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

[LBiittner]

3 strikeouts on 9 pitches

[Jason Ross]

1 minute ago, LBiittner said:

Good thing we are not in a win now mode

If the Cubs win-now-mode hinged on a 22 year old prospect who has a little over 50 games in Triple-A (he's played almost the same amount of MLB games) being an instant 4 fWAR player, than the Cubs have bigger issues than we know about. Considering the Cubs resigned Bellinger, I'd assume the team was not suspecting to have needed 43 games out of PCA n the first half of the season. 

[LBiittner]

7 minutes ago, 1908_Cubs said:

If the Cubs win-now-mode hinged on a 22 year old prospect who has a little over 50 games in Triple-A (he's played almost the same amount of MLB games) being an instant 4 fWAR player, than the Cubs have bigger issues than we know about. Considering the Cubs resigned Bellinger, I'd assume the team was not suspecting to have needed 43 games out of PCA n the first half of the season. 

Right now, today, it's rather difficult to understand what anyone associated with cub management suspected going into 2024 expectations. 

You can paint a rosey future from horsefeathers stats, but if a hitter smells like fish, he still stinks in the batting lineup.

 

 

[Jason Ross]

8 minutes ago, LBiittner said:

Right now, today, it's rather difficult to understand what anyone associated with cub management suspected going into 2024 expectations. 

You can paint a rosey future from horsefeathers stats, but if a hitter smells like fish, he still stinks in the batting lineup.

 

 

You know me better to suggest I'm using horsefeathers statistics. And right now, PCA isn't helping offensively; you won't see me disagree there. But I think we need to take our frustrations and put them in a box if we're going to evaluate PCA, his future, and his current struggles. Prospects take immense patience (and probably more so now than ever - the best prospects in baseball are struggling in initial MLB callups), even more so when we're talking about non-elite offensive prospects (which PCA is), even more so when we're talking a prospect who's not played a ton of Triple-A baseball (which PCA hasn't). 

I am as frustrated at the 2024 Cubs as any one. But I don't believe at any point the Chicago Cubs expected Pete Crow-Armstrong to have been the defacto starting CF, having played 43 MLB games, on June 26th after only 26 games in Triple-A with a 98 wRC+ and a K% over 27%, either. I think we can all make a safe assumption that that was not in the pre-season plans. Multiple injuries in the OF early and players struggling to hit have created a perfect storm for this right now. So PCA was thrown into the deep end, probably too early, and has struggled. That's not a shocking outcome, don't you think? 

On his future...we'll have to remain patient. There's still a good player in there. But it's probably going to require more time.

[chibears55]

4 hours ago, WhyCantWeWin said:

Hes got his 10 5 rights now officially I believe. So full circle he would veto a trade like Dempster. 

I think he and Happ(NTC) may just wave it if it to a team of their liking and gives them an opportunity to win and go to the postseason.

[chibears55]

Almost like someone saw this collapse coming..🤔🤔

 

[Stratos]

2 hours ago, 1908_Cubs said:

But the argument that the Cubs just need to do something different, and that the difference is "play Canario" isn't going to result in a net positive for the Cubs right now and that should be noted. A lot of this seems to stem from "well we just don't know what Canario will do" but the underlying data on Canario right now paints an ugly picture of a guy who's going to just come up, and strike out 40% of the time. He may add 20 points of wRC+ over PCA currently, but that won't offset the defense. He won't make the Cubs better and I do believe it will make them actively worse. 

And maybe that's fine. If the balance between "winning MLB games" and "developing PCA" is shifting, then sending the more useful MLB player down for Canario might be a fine tradeoff. I just think we should understand going into it that Canario isn't really looking like much of a help and that any added offense people think is coming is probably going to be much less noticeable than they realize.

Playing Canario may not work.  Maybe it will make them worse.   Maybe he hits over 100 wrc+.  We don't know.   What we do know is that this team sucks and is losing as its currently constructed, this offense is broken, they have no slug, they're not hitting HR, they're leaving lots of guys on base, and the bottom of the order is among the very worst in the MLB in hitting. 

