Cubs (Hendricks) vs Giants (TBD): 6/25/24, 8:45pm

[Stratos]

Just watched Bigge at Iowa, throwing 97-98.  Control has been the question with him obviously.  Seems like we have a lot of good stuff/lame control relievers.

Edited June 26, 2024 by Stratos

[Tryptamine]

PCA starts 0-2, par for the course

[Irrelevant Dude]

Oy, Seiya.  That... was awful.

[WhyCantWeWin]

Amaya threw a guy out?!

[Tryptamine]

Last five Cub games 12K, 14K, 8K, 13K, 11K and 6K through 3 IP tonight.  

[Tryptamine]

Was that just like a 7 pitch inning?

[Tryptamine]

PCA 0-2 again

 

6 pitches seen, 2 strikeouts

Edited June 26, 2024 by Tryptamine

[Derwood]

4 minutes ago, Tryptamine said:

PCA 0-2 again

 

6 pitches seen, 2 strikeouts

Yeah, he's completely lost. His couple of triples were just the blind squirrel finding the nut

[Irrelevant Dude]

1 minute ago, Derwood said:

Yeah, he's completely lost.

There is being overmatched, and then there's looking like you have absolutely no concept of how to approach an at bat.  Unfortunately. PCA falls into the latter category.

[Ding Dong Johnson]

They’re all horsefeathers lost. I gave marquee too much money.

[UMFan83]

29 minutes ago, Tryptamine said:

Last five Cub games 12K, 14K, 8K, 13K, 11K and 6K through 3 IP tonight.  

Didn’t Jed say something about wanting to get more contact into the lineup and that the last core was too strikeout prone  when he kicked off the rebuild. I mean retool. 

[Derwood]

This strike zone is Tom Glavine-esque

[UMFan83]

Usually when someone has a long AB with a lot of balls fouled off they don’t end the AB by grounding into a double play but Cubs gonna Cubs 

[PeanutPunch33]

It's so Cubs that their best prospect can't hit worth a horsefeathers.  Corey Patterson 2.0

[UMFan83]

Cubs got a single, groundball, walk and that’s the inning

[Stratos]

6 hours ago, 1908_Cubs said:

I think PCA needs more work. I also don't think Alexander Canario is still the answer. In fact, the mixup was because he's still hurt and the Cubs were checking him out. 

Regardless, however, his underlying numbers in Triple-A are ugly. I know he's been on a run up through the injury where it was home run, home run, home run, but overall his contact rate is...woof. He's making contact on 61% of his swings while in-zone-whiffing at 27%. To put that in perspective, he's making 10% less contact than International League average and swinging and missing in the zone almost 9% more. He's up to too many PA's at Triple-A for this to be nothing, as well, considering he's over 400 PA's at the level now.  Even over his hot range, his contact% since the last week of May is 60% with a 28% in-zone whiff. If he had enough PA's to qualify, he'd have the third worst contact of anyone in Triple-A and bottom-5 in-zone whiff.

Canario wll likely have a better wRC+ than PCA for a bit because I expect he can run into a home run more often. He's probably also capable of hitting four home runs in a week. But I expect he'd be Patrick Wisdom, mostly; someone who's capable of running into a home run or a super-mega-week but the in-between times are times of largely uncompetitive PA's and mediocre/poor defense. PCA is going to likely be a more useful player to the Cubs currently because in between the two who would be largely unhelpful offensively, one is providing elite defense at a premium position and other...well the other isn't in that ballpark. And I think while PCA has plenty to learn, learning at the MLB level probably isn't the worst thing right now, either. Take your lumps currently and if you can, get over them. It will take uber prospect Jackson Holliday a second chance to get it right and Jacksoun Chourio is only starting to look like he's turning a corner, 150 PA's into it. 

Canario has also put up a 45 K% in his 2 very small MLB stints (42 PA total).  I agree he's not a savior, but he should help the offense on a team that has serious run-scoring issues and could use some kind of change in dynamic.  One of our OF's are DHing almost every game anyways.  I think he and Morel's power and pull approach comes at the expense of the contact/avg and limits their potential.

[Stratos]

36 minutes ago, Derwood said:

Yeah, he's completely lost. His couple of triples were just the blind squirrel finding the nut

His approach is pretty bad (too aggressive), his hit tool/skills are below average, plus he's young and green.  He has no chance out there right now.  I guess he's just there for the glove in the FO's mind.

[Derwood]

PCA with his 3rd K on 3 pitches. 3 at bats, 9 pitches, 3 K's

[WhyCantWeWin]

It does feel like every PCA at bat is the same, his timing is off and ends up fouling or missing the first two pitches and then strikes out

[Tryptamine]

This genuinely might be the single worst game I've ever seen from a hitter

[JHBulls]

Can’t score in games Hendricks has been bad. Can’t score in games Hendricks has been good. 
 

This team has been getting to new levels of suck. 

[Irrelevant Dude]

Bravo Kyle.

Here's an "L" for your efforts.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

Good for Kyle, I was fairly convinced he was only on the roster to make it to 10 years of service but he's definitely proven that won't be the case when he hits that mark in the upcoming days.

[JHBulls]

Can’t wait for the 17 pitch (in total) 8th and 9th inning. 

[Tryptamine]

I wonder if Kyle is a few more good starts from being a desirable piece at the trade deadline. It's amazing that even after going 21.1 IP where he only gives up 3ER and his ERA is still 6.87.