Off-day conversation 6/20

[Brock Beauchamp]

The Cubs managed to win two entire games in a row. Is this them getting back on track somewhat or just a blip on the radar? In yesterday's game, it was hard to tell if the offense was hitting or the Giants were trying to hand the win to the Cubs.

And then there are the final two innings of bullpen "work"...

[CubinNY]

The Cubs appear to be coming out it. Jed and Craig really need to get the pen sorted out. I was a little disappointed they let CEJ opt out without giving him a chance with the big club. The end of the 40 man is all fungable. 

[We Got The Whole 9]

Man would it be nice if Kyle's curveball became a weapon. Hitters will adjust and try to sit on it, but it looked tighter than usual yesterday. He just has to commit to it. You can find a handful of interviews over the years where he has mentioned increasing its usage, but the stats bear out that he really doesn't. If he has a curveball now he can work the "high heat" which he did effectively yesterday, That performance was so beautiful to watch. I think he is turning that page, has good momentum right now for sure. Reading his thoughts on it, he knows he was too predictable. It had worked for him for so long but for some reason it felt like hitters had the pitchcom in their ear. Really pulling for Kyle to finish his Cubs career strong. Legend.

 

The hitting with RISP was totally inexcusable. These guys don't swing at good pitches with runners on. They aren't particularly adept at laying off the pitches in the shadow zone and they often don't swing at pitches over the plate. It's frustrating as hell to watch. Bellinger chasing a changeup low and away before he even had 2 strikes - like, that horsefeathers shouldn't happen. He should be able to calm down and wait for a pitch he can do something with, even if it's just hitting a proper flyball. But the thing is, this goes back a half-decade, and with a shitload of different personnel. Some of you guys are gonna say it's just baseball but we are talking about being in the bottom third damn near every year in this category. And they have so many of these ABs where they swing at crap pitches playing right into the defensive strategy. Side note: I think Bellinger saw like 6 pitches all game. He has been super impatient the last few games.

 

Dansby has to stop costing us. That was a bad decision to try to turn the DP. It marred Hendricks' amazing performance. I mean dude, flip the horsefeathers ball and he has 6 shutout, absolutely dominant innings, capped off with a perfect DP grounder. Too many fuckups from an elite defender. Hoping he tightens up his game, I love seeing the oppo power, we really cannot have this dude Heyward on us. The FB rate was expected to be about 30% higher. Lets go. 

 

Leiter's splitter can only take him so far. He's a gasoline fire right now. Every damn AB he gets 2 quick strikes and just crumbles. Figure out a slider or sweeper or something dude, everybody's doing it. Go down to Iowa and work on a knuckle ball lol.

 

In the last week we had 4 regulars post a 15 or lower, with 3 going deeply negative. Maybe an approach shift is in order. We can't go on like this. 

[Transmogrified Tiger]

2 minutes ago, We Got The Whole 9 said:

Man would it be nice if Kyle's curveball became a weapon. Hitters will adjust and try to sit on it, but it looked tighter than usual yesterday. He just has to commit to it. You can find a handful of interviews over the years where he has mentioned increasing its usage, but the stats bear out that he really doesn't. If he has a curveball now he can work the "high heat" which he did effectively yesterday, That performance was so beautiful to watch. I think he is turning that page, has good momentum right now for sure. Reading his thoughts on it, he knows he was too predictable. It had worked for him for so long but for some reason it felt like hitters had the pitchcom in their ear. Really pulling for Kyle to finish his Cubs career strong. Legend.

I'm always curious what the line is on these types of repertoire changes where it's a meaningful difference v. noise or particular matchups.  Last year was an outlier but otherwise post-pandemic Kyle has thrown roughly 10% curveballs.  The difference between that and his usage yesterday is about 1 curve per inning.  Does that make a huge/sustainable difference?  Obviously the other large factor is *when* he's throwing those curves, which I don't know how to get to quickly. Would be very nice if that gave him a shot in the arm, at this point I'd settle for him pitching well against the Giants again next week even if the ensuing starts against Philly and Baltimore are less rosy.

[Bertz]

7 minutes ago, Transmogrified Tiger said:

I'm always curious what the line is on these types of repertoire changes where it's a meaningful difference v. noise or particular matchups.  Last year was an outlier but otherwise post-pandemic Kyle has thrown roughly 10% curveballs.  The difference between that and his usage yesterday is about 1 curve per inning.  Does that make a huge/sustainable difference?  Obviously the other large factor is *when* he's throwing those curves, which I don't know how to get to quickly. Would be very nice if that gave him a shot in the arm, at this point I'd settle for him pitching well against the Giants again next week even if the ensuing starts against Philly and Baltimore are less rosy.

Yesterday it felt like he actually had great command of the curve for maybe the first time this year.  Early in the year they were all in the dirt or as you're alluding to get me over pitches way behind in the count.  Yesterday he was aggressive with it on the edges and hitters could no longer flip a coin on sinker/change.  

[Stratos]

8 hours ago, We Got The Whole 9 said:

Leiter's splitter can only take him so far. He's a gasoline fire right now. Every damn AB he gets 2 quick strikes and just crumbles. Figure out a slider or sweeper or something dude, everybody's doing it. Go down to Iowa and work on a knuckle ball lol.

Leiter's pretty good considering he's pretty average or below on a lot of other tools, I'm not expecting much else from him besides the split, which is one of the game's elite pitches with one the top whiff rates of any pitch in MLB.  Probably skewed a but since he sees mostly LHB.  Still a great pitch i assume is at times hard to control, especially if its hot & muggy and he's sweating.

[BKHoo]

When you are saying a reliever needs to develop another pitch, you have a problem.

[mfcubs22]

Who gets called up first: Bigge or Roberts?