Jump to content
North Side Baseball

The Chili has gone bad

r_mack

By r_mack,
in Chicago Cubs Talk

 Share
Transmogrified Tiger All-Star

Transmogrified Tiger

Community Moderator
Posted
Posted
The league wide offensive drop off probably is due to more bullpening (more platoon disadvantage for hitters, more premium stuff faced, less seeing a SP 3rd time, etc) and I think the ball wasn’t as juiced this year (Someone did one of those x-ray or whatever studies with balls from this year vs last year around the ASB I think).

 

the lack of juiced balls could explain less power in the league, but is there another team that had a 25% loss in hrs? Its an honest question.

 

11 teams lost at least 19%, 5 lost at least 24%, but those other 4 are more explainable(Marlins, Mets, Tigers, Rays)

  • Replies 114
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

Top Posters In This Topic

minnesotacubsfan Chicago Cubs

minnesotacubsfan

Old-Timey Member
Posted
Posted
The league wide offensive drop off probably is due to more bullpening (more platoon disadvantage for hitters, more premium stuff faced, less seeing a SP 3rd time, etc) and I think the ball wasn’t as juiced this year (Someone did one of those x-ray or whatever studies with balls from this year vs last year around the ASB I think).

 

the lack of juiced balls could explain less power in the league, but is there another team that had a 25% loss in hrs? Its an honest question.

 

11 teams lost at least 19%, 5 lost at least 24%, but those other 4 are more explainable(Marlins, Mets, Tigers, Rays)

 

to be fair, I don't think Chili deserves to be treated with malice because of this, but I also don't see fans really blaming him for the offensive struggles in an exaggerated way. His philosophy is flawed. Whats the old saying?:: Chicks dig the long ball.

UMFan83 GOAT

UMFan83

Old-Timey Member
Posted
Posted

Looking into the Cubs batted ball numbers between 2017 and 2018 is interesting

 

GB%

2017 - 45.5% (10th highest)

2018 - 46.0% (3rd highest)

 

OK so they hit more ground balls but only 5 more grounders per 1000 batted balls, pretty close to the same

 

LD%

2017 - 19.6% (22nd)

2018 - 21.4% (16th)

 

Here they actually increased over 2018 fairly significantly but are still sitting middle of the league

 

Hard Hit%

2017 - 31.2% (18th)

2018 - 31.7% (28th)

 

They actually had a higher percentage of hard hit balls (though only by 0.5%) but despite that plummeted to the bottom of the league. This probably has something to do with the league wide focus on line drives, launch angle, exit velocity, etc.

 

BABIP

2017 - .302 (15th)

2018 - .313 (2nd)

 

What does this tell us? I don't know just thought they were interesting as I would have expected a large increase in GB% and drops in LD% and Hard Hit%. I guess this is where the Chili-led focus on putting it in play instead of focusing on hitting it hard with a good launch angle might show up.

 

Also BABIP is interesting because some people credited Chili ball with the Cubs being at the top of the league in BA, and some of that might be true if they are hitting it harder but keeping it in the park.

Sammy Sofa GOAT

Sammy Sofa

Old-Timey Member
Posted
Posted

Man, some of you are nuts with this, "if they win one more game, we're not even talking about this" horsefeathers. Even if they farted out one more, it was glaringly obvious how bad the offense was in the second half, and how bad the power was all year, even before Bryant went down. They win one more game and the division, they still almost certainly put up a Rockies-esque performance in the series and Chili still gets bounced.

 

These dudes flat out sucked as a team re:dongs even when they were healthy outside of, like, 3 guys. Even accounting for general downturns and Bryant's injury (largely offset by Baez's insane year), the Cubs' dongs were puny and laughable.

cl smooth ACL Cubs

cl smooth

Old-Timey Member
Posted
Posted
why the horsefeathers was brad pitt in that movie lmao

 

Wait until Theo's goofy ass is played by Oscar Isaac or some horsefeathers.

 

Rami Malek.

UMFan83 GOAT

UMFan83

Old-Timey Member
Posted
Posted

Fairly interesting article. Says he was not able to connect at all with several players, talked about refining his message to get through to “millennials” etc. was a big fan of Zobrist though but declined to comment on everyone else.

 

https://chicago.suntimes.com/sports/chili-davis-not-going-to-blame-myself-wishes-next-cubs-hitting-coach-better-fortunes-anthony-iapoce/?utm_campaign=ChicagoSunTimes&utm_medium=social&utm_source=sprout&utm_content=1539653813

KrisBryantisaBeast Draft Eligible

KrisBryantisaBeast

Verified Member
Posted
Posted
Fairly interesting article. Says he was not able to connect at all with several players, talked about refining his message to get through to “millennials” etc. was a big fan of Zobrist though but declined to comment on everyone else.

 

https://chicago.suntimes.com/sports/chili-davis-not-going-to-blame-myself-wishes-next-cubs-hitting-coach-better-fortunes-anthony-iapoce/?utm_campaign=ChicagoSunTimes&utm_medium=social&utm_source=sprout&utm_content=1539653813

 

Well if he can't connect with "Millennials" then he has no business being a coach anymore then.

treebird All-Star

treebird

Old-Timey Member
Posted
Posted
Fairly interesting article. Says he was not able to connect at all with several players, talked about refining his message to get through to “millennials” etc. was a big fan of Zobrist though but declined to comment on everyone else.

