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

[Cubs206]

10 minutes ago, Tryptamine said:

Cubs are now 3.5 games out of the WC and 10 games out of the division.

It’s clear they are tanking on purpose 

[Tryptamine]

2 minutes ago, Cubs206 said:

It’s clear they are tanking on purpose 

I've already started checking out the 2025 draft prospects 

[Cubs206]

3 minutes ago, Tryptamine said:

I've already started checking out the 2025 draft prospects 

I think they have too lol 

[NorthsideAvenger]

All you can do is LYAO. 

[Jason Ross]

7 hours ago, Stratos said:

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.

How exactly do you think he will help? Again, he compares amazingly similar at Triple-A in terms of contact rates, swing decision and EV to what Nolan Gorman is doing at the MLB level in 2024 and Gorman has been bad offensively. With a jump in competition, it's likely that his data is worse than Gorman, and unable to even match that of Gorman currently. For Canario to have any positive impact offensively, he'd have to not only increase his contact rate by around 5-10% or so against much better pitching, he's going to have to lower his in-zone-whiff by 5 percent or so as well while maintaining the same launch, exit velocity and everything else. This is, highly unlikely considering his contact rates in 2024 are 7% worse than they were in 2023 at Triple-A; he's regressing in this category, not improving. It's made even more unlikely in his first extended run at the MLB level as he learns a new level of competition. While it's something that could improve in the future, there's nothing to suggest it would change for the better by promoting him currently. The result is likely going to be a hitter with a wRC+ in the 80's who provides neutral defense and base running. That will not help much. And the "change in dynamic" will result in re-organizing the deck chairs on the Titanic to fit a certain aesthetic as it sinks. 

[gflore34]

3 hours ago, 1908_Cubs said:

How exactly do you think he will help? Again, he compares amazingly similar at Triple-A in terms of contact rates, swing decision and EV to what Nolan Gorman is doing at the MLB level in 2024 and Gorman has been bad offensively. With a jump in competition, it's likely that his data is worse than Gorman, and unable to even match that of Gorman currently. For Canario to have any positive impact offensively, he'd have to not only increase his contact rate by around 5-10% or so against much better pitching, he's going to have to lower his in-zone-whiff by 5 percent or so as well while maintaining the same launch, exit velocity and everything else. This is, highly unlikely considering his contact rates in 2024 are 7% worse than they were in 2023 at Triple-A; he's regressing in this category, not improving. It's made even more unlikely in his first extended run at the MLB level as he learns a new level of competition. While it's something that could improve in the future, there's nothing to suggest it would change for the better by promoting him currently. The result is likely going to be a hitter with a wRC+ in the 80's who provides neutral defense and base running. That will not help much. And the "change in dynamic" will result in re-organizing the deck chairs on the Titanic to fit a certain aesthetic as it sinks. 

Agree, this team needs something, but, a whiff-prone, low-contact Canario is not that something.

[Rcal10]

Well a good thing that did come out of yesterday’s game is maybe the Cubs do have a trade chip. Hendricks. I imagine if Kyle keeps pitching like he has the last few times he has been out there, teams will show an interest. He is exactly the sort of guy I would have thought the Cubs would have brought in, had they been buying. Someone to eat some innings and give decent starts. He may have pitched himself into a perfect sell candidate. 

[WhyCantWeWin]

7 minutes ago, Rcal10 said:

Well a good thing that did come out of yesterday’s game is maybe the Cubs do have a trade chip. Hendricks. I imagine if Kyle keeps pitching like he has the last few times he has been out there, teams will show an interest. He is exactly the sort of guy I would have thought the Cubs would have brought in, had they been buying. Someone to eat some innings and give decent starts. He may have pitched himself into a perfect sell candidate. 

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

[Rcal10]

16 minutes ago, WhyCantWeWin said:

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

Of course he could. But I am not sure he would. That isn’t the point. The point is he may actually be of value to some team. If he doesn’t want to go it is his absolute right. 

[Stratos]

4 hours ago, 1908_Cubs said:

How exactly do you think he will help? Again, he compares amazingly similar at Triple-A in terms of contact rates, swing decision and EV to what Nolan Gorman is doing at the MLB level in 2024 and Gorman has been bad offensively. With a jump in competition, it's likely that his data is worse than Gorman, and unable to even match that of Gorman currently. For Canario to have any positive impact offensively, he'd have to not only increase his contact rate by around 5-10% or so against much better pitching, he's going to have to lower his in-zone-whiff by 5 percent or so as well while maintaining the same launch, exit velocity and everything else. This is, highly unlikely considering his contact rates in 2024 are 7% worse than they were in 2023 at Triple-A; he's regressing in this category, not improving. It's made even more unlikely in his first extended run at the MLB level as he learns a new level of competition. While it's something that could improve in the future, there's nothing to suggest it would change for the better by promoting him currently. The result is likely going to be a hitter with a wRC+ in the 80's who provides neutral defense and base running. That will not help much. And the "change in dynamic" will result in re-organizing the deck chairs on the Titanic to fit a certain aesthetic as it sinks. 

He's still probably a better hitter than PCA on a team that is amongst the worst offenses in the majors the last couple of months and need more HR power and driving in runs for an offense that only does well in BB and baserunning and very deficient in driving in runs once on base.  It's worth a shot, the status quo isn't working.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

I think the thing that will help the team the most in the short and long term is getting PCA to Iowa, the offense can't withstand having multiple guys with wRC+ in the 50s, and there are internal alternatives to PCA unlike with the catching situation.  Plus I've long maintained that preference for his own development.  Who comes up for him is less interesting to me, because the beneficiary of playing time in the meantime is probably Wisdom/Bote at DH(or 3B w/ Morel DHing).  But whoever it is would be short term until Tauchman is hopefully back.  Canario or Davis doesn't really matter to me, I'd vote Canario but it's less an endorsement of him and more of a 'you gotta get PCA off the roster' situation and he's the least bad pick.

