Cubs (Boyd) vs Phillies (Wheeler): 6/9/25, 5:45pm

[Jason Ross]

12 minutes ago, squally1313 said:

I think generally when I see sample sizes that are clearly designed to highlight poor performance (or vice versa, I guess, but we don't see that a lot around here), I just inherently think it's cherrypicked . 54 PAs, 52 PAs, starting the team statistics after their 12-3 stretch, 4 series against teams over .500 (were the teams over 500 at the time? or are they now over 500? whichever one makes us look worse?) over a 6 week stretch....like, come on. Can we not use generally agreed upon cut off dates? End of the month, last two weeks, hell, maybe even since the beginning of the year (which isn't that big of a sample size!).

And ultimately, in this selected sample size of 'since the start of the Rockies series'.....they're 8-5! The rest of the offense has been able to pick up the slack, because we've been winning 62% of our games. Should I worry about offensive struggles and what they portend going forward? Absolutely. Am I worried about Dansby (xwOBA 36 points ahead of his actual wOBA YTD), and Nico (third best 2B by fWAR YTD) because of 50 PA samples? No.

Just to add on to this even a bit more, this is just baseball. Fans want consistency (players, teams, etc) but it doesn't exist. There's no such thing as a team that just stays level. There will be times when everyone is playing well, and others when they're not. And far too often people get caught up in the minutia because they're living and dying on every game. 

It's a grind. Every year the World Series winning team has these kinds of stretches a few times a year. 

[Bobson Dugnutt]

11 minutes ago, We Got The Whole 9 said:

No, they haven't picked up the slack, the pitching has. Just be honest about horsefeathers. They have the 23rd ranked offense over the last 2 weeks. They have pitched to a 1.92 ERA, the best in the league.

It wasn’t too long ago that the offense was picking up the slack for the bullpen. This is how things tend to work over the course of the season. For some stretches the offense picks up the slack for the pitching and sometimes it’s the other way around.

 

At the end of the season, if they’re 3rd in offensive fWar, 11th in bullpen fWar, 10th in fielding fWar, and are able to improve upon their current position of 18th in SP fWar by virtue of Shota returning and/or a trade or two, they’ll be just fine.

Edited June 10, 2025 by Bobson Dugnutt

[Bobson Dugnutt]

double

Edited June 10, 2025 by Bobson Dugnutt

[squally1313]

7 minutes ago, We Got The Whole 9 said:

No, they haven't picked up the slack, the pitching has. Just be honest about horsefeathers. They have the 23rd ranked offense over the last 2 weeks. They have pitched to a 1.92 ERA, the best in the league.

They won over 60% of the games. If you didn't think there was going to be a two week stretch where we ranked in the 20s for offensive performance, I don't really know what to tell you. The fact that we went through it with a winning record is pretty impressive.

The thing about having a team of Dansbys and Nicos and PCAs is that even when our offense is 23rd (I have them 21st in wRC, but splitting hairs), our baserunning over that stretch is 8th, and our defense is 9th. That stuff matters, that stuff is valuable. Dansby will not hit like Carlos Correa, but Dansby will most likely outperform him in the aggregate. Same for Nico/Altuve. If you don't buy into the defensive/baserunning stuff, fine, that's a different argument and one we'll have to probably just disagree on. Being 19th in total offensive value (hitting plus baserunning plus defense) over 2 weeks is not a big deal. 

[We Got The Whole 9]

3 minutes ago, Bobson Dugnutt said:

It wasn’t too long ago that the offense was picking up the slack for the bullpen. This is how things tend to work over the course of the season. For some stretches the offense picks up the slack for the pitching and sometimes it’s the other way around.

 

At the end of the season, if they’re 3rd in offensive fWar, 11th in bullpen fWar, 10th in fielding fWar, and are able to improve upon their current position of 18th in SP fWar by virtue of Shota returning and/or a trade or two, they’ll be just fine.

I get it, but he said the offense has picked up the slack and it most certainly has not. 

[Jason Ross]

1 minute ago, We Got The Whole 9 said:

I get it, but he said the offense has picked up the slack and it most certainly has not. 