In Canario's short stint this year he registered the 3rd highest average bat speed in the MLB, that's above Morel, he has excellent power, potentially elite.  Maybe he's terrible, maybe he goes on a Morel/Wisdom tear when they were called up.  The risk of trying Canario is zero, they need to act with urgency and take risks.  The Cubs continuing with the same lineup and roster is a losing idea.

Edited June 26, 2024 by Stratos

[Jason Ross]

19 minutes ago, Stratos said:

Playing Canario may not work.  Maybe it will make them worse.   Maybe he hits over 100 wrc+.  We don't know.   What we do know is that this team sucks and is losing as its currently constructed, this offense is broken, they have no slug, they're not hitting HR, they're leaving lots of guys on base, and the bottom of the order is among the very worst in the MLB in hitting. 

In Canario's short stint this year he registered the 3rd highest average bat speed in the MLB, that's above Morel, he has excellent power, potentially elite.  Maybe he's terrible, maybe he goes on a Morel/Wisdom tear when they were called up.  The risk of trying Canario is zero, they need to act with urgency and take risks.  The Cubs continuing with the same lineup and roster is a losing idea.

The first line is my exact point: we kind of do know, though. We know what conveys the most from MiLB to the MLB and what signals likely success. It's not bat speed. It's not EV. It's contact rate, swing decisions and the like. It's one of the most consistent identifiers of MLB success. So far Canario has 40 PA's in the majors...he's struck out 40% of the time. You know what his contact rate is? Under 60%. We can safely assume that a player who can't make 62% of contact on his swings in Triple-A will be that level or worse at the MLB level. 40 PA's isn't enough to say anything definitive, but it's also exactly what we should expect from him; that data tracks. We can also safely assume that if he does that, he will not find success at the MLB level. It's super rare for hitters to take a contact rate below 63% and find any sort of success with it. Brent Rooker was able to find success at that level last year, but he's in the 93% of barrel rate, 91st in hard hit and 85th in LA sweet spot. He's even higher in those categories today. So unless we think Canario is going to be in the 90% or above in terms of damage when he makes contact...I think we have to assume he's more Nolan Gorman 2024 than Brent Rooker 2023.

Even if he's a 100 wRC+ hitter, he's a mediocre fielder at best. What do you think a 100 wRC+ RF'er with mediocre defense is worth? Alex Verdugo has a 100 wRC+ and is worth .9 fWAR...but he has +8 DRS/+1 OAA. It took him 77 games to get there. It's more likely today that he comes in 20% lower than league average than league average making it much more likely he's a 0 fWAR guy than a .9 fWAR guy in 300 PAs.

We can use the "maybe" arguments and "we don't know" all we want, but we know better. I've got 0 PA's at the MLB level. Maybe I can have a 100 wRC+. We don't know. But we do. We do know. We know that's a bad idea. Much like we can take a few minutes, look at Canario's processes, compare him to other MLB hitters and we can say "oh, yeah, that won't work". It's a losing proposition. Sure, maybe he just BABIPs people to death and is great for 200 PA's before he sucks. But that's the worst way to do this because anyone could have a lucky tear. It's how likely someone is to actually help. You might win the lottery tonight! But much like Canario being good (unless something seriously changes), you probably won't.

[LBiittner]

1 hour ago, 1908_Cubs said:

You know me better to suggest I'm using horsefeathers statistics. And right now, PCA isn't helping offensively; you won't see me disagree there. But I think we need to take our frustrations and put them in a box if we're going to evaluate PCA, his future, and his current struggles. Prospects take immense patience (and probably more so now than ever - the best prospects in baseball are struggling in initial MLB callups), even more so when we're talking about non-elite offensive prospects (which PCA is), even more so when we're talking a prospect who's not played a ton of Triple-A baseball (which PCA hasn't). 

I am as frustrated at the 2024 Cubs as any one. But I don't believe at any point the Chicago Cubs expected Pete Crow-Armstrong to have been the defacto starting CF, having played 43 MLB games, on June 26th after only 26 games in Triple-A with a 98 wRC+ and a K% over 27%, either. I think we can all make a safe assumption that that was not in the pre-season plans. Multiple injuries in the OF early and players struggling to hit have created a perfect storm for this right now. So PCA was thrown into the deep end, probably too early, and has struggled. That's not a shocking outcome, don't you think? 