[UMFan83]

Cubs now 13-26 in their last 39 games with a -43 RD, playing at a 54-108 pace for roughly 24% of the season.

Stretching it out further, 20-34 in their last 54 games, a 60-102 pace for exactly 33% of the season.

[gflore34]

21 minutes ago, Stratos said:

He's still probably a better hitter than PCA on a team that is amongst the worst offenses in the majors the last couple of months and need more HR power and driving in runs for an offense that only does well in BB and baserunning and very deficient in driving in runs once on base.  It's worth a shot, the status quo isn't working.

Don't know about Davis' contact profile however, picking between him and what is known in Canario, I'd go with the unknown in Davis.

[Stratos]

3 minutes ago, gflore34 said:

Don't know about Davis' contact profile however, picking between him and what is known in Canario, I'd go with the unknown in Davis.

I'd go with either over PCA at the moment.  Both are on the 40-man.  Bellinger is fine in CF.  They should be desperate and try anything that may improve the offense.

[Stratos]

Nice to see another good start from Hendricks.  Working in the curve as a legit 3rd pitch to keep guys from guessing so easily seems to be helping too.

[Irrelevant Dude]

18 minutes ago, gflore34 said:

Don't know about Davis' contact profile however, picking between him and what is known in Canario, I'd go with the unknown in Davis.

Brennen Davis hasn't played since June 11, so I would say he isn't even an option right now.

[squally1313]

10 minutes ago, Stratos said:

I'd go with either over PCA at the moment.  Both are on the 40-man.  Bellinger is fine in CF.  They should be desperate and try anything that may improve the offense.

I think PCA needs to go figure out how to dominate AAA before his offensive confidence is forever ruined up here. Having said that, it could absolutely be worse than a 0.6 fWAR in 46 games and Bellinger is currently 52nd of 53 in defensive value for anyone with 50 or more PAs in CF this year (33rd of 80 last year), so 'fine' is probably overstating it. 

[BigSlick]

Team is officially more painful to follow than the White Sox. The White Sox are just really bad, but in a funny way. This team is really bad in a very unfunny way. 

[Transmogrified Tiger]

12 minutes ago, squally1313 said:

I think PCA needs to go figure out how to dominate AAA before his offensive confidence is forever ruined up here. Having said that, it could absolutely be worse than a 0.6 fWAR in 46 games and Bellinger is currently 52nd of 53 in defensive value for anyone with 50 or more PAs in CF this year (33rd of 80 last year), so 'fine' is probably overstating it. 

Bellinger's -1 in CF this year is based on 40 games when he has 400 games prior to this year where he never finished below average, so I don't have any concerns there.  Also the magnitude of PCA's contribution is probably a bit exaggerated, because while he certainly is top of scale the current extrapolation is that he's like a +30 CF, which strains the limits of what's physically possible for an OF to provide value-wise.

[Jason Ross]

1 hour ago, Stratos said:

He's still probably a better hitter than PCA on a team that is amongst the worst offenses in the majors the last couple of months and need more HR power and driving in runs for an offense that only does well in BB and baserunning and very deficient in driving in runs once on base.  It's worth a shot, the status quo isn't working.

Being a slightly better hitter won't change his value though. What PCA is giving away offensively will easily be offset in that he's still a plus fWAR player due to defense and speed. There's nothing to suggest to me in the data that Canario is anything but, at best, a replacement level player today. 

If you want to make an argument that the Cubs need to put PCA back in Iowa because you think that's where he needs to develop, we can discuss that - that argument has merit. Who they replace PCA with in the lineup, right now, is kind of hard to figure out because there isn't an obvious answer; all of the options suck in their own right,.

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.

[Stratos]

12 hours ago, Tryptamine said:

It's legitimately amazing that every single person in the bullpen can be this bad

Bullpens are random.  Mariano Rivera was randomly the best reliever of all time

[Bertz]

1 hour ago, Transmogrified Tiger said:

Bellinger's -1 in CF this year is based on 40 games when he has 400 games prior to this year where he never finished below average, so I don't have any concerns there.  Also the magnitude of PCA's contribution is probably a bit exaggerated, because while he certainly is top of scale the current extrapolation is that he's like a +30 CF, which strains the limits of what's physically possible for an OF to provide value-wise.

Bellinger's sprint speed is flat YoY too.  For a CF I'd be shocked if there was a real degradation of ability with speed held constant.

[LBiittner]

The Cubs #1 prospect can't horsefeathers hit. Lovely. 

Maybe we hugged him too tightly?

 

[Jason Ross]

2 minutes ago, LBiittner said:

The Cubs #1 prospect can't horsefeathers hit. Lovely. 

Maybe we hugged him too tightly?

 

The number 1 prospect on the Orioles couldn't hit MLB pitching either. 

PCA is 22. He's barely seen Triple-A. And the jump from Triple-A to the MLB is getting larger. He's not hitting yet. I think he may never be a great hitter. But he doesn't have to be a great hitter. Brenton Doyle is currently showing what kind of value you can bring at an 87 wRC+ this year as long as you play great defense and run the bases really well; he's up to 1.4 fWAR in 75 games. He does it a little differently than probably PCA will, but point remains. Hell, he was a positive fWAR guy last year with a 43 wRC+! 

PCA just needs more time.

[LBiittner]

Good thing we are not in a win now mode