Giants (Roupp) vs Cubs (Boyd): 5/5/25, 6:40pm

[Brandon Glick]

Cinco de Mayo. Baseball. Matthew Boyd. Happy Monday, everyone.

 

[squally1313]

Back to back games with our ace on the mound, I guess?

(Get a starter)

[squally1313]

Cubs up to a 75.8% chance to make the playoffs, 71.2% chance to win the division, projected to finish 9 games ahead of the rest of the division with everyone else playing below .500 ball the rest of the year. Everyone has understandably built in weariness of the Brewers doing Brewers things, but the Cubs offense is much better than advertised and the rest of the division might just be Objectively Bad. 

[BKHoo]

If we just lost our ace I don’t see how those numbers don’t decline. 

[17 Seconds]

3 minutes ago, BKHoo said:

If we just lost our ace I don’t see how those numbers don’t decline. 

every team has injuries. I think people are overreacting to shota missing a month or two

[Jason Ross]

6 minutes ago, 17 Seconds said:

every team has injuries. I think people are overreacting to shota missing a month or two

Yes. And to add a few things:

1. Matt just posted an article about it and it seems like he'll be back before May ends. 

2. Agreed with the overall point. The Cubs will face the underbelly of their schedule through May. So while it's fair to be bummed Shota will miss some time, it's probably the best time to be down Imanaga in that they will likely be more capable of beating bad teams than good ones minus him. It's not good, but it's probably not going to be horrific.

[Hot Sauce]

Viva la Cubbies! 

[Irrelevant Dude]

51 minutes ago, 17 Seconds said:

every team has injuries. I think people are overreacting to shota missing a month or two

Yeah, I mean, the difference over 1-2 months of Shota in the rotation versus replacement level pitcher (Flexen?) is probably about 1 win.  That doesn't move the needle much in terms of playoff odds.  And if instead you're penciling in Horton, it hopefully gets a lot closer to being a wash overall.

[Derwood]

42 minutes ago, Irrelevant Dude said:

Yeah, I mean, the difference over 1-2 months of Shota in the rotation versus replacement level pitcher (Flexen?) is probably about 1 win.  That doesn't move the needle much in terms of playoff odds.  And if instead you're penciling in Horton, it hopefully gets a lot closer to being a wash overall.

If the difference between an ace and replacement level pitcher of 2 months is 1 win, why would you ever pay for an ace?

 

[Irrelevant Dude]

2 minutes ago, Derwood said:

If the difference between an ace and replacement level pitcher of 2 months is 1 win, why would you ever pay for an ace?

Not all "ace" starting pitchers are created equal.  Shota is a good pitcher, and probably the best one in the Cubs rotation, but the difference between him and a replacement level pitcher is much less than, say, Yamamoto and a replacement level pitcher.

[squally1313]

8 minutes ago, Derwood said:

If the difference between an ace and replacement level pitcher of 2 months is 1 win, why would you ever pay for an ace?

 

Because the implied math there is that an ace is three wins better than a replacement pitcher over the course of a year, and those are very valuable wins. 

[Stratos]

1 hour ago, squally1313 said:

Because the implied math there is that an ace is three wins better than a replacement pitcher over the course of a year, and those are very valuable wins. 

But would you pay 30m for a 3 WAR position player?  And ones who are prone to injury including surgeries where you're out 1-2 years.

[squally1313]

26 minutes ago, Stratos said:

But would you pay 30m for a 3 WAR position player?  And ones who are prone to injury including surgeries where you're out 1-2 years.

I mean, maybe? The original comment was 1-2 months, for one. Replacement level players aren't free, as we should know given the amount of heartburn everyone gets for the inevitable negative WAR guys we toss out every year. 

Like, the replacement level winning percentage, per FG, is .294, which translates to a little under 48 wins. So you're basically paying to try and generate an excess 40 wins. The team control and mandated deflated salaries for younger players should, in a well run organization, give you a chunk of wins for minimal financial commitment (Busch, PCA, Brown, Amaya being extreme examples, but also guys like Steele, Hoerner, etc are playing for far less than they'd get on the open market). To use outdated numbers, you had PCA, Busch, Shaw, Amaya, and Assad preseason projected for around 10 wins while making a combined $3m. So all of a sudden you're looking for 30 wins with $230m (or so) to play with. It's...not unreasonable.

Also in this particular context, Shota is the 'ace' mostly by default. Steele put up the same fWAR production as him last year in 40 fewer innings. I've been calling for more pitching because these guys break all the time, but the team's success isn't as reliant on Shota being an elite pitcher as other teams are reliant on their aces. 

[mul21]

43 minutes ago, Stratos said:

But would you pay 30m for a 3 WAR position player?  And ones who are prone to injury including surgeries where you're out 1-2 years.