On his future...we'll have to remain patient. There's still a good player in there. But it's probably going to require more time.

Dang it. There you go making sense again. You're the voice of reason that keeps us from jumping off the ledge.

But sometimes , I need to scream bloody murder 

[Jason Ross]

Just now, LBiittner said:

Dang it. There you go making sense again. You're the voice of reason that keeps us from jumping off the ledge.

But sometimes , I need to scream bloody murder 

I know you do. You know I love you Bitts. We are all frustrated. 

I just get less frustrated because I have taught middle school for 13+ years now. There's almost nothing that can affect me now a days. My emotions are all dead.

[squally1313]

I find this 'well it can't get any worse!' argument pretty tough to accept. PCA isn't singlehandedly losing all these baseball games. If one of the other 8 guys in the lineup comes up and comes through with a big hit but Canario can't get to a ball in the gap that costs them 2 runs....that's worse! There are thousands of permutations here.

If you want to argue that the overall difference in production is negligible and PCA needs the AAA experience offensively, sure. If you want to buy into the concept of a spark, I guess, whatever. But you can't realistically look at Canario's profile and be like 'this guy can't be worse than the guy who has given you 0.6 fWAR in 45 games'. He absolutely could be. 

[Stratos]

1 hour ago, 1908_Cubs said:

The first line is my exact point: we kind of do know, though. We know what conveys the most from MiLB to the MLB and what signals likely success. It's not bat speed. It's not EV. It's contact rate, swing decisions and the like. It's one of the most consistent identifiers of MLB success. So far Canario has 40 PA's in the majors...he's struck out 40% of the time. You know what his contact rate is? Under 60%. We can safely assume that a player who can't make 62% of contact on his swings in Triple-A will be that level or worse at the MLB level. 40 PA's isn't enough to say anything definitive, but it's also exactly what we should expect from him; that data tracks. We can also safely assume that if he does that, he will not find success at the MLB level. It's super rare for hitters to take a contact rate below 63% and find any sort of success with it. Brent Rooker was able to find success at that level last year, but he's in the 93% of barrel rate, 91st in hard hit and 85th in LA sweet spot. He's even higher in those categories today. So unless we think Canario is going to be in the 90% or above in terms of damage when he makes contact...I think we have to assume he's more Nolan Gorman 2024 than Brent Rooker 2023.

Even if he's a 100 wRC+ hitter, he's a mediocre fielder at best. What do you think a 100 wRC+ RF'er with mediocre defense is worth? Alex Verdugo has a 100 wRC+ and is worth .9 fWAR...but he has +8 DRS/+1 OAA. It took him 77 games to get there. It's more likely today that he comes in 20% lower than league average than league average making it much more likely he's a 0 fWAR guy than a .9 fWAR guy in 300 PAs.

We can use the "maybe" arguments and "we don't know" all we want, but we know better. I've got 0 PA's at the MLB level. Maybe I can have a 100 wRC+. We don't know. But we do. We do know. We know that's a bad idea. Much like we can take a few minutes, look at Canario's processes, compare him to other MLB hitters and we can say "oh, yeah, that won't work". It's a losing proposition. Sure, maybe he just BABIPs people to death and is great for 200 PA's before he sucks. But that's the worst way to do this because anyone could have a lucky tear. It's how likely someone is to actually help. You might win the lottery tonight! But much like Canario being good (unless something seriously changes), you probably won't.

If we're talking playing one of these guys for the next 2 seasons id agree with you.  I'm not thrilled with Canario's profile either.  But being concerned with most likely scenarios is less relevant for the next 3 months because we're desperate, which calls for desperate measures.  Looking for lightning in a bottle.

At this point I would be making whatever changes I could that could possibly help because the status quo isn't working.  If we keep PCA I would consider trying Busch at 3B and sliding Morel to DH (Busch likely isn't as bad at 3b as Morel and fields hit balls well at 1b), sticking Bellinger at 1B, or keep Bellinger at CF and try Mervis again at 1b, or whomever.  Morel's terrible fielding/range has him as a replacement player right now.  All potential options should be on the table for any position we're deficient.  We're still carrying Mastro FFS.

