Cubs (Martin) vs Phillies (Nola): 4/14/26, 5:40pm

[JHBulls]

Brewers are the luckiest team in history. If you don’t believe me, make sure to check out their 7th run. 

[JHBulls]

Good night and horsefeathers off Milwaukee! 

[soccer10k]

3 hours ago, JHBulls said:

Brewers are the luckiest team in history. If you don’t believe me, make sure to check out their 7th run. 

Their 4th inning against Boston last week might have been peak Brewers

4 runs on 3 hits, 3 walk, 1 error and 0 balls hit out of the infield.

[Geographyhater8888]

Cubs have a 410 team wOBA since Sunday and a 313 xWOB with a 56% ground ball rate. 

[Andy]

11 hours ago, JHBulls said:

Brandon Marsh will never not look like the biggest hobo in baseball. 

Pat deadpanned on the radio that Marsh has yet to find a barber in Philadelphia, which is a mediocre joke when told by anyone but Pat

[CubUgly]

12 hours ago, chibears55 said:

Nice W, 8 hits and 2 walks from the 2-5 guys in the order is awesome to see.

Win the series tomorrow 

Yes, good at bats.  Yes the Phillies D is horrible but that's not our problem.   They actually made a great play to get Nico at third or we would have scored at least one more run that inning and maybe more.  

[Derwood]

1 hour ago, Andy said:

Pat deadpanned on the radio that Marsh has yet to find a barber in Philadelphia, which is a mediocre joke when told by anyone but Pat

Long hair, long beard, whatever, but he looks so GREASY

[Bertz]

Riley Martin looks like he's going to be a guy if he keeps throwing strikes.  The Stuff models love him, much more than you'd expect for a guy with fairly average velocity.  And those models are intended to pick things up in small samples, so it's not as much of a "calm down dude it's four innings" as his sparkling performance-oriented stats.

[Jason Ross]

16 minutes ago, Bertz said:

Riley Martin looks like he's going to be a guy if he keeps throwing strikes.  The Stuff models love him, much more than you'd expect for a guy with fairly average velocity.  And those models are intended to pick things up in small samples, so it's not as much of a "calm down dude it's four innings" as his sparkling performance-oriented stats.

His breaking ball has always been a really really good pitch. He's worked super hard on the velo aspect of his game. Reports from college were him hitting in the high 80's a bunch. He's such a cool story. 

[Tangled Up in Plaid]

11 minutes ago, Jason Ross said:

His breaking ball has always been a really really good pitch. He's worked super hard on the velo aspect of his game. Reports from college were him hitting in the high 80's a bunch. He's such a cool story. 

would love to see him learn an average splitter or change. might be a real chance he could be a starter

[JHBulls]

5 hours ago, Andy said:

Pat deadpanned on the radio that Marsh has yet to find a barber in Philadelphia, which is a mediocre joke when told by anyone but Pat

I just read this exchange from the game:

Pat: You were sharing some info about the new pitcher?

Zach: He’s right handed

Pat: Excellent work as always, Zach

🤣

[chibears55]

7 minutes ago, JHBulls said:

I just read this exchange from the game:

 

Pat: You were sharing some info about the new pitcher?

Zach: He’s right handed

Pat: Excellent work as always, Zach

🤣

Pat and Santo was always the best, they could turn a 3 hour snooze fest of a game into pure comedy 🤣🤣🤣

[Stratos]

How many hits has Nico already given up by trying to barrel pitches and having it die before the warning track?

[Jason Ross]

8 minutes ago, Stratos said:

How many hits has Nico already given up by trying to barrel pitches and having it die before the warning track?

His BA is .303 and his xBA is .294.

[Stratos]

5 minutes ago, Jason Ross said:

His BA is .303 and his xBA is .294.

That doesn't answer my question though.   He keeps trying to barrel balls and he's terrible at it so they're often caught, he doesn't have the power to get balls over the OF head.   He has never even been a guy to hit doubles in the gaps.

He needs to either spray liners all over the field and/or pull the ball down the line for XBH/HR.  If he wants HR he needs to hit like Isaac Paredes and that's probably not the best idea at Wrigley.

IMO he needs to keep the ball out of the air.  His exit velos suck.  He could probably hit .300 for the year if he tried.

[Jason Ross]

12 minutes ago, Stratos said:

That doesn't answer my question though.   He keeps trying to barrel balls and he's terrible at it so they're often caught, he doesn't have the power to get balls over the OF head.   He has never even been a guy to hit doubles in the gaps.

He needs to either spray liners all over the field and/or pull the ball down the line for XBH/HR.  If he wants HR he needs to hit like Isaac Paredes and that's probably not the best idea at Wrigley.

IMO he needs to keep the ball out of the air.  His exit velos suck.  He could probably hit .300 for the year if he tried.

Not really, though. He's already outpacing his xBA. If he were underperforming his xBA, for example, we could start to dig into why he was giving up hits. Instead he's outpacing it. So he's not giving up hits...he's finding more. He's even increased his xSLG over last year's numbers, but we're probably too early to say much there. If he keeps up his current pace of xwOBA, he'll smash his career high, there.

