Cubs (TBD) vs Mets (McLean/Manaea): 6/24/26, 12:10pm/6:10pm

[Geographyhater8888]

7 hours ago, Outshined_One said:

Can we play the Mets all the time? That was fun.

Especially without Juan Soto.

[Bertz]

Dansby Swanson's at 2.1 WAR after yesterday's outburst.  He's tied with Aaron Judge, Gunnar Henderson, and William Contreras.

[Jason Ross]

1 minute ago, Bertz said:

Dansby Swanson's at 2.1 WAR after yesterday's outburst.  He's tied with Aaron Judge, Gunnar Henderson, and William Contreras.

I fully admit to being wary of his contract when signed and I didn't know what to expect from it, but Swanson has been a banger of a contract. He's streaky at the plate, but he has done nothing but add positive value at the end of the day.

[CubUgly]

12 hours ago, chibears55 said:

Boog.. PCA has stopped chasing pitches

Very next pitch he chases one down and away for strike 3 😂😂

Ha...yeah the K's have started to tick up lately, it was inevitable.  But I'm comfortable Pete has proven who he is. there will be hills and valleys but he's a star. 

[Geographyhater8888]

6 minutes ago, Jason Ross said:

I fully admit to being wary of his contract when signed and I didn't know what to expect from it, but Swanson has been a banger of a contract. He's streaky at the plate, but he has done nothing but add positive value at the end of the day.

Who did you want out of curiosity? 

[Jason Ross]

6 minutes ago, Geographyhater8888 said:

Who did you want out of curiosity? 

I'd have signed Correa, but also I didn't have any of his medicals at the time, so I'll give myself a break. 

I wrongly focused too much on arm-strength when it came to SS defense - should have learned a lesson from the plus-plus defensive season Hoerner posted at short with a weak arm. My fear was that his best years would be with mediocre Cubs teams and by the time the team was winning 90-games he'd have been looking at a shift to second. 

We're 3-years in and he's once again on a 4-win pace with no signs of needing to move off short yet. He's been incredibly consistent in value (even if streaky at the bat). And he's been absolutely excellent value. He' have to entirely faceplant the rest of his contract post-2026 for him not to be a break-even player. Considering he's being paid just south of $200m, that's really impressive. It's hard to get surplus out of a contract that big.

[Geographyhater8888]

26 minutes ago, Jason Ross said:

I'd have signed Correa, but also I didn't have any of his medicals at the time, so I'll give myself a break. 

I wrongly focused too much on arm-strength when it came to SS defense - should have learned a lesson from the plus-plus defensive season Hoerner posted at short with a weak arm. My fear was that his best years would be with mediocre Cubs teams and by the time the team was winning 90-games he'd have been looking at a shift to second. 

We're 3-years in and he's once again on a 4-win pace with no signs of needing to move off short yet. He's been incredibly consistent in value (even if streaky at the bat). And he's been absolutely excellent value. He' have to entirely faceplant the rest of his contract post-2026 for him not to be a break-even player. Considering he's being paid just south of $200m, that's really impressive. It's hard to get surplus out of a contract that big.

I’ll give Jed this, you could be stuck paying for high $ vets on the backend of their deals with limited financial flexibility and diminishing returns after the window closes like the Padres and clock is ticking for Philly too. Machado, Boggarts and Tatis look like complete duds. Although the Dodgers have pulverized the competitive balance of baseball to be fair but the Cubs will have over $100 million to spend and only the corner outfielders will be missed.
You can criticize the timing of his free agent signings but that’s for another topic. 
 

 

Edited 5 hours ago by Geographyhater8888

[Bertz]

27 minutes ago, Jason Ross said:

I fully admit to being wary of his contract when signed and I didn't know what to expect from it, but Swanson has been a banger of a contract. He's streaky at the plate, but he has done nothing but add positive value at the end of the day.

I liked Swanson at the time, but even my enthusiasm was "he's better than Bogaerts straight up, and has a decent chance at beating out Correa and Turner on efficiency".

Being easily the best contract and arguably the best player straight up 3.5 years in was not on my bingo card.

