9/16 - Brewers (Anderson) @ Cubs (Lackey) 1:20 CSN

[BigSlick]

It's a very tiny thing, but it is neat the Cubs gave themselves a win to celebrate the division title (and I'm listening to it and it sounds pretty raucous)

[UMFan83]

Lmao Crul interviews Rizzo

 

Rizzo: Is this Beer Money?

 

And then he asked her a beer money like question (who hit the walk off hr on Mother's Day)

[Ding Dong Johnson]

"Addison Russell and Chicago, you're welcome"

 

- Jason Hammel

[badger]

"Addison Russell and Chicago, you're welcome"

 

- Jason Hammel

 

That's awesome

[TMan92]

"Addison Russell and Chicago, you're welcome"

 

- Jason Hammel

 

That's awesome

 

I am massively dense. Don't get it.

[Omar]

The only probably with this celebration is that we have to wait for [expletive] ever for the next one.

 

October 10 is not far away.

[Cubswin11]

I hope La Stella is sitting in the corner having no fun and pouting by himself

[TMan92]

"Addison Russell and Chicago, you're welcome"

 

- Jason Hammel

 

That's awesome

 

I am massively dense. Don't get it.

 

The trade. Figured it out.

[Omar]

94 wins and 15 games to go. Nice.

[Sammy Sofa]

People snuck some great photos of Theo in disguise in the bleachers today:

 

http://dailystache.net/wp-content/uploads/Bobby-Vs-disguise.jpg

[Sammy Sofa]

Someone find a snazzy, large version of the team photo they were taking with the W flag.

[BCVM22]

Highlights, highlights here, highlights. Sorry for the delay.

 

[Sammys Boombox]

I know I'm late to the party, but that game was awesome. Go Cubs Go!

[David]

https://www.instagram.com/p/BKbtHaHhWVo/

 

https://www.instagram.com/p/BKbtZ_7BuhD/

 

javy in these lmaooooo

[David]

ha jed said he sat in the bleachers back in teh late 90s when sammy was doing his thing

[Aaron_Kennelly]

Nice. I like how well Montero has swung the bat lately

 

This'll...be fine for celebrating for the NL Central championship

 

He will almost certainly be the starting catcher at this point. He's even doing much better behind the plate in terms of blocking pitches, not as much with his arm,.

 

He's actually also doing better with his arm. Since August 3rd, he's thrown out 4 of 11 attempted base stealers. He was 3/52 before that. I saw a tweet from one of the Statcast guys recently on one of his CS that he had a league average pop time and league average arm strength on that throw.

 

I don't want to take much from a 25 PA sample or however long it is that he's been hot. But he looks much better. And I think he is a good bet to have a nice bounce-back year next year. I really do think he was playing injured earlier this year. I don't think this has necessarily been an issue of him aging. If you look at aging curves, a couple of the big things that stick out are K-rate and BB-rate. When guys lose it, those things plummet. It's a good indicator that a guy is toast and not coming back. It's not the same for every guy. But, if you look at things like power, you'll see a more gradual decrease, starting even earlier, while the player is still useful. It's not quite as noticeable. And you can still survive losing bits of your game at a time. When you start striking out at unprecedented rates and quit drawing walks, you become useless really fast. Just look at some of the old guys that have been horrible this year and are packing it up: Ryan Howard, Alex Rodriguez, Mark Teixeira. Dead giveaways.

 

Miggy's year has been a little more strange. The ISO is down from last year, but it's still up from where it was the two years prior. It seems kinda normal. His power might keep slowly slipping away. But it hasn't outright plummeted. In fact, his HR/FB is above his career average. If you look at his batted ball profile, some things become evident. His GB% is way up above where it's always been. You don't want that kind of guy hitting more ground balls: Slow, chubby, lefty pull-hitter with power to carry the ball over the fence. His hard-hit rate is also down a lot. He just hasn't hit the ball like you'd like.

 

But, if we look at those tell-tale signs of aging... he's been fantastic in that department. He's walking more. His O-Swing% was trending in the wrong direction, until this year, as he's shown a keener eye than ever. His contact% was way down last year, and he's brought it way up, above league average even. Those things are encouraging to me. It tells me his main problem was that something was jacked up with his swing. It could be because he was aging. But it doesn't jump out at me like that. It could be any number of things -- like with Jason Heyward.

 

And the main reason I think he was playing injured was because of those throws we saw from him. My goodness, that was an awful time. Like, there's no way that was just from aging. You don't go from being a competent major league catcher to throwing six-hoppers into second overnight. Right?

 

And if we look at his whole season, starting in Spring Training, it looks an awful lot like he was hiding an injury. Not that we can take much from Spring Training stats, but he was amazing this Spring. He hit for pop. He hit for average. He didn't strike out. He was taking walks. Then, he was mashing the ball the first two weeks of the season. He hit a homer on opening day. He hit two balls off the top of the wall in Arizona, in a deep part of the park. He was racking up hits and walks. Then he tweaked something and went on the DL like 10 days later, admitting that he was trying to play through it. He was horrible for that week or two he was trying to play through it.

 

Then, he rushes back like two weeks later, while Willson is tearing through AAA and fans are clamoring for him to be called up. And from that moment on, Miggy was horrible -- at everything. He couldn't hit; he couldn't throw; he couldn't block pitches. And now he looks normal. Maybe it is aging. Maybe it's just the start of his decline. And you can't just dismiss it as him being injured. That's part of the problem of aging. Your body breaks down and you can't stay healthy. So we can't just assume, "Oh he was injured, but now he'll be fine forever." We may go through the same horsefeathers next year.

 

But, if he can rebound a little, he's still a useful player. His arm is still going to be pretty bad. That part of his game is probably gone for good. But, a healthy, normal Miggy can still hit some, especially if he carries over something close to this type of plate discipline. And, according to StatCorner, he's been the best pitch framer in the majors this year, on a per game basis, and by a healthy margin.

 

Anyway... I'm back on board with Miggy for one last hurrah next year. And maybe I should have just made this an article.

[Sammy Sofa]

Miguel will be 2016 Ross next year, and that's cool.

[jersey cubs fan]

Miguel will be 2016 Ross next year, and that's cool.

#AbueloMontero