we end the season' you're generally at a point in August where you're selling off the top performers anyways, right? It's hard for me to imagine, even with the six month 'figuring out the roster' process, selling off some of your best players 4 months in and still ending up 6 wins 'better' than your actual record.

 

I think this is a common idea in the media/public consciousness but is generally oversold for this particular roster. The players who would make any sense to deal at the deadline would be Miley, Smyly, Simmons, maybe Villar, and the veteran relievers? I guess Contreras too. Point being most of the positive variance potential I see coming from players who are under team control and are less likely to be sold off. Also you can account for the possibility of positive contributions from Davis, Kilian, and any other breakouts(Velazquez? Wicks? Any of 37 relievers?) to mitigate any that you do ship off.

[Cubswin11]

Ethan Roberts made the opening day roster. Excited to see what he can do out of the pen, there’s a high level RP potential in him.