[Stratos]

1 hour ago, squally1313 said:

I find this 'well it can't get any worse!' argument pretty tough to accept. PCA isn't singlehandedly losing all these baseball games. If one of the other 8 guys in the lineup comes up and comes through with a big hit but Canario can't get to a ball in the gap that costs them 2 runs....that's worse! There are thousands of permutations here.

If you want to argue that the overall difference in production is negligible and PCA needs the AAA experience offensively, sure. If you want to buy into the concept of a spark, I guess, whatever. But you can't realistically look at Canario's profile and be like 'this guy can't be worse than the guy who has given you 0.6 fWAR in 45 games'. He absolutely could be. 

I get what you're saying.  Yes he could be.   But we know for 100% certain that the team sucks right now with PCA in the hitting lineup.  Give someone else a chance in the lineup.  It's time to act urgently.  The time for patience and calculated rationality based on statistical most likely scenarios is past.  Time to take some risks.

[Bertz]

11 minutes ago, Stratos said:

I get what you're saying.  Yes he could be.   But we know for 100% certain that the team sucks right now with PCA in the hitting lineup.  Give someone else a chance in the lineup.  It's time to act urgently.  The time for patience and calculated rationality based on statistical most likely scenarios is past.  Time to take some risks.

I would LOVE to play poker with you

[squally1313]

2 minutes ago, Stratos said:

I get what you're saying.  Yes he could be.   But we know for 100% certain that the team sucks right now with PCA in the hitting lineup.  Give someone else a chance in the lineup.  It's time to act urgently.  The time for patience and calculated rationality based on statistical most likely scenarios is past.  Time to take some risks.

Just because the team sucks with PCA in the lineup doesn't mean the team sucks because PCA is in the lineup. If we're all in agreement that he's an obvious net negative offensively right now, that means he must be contributing otherwise to have the end results he has. Do we want to go and figure out the impact he has on the starters' sparking ERAs? 

And ultimately I'm fine with PCA going to AAA to figure some stuff out because I think it's good for his long term development. But just stabbing at names because of a hot couple weeks in AAA or because they hit a ball far in a game you watched isn't the way to do it. Just stick Bellinger back in center and figure out some weird Morel/Suzuki/Wisdom/Tauchman 3B/RF/DH platoon. All of those guys are probably going to give you 90-100 wRC offensive production at a minimum, which, as shown above, is far from a guarantee from someone like Canario, without sacrificing a premium defensive position.

[Irrelevant Dude]

29 minutes ago, Stratos said:

If we keep PCA I would consider trying Busch at 3B and sliding Morel to DH (Busch likely isn't as bad at 3b as Morel and fields hit balls well at 1b)

Please, no.  Leave Busch alone at 1B.  It's fine if he needs to fill in at 2B/3B in a pinch, but let him primarily focus on hitting and playing ONE defensive position.

[Chicago Al]

What’s going to help out PCA the most? If he goes down to AAA and his bat heats up then what? Does he get the call up again shortly after to fill in (if needed)? Then struggles again offensively in the big leagues and send him down again? Surely that can’t keep happening. He needs to consistently be productive at the plate, whether that’s figuring things out in AAA or in the big’s. He can’t just keep rotating between AAA and MLB (not saying that’s happening or will happen).  Mervis crushed AAA and was really bad when he got called up. That happened to him what 2 or 3 times already? Now what’s left of Mervis since Busch is obviously a better fit now? I’m afraid the same thing that’s happened to Mervis might happen to PCA, maybe not defensively since PCA is or has elite potential there.

[chibears55]

This team has sucked with or without PCA in the lineup, he's definitely not the weak link here. 

It doesn't matter whether it him or another AAA player in the lineup over him if the others just aren't getting the job done either, and then there's the issues with the bullpen and trying to hold a lead or keep a game close from the 7th inning on.

This team just don't have what it takes to win and win consistently, and if it weren't for the SP they would  be almost as bad as the Whitesox record wise.

They have a few good position players, but for whatever reason they all seem to be having more and longer cold streaks then hot ones or even just average ones and that along with a weak bullpen has killed them since April. 