As well, complaining about Nico's EV is just a bad argument. High contact, high swing hitters like Nico have profiles: they swing slower and have lower EV. Why? Because slower swings stay in the zone longer and create more contact. They create less EV and because he's capable of hitting more balls into play that he chases, this will also result in low contact numbers. 

He's 87th percentile in batting runs value right now. 

There's next to nothing to complain about here. Sometimes he's going to hit the ball hard and it's not going to be a home run. And to be very clear, he's not pulling the ball any more than normal and he's still "spraying line drives". He has 7% more LD's than last year. And his pull% is the same as last year. So I'm really not sure what more you want. He has traded ground balls in favor of line drives.

[Stratos]

21 minutes ago, Jason Ross said:

Not really, though. He's already outpacing his xBA. If he were underperforming his xBA, for example, we could start to dig into why he was giving up hits. Instead he's outpacing it. So he's not giving up hits...he's finding more. He's even increased his xSLG over last year's numbers, but we're probably too early to say much there. If he keeps up his current pace of xwOBA, he'll smash his career high, there.

As well, complaining about Nico's EV is just a bad argument. High contact, high swing hitters like Nico have profiles: they swing slower and have lower EV. Why? Because slower swings stay in the zone longer and create more contact. They create less EV and because he's capable of hitting more balls into play that he chases, this will also result in low contact numbers. 

He's 87th percentile in batting runs value right now. 

There's next to nothing to complain about here. Sometimes he's going to hit the ball hard and it's not going to be a home run. And to be very clear, he's not pulling the ball any more than normal and he's still "spraying line drives". He has 7% more LD's than last year. And his pull% is the same as last year. So I'm really not sure what more you want. He has traded ground balls in favor of line drives.

He's giving up hits because he's putting the ball in the air and it's usually getting caught by an OF.  That has nothing to do with xBA.  The launch angle and direction is the problem

Edited Wednesday at 08:05 PM by Stratos

[We Got The Whole 9]

34 minutes ago, Stratos said:

That doesn't answer my question though.   He keeps trying to barrel balls and he's terrible at it so they're often caught, he doesn't have the power to get balls over the OF head.   He has never even been a guy to hit doubles in the gaps.

He needs to either spray liners all over the field and/or pull the ball down the line for XBH/HR.  If he wants HR he needs to hit like Isaac Paredes and that's probably not the best idea at Wrigley.

IMO he needs to keep the ball out of the air.  His exit velos suck.  He could probably hit .300 for the year if he tried.

Hes doing a great job and will be rewarded more. Just needs to stay away from CF. He should be able to identify which pitches to really turn on and post a career high ISO AND BA.

[Tangled Up in Plaid]

Of all the guys to complain about you picked Nico

[Rcal10]

38 minutes ago, Tangled Up in Plaid said:

Of all the guys to complain about you picked Nico

Does seem like a odd take by Stratos. Nothing, at all, wrong with whatever Nico is doing. 

[chibears55]

25 minutes ago, Rcal10 said:

Does seem like a odd take by Stratos. Nothing, at all, wrong with whatever Nico is doing. 

I thought i missed the game today and Nico hit a couple long flyouts 🤣

[Rcal10]

Nico really shouldn’t try to hit homers. He just doesn’t have the power for it and it is costing him hits. 😅

[Jason Ross]

4 hours ago, Stratos said:

He's giving up hits because he's putting the ball in the air and it's usually getting caught by an OF.  That has nothing to do with xBA.  The launch angle and direction is the problem

That has everything to do with xBA haha. xBA takes into account angle and EV. What it doesn't take into account is directional hitting. 

But whoopsies, he hit another home run. Booooo! He really should lower that launch angle.

[Stratos]

8 hours ago, Tangled Up in Plaid said:

Of all the guys to complain about you picked Nico

I love Nico and he's been doing great but it drives me nuts seeing him swing for the fences and watching the ball die in the OFs glove.

Edited 23 hours ago by Stratos

[Stratos]

4 hours ago, Jason Ross said:

That has everything to do with xBA haha. xBA takes into account angle and EV. What it doesn't take into account is directional hitting. 

I said he should stop trying to hit HR because he's bad at it and would have a higher avg with a lower launch angle.

Your reply was to show his BA and xBA.  I'm not sure what your point was with those stats.  It's a statistical fact that hitting more flyballs leads to a lower BA, but more HR.  But Nico's flyballs leave the ballpark at a very low rate.  He was 2nd worst in MLB last year in HR per FB%.  The last 3 years he's been 4th worst, just 0.3% better than Luis Arraez.

4 hours ago, Jason Ross said:

But whoopsies, he hit another home run. Booooo! He really should lower that launch angle.

Using anecdotal evidence and a sample size of 1 game or 2 weeks worth of games isn't good evidence.  4.3% of Nico's flyballs have been HR over the last 3 years, which is horrible, and his career rate is similar.

If he keeps hitting more FB and hitting leadoff yeah he'll likely reach a career high in HR just out of sheer volume, but at what cost?

He's been on fire this year so yeah it's a good argument that he shouldn't change a thing.  But he was also on fire the last month of last season and hit significantly lower rate of FB.