Cubs-Padres Game Three Thread: Sudden Death Baseball

[Cuzi]

42 minutes ago, Irrelevant Dude said:

I heard @Jason Ross mention this on the postgame reaction stream, but I have a hard time believing that to be the case.  Maybe my brain just cant unsee the K-Zone, but that pitch looks clearly low..

All a pitch has to do to be a strike is cross the plate at any point in the zone. So even if it crosses the plane of the plate by the seam of the baseball and then falls out of the zone by the time it is caught, it's still a strike.

I have no idea the accuracy of the statcast measurements, but all of these broadcast KZones are not official. They are all just estimations.

[Stratos]

9 minutes ago, Stratos said:

That's disgusting behaviour, who was that?. 

Some guy on twitter says it was Iglesias.

[Stratos]

 

[soccer10k]

1 hour ago, Rcal10 said:

I think they go Assad or Rea for game 1. Boyd game 2, Shota game 3, Tailon game 4 and back to Boyd game 5. Peralta is good, but he will probably only pitch 5 or 6 innings. 

Yeah, whoever starts game 1, assuming it's not Boyd, will not start another game this series.

[Neuby]

Boyd was warming up in the pen tonight,  Do they swap out Alacanrta for Assad?

[Stratos]

2 hours ago, Transmogrified Tiger said:

He posted it earlier in the thread, but Statcast has it in the zone

It's a great example of the type of pitch people have warned is going to run counter to people's expectations under ABS.  The nature of the flight of the ball means a pitch that just barely clips the bottom of the zone is going to appear way worse than basically any other pitch that is barely a strike.

From what I can see, one difference between the TV zone and statcast is that the TV zone seems to show personalized zones for every hitter, while statcast seems to have the same sized zone for every hitter.  Like how Bellinger has a very tall zone on TV while PCA's doesn't extend very high at all.

Technically the rules say the strike zone is different for every hitter,  as  the bottom and top of the zone is measured by each hitters stance in the box from their knees to the midpoint of their torso.

 

[Stratos]

2 hours ago, Rcal10 said:

I think they go Assad or Rea for game 1. Boyd game 2, Shota game 3, Tailon game 4 and back to Boyd game 5. Peralta is good, but he will probably only pitch 5 or 6 innings. 

I agree. Boyd will be the only one to potentially get 2 starts.

[Stratos]

Should the Cubs put Palencia back in the closer role?

[Tangled Up in Plaid]

Isn't the zone from MLB Gameday also statcast? They had pitch 6 clearly a ball as well.

It looks like the zone from baseballsavant.com is including the lighter area outside the black borders as the strike zone, which I was under the impression wasn't.

Edited October 3, 2025 by Tangled Up in Plaid

[Jason Ross]

6 hours ago, Irrelevant Dude said:

I heard @Jason Ross mention this on the postgame reaction stream, but I have a hard time believing that to be the case.  Maybe my brain just cant unsee the K-Zone, but that pitch looks clearly low..

I think it's a trick from K-Zone. Every year ESPN's K-Zone gets flak for stuff like this. Because K-Zone makes it look low, we automatically believe it with our eyes. But here is the Statcast track of the Bogaerts PA.

That's a strike according to Savant. Similar things were happening early in this series when PCA was swinging up and inside. K-zone said he was chasing, Savant had him swinging at high strikes in the zone. 

It's always tough to figure out which system is the best as the zone is not something that lives on a two dimensional plane, but something that exists in three. Yet K-Zone and Savant both depict is as flat. As long as a pitch clips the zone in that three dimensional plane, it's a strike according to the rules. What makes that hard is showing it throw a flat, 2-d panel and how it may or may not clip that zone. 

I always tend to lean towards Savant. I use K-zone from a viewing standpoint and then allow Savant to either confirm or refute the K-Zone call (I am that dork who has a 3-screen split when watching games which includes a Savant screen. This is a judgement free zone) This is getting first party data from MLB's system direct, Hawk Eye. Hawk Eye will be used by the ABS system next year. Just feels the most prudent everything considered. 

[Jason Ross]

3 hours ago, Stratos said:

From what I can see, one difference between the TV zone and statcast is that the TV zone seems to show personalized zones for every hitter, while statcast seems to have the same sized zone for every hitter.  Like how Bellinger has a very tall zone on TV while PCA's doesn't extend very high at all.

Technically the rules say the strike zone is different for every hitter,  as  the bottom and top of the zone is measured by each hitters stance in the box from their knees to the midpoint of their torso.

 

I believe that is simply due to the graphics used by Statcast to display their strikes as I believe they just use the save overlay. Consider it a visual representation versus a 1:1 implementation in graphic of a specific hitter. Hawk Eye is the system being implemented by Savant and MLB and Hawk Eye certainly accounts for batter height. Every hitter has a customized and created zone according to MLB and how they use Hawk Eye.

[Geographyhater8888]

Holding Tatis, Arriez and Machado to 0-11 with a walk was huge. Arriez is a much slower runner than you’d expect.