IMO, this season is over as far as hoping to win the Division or World Series, there no miracle second half run with this group and I highly doubt Rickett will give the ok to add to the payroll with the type of players they will need to help carry them there.

What I think they should do come August and September is bring up the kids like Ballesteros, Caissie, maybe even Shaw, and whomever else and get a look at them for 2025.

 

[Stratos]

2 hours ago, Irrelevant Dude said:

Please, no.  Leave Busch alone at 1B.  It's fine if he needs to fill in at 2B/3B in a pinch, but let him primarily focus on hitting and playing ONE defensive position.

I'd ideally prefer that too.  But does any of it matter at this point?

[Rcal10]

6 minutes ago, Stratos said:

I'd ideally prefer that too.  But does any of it matter at this point?

Sure it does. Probably not this year, but long term they should just leave Busch alone and let him be their first baseman for a long time. Why mess with him playing elsewhere.

[Stratos]

2 hours ago, Bertz said:

I would LOVE to play poker with you

Nothing ventured nothing gained.  At this point, what's the statistical probability the Cubs dramatically improve by sending the same lineup of players out every day vs trying some different players?  A month ago I supported Hoyer and Counsell's approach of patience.  The offense isn't regressing to the mean, the same thing has happened pretty much day after day for the last 2 months, there's a clear trend.  Something needs to change.

[Stratos]

2 hours ago, squally1313 said:

Just because the team sucks with PCA in the lineup doesn't mean the team sucks because PCA is in the lineup. If we're all in agreement that he's an obvious net negative offensively right now, that means he must be contributing otherwise to have the end results he has. Do we want to go and figure out the impact he has on the starters' sparking ERAs?

Yes I'm aware how the statistics work out and the tradeoffs involved.  The SP's sparkling ERA's is great to have but isn't doing enough to get this team wins.  This month's schedule is a joke and they keep losing and not scoring runs.  The team SLG is 27th in MLB and 29th since May 1, and PCA isn't helping there.  Maybe PCA out and Canario in would be a net wash, or net negative, who knows.  The point is the current formula isn't working, its a disaster.  So change the formula.  What's the risk?  They keep sucking?  We can risk some SP regression for some more SLG.

[Stratos]

35 minutes ago, Rcal10 said:

Sure it does. Probably not this year, but long term they should just leave Busch alone and let him be their first baseman for a long time. Why mess with him playing elsewhere.

Because our current everyday 3B is replacement level bad unless the trending metrics have somehow changed dramatically in the last month.  If they all but concede and sell some guys at the deadline Morel can go back to 3B and Busch to 1B.  I'm just throwing out ideas.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

4 hours ago, Chicago Al said:

What’s going to help out PCA the most? If he goes down to AAA and his bat heats up then what? Does he get the call up again shortly after to fill in (if needed)? Then struggles again offensively in the big leagues and send him down again? Surely that can’t keep happening. He needs to consistently be productive at the plate, whether that’s figuring things out in AAA or in the big’s. He can’t just keep rotating between AAA and MLB (not saying that’s happening or will happen).  Mervis crushed AAA and was really bad when he got called up. That happened to him what 2 or 3 times already? Now what’s left of Mervis since Busch is obviously a better fit now? I’m afraid the same thing that’s happened to Mervis might happen to PCA, maybe not defensively since PCA is or has elite potential there.

If he goes down to AAA and his bat heats up then he will have shown he can have significant success at AAA for the first time.  AAA success is not a magic code to MLB success, but since he hasn't shown the ability to dominate AAA it's very likely he can make adjustments in establishing AAA success that will help him have more MLB success next time.  In the meantime, the Cubs can play someone with a wRC+ above 60 and score more runs.

[We Got The Whole 9]

1 hour ago, Transmogrified Tiger said:

If he goes down to AAA and his bat heats up then he will have shown he can have significant success at AAA for the first time.  AAA success is not a magic code to MLB success, but since he hasn't shown the ability to dominate AAA it's very likely he can make adjustments in establishing AAA success that will help him have more MLB success next time.  In the meantime, the Cubs can play someone with a wRC+ above 60 and score more runs.

They can?