Just to be fair to Squal, he highlighted a few players who were really struggling and said "the rest" of the offense had picked up the slack. Which...is true. Over the last two weeks:

Happ - 108 wRC+
PCA - 132 wRC+
Suzuki - 97 wRC+ (but to be fair, if you add one game to this sample he's at a 106 wRC+ and a second gets him to a 146 wRC+ - it's the issue with looking at arbitrary end points)
Tucker - 164 wRC+

[We Got The Whole 9]

7 minutes ago, squally1313 said:

They won over 60% of the games. If you didn't think there was going to be a two week stretch where we ranked in the 20s for offensive performance, I don't really know what to tell you. The fact that we went through it with a winning record is pretty impressive.

The thing about having a team of Dansbys and Nicos and PCAs is that even when our offense is 23rd (I have them 21st in wRC, but splitting hairs), our baserunning over that stretch is 8th, and our defense is 9th. That stuff matters, that stuff is valuable. Dansby will not hit like Carlos Correa, but Dansby will most likely outperform him in the aggregate. Same for Nico/Altuve. If you don't buy into the defensive/baserunning stuff, fine, that's a different argument and one we'll have to probably just disagree on. Being 19th in total offensive value (hitting plus baserunning plus defense) over 2 weeks is not a big deal. 

I don't really care how well they are running the bases comparative to the rest of the league when they're getting on base 29% of the time and score 45 runs over 13 games, which btw, puts them at 26th in runs scored over that stretch. 

 

Edited June 10, 2025 by We Got The Whole 9

[squally1313]

Dansby Swanson and Nico Hoerner as also consistent and dangerous offensive threats are like, top 5 players in baseball. I'd love that too but let's be honest about the kinds of players they are. The pitching picked up the slack? They're last in K rate over that two week stretch. To give them credit, they are first in walk rate over that stretch. 4th in BABIP is the key number here. The other team is putting the ball in play, and our very good defense (made up of, yes, struggling offensive players) is turning those balls into outs. 

There's a lot of ways for a team to win ballgames, there's a lot of ways for individual players to contribute to winning games. Wanting all of it, all the time is fun in theory, but things are going to wax and wane.

Edited June 10, 2025 by squally1313

[Geographyhater8888]

1 hour ago, squally1313 said:

This team definitely has flaws and definitely has areas to improve to maximize their chances going into the fall. As mentioned earlier by maybe you, this was a team that even the optimists were expecting to top out around 88-90 wins, and that was before losing Steele for the year and Shota for a while. 

But I think what frustrates me about these types of criticisms, is that, at the risk of putting words in your mouth, the venn diagram of 'people complaining about their record against over .500 teams' and 'people disgusted by them dropping a game/series to a bad team' is basically just one circle. And from there it's like....where are these 60 losses supposed to come from? Should they just go winless against the 4-6 78 win teams they're going to face this year? 

The team needs pitching, I think they need it more than others do. The offense ran historically elite for a while there, and has come down to being some form of mediocre/average/good, depending on how you want to slice up the samples. Skubal is the best pitcher in baseball, Gore and Wheeler have been top ten this year, we've faced all three of them in the last week. Luzurdo is 13th, though he's struggling, and we get Skenes two days after that, so it's not letting up yet, but....there's only so many top 20 pitchers in baseball. It won't last. 

2 runs in 26 innings vs these 4 starters, their mean ERA averages out into the mid-high 2’s, not .7 and change. Perhaps it’s just bad timing, they scored 9 total runs vs a terrible Rockies staff but these are the guys you’ll be facing in October. More feast or famine that caused them to underperform their pythag win record by 12 combined games thanks to lopsided wins, which unlike 23 and 24 I think they’re good enough to keep that feast ratio high enough.
they’ll break out it, hopefully the bullpen doesn’t, the degree of that depends on Suzuki and Busch maintaining a high 800’s OPS to an extent. The BABIP luck hasn’t been on their side. Besides another starting pitcher, they could use another quality bench guy to give the every day guys some rest too.
 

Edited June 10, 2025 by Geographyhater8888

[We Got The Whole 9]

Thinking about last night I'm really irritated Dansby didn't try to lay down a bunt

[NorthsideAvenger]

I will always hate the extra inning runner rule. 

[We Got The Whole 9]

4 minutes ago, NorthsideAvenger said:

I will always hate the extra inning runner rule. 

Without it we (as in Cubs since the rule was instituted, not just this year) would almost never score. Last night the Phillies probably would have done the bunting still if Realmuto had led off the inning with a double. I don't think we would have defended against it. 