[mul21]

5 hours ago, Stratos said:

I know they like Shota throwing his FB up in the zone because it has a lot of ride, but have they considered throwing it down in the zone?  Like low and away?  Like....just try it for a couple starts???  The old pitching adage "keep the ball down" might not be the worst idea here.

If hitters are teeing off on the high fastballs and it's inducing a ton of flyballs why the heck are you still doing it?

One of the reasons the Cubs liked him more than other teams was because of how his FB plays up in the zone.  I don't recall the exact science of it, but the shape of the pitch lends to it being more effective up than down and it also makes his splitter more effective because they start in the same spot but end in very different locations.  I don't think you can change his entire strategy of attacking hitters without some real issues in the middle of a season and it's probably not a thing you want to do at all.

[Derwood]

Dansby on 6/17: .176/.280/.318

Dansby on 6/25: .202/.303/.385

Slash line over the last 5 games: .526/.565/1.211

 

Edited 3 hours ago by Derwood

[Jason Ross]

28 minutes ago, mul21 said:

One of the reasons the Cubs liked him more than other teams was because of how his FB plays up in the zone.  I don't recall the exact science of it, but the shape of the pitch lends to it being more effective up than down and it also makes his splitter more effective because they start in the same spot but end in very different locations.  I don't think you can change his entire strategy of attacking hitters without some real issues in the middle of a season and it's probably not a thing you want to do at all.

His fastball has insane IVB. IVB is just a fancy way of saying "his fastball doesn't sink as much as others". In layman's terms, it rides up and over bats more. This results in more fly balls, but also, more misshits, popups and for Shota especially, whiff at the top of the zone. 

To Stratos' point of "keeping the ball down" that's the worst thing Shota could do. There's a reason fastballs belong up now and it's the swing path of hitters. When you keep the ball down the window for hitters trying to hit the ball in the air increases. Shota's fastball fights gravity meaning when he misses "keeping the ball down" it will more naturally float to the middle of the zone. You throw *sinkers* down because they travel below the bat and below the zone. Shota's fastball would ride directly into the barrel. That's a terrible idea. 

Throwing it up will result in some home run issues. But it also results in strikeouts more often as hitters chase unhittable high pitches. By keeping the ball down, it almost assuredly wouldn't fix his home run issues, it may exasperate them. And would likely lose swing and miss as MLB hitters rarely whiff on fastballs in zone, and especially not 92mph fastballs in zone. 

FWIW Shota maintains a 3.97 xFIP on the year. He hasn't been bad. The home runs are an annoyance, but he limits walks and doesn't really give guys a free pass. 

[squally1313]

Dansby is weird to me in ways that smarter people could probably explain pretty easily. In 2025 the metrics loved his under the hood offensive data (.310 wOBA v .345 xwOBA), but his walk and K rates were both a tick below career averages, so clearly it was batted ball data driven. Additionally, his defense took a bit of a dive, which all added up to a good 3.3 fWAR but a step back from the 4.8 and 4.2 he had put up the year before.

This year, Dansby is running a career high walk rate (comfortably, he'd only been in double digits twice before and his high was 10.7%, he's currently at 12.5%), and his K rate is the lowest it's been since 2019. But the metrics just despise him. He's running a .227 BABIP and somehow his xwOBA is .292, 13 points behind his wOBA, and his xBA is actually lower (.201) than his actual BA .202. The defense had come back, though that's more of a black box to me and I'm always a little suspicious by how much it's driven by just cumulative routine reps vs actual differences in performance. But I was worried he was slipping into Omar Vizquel/Ozzie Smith mode. A week doesn't fix 70 games of offensive ineptitude, but it's nice to see the power is still there and the athleticism (both defensively and on the basepaths) hasn't seemed to slip just yet. 

[Bertz]

7 minutes ago, Jason Ross said:

FWIW Shota maintains a 3.97 xFIP on the year. He hasn't been bad. The home runs are an annoyance, but he limits walks and doesn't really give guys a free pass. 

