Cubs (Boyd) vs Royals (Dobnak): 08/09/26, 1:10 PM

[chibears55]

4 hours ago, Jazz said:

slump over?

Hopefully,  we'll see if he turns back into a pumpkin against Washington 

[CubUgly]

15 hours ago, Bull said:

Love JD giving Javi Baez credit for defensive versatility. He was more versatile the Zobrist in 2016. Both were amazingly flexible, and Bryant's willingness to play some LF facilitated it. But Javi never gets credit for the versatility like Zobrist does.

Zobrist played a lot of positions, but none at a high or above average level in my opinion - adequate and servicable would be my observation.  I would say the same for KB.   Javi played above average defense at multiple positions and I agree he doesn't get the shine for that that even KB gets and certainly not Zo.

[Bertz]

Getting a little nervous about Boyd's lack of swing and miss since he came off the IL.  At first I was like "whatever, he's due some good luck from his pre-IL stint." (when he was striking out the world and had an ERA north of 6) But we're at six weeks now.

He's been throwing A TON of first pitch strikes, and his GB rate is up a little bit, so maybe it's just a natural consequence of hammering the zone?

It's not a five alarm fire but I've got an eyebrow firmly raised.

[CubUgly]

9 minutes ago, Bertz said:

Getting a little nervous about Boyd's lack of swing and miss since he came off the IL.  At first I was like "whatever, he's due some good luck from his pre-IL stint." (when he was striking out the world and had an ERA north of 6) But we're at six weeks now.

He's been throwing A TON of first pitch strikes, and his GB rate is up a little bit, so maybe it's just a natural consequence of hammering the zone?

It's not a five alarm fire but I've got an eyebrow firmly raised.

Swing and miss is always better I agree.  He got away with two hangers to Caglianoni in one at bat yesterday as JD pointed out, and the pitch to Marte is about the only pitch and place you could throw it to Marte in order to give up a homer to him as he is definitely on the downside of his career.

But the guy keeps posting, and giving us 6 to 7 so either he's having a long streak of good luck or he's doing something that is netting positive results other than whiffs.   Of course all things being equal I'd love more whiffs of course. 

[squally1313]

1 hour ago, Bertz said:

Getting a little nervous about Boyd's lack of swing and miss since he came off the IL.  At first I was like "whatever, he's due some good luck from his pre-IL stint." (when he was striking out the world and had an ERA north of 6) But we're at six weeks now.

He's been throwing A TON of first pitch strikes, and his GB rate is up a little bit, so maybe it's just a natural consequence of hammering the zone?

It's not a five alarm fire but I've got an eyebrow firmly raised.

To put some actual numbers on it: 2.43 ERA, 4.82 xERA, 4.65 FIP, 5.66 K/9, 2.75 BB/9, 89.9% LOB. He's basically been super-Assad since coming back, which isn't great. I started to make the comparison to 2025 Shota but Boyd isn't as HR heavy so there's probably less chance of it all melting down. 

I'm certainly not the pitch analyzer guy, but velocity seems fine, arm angle seems fine. He's throwing like 2x the amount of curveballs than he was earlier in the year. Maybe a crude metric but FG splits up pitches by Heart, Shadow Zone, Chase Pitches, and Waste Pitches. Before his IL stint, he was 21%/47%/26%/6%. Since he's been back he's 27%/40%/21%/10%. So he's not losing the zone, but he's having trouble finding the edges as much as he used to. 

I didn't see the Holmes start. Going to assume Gausman will spend a little more time in front of this defense and realize he can just spam splitters, and Holmes has always thrown a heavy ball too. We're almost certainly not going to get some 10 K start come October (or maybe again the rest of the year barring Brown exceeding rehab expectations), but the team was built to swallow up groundballs, so it'd be a lot more cause for panic somewhere else. 

 

[Jason Ross]

16 hours ago, squally1313 said:

Nice.

[mul21]

11 minutes ago, squally1313 said:

To put some actual numbers on it: 2.43 ERA, 4.82 xERA, 4.65 FIP, 5.66 K/9, 2.75 BB/9, 89.9% LOB. He's basically been super-Assad since coming back, which isn't great. I started to make the comparison to 2025 Shota but Boyd isn't as HR heavy so there's probably less chance of it all melting down. 

I'm certainly not the pitch analyzer guy, but velocity seems fine, arm angle seems fine. He's throwing like 2x the amount of curveballs than he was earlier in the year. Maybe a crude metric but FG splits up pitches by Heart, Shadow Zone, Chase Pitches, and Waste Pitches. Before his IL stint, he was 21%/47%/26%/6%. Since he's been back he's 27%/40%/21%/10%. So he's not losing the zone, but he's having trouble finding the edges as much as he used to. 

I didn't see the Holmes start. Going to assume Gausman will spend a little more time in front of this defense and realize he can just spam splitters, and Holmes has always thrown a heavy ball too. We're almost certainly not going to get some 10 K start come October (or maybe again the rest of the year barring Brown exceeding rehab expectations), but the team was built to swallow up groundballs, so it'd be a lot more cause for panic somewhere else. 

 

I wonder if he's having a little dead arm after coming back from the injury.  He seemed to have the same issue when he was fatigued last year (specifically the short rest start against the Brewers in the playoffs) where he just wasn't his usual level of fine with the location on the edges.  Definitely worth keeping an eye on.

[Jason Ross]

9 minutes ago, mul21 said:

I wonder if he's having a little dead arm after coming back from the injury.  He seemed to have the same issue when he was fatigued last year (specifically the short rest start against the Brewers in the playoffs) where he just wasn't his usual level of fine with the location on the edges.  Definitely worