Dodgers (Skubal) vs Cubs (Assad): 8/4/26, 7:05pm

[macarthur31]

Just watched Zeferjahn's postgame interview with Cole and Cliff.  Really dig his vibe - just wants the ball every day - "strikeouts are good, but quick innings are even better..."  He'll fit in juuuuust fine.  

[Bertz]

This team is already on a 92 win pace again and we're like a week and a half from Edward Cabrera being our 5th starter and Jacob Webb being our 7th inning guy

[Wilson A2000]

1 minute ago, macarthur31 said:

Just watched Zeferjahn's postgame interview with Cole and Cliff.  Really dig his vibe - just wants the ball every day - "strikeouts are good, but quick innings are even better..."  He'll fit in juuuuust fine.  

Got engaged at Navy Pier I think he said

[mk49]

8 minutes ago, macarthur31 said:

Just watched Zeferjahn's postgame interview with Cole and Cliff.  Really dig his vibe - just wants the ball every day - "strikeouts are good, but quick innings are even better..."  He'll fit in juuuuust fine.  

Yeah, "quick innings are even better", because he can pitch again on the next day.  I loved it.

[PeanutPunch33]

50 minutes ago, Tangled Up in Plaid said:

he's had like two bad games all year. I really don't know how he does it

Keeps the ball knee high for the most part, gets a ton of ground balls behind a great defense, and always had an uncanny ability to work around traffic.  He's just a good pitcher who, for some reason, never got a fair chance to be the #5 starter.  A role in which he could assume tomorrow and do a better job than Rea.  

[Geographyhater8888]

6 hours ago, PeanutPunch33 said:

Keeps the ball knee high for the most part, gets a ton of ground balls behind a great defense, and always had an uncanny ability to work around traffic.  He's just a good pitcher who, for some reason, never got a fair chance to be the #5 starter.  A role in which he could assume tomorrow and do a better job than Rea.  

That I completely agree with. His sinker and high GB rate play right into the strength of the team. For run prevention purposes he’s been very effective and more so than Rea. 

Edited 12 hours ago by Geographyhater8888

[Geographyhater8888]

7 hours ago, We Got The Whole 9 said:

Do we hold the head-to-head advantage over them since 2017?

Dodgers are 27-25 against us since 2018. 

[Corbi296]

7 hours ago, Tangled Up in Plaid said:

he won't get DFA'd, he has options though so unfortunately he might get sent down

Didn't I read somewhere that the Cubs get one more of control if Assad spends another 15 days down in the minors this year? He doesn't deserve it but he'll get sent down to Iowa tomorrow and will come back up when the rosters expand in September. He has a decent shot to be on the playoff roster if he pitches like he did tonight.  Deciding which pitchers will be on the roster for the playoffs may become a very challenging exercise if some of these other guys who have been hurt end up getting healthy and pitch well down the stretch. 

[CubUgly]

7 hours ago, PeanutPunch33 said:

Keeps the ball knee high for the most part, gets a ton of ground balls behind a great defense, and always had an uncanny ability to work around traffic.  He's just a good pitcher who, for some reason, never got a fair chance to be the #5 starter.  A role in which he could assume tomorrow and do a better job than Rea.  

We put a heavy focus on numbers and measurables here, and I love it - that's great it's fun to read and discuss.  Assad competes, and that not something that's measurable so it is sometimes dismissed as a non-factor.  It should not be. 

[CubinNY]

How about Asaad?

[Jason Ross]

9 hours ago, Bertz said:

This team is already on a 92 win pace again and we're like a week and a half from Edward Cabrera being our 5th starter and Jacob Webb being our 7th inning guy

Eddie debuted a new pitch in Iowa: it's a reverse slider. I have no idea what to make of it, yet and I've got a few lines out to some people who might help figure out what to make of it as well. But it's a fascinating development.

[Jason Ross]

9 hours ago, PeanutPunch33 said:

Keeps the ball knee high for the most part, gets a ton of ground balls behind a great defense, and always had an uncanny ability to work around traffic.  He's just a good pitcher who, for some reason, never got a fair chance to be the #5 starter.  A role in which he could assume tomorrow and do a better job than Rea.  

He's had some chances to be a starter. Over his career he has a 4.70 FIP and a 4.57 xFIP. This doesn't entirely square with his ERA which is under 3.50 and I think there's a fear that the ERA isn't real. Most of the time when we see a low ERA and a high xFIP, the way you can get there is either "positive luck" in that...you're going to regress sooner rather than later or you are doing something that allows you to beat it like a really low walk total or a lot of ground balls.

