Cardinals (Fedde) vs Cubs (Boyd): 7/6/25, 5:10pm

[Derwood]

5 minutes ago, bukie said:

Nice 5-1 homestand against playoff contenders where the Cubs outscored their opponents 41-17.

I was told on good authority that the Cubs would be out of first place by today

[Bertz]

I know he only went 40 pitches but Jordan Wicks is going to be a big problem for opposing hitters if he's sitting 94.

[Jason Ross]

13 minutes ago, chibears55 said:

Look, my original post was just about how Happ has been struggling the last month and that he shouldn't be leading off now.

Im just not buying what you're selling that the results of his last 100+ AB has been the result of simply bad luck.

There is no rudeness here, all kindness; if it's not that, then what is your diagnosis?

To clarify, once again over this span he has: maintained typica barrel%, launch angle, and hardhit%, normal walk and strikeout rates. All of his expected data say he's supposed to be hititing around .25 points better than what he is. His BABIP over his last run is .179, which is, unsustainable. Only two hitters in baseball have a lower BABIP in that run, The lowest qualified BABIP in baseball in 2025 is .208, which is at roughly 30 points higher. Last year the lowest sustained BABIP was .225, which is .45 points higher (give or take). If his BABIP over the last 115 PA's was the worst in baseball last year, he'd have .nearly.40 points on his batting average between then and now.

Because if it isn't luck and the ball just not landing, it has to be something. There is no magic. 

[Jason Ross]

4 minutes ago, We Got The Whole 9 said:

He did say English teacher, not math, guys

Social Studies, actually!

(And I even learned what SOHCAHTOA stood for this year. So math, watch out, here I come).

[gflore34]

1 minute ago, Bertz said:

I know he only went 40 pitches but Jordan Wicks is going to be a big problem for opposing hitters if he's sitting 94.

Besides, of course, winning I thought Wicks looked good and that was the best thing from tonight's game.

[chibears55]

7 minutes ago, Derwood said:

I was told on good authority that the Cubs would be out of first place by today

Wasn't it last weekend 😅

[cubfansince77]

8 minutes ago, Bertz said:

I know he only went 40 pitches but Jordan Wicks is going to be a big problem for opposing hitters if he's sitting 94.

Uh....yeah, what the heck is going on there? I was pleasantly surprised to his his velo on his fastball between 94-96 consistently tonight. WTH?

[chibears55]

7 minutes ago, Jason Ross said:

There is no rudeness here, all kindness; if it's not that, then what is your diagnosis?

To clarify, once again over this span he has: maintained typica barrel%, launch angle, and hardhit%, normal walk and strikeout rates. All of his expected data say he's supposed to be hititing around .25 points better than what he is. His BABIP over his last run is .179, which is, unsustainable. Only two hitters in baseball have a lower BABIP in that run, The lowest qualified BABIP in baseball in 2025 is .208, which is at roughly 30 points higher. Last year the lowest sustained BABIP was .225, which is .45 points higher (give or take). If his BABIP over the last 115 PA's was the worst in baseball last year, he'd have .45 points on his batting average between then and now.

Because if it isn't luck and the ball just not landing, it has to be something. There is no magic. 

Serious and curious question if you or anyone knows and I have wondered this for a while...

When they came up with these stats of probabilities, how did they determine that certain balls hit should of/ could of been hits but weren't because of bad luck ?

Obviously not all fielded balls are results of great fielding, so what is their determination of this.

[Jason Ross]

Just now, cubfansince77 said:

Uh....yeah, what the heck is going on there? I was pleasantly surprised to his his velo on his fastball between 94-96 consistently tonight. WTH?

Two things:
1. Recently in Iowa, he had been hitting 94 pretty consistently and averaging 93. So he's throwing harder
2. He only went 40 pitches. Can probably add 1-2mph from the BP

Regardless, he's throwing harder than when we first saw him sit in the 91-92 range. 

[chibears55]

With Wicks now and Horton, as much as im happy to have two young pitchers pitching well, I just hope that not a reason for Hoyer to not go get a stud starter.

They definitely need to replace Rea with a top end starter if they can get one, cause August and September gonna be big boy baseball time and who knows what to expect out of Wicks and especially Horton as he builds up the innings/pitches in his rookie season. 

 

[Jason Ross]

19 minutes ago, chibears55 said:

Serious and curious question if you or anyone knows and I have wondered this for a while...

When they came up with these stats of probabilities, how did they determine that certain balls hit should of/ could of been hits but weren't because of bad luck ?

Obviously not all fielded balls are results of great fielding, so what is their determination of this.

BABIP has no subjective probabilities, it's literally just "batting average on batted balls in play" or "what is your batting average when you hit the ball fair, but it's not a home run?". It erases things like strikeouts and home runs from the equation but still counts all of your singles, ground balls, doubles, popups, etc; as long as it is "in play".

While there's no "guaranteed BABIP" league BABIP runs, pretty standard. Let me prove that Here are the last five years league BABIP:
.291 (2025), .291 (2024), .297 (2023), .290 (2022), .292 (2021)

Basically, we know that if you hit the ball in play, you are likely going to hit like .290 regardless of the year. Even during the steroid era, BABIP was .300 (1998), and .302 (1999)! It only affected things by .10.