Edited October 3, 2025 by Geographyhater8888

[Geographyhater8888]

This was a matchup that played right into the cubs hands. A lineup with only 152 homers that doesn’t strike out much leaving the game in the hand of the Cubs gloves.
 

Padres  struggles on the road and hitting lefties were also a nice assist.. .

Also nice to see Busch’s hard contact in games 1 and 2 rewarded with some nice BABIP luck+ a solo shot with neutral wind conditions. 

Swanson LDS MVP.

Will the arms have enough rest for the LDS? F ck Milwaukee.

Edited October 3, 2025 by Geographyhater8888

[CubUgly]

6 hours ago, Cuzi said:

All a pitch has to do to be a strike is cross the plate at any point in the zone. So even if it crosses the plane of the plate by the seam of the baseball and then falls out of the zone by the time it is caught, it's still a strike.

I have no idea the accuracy of the statcast measurements, but all of these broadcast KZones are not official. They are all just estimations.

Boog always makes like that K-Zone is 100% - it's not......especially up and down.  But it did look low.

[Bruno7481]

9 hours ago, UMFan83 said:

My 9 year olds were watching with me. One of them is like my clone and sure enough at the end he was saying “they’re gonna blow it” repeatedly. 😂

My 17 year old let out his first screaming F bomb in front me and my wife when Busch connected with that ball.  “Get the F out of here!”  🤣  

He turned and looked at us and said, “So I got a little excited.”  My 12 year old walked in from the porch and said, “Did he just yell the F word.”

Pretty fun moment and memory to have!

[CubinNY]

Seeing the picture of Ricketts pouring beer on Eddie Vedder made me lose a little respect for Ed. 

[gflore34]

https://x.com/TalkinBaseball_/status/1973960929126879385?ref_src=twsrc^google|twcamp^serp|twgr^tweet

He traded away the farm for Mason Miller, this team was never going to win the WS, not enough in the lineup.

[Rcal10]

14 minutes ago, gflore34 said:

https://x.com/TalkinBaseball_/status/1973960929126879385?ref_src=twsrc^google|twcamp^serp|twgr^tweet

He traded away the farm for Mason Miller, this team was never going to win the WS, not enough in the lineup.

Yep. He got rid of the 3rd best prospect in all of baseball for Miller. And they are out of the playoffs. And might have to cut payroll. Would have been nice having a top prospect to build your team again. Peller and the Padres organization were getting praise for getting Miller yesterday and I was going to point out this very scenerio could change the perception of that deal. If in 3 years that prospect is a star while the Padres are struggling, Peller will be criticized for that deal. In one day that trade went from Peller really had urgency to win so Miller is worth whatever the cost to damn they traded for Miller and still lost. And now they lost a top prospect to build aeound. Maybe they gave away too much🤷

[CubinNY]

24 minutes ago, gflore34 said:

https://x.com/TalkinBaseball_/status/1973960929126879385?ref_src=twsrc^google|twcamp^serp|twgr^tweet

He traded away the farm for Mason Miller, this team was never going to win the WS, not enough in the lineup.

He might be the highest functioning person with severe and uncontrolled ADHD I've ever seen. He has all the classic symptoms: impulsivity, hyperactivity, and inattention (hyper-focus). I read that he works 18-20 hours a day. What a life. 

[gflore34]

14 minutes ago, Rcal10 said:

Yep. He got rid of the 3rd best prospect in all of baseball for Miller. And they are out of the playoffs. And might have to cut payroll. Would have been nice having a top prospect to build your team again. Peller and the Padres organization were getting praise for getting Miller yesterday and I was going to point out this very scenerio could change the perception of that deal. If in 3 years that prospect is a star while the Padres are struggling, Peller will be criticized for that deal. In one day that trade went from Peller really had urgency to win so Miller is worth whatever the cost to damn they traded for Miller and still lost. And now they lost a top prospect to build aeound. Maybe they gave away too much🤷

Miller was a nice to have not a necessity, the needs were on the offensive side.

[17 Seconds]

that called third strike was so funny

 

[Ding Dong Johnson]

It was nice of them to stick their microphone in a bowl of oatmeal while recording that video

[Bertz]

I like Preller.  Frankly the league needs 2-3 Prellers to keep all the Jeds on track.  

But yeah, the window probably closed for them last night.  If you assume they keep their payroll flat, they have ~$40M to replace quite a bit heading out the door in FA.  Namely Cease, King, Arraez, and Suarez.  If WC3 is as uninspiring next year as it was this year, Maybe AJ can keep enough plates spinning for one more go?  But we're definitely near the end.  And with the farm and the payroll bloat it's probably not a quick lay down for a year and come back good as new situation.

[squally1313]

Busch seems so locked in right now. Going to get another heavy dose of RHPs, as I expect every starter we see will be righty. Koenig and Ashby are good LHPs, they're a step down from Morejon but there's two of them. Need Happ to get it together and this lineup has some real length to it. 

[KCCub]

16 minutes ago, gflore34 said:

Miller was a nice to have not a necessity, the needs were on the offensive side.

They did lose their best hitter (This season) the week prior to the playoffs. Laureano, who historically is a lefty masher, was a huge loss for them.