The weird thing is...he maintains a low ERA but doesn't do the traditional FIP-beating things. He's a ~44% ground ball guy in his career which is alright but not elite. He's a career 9.1% walk rate...not amazing. So I think the fear has been "this guy is about to blow up" because a 4.57 xFIP...is bad. That would be 8th worst in baseball for qualified starters. 

But here's the swerve; he's been doing this long enough that...maybe he just beats his xFIP? Maybe this is just who he is? He's at 400 innings, it's enough of a sample that you can argue it might be real. He just keeps doing it. And if he throws as hard as he did last night, he's probably better than we thought. You can understand why the Cubs have been and are probably a little hesitant; that velo hasn't always shown up and the underlying data tells us to be hesitant. At the same time, he's probably at a point where you could feel semi-confident about entering a season with him as a #5. He'd be upgradeable at the deadline if it doesn't work out, he wouldn't likely be *so* bad that he's a disaster. 

[Derwood]

Assad's problem has always been lack of pitch efficiency. Last night was an exception, but more often than not, he's pushing 75-80 pitches somewhere in the 4th inning. He may be really effective for those 4 2/3 innings, but you know that when he starts, you're going to use up some bullpen arms

[Geographyhater8888]

7 minutes ago, Derwood said:

Assad's problem has always been lack of pitch efficiency. Last night was an exception, but more often than not, he's pushing 75-80 pitches somewhere in the 4th inning. He may be really effective for those 4 2/3 innings, but you know that when he starts, you're going to use up some bullpen arms

Because he gets himself out of a ton of jams a lot more often than not, clutch!!!!

[gflore34]

LOL, Dodgers announcers creaming in their pants about Pages' defense, PCA probably makes those catches without sliding, almost making them look routine.  Which is completely amazing and they wouldn't have a clue.

Edited 9 hours ago by gflore34

[squally1313]

The obvious counter to the Assad is a Unicorn argument, to me, is....why doesn't he pitch that good when no one is on?

Bases empty he's pretty much unpitchable. Guys on base, he's a top line starter. Either the truth is that he's just the sum of all his results, which is a fringe starter benefitting from sequencing luck, or he's got this ability to be a very, very good pitcher but only chooses to use it roughly half the time. 

[Geographyhater8888]

Assad has a 2.24 ERA over his last 56.1 innings pitched and a 4.84 FIP. I’d love someone to do a deep dive on him. It’s like trying to solve the Brewers phenomenon.

Edited 9 hours ago by Geographyhater8888

[Jason Ross]

9 minutes ago, squally1313 said:

The obvious counter to the Assad is a Unicorn argument, to me, is....why doesn't he pitch that good when no one is on?

Bases empty he's pretty much unpitchable. Guys on base, he's a top line starter. Either the truth is that he's just the sum of all his results, which is a fringe starter benefitting from sequencing luck, or he's got this ability to be a very, very good pitcher but only chooses to use it roughly half the time. 

I agree. It's a very weird thing. My guess is that he's probably a sum of his parts guy who tends to play up over his xFIP in some fashion. I don't believe his true talent is a 3.50 ERA guy. But 400 IP in, and he consistently smashes his xFIP so I also think there's something there. One thing that I do think we need more studies on is the concept of "kitchen sink" throwing. We have seen Colin Rea use kitchen sink to keep hitters off balanced. I think there's a pathway here to FIP beating by just having a lot of offerings to keep the hitter off (in a way this is why Zeferjahn's fastball is so good. Unique pitches stand out and kitchen sink is a different way to offer a unique look).

One thing I do think is important is the velocity. At 93-94mph (last night, he was 93.7mph) I think you can make a real argument that he's a quality #5 with the ability to outpace the underlying. Under 93mph he's entirely less interesting. Maybe he was super amped up last night but he carried that velo throughout the game as he was still averaging 94mph on the fastball in the 6th. He also got a lot of ground balls last night, more than normal.

He's an enigma. I keep thinking that he'll regress...he just keeps trucking. 

[bukie]

19 minutes ago, gflore34 said:

LOL, Dodgers announcers creaming in their pants about Pages' defense, PCA probably makes those catches without sliding, almost making them look routine.  Which is completely amazing and they wouldn't have a clue.