Shota's also got a 3.65 xERA.  So even if you feel like pitchers control how loud the contact against them is (I mostly disagree, but we'll set that aside) Shota has not been getting hammered like e.g. Taillon.

[Bertz]

5 minutes ago, squally1313 said:

Dansby is weird to me in ways that smarter people could probably explain pretty easily. In 2025 the metrics loved his under the hood offensive data (.310 wOBA v .345 xwOBA), but his walk and K rates were both a tick below career averages, so clearly it was batted ball data driven. Additionally, his defense took a bit of a dive, which all added up to a good 3.3 fWAR but a step back from the 4.8 and 4.2 he had put up the year before.

This year, Dansby is running a career high walk rate (comfortably, he'd only been in double digits twice before and his high was 10.7%, he's currently at 12.5%), and his K rate is the lowest it's been since 2019. But the metrics just despise him. He's running a .227 BABIP and somehow his xwOBA is .292, 13 points behind his wOBA, and his xBA is actually lower (.201) than his actual BA .202. The defense had come back, though that's more of a black box to me and I'm always a little suspicious by how much it's driven by just cumulative routine reps vs actual differences in performance. But I was worried he was slipping into Omar Vizquel/Ozzie Smith mode. A week doesn't fix 70 games of offensive ineptitude, but it's nice to see the power is still there and the athleticism (both defensively and on the basepaths) hasn't seemed to slip just yet. 

With the x stats I think it's part Wrigley being more neutral this year (so far, feels like August is when it got really bad last year) and part him hitting the ball up the middle less.  He's not like gone full Paredes or anything, but he's gone less extreme in the other direction.

In 24/25 Dansby pulled about 1/3rd of his barrels, with half going to CF and the rest oppo.  This year he's had 14 barrels, 8 (57%) have been pulled and 6 (43%) have been to CF.  He hasn't gone oppo with one at all.

[We Got The Whole 9]

7 hours ago, Stratos said:

I know they like Shota throwing his FB up in the zone because it has a lot of ride, but have they considered throwing it down in the zone?  Like low and away?  Like....just try it for a couple starts???  The old pitching adage "keep the ball down" might not be the worst idea here.

If hitters are teeing off on the high fastballs and it's inducing a ton of flyballs why the heck are you still doing it?

Honestly have thought it is time to change his attack. Hitters are sitting on that high fastball. It doesn't matter how fast its coming in, or how much IVB it gets. Its essentially a meatball quite often.

[UMFan83]

11 hours ago, soccer10k said:

I'm not sure what the Giants starting pitcher has to do with either the Cubs or the Mets. LOL.

Also, wish we had Logan Webb instead.

That's like the 3rd time I've done that lol.  My brain can't accept that there's a Jacob Webb

[UMFan83]

Baseball is just the weirdest sport ever.  The Cubs start going into a slump and you tell yourself "meh, I've seen this a million times it happens every baseball season" and then it continues on so long that you start to wonder "what if this isn't a slump and they just suck", and then when you hit the lowest point suddenly the bats spring to life again and start hitting like they did before. 

And when they slump it pretty much doesn't matter who you face.  You could be facing Cy Young winners every night or you could be facing Michael Lorenzen, doesn't matter you're getting shut down (BTW after back to back 1 run outings against the Cubs Lorenzen went back to his standard 4+ ER start against the Pirates).

And so now we surge again apparently and start tracking "haven't done this well since" statistics when last week we were tracking "haven't sucked this badly since" statistics.  Such a weird sport....

Edited 2 hours ago by UMFan83

[JunkyardWalrus]

How often can you see the actual ‘wins’ in WAR as they happen?

[mul21]

33 minutes ago, We Got The Whole 9 said:

Honestly have thought it is time to change his attack. Hitters are sitting on that high fastball. It doesn't matter how fast its coming in, or how much IVB it gets. Its essentially a meatball quite often.

I don't know, feels like him missing his spots is really the issue.  The one Alvarez hit was 4" above the zone and both Ewing and Vientos hit pitches that were down the middle and not anywhere near where he wanted them.

[cl smooth]

bought front row upper deck seats to tonight's game for $16.