8/15 - AA Game is on (in Cocaine City)

[PackLandVA]

The streak will be 1 or 11 after the game.

[d_money]

Happ, Bote and Heyward….are god awful. All 3 are assured a spot on the roster next year.

 

Happ and Bote for not being able for continued development at the MLB level and Heyward for not remotely coming near the expectations of the big boy contract, which has become an albatross

[Bertz]

Alec Mills career as a SP after the first 5 innings today:

 

29 starts, 150 IP, 3.78 ERA, 40 BB, 127 K, 20 dongs

 

Short of a meltdown these last 6 weeks, feels like you can feel good about penciling him into a rotation spot heading into next season.

[PackLandVA]

Frank Schwindel - you can’t stop him. You can only hope to contain him.

[d_money]

Big Frank goes deep, tying the game 1-1, T6

[We Got The Whole 9]

The old core is better than the old core

[itisallpartoftheplan]

Schwindel is better than Rizzo

[UMFan83]

Every “old” Cubs player in this lineup is hitting under .200 this season and every “new” player in the lineup is hitting above .250. Matt Duffy is kind of a tweener since he had a role with the old Cubs but only for a couple of weeks. I consider him a new player.

 

Old:

Happ - .177

Heyward .195

Bote - .197

 

New:

Romine - .250

Duffy - .255

Chirinos - .267

Ortega - .331

Schwindel- .378

[We Got The Whole 9]

Every “old” Cubs player in this lineup is hitting under .200 this season and every “new” player in the lineup is hitting above .250. Matt Duffy is kind of a tweener since he had a role with the old Cubs but only for a couple of weeks. I consider him a new player.

 

Old:

Happ - .177

Heyward .195

Bote - .197

 

New:

Romine - .250

Duffy - .255

Chirinos - .267

Ortega - .331

Schwindel- .378

Launch angles

 

Happ 9.4

Bote 10.2

Heyward 7.6

 

Wisdom 19.2

Ortega 18.5

Schwindel 18.1

[UMFan83]

Every “old” Cubs player in this lineup is hitting under .200 this season and every “new” player in the lineup is hitting above .250. Matt Duffy is kind of a tweener since he had a role with the old Cubs but only for a couple of weeks. I consider him a new player.

 

Old:

Happ - .177

Heyward .195

Bote - .197

 

New:

Romine - .250

Duffy - .255

Chirinos - .267

Ortega - .331

Schwindel- .378

Launch angles

 

Happ 9.4

Bote 10.2

Heyward 7.6

 

Wisdom 19.2

Ortega 18.5

Schwindel 18.1

 

I thought the whole reason Bote was a thing and we signed him to a very random extension was because he mastered launch angles

[Derwood]

Heyward has a positive launch angle? He drives everything into the ground (and right to the second baseman)

[UMFan83]

I can’t see a scenario where the Cubs win another game this season

[Transmogrified Tiger]

Every “old” Cubs player in this lineup is hitting under .200 this season and every “new” player in the lineup is hitting above .250. Matt Duffy is kind of a tweener since he had a role with the old Cubs but only for a couple of weeks. I consider him a new player.

 

Old:

Happ - .177

Heyward .195

Bote - .197

 

New:

Romine - .250

Duffy - .255

Chirinos - .267

Ortega - .331

Schwindel- .378

Launch angles

 

Happ 9.4

Bote 10.2

Heyward 7.6

 

Wisdom 19.2

Ortega 18.5

Schwindel 18.1

 

I don’t think this is quite that simple. Just taking the top 50 hitters in wOBA as a proxy, 8 of them have sub-11 launch angles, and 8 have 18+. Bote’s launch angle is a career high and Heyward has never been higher than 11.3 while still having strong offensive seasons. Plus, even if we accept launch angle as decisive it’s still a symptom of something else which is unlikely to be universal across 3 or 6+ guys.

[PackLandVA]

[Tryptamine]

Up to the 8th pick. The remaining games with the Twins, Royals and Rockies are going to be pretty big.

[bukie]

Cubs were 50-51 at one point, and are doing their best to lose 100 games this year.

 

The team gave up weeks ago, the fans should follow in turn. Hell, one game thread for the rest of the season is more than this team deserves.

[17 Seconds]

17 Losses

[We Got The Whole 9]

Every “old” Cubs player in this lineup is hitting under .200 this season and every “new” player in the lineup is hitting above .250. Matt Duffy is kind of a tweener since he had a role with the old Cubs but only for a couple of weeks. I consider him a new player.

 

Old:

Happ - .177

Heyward .195

Bote - .197

 

New:

Romine - .250

Duffy - .255

Chirinos - .267

Ortega - .331

Schwindel- .378

Launch angles

 

Happ 9.4

Bote 10.2

Heyward 7.6

 

Wisdom 19.2

Ortega 18.5

Schwindel 18.1

 

I don’t think this is quite that simple. Just taking the top 50 hitters in wOBA as a proxy, 8 of them have sub-11 launch angles, and 8 have 18+. Bote’s launch angle is a career high and Heyward has never been higher than 11.3 while still having strong offensive seasons. Plus, even if we accept launch angle as decisive it’s still a symptom of something else which is unlikely to be universal across 3 or 6+ guys.

You're right, the issues are aplenty. The line drives all but disappeared, we are 28th. Only Bryant (24.5) out of our regulars (not including Nico because of all the time missed, but kudos to him for his LD%) was above average (20.5%), Rizzo was right about average, and the rest below. Too many GB; Heyward and Willy are both at freaking 50%. Just God awful. We are also top 10 in IFFB%. To me it just spells out a lot of crappy contact just about throughout the roster.

 

The sweet spot is classified as a BBE between 8-32 degrees. Huge chasm, really. But you see those guys' LA were right there on the low end of the spectrum. Meanwhile the AAAA group is much more in the meat. The xwobas on this team are mostly horrific because they have such crappy launch angles, no?

[Transmogrified Tiger]

The sweet spot is classified as a BBE between 8-32 degrees. Huge chasm, really. But you see those guys' LA were right there on the low end of the spectrum. Meanwhile the AAAA group is much more in the meat. The xwobas on this team are mostly horrific because they have such crappy launch angles, no?

 

I’m being a little pedantic here because I think even if the answer to your question is yes(I’m open to that being true but don’t have much certainty), I don’t know if that tells us anything new other than saying “they are not hitting well” a different way. The reasons for not hitting line drives or with the right launch angle(which again, I’m not sure itself is an objective goal to aim for) are numerous and dependent on the individual, so outside of saying that they aren’t unlucky with a little more certainty, I don’t know that we’re saying anything novel about the group that was mentioned.

[Sosa21MVP]

110 losses or bust.

[Omar]

#LoseTodayToWinTomorrow