Pages is a top 15 fielder and the Dodgers are the 3rd best defense in baseball by Fangraphs DRAA team metrics.  It's okay for more than one thing to be good.

[gflore34]

5 minutes ago, bukie said:

Pages is a top 15 fielder and the Dodgers are the 3rd best defense in baseball by Fangraphs DRAA team metrics.  It's okay for more than one thing to be good.

Pages is good, he's not in PCA' league who just might be historically good.

[mul21]

28 minutes ago, Jason Ross said:

I agree. It's a very weird thing. My guess is that he's probably a sum of his parts guy who tends to play up over his xFIP in some fashion. I don't believe his true talent is a 3.50 ERA guy. But 400 IP in, and he consistently smashes his xFIP so I also think there's something there. One thing that I do think we need more studies on is the concept of "kitchen sink" throwing. We have seen Colin Rea use kitchen sink to keep hitters off balanced. I think there's a pathway here to FIP beating by just having a lot of offerings to keep the hitter off (in a way this is why Zeferjahn's fastball is so good. Unique pitches stand out and kitchen sink is a different way to offer a unique look).

One thing I do think is important is the velocity. At 93-94mph (last night, he was 93.7mph) I think you can make a real argument that he's a quality #5 with the ability to outpace the underlying. Under 93mph he's entirely less interesting. Maybe he was super amped up last night but he carried that velo throughout the game as he was still averaging 94mph on the fastball in the 6th. He also got a lot of ground balls last night, more than normal.

He's an enigma. I keep thinking that he'll regress...he just keeps trucking. 

Those are the 2 things that really stand out to me.  He's throwing 7 different pitches. And when you get the velocity variation with just another tick or two of separation, it throws the hitters off that much more.  It'll be interesting to see if the uptick in velo sticks long term.

[Jason Ross]

14 minutes ago, mul21 said:

Those are the 2 things that really stand out to me.  He's throwing 7 different pitches. And when you get the velocity variation with just another tick or two of separation, it throws the hitters off that much more.  It'll be interesting to see if the uptick in velo sticks long term.

I had used this quote from Kevin Goldstein in my article on Zeferjahn and I think it can apply here: "The further one can get from the norm, the more effective the pitch can be beyond just the pure speed". Now, this really doesn't have to do with speed, and that article was really on the shape of the fastball, so it's not a perfect quote, but like I said, I do think it can apply here.

For Assad, the way he gets beyond the "norm" is the pitch mix. His modeling and shapes aren't special on the own, but I think where he "get's further from the norm" is that he can throw a fastball, a sinker, a curveball, a sweeper, a slider, a changeup. That isn't the norm. 

I'm hoping we eventually get more studies on the "kitchen sink" approach. I do think there's a natural ceiling there - I don't think aces or maybe even "playoff" starters can do this very effectively - but I do think it helps to find guys like Assad who can out kick their natural coverage, if that makes sense.

[bukie]

49 minutes ago, gflore34 said:

Pages is good, he's not in PCA' league who just might be historically good.

Sure, but if Pages makes a great play it's okay to call it a great play. PCA being historically good doesn't mean nobody else should get any praise for a good play.

[squally1313]

58 minutes ago, Jason Ross said:

One thing that I do think we need more studies on is the concept of "kitchen sink" throwing. We have seen Colin Rea use kitchen sink to keep hitters off balanced. I think there's a pathway here to FIP beating by just having a lot of offerings to keep the hitter off

sorry, can you finish the thought here? neither of these guys get good results on an aggregate basis in the ways that you typically measure a pitcher. are they just saving some deeper bag of pitches for high leverage PAs?

[Geographyhater8888]

5 minutes ago, Jason Ross said:

I had used this quote from Kevin Goldstein in my article on Zeferjahn and I think it can apply here: "The further one can get from the norm, the more effective the pitch can be beyond just the pure speed". Now, this really doesn't have to do with speed, and that article was really on the shape of the fastball, so it's not a perfect quote, but like I said, I do think it can apply here.

For Assad, the way he gets beyond the "norm" is the pitch mix. His modeling and shapes aren't special on the own, but I think where he "get's further from the norm" is that he can throw a fastball, a sinker, a curveball, a sweeper, a slider, a changeup. That isn't the norm. 

But his under the hood metrics say that he’s vastly outperforming them even with a great pitch mix. So is the pitch mix helpful getting him out of jams more so than in bases empty spots?

Edited 8 hours ago by Geographyhater8888