 

https://chicago.suntimes.com/sports/chili-davis-not-going-to-blame-myself-wishes-next-cubs-hitting-coach-better-fortunes-anthony-iapoce/?utm_campaign=ChicagoSunTimes&utm_medium=social&utm_source=sprout&utm_content=1539653813

 

millennials, i knew it was them. even when it was the opposite field ground balls, i knew it was them gif

UMFan83 GOAT

UMFan83

Old-Timey Member
Posted
Posted
Fairly interesting article. Says he was not able to connect at all with several players, talked about refining his message to get through to “millennials” etc. was a big fan of Zobrist though but declined to comment on everyone else.

 

https://chicago.suntimes.com/sports/chili-davis-not-going-to-blame-myself-wishes-next-cubs-hitting-coach-better-fortunes-anthony-iapoce/?utm_campaign=ChicagoSunTimes&utm_medium=social&utm_source=sprout&utm_content=1539653813

 

Well if he can't connect with "Millennials" then he has no business being a coach anymore then.

 

Agreed. I just think it’s interesting that he made excuses about players not listening to him and stuff instead of just sticking with “it didn’t work out”. Means either the dude doesn’t like to take accountability or the players really did not listen to him. Or both

We Got The Whole 9 Myrtle Beach Pelicans

We Got The Whole 9

Old-Timey Member
Posted
Posted

If the players didn't listen to him we would have hit 200 HR again, right?

 

Truthfully... what a weird horsefeathering year. We literally had the highest non-pitcher wRC+ in the entire league at the half. We were rolling. I was fine with the approach as we were scoring a horsefeathers ton of runs... and then they just, disappeared. Bryant getting hurt (which, really, his season turned after that [expletive] Marquez beaned him) had a noticeable effect but there was still talent there to produce runs. We went from a 265/345 to a 245/315. IMO, quite a bit of this falls on Maddon. From day 1 he hasn't exactly been a proponent of the modern way of preparation (he never wanted to bog his young hitters down with information and have them thinking too much at the plate, and I think this has factored in the lack of improvement among several players; in fact I don't feel like many of our guys watch video and look at heat maps and the like) and he espoused the value of using the whole field (which, I have done, also) and passing the baton down the line.

 

I think the hitters listened.

 

I saw a whole lot of passive contact. No real idea of what's coming and just helplessly trying to put the ball in play. In this day and age that just doesn't play. I wanted our young hitters to hit more balls to the opposite field, but with authority. Know that they are staying outside and horsefeathering sit on that horsefeathers. We probably allowed 5x the amount of oppo bombs as we hit ourselves. If you took Javy out of the equation it is probably 10x (i am clearly exaggerating). See, Javy adapted. He knew that nobody wants to come in on him so he started sitting on outside pitches (and curveballs, which the rest of the team looks funny swinging at) and crushing em. Not all of them cleared the wall but this is how he racked up so many XBH. Javy increased his oppo rate by 5% and his hard contact by 3. Not massive jumps but noticeable. Javy seemed like the only young/core player who adjusted to how he was being pitched consistently... and that's pretty frightening.

 

What you have is a bunch of guys out there winging it. The way that Joe likes it. While the rest of the league turned the screws we just flailed away.

 

We now have our 3rd hitting coach of the Maddon era, which isn't a great look for the organization, IMO. But Joe has to shoulder a lot of that blame.

Backtobanks Knoxville Smokies

Backtobanks

Old-Timey Member
Posted
Posted
Fairly interesting article. Says he was not able to connect at all with several players, talked about refining his message to get through to “millennials” etc. was a big fan of Zobrist though but declined to comment on everyone else.

 

https://chicago.suntimes.com/sports/chili-davis-not-going-to-blame-myself-wishes-next-cubs-hitting-coach-better-fortunes-anthony-iapoce/?utm_campaign=ChicagoSunTimes&utm_medium=social&utm_source=sprout&utm_content=1539653813

 

Well if he can't connect with "Millennials" then he has no business being a coach anymore then.

 

Agreed. I just think it’s interesting that he made excuses about players not listening to him and stuff instead of just sticking with “it didn’t work out”. Means either the dude doesn’t like to take accountability or the players really did not listen to him. Or both

 

So now that we solved the problem by firing Davis, does that mean we don't have to spend $400,000,000 on Harper or Machado? :-"

Banedon GOAT

Banedon

Community Moderator
Posted
Posted

 

Well if he can't connect with "Millennials" then he has no business being a coach anymore then.

 

Agreed. I just think it’s interesting that he made excuses about players not listening to him and stuff instead of just sticking with “it didn’t work out”. Means either the dude doesn’t like to take accountability or the players really did not listen to him. Or both

 

So now that we solved the problem by firing Davis, does that mean we don't have to spend $400,000,000 on Harper or Machado? :-"

 

No.

jersey cubs fan GOAT

jersey cubs fan

Old-Timey Member
Posted
Posted

 

Well if he can't connect with "Millennials" then he has no business being a coach anymore then.

 

Agreed. I just think it’s interesting that he made excuses about players not listening to him and stuff instead of just sticking with “it didn’t work out”. Means either the dude doesn’t like to take accountability or the players really did not listen to him. Or both

 

So now that we solved the problem by firing Davis, does that mean we don't have to spend $400,000,000 on Harper or Machado? :-"

Have to? No.

Get to? Absotively

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
 Share
Go to topic listing
The North Side Baseball Caretaker Fund
The North Side Baseball Caretaker Fund

You all care about this site. The next step is caring for it. We’re asking you to caretake this site so it can remain the premier Cubs community on the internet. Included with caretaking is ad-free browsing of North Side Baseball.

Become a Caretaker

  • Member Statistics

    6,793
    Total Members
    13,056
    Most Online
    Kevin OBrien
    Newest Member
    Kevin OBrien
    Joined
×
×
  • Create New...