Where BA's dip, dive and change are in things like when we factor in strikeouts and home runs. If one player strikes out a lot versus one who doesn't, then we see the overall BA change because we were ignoring those things. If one guy has a K% of 30% and another at 20%, they can have the same BABIP but vastly different BAs. We can also increase BABIP by being fast (beat out infield singles) or lower it by being slow. And batted ball data, like launch angle, hard hit%, barrel % all can help earn it.

So what we can do is look at someone with, say, a .260 BABIP and diagnose it. If it's a big slow guy who hits a lot of weak contact, that's probably a somewhat earned BABIP. But if a fast guy makes a lot of hard contact is running a .260 BABIP, we can squint and go "hmm, that doesn't make sense". Situations like that suggest for whatever reason, he's probably *not* getting the results he should!

Things like xwOBA and xBA (the x stands for expected) are determined through statcast. These won't show up in BABIP, but in other data. Basically, statcast can take the exit velocity, tilt, launch angle, and determine, compared to what normally happens on that exact outcome, how often you should expect a ball to land for a hit. If you hit the ball 105mph on a line, that's usually a hit. If you hit it, instead, right at 3b? That's bad luck, not impossible but bad luck. It's possible for those things to add up and be meaningful, especially at lower sample sizes.

I hope that help to answer your question. Thanks for asking! It feels like it's a lot to digest, but really it boils down to our ability to use all the tools we have and figure out if you're doing the right things at the plate, you should have results that follow it. BABIP on it's own isn't super useful, but BABIP, combined with other things can help us paint a picture to help us predict what will happen next. Just because you got a single before, doesn't mean you will continue. By using these model we can more accurately predict who's going to continue to hit, and who won't. (And like I said, I promise there are 29 teams who are using predictive models).

[731.4life]

29 minutes ago, Jason Ross said:

So, there's a pretty obvious understanding in MLB now a days that power fastball / slower curve is a bad combo. Think...Ben Brown. His "deathball"/knuckle curveball gets thrown 90mph or so. Dollander, about a month ago, begun leaning super heavy into the curve, and it worked...for a bit. Lately he's getting crushed. Likely? hitters weren't expecting it, because...why would you do that? Then they got ready for it. 

Problem with slow-curve (80 mph or so) and mid 90's fastball is that hitters can usually pick up the velo drop on the two pitches easily. And go figure, MLB teams are not biting on the curve at all once they updated the scouting report. Even worse; Coors affects breaking balls and their movement. 

He's also using sinker, almost exclusively, to lefties. Sinkers have bad R-L splits. It's a pitch you throw to like-hand, not opposite hand.

You either speed the curve up and go "deathball" or you use his arm angle (he's very flat) to create natural cut to get lefties and go slider/sweeper heavy to play off of it. He has a great slider! 

It's all just bad pitching development.

I'm not sure what Rockies are doing, so I agree. I know a player that is from my hometown and was drafted by them in the 1st round. He currently pitches for the Rockies, but doesn't pitch much, or if he does, it's in "low leverage" situations. But, he does have the big curveball that doesn't do well at Coors Field. I know his road stats are better than his home stats.

I'm just surprised it's taking this long for the Rockies to figure this out from a pitching standpoint. I know their breaking balls doesn't have enough bite, so it's best to go with the hard ball 4-seam/sinker and changeup/split combos. With that being said, they don't have the best ownership either, and won't be as willing to give out contracts (especially big ones) because they're paying Bryant as their big contract.

But, they don't have a shot to compete simply because they don't have the resources to compete with the Dodgers. They just don't

[Jason Ross]

3 minutes ago, 731.4life said:

I'm not sure what Rockies are doing, so I agree. I know a player that is from my hometown and was drafted by them in the 1st round. He currently pitches for the Rockies, but doesn't pitch much, or if he does, it's in "low leverage" situations. But, he does have the big curveball that doesn't do well at Coors Field. I know his road stats are better than his home stats.

I'm just surprised it's taking this long for the Rockies to figure this out from a pitching standpoint. I know their breaking balls doesn't have enough bite, so it's best to go with the hard ball 4-seam/sinker and changeup/split combos. With that being said, they don't have the best ownership either, and won't be as willing to give out contracts (especially big ones) because they're paying Bryant as their big contract.

But, they don't have a shot to compete simply because they don't have the resources to compete with the Dodgers. They just don't

I honestly do not know what they're doing. The reality is with the amount of data and analytics we have now a days, most orgs make most of the right decisions most of the time. The difference between whatever you perceive to be the 7th best FO and the 23rd best FO is pretty thin when we take it all into account. Data, and the understandings we have now, generally homogenize decisions.  You'd have to basically spit on widely accepted norms. 

The Rockies don't just spit on those norms, they ignore them entirely.  

[Hot Sauce]

54 minutes ago, Jason Ross said:

Ugh. I liked the Ian Stewart when they made that trade. 