 

It has had the desired effect: eliminate 13-19 inning games. It's not gonna change.

[Bertz]

1 hour ago, We Got The Whole 9 said:

In this span Dansby has a 1 wRC+ in 54 PA, Nico has a 52 in 51 PA. The Catcher position has been negative. The rest of the offense has not been able to pick up the slack, unfortunately. Those 3 positions are horsefeathers killing us. If I were Jed I would be a little nervous.

Why?  Why would you be nervous?  In what world does a 50 PA sample for a 30 year old mean anything? 

[NorthsideAvenger]

14 minutes ago, We Got The Whole 9 said:

Without it we (as in Cubs since the rule was instituted, not just this year) would almost never score. Last night the Phillies probably would have done the bunting still if Realmuto had led off the inning with a double. I don't think we would have defended against it. 

 

It has had the desired effect: eliminate 13-19 inning games. It's not gonna change.

I know it won't change but the rule is still stupid.

[We Got The Whole 9]

35 minutes ago, Bertz said:

Why?  Why would you be nervous?  In what world does a 50 PA sample for a 30 year old mean anything? 

In that context I was referring to the team. I'd be a little nervous watching the movie play out again. 1/3 of the lineup being useless again. The pitching performing at the utmost unsustainable rate. The gauntlet they are about to face amidst a slump. If they keep hitting like this that lead will be gone by the time they face STL, and given the slate of pitching they are facing, it looks pretty plausible. Abel is going tonight, the Pirates are around the bend and will probably debut Chandler vs us. This is a really tough stretch the next couple weeks.

Edited June 10, 2025 by We Got The Whole 9

[mul21]

39 minutes ago, NorthsideAvenger said:

I know it won't change but the rule is still stupid.

I don't mind it but I also think it shouldn't be implemented until the 12th inning.

[Andy]

4 hours ago, CubUgly said:

I'm not saying this team is the 2016 Cubs, they are not, but even that team - right around this time of the year or soon after went on a 5-15 stretch.  I was in full blown panic. 

Not coincidentally, that was the last time I ever panicked about a bad stretch. If that team can go 5-15, then we can deal with teams not as good as them having rough times.

[17 Seconds]

29 minutes ago, We Got The Whole 9 said:

In that context I was referring to the team. I'd be a little nervous watching the movie play out again. 1/3 of the lineup being useless again. The pitching performing at the utmost unsustainable rate. The gauntlet they are about to face amidst a slump. If they keep hitting like this that lead will be gone by the time they face STL, and given the slate of pitching they are facing, it looks pretty plausible. Abel is going tonight, the Pirates are around the bend and will probably debut Chandler vs us. This is a really tough stretch the next couple weeks.

now we're worried about pirates games? this has been a fun season, you should try to enjoy it instead of trying to forecast when an inevitable bad stretch will happen

[CubUgly]

15 minutes ago, Andy said:

Not coincidentally, that was the last time I ever panicked about a bad stretch. If that team can go 5-15, then we can deal with teams not as good as them having rough times.

I went to a series in Pittsburg in the middle of that stretch, they took 2 of 3 from us and they absolutely clobbered Arrieta.  Bell was a rookie and hit one in the River.   That Pirate team ended up the season with a losing record, but they whipped us pretty good as did obviously every team we played in that stretch, we had to have lost almost all of the series in that stretch. 

[We Got The Whole 9]

18 minutes ago, 17 Seconds said:

now we're worried about pirates games? this has been a fun season, you should try to enjoy it instead of trying to forecast when an inevitable bad stretch will happen

I'm enjoying it just fine, thanks.

[CubinNY]

3 hours ago, Bull said:

I do have a bit of a worry that the Cubs cash in against sub-par pitching and struggle overly much against elite pitching. 

That is axiomatic. All teams do, or else it wouldn't be elite pitching. 

[Bull]

8 hours ago, CubinNY said:

That is axiomatic. All teams do, or else it wouldn't be elite pitching. 

Which is why I said "overly much." Even more than is typical

[javy knows my name]

11 hours ago, We Got The Whole 9 said:

No, they haven't picked up the slack, the pitching has. Just be honest about horsefeathers. They have the 23rd ranked offense over the last 2 weeks. They have pitched to a 1.92 ERA, the best in the league.

I think you're proving his point there