4/30/24 - CHC (Assad) @ NYM (Manaea) 6:10 MSN

[Chicago Al]

6 minutes ago, squally1313 said:

They are 7th in runs as a team and Saturday was the first time all year they got shut out. Whatever your definition of ‘often’ is, I’m very much a believer that it isn’t ’disproportionately often’

also, separately, Dansby has been pretty comfortably our best player since the day he signed. Think he deserves a little more leeway before we bench him for Nick madrigal 

alright, going to try and be done with me doing me things. Go cubs. 

Good idea, keep doing you. I’m not the only one who thought Swanson messed that inning up but ok Mr stat keeper 

[gflore34]

Swanson' recent inability to make routine plays is growing really horsefeathers tiresome.

[WhyCantWeWin]

Horrible at bat by Swanson, just all around terrible this year 

[Derwood]

I saw Adam Ottavino pitch for the State College Spikes right after he was drafted.

That was in like 2007.

JFC I'm old

[JHBulls]

Welp, I’d be surprised if we see a comeback tonight. I think you’d take 18-12 after 30 games though, especially given the IL list. 

[UMFan83]

The Cubs are 18-120 (.150) over their last 4 games.  Rough stretch for the offense.

[abuck1220]

16 minutes ago, squally1313 said:

They are 7th in runs as a team and Saturday was the first time all year they got shut out. Whatever your definition of ‘often’ is, I’m very much a believer that it isn’t ’disproportionately often’

also, separately, Dansby has been pretty comfortably our best player since the day he signed. Think he deserves a little more leeway before we bench him for Nick madrigal 

alright, going to try and be done with me doing me things. Go cubs. 

seeing there is some stat telling you that makes me want to never consider any kind of advanced metric ever again and go back to when I was 11 and thought batting average was the most important stat. 

[Ding Dong Johnson]

26 minutes ago, Derwood said:

Morel is actually a 2B

Not a good one

[WhyCantWeWin]

Can always count on Madrigal for a weak ground ball

[UMFan83]

How the hell is Mervis this bad?  He is the AAAAest player ever

[Transmogrified Tiger]

1 minute ago, UMFan83 said:

How the hell is Mervis this bad?  He is the AAAAest player ever

the weak contact basically every at bat is such a bummer

[gflore34]

1 minute ago, Transmogrified Tiger said:

the weak contact basically every at bat is such a bummer

Even more frustrating some of it is on hanging breaking balls and fastballs right in the zone for most left handed hitters.

[JHBulls]

Just tread water until some of our stars come back and all should be fine. The offense is really struggling lately. 

[Irrelevant Dude]

5 minutes ago, UMFan83 said:

How the hell is Mervis this bad?  He is the AAAAest player ever

I don't get it.  He was hitting the ball hard in AAA, right?  He's getting hittable pitches, but just can't make hard contact.

[squally1313]

12 minutes ago, abuck1220 said:

seeing there is some stat telling you that makes me want to never consider any kind of advanced metric ever again and go back to when I was 11 and thought batting average was the most important stat. 

🤷‍♂️ it’s fWAR. Slightly above average hitter (you can call him league average, 102 wRC), good not great baserunning, what has been overall elite defense at the most important defensive position. I think you certainly want to complement that skill set with guys who .300 or 40 dongs, but it’s still plenty valuable. 

[chibears55]

20 minutes ago, UMFan83 said:

How the hell is Mervis this bad?  He is the AAAAest player ever

Could just be pressing and overthinking at this level 

[Jason Ross]

24 minutes ago, Irrelevant Dude said:

I don't get it.  He was hitting the ball hard in AAA, right?  He's getting hittable pitches, but just can't make hard contact.

He's hit the ball hard in Triple-A, but in-zone whiff rates and contact rates remained below Triple-A average regardless of whatever changes he's made.

As well, teams have really stayed away from where he's done damage. 

Mervis has hit the ball well inside. MLB pitchers have thrown him outside. MLB pitchers are just really good and if I can find these heat maps, I'm sure MLB teams have this x1,000. You can essentially overlay his pitch frequency chart in the MLB over his contact rate in Triple-A and they'd be mirrors. 

I will say this: in SSS Mervis has made 72% contact at the MLB level while keeping his in-zone whiff to >19%. The process isn't horrible on the surface. but I think he's swinging way too often (60% swing rate), which has elevated the contact rate, probably. He's swung a lot, and made weak contact a lot. 

[Rex Buckingham]

[gflore34]

9 minutes ago, 1908_Cubs said:

He's hit the ball hard in Triple-A, but in-zone whiff rates and contact rates remained below Triple-A average regardless of whatever changes he's made.

As well, teams have really stayed away from where he's done damage. 

Mervis has hit the ball well inside. MLB pitchers have thrown him outside. MLB pitchers are just really good and if I can find these heat maps, I'm sure MLB teams have this x1,000. 

I will say this: in SSS Mervis has made 72% contact at the MLB level while keeping his in-zone whiff to >19%. The process isn't horrible. I think he's swinging way too often (60% swing rate), which has elevated the contact rate, probably. He's swung a lot, and made weak contact a lot. 

Looking more and more like he'll never be able to make it at the MLB level, he's the very definition of a AAAA player.

[We Got The Whole 9]

49 minutes ago, UMFan83 said:

The Cubs are 18-120 (.150) over their last 4 games.  Rough stretch for the offense.

Now take Wauchman out of that. The big hitters on this team are just overmatched night in and night out. Such little SLG, it almost makes you believe in lineup protection.

[UMFan83]

I was trying to think about why I have such a negative perception of Dansby or why it feels disappointing to watch him.  Last August 6th, his batting line was .264/.347/.456/.804.  He was consistently getting big hits, hitting HRs, having good ABs, playing great defense.  We all loved him.

However, for the last 49 games of 2023, his batting line was .204/.287/.333/.620 during a stretch where the Cubs blew a great chance of making the playoffs.  It wasn't all bad, there were a few big hits in there and ok stretches of games and his defense was still stellar, but overall it was a long frustrating slump.  Now in the first 30 games of this season, his OPS is .667.  Putting those performances back to back, its roughly 1/2 a season worth of games with ~.650ish OPS.

I'm not posting this to say Dansby sucks.  He's always been an extremely streaky hitter and assuming his skills didn't randomly plummet one day in August last year, he will get hot again and will seem a lot more valuable.  Heck despite a rough start with the bat, he's still been worth 0.7 fWAR, which is 3rd on the team behind Tauchman and Imanaga. But because he's been pretty bad with the bat for so long, it really does feel like he's terrible and frustrating to watch.

[UMFan83]

14 minutes ago, We Got The Whole 9 said:

Now take Wauchman out of that. The big hitters on this team are just overmatched night in and night out. Such little SLG, it almost makes you believe in lineup protection.

Without Tauchman we're down to 14-110 (.127).  Yikes

Edited May 1, 2024 by UMFan83

[Illiterate Scholar]

20 minutes ago, UMFan83 said:

Without Tauchman we're down to 14-110 (.127).  Yikes

Without the ABs that led to the 14 hits, we're down to 0-96!

[Brock Beauchamp]

Okay, up next for tomorrow's game thread is @Brian707.

[chibears55]

Just saw Votto can opt out of his minor league deal tomorrow and become a FA..

🤔🤔🤔😅😅😅