There were 35 pitchers who were 3 bWAR or better in 2024 and 4 of them were relievers.  Seems like it's not out of the realm of possibilities that a guy like Shota (who was on that list at 3.0 bWAR) would be worth $30 million.

[WhyCantWeWin]

Shota is getting his MRI today right? I think if it’s serious we’ll see Horton called up and if its best case scenario in terms of time missed, they may just use on the junkballers they have on staff right now

[Irrelevant Dude]

3 minutes ago, WhyCantWeWin said:

Shota is getting his MRI today right? I think if it’s serious we’ll see Horton called up and if its best case scenario in terms of time missed, they may just use on the junkballers they have on staff right now

That seems silly either way.  I don't see any reason for Horton to continue to waste bullets in Iowa when there is an open rotation spot waiting ready for him.

[WhyCantWeWin]

3 minutes ago, Irrelevant Dude said:

That seems silly either way.  I don't see any reason for Horton to continue to waste bullets in Iowa when there is an open rotation spot waiting ready for him.

Maybe they want to build him up some more in the minors. Last time out was the first time he ever hit 6 innings in a professional game i think. 
 

if its an elongated stay they might opt to do that build up in the majors. But yeah i think it would be best just to call him up

[Jason Ross]

9 minutes ago, WhyCantWeWin said:

Maybe they want to build him up some more in the minors. Last time out was the first time he ever hit 6 innings in a professional game i think. 
 

if its an elongated stay they might opt to do that build up in the majors. But yeah i think it would be best just to call him up

He's gone 6 innings before. Literally done it two starts in a row. Those are the first time he's gone 6, but each game saw him 21 and 22 batters, and he's faced more in 5 innings before. 

I would guess his current PC limit is around 80-85. But he's a pretty extreme strike thrower, throwing around 54-56% strikes in most of his starts. I think he will be able to get through five in that PC. You'd need a little extra BP for him, but it's probably the time to bring him up.

[BKHoo]

3 hours ago, Irrelevant Dude said:

Yeah, I mean, the difference over 1-2 months of Shota in the rotation versus replacement level pitcher (Flexen?) is probably about 1 win.  That doesn't move the needle much in terms of playoff odds.  And if instead you're penciling in Horton, it hopefully gets a lot closer to being a wash overall.

One win? I hope you are right.  The guy was dealing. 

[BKHoo]

3 hours ago, Jason Ross said:

Yes. And to add a few things:

1. Matt just posted an article about it and it seems like he'll be back before May ends. 

2. Agreed with the overall point. The Cubs will face the underbelly of their schedule through May. So while it's fair to be bummed Shota will miss some time, it's probably the best time to be down Imanaga in that they will likely be more capable of beating bad teams than good ones minus him. It's not good, but it's probably not going to be horrific.

The other assumption here is that he plugs and plays when he gets back as the exact same pitcher, right? It sounds like he has NEVER had a similar injury. All pitchers get their power from their legs and this is not a big guy at all.
 

I think this is a much bigger deal than people think. You lose your top 2 pitchers it does not mean you just compare them to the replacement pitcher.  You also put more stress on the bullpen because you are getting less innings from your starter. You also can’t position your 1-5 the same when you have off days and series coming up. 

[squally1313]

I don't want to nitpick because I think we're all coming to the same conclusion (which is: go get a good starter, immediately), but the version of Shota we've seen most of the year was not likely to continue giving us the results we'd gotten out of him so far. Ks were down, walks were up, fly balls were up...all pretty significantly in the wrong direction metrically from his 2024 season where he generated 0.5 wins per month. He had 174 Ks and 28 walks last year, this year he had 34 Ks and 14 walks.

Is it better than Chris Flexen? Almost assuredly. Is it a noticeable difference over a duration of 8-10 starts? No. It's baseball, and baseball is dumb in ways like 'the Cubs were undefeated in games started by Gage Workman'. 

[WhyCantWeWin]

22 minutes ago, Jason Ross said:

He's gone 6 innings before. Literally done it two starts in a row. Those are the first time he's gone 6, but each game saw him 21 and 22 batters, and he's faced more in 5 innings before. 

I would guess his current PC limit is around 80-85. But he's a pretty extreme strike thrower, throwing around 54-56% strikes in most of his starts. I think he will be able to get through five in that PC. You'd need a little extra BP for him, but it's probably the time to bring him up.

Ah i didnt know he pitched again on the 4th, i was talking about his previous start. Yeah he’s probably ready
 

 

[Dfan25]

I think the best way to go would be to have Taillon / Boyd / Rea go againts the Mets this weekend . Have Horton make his next start at AAA , stretch him out a bit more ( Hopefully in a dominating game ) and bring him up next week .

[WhyCantWeWin]

 

[Brian707]

So that is roughly the end of May.