Ian Stewart's bat at 3B would feel right at home on this Cubs team. 

[Tim]

53 minutes ago, chibears55 said:

Look, my original post was just about how Happ has been struggling the last month and that he shouldn't be leading off now.

Im just not buying what you're selling that the results of his last 100+ AB has been the result of simply bad luck.

How about OPS - is that basic enough for you? His OPS for exactly the last month is .766 vs a league average of around .715.

He's. Been. Fine.

[UMFan83]

1 hour ago, chibears55 said:

Look, my original post was just about how Happ has been struggling the last month and that he shouldn't be leading off now.

Im just not buying what you're selling that the results of his last 100+ AB has been the result of simply bad luck.

 

Player A:  0/4, hit 4 110mph rockets right to the RF

Player B: 0/4, 4 strikeouts, walked up to the plate holding his bat upside down for the 4th AB

What player do you feel better about coming out of the game?  This is really simplifying the argument by exaggerating an example but the results were the same despite one player playing really well and the other one sucking. 

Now make the example less extreme, add a few more pieces of data and stretch it out over a much larger sample and you have Ian Happ. Will he suck all year? He might! But it’s much more likely he will start getting better results doing the exact same things he is doing now.  (Also as others have pointed out Happ really isn’t “sucking”)

But what if the results never get better? Then he may be an outlier and over a large sample it becomes clearly that for whatever reason this person always underperforms his expected numbers.  Or overperform if we are talking about someone like Kyle Hendricks in his prime. Analytics always suggested he should be much worse and he wasn’t.  Ian Happ has played enough baseball to know he’s not one of these outliers.

Ive had these results vs analytics arguments several times and I find it hard to change the mind of the type of person who insists results are all that matter. That’s fine, I’m pretty sure you know what these numbers mean, you just don’t care enough to change your opinion. Just know that like others have said every other team is making decisions based on this type of analysis. 

Edited July 7, 2025 by UMFan83

[JHBulls]

Twins series begins tomorrow. More of the same please

[Cubs420psd]

3 hours ago, Jason Ross said:

At this point? No idea. Last I checked he had a 9 wRC+. It's in like 30 PA's, but at this point, I don't really care.

9 🤣🤣

[JHBulls]

5 hours ago, Jason Ross said:

At this point? No idea. Last I checked he had a 9 wRC+. It's in like 30 PA's, but at this point, I don't really care.

 

5 hours ago, JHBulls said:

I wonder if Dansby Swanson has a higher wRC+ with RISP? 
 

… I know it would be a lot higher. I am just being stupid.

 

15

Every time Dansby comes up to bat in a RISP situation with that knowledge behind me from now on

 

 

[Brian707]

Great win last night!

I see the board even in wins finds something to bitch about.  Either struggling players or the announcing.  Last night was option A.

[Jason Ross]

20 minutes ago, Brian707 said:

Great win last night!

I see the board even in wins finds something to bitch about.  Either struggling players or the announcing.  Last night was option A.

I think there was some discourse pregame about Karl Ravech, too. 

NSBB Bingo!

[CubUgly]

8 hours ago, chibears55 said:

With Wicks now and Horton, as much as im happy to have two young pitchers pitching well, I just hope that not a reason for Hoyer to not go get a stud starter.

They definitely need to replace Rea with a top end starter if they can get one, cause August and September gonna be big boy baseball time and who knows what to expect out of Wicks and especially Horton as he builds up the innings/pitches in his rookie season. 

 

I thought two months ago we were going to need to get two starters at the deadline and I still do.  I know they have changed the way they look at and determine the number of innings and number of pitches these guys can throw, but still I have a hard time feeling confident that Horton or Boyd can pitch the number of innings it takes to get through the season. 

[Bertz]

I'm curious how badly the next few weeks need to go to turn the Cardinals into sellers.

Their playoff odds are 32% at the moment, and they're just a game out of a wildcard spot.  That's generally "cautious buyer" territory.  However, they came into this season IMO pretty clearly wanting to sell.  Assuming they tread water the next few weeks, I wonder if they at least sell Helsley and Matz?

[mul21]

I don't see a great place to drop this, but on Wicks, is it possible they're setting him up to start on Thursday this week and that's why he was pulled at 40 pitches last night? That would put him between Rea and Horton to split him up from Shota and Boyd so teams aren't getting a similar look from lefties 3 days in a row.  As the rotation was, if he took Taillon's spot, they would have been lined up to go 3 days in a row.

[Jason Ross]

10 minutes ago, mul21 said:

I don't see a great place to drop this, but on Wicks, is it possible they're setting him up to start on Thursday this week and that's why he was pulled at 40 pitches last night? That would put him between Rea and Horton to split him up from Shota and Boyd so teams aren't getting a similar look from lefties 3 days in a row.  As the rotation was, if he took Taillon's spot, they would have been lined up to go 3 days in a row.

At the very least, I would guess he piggy backs 3-4 innings sometime around Thursday. 

I have an article in the can on the stuff he did last night, but there was some cool new wrinkles in his game. I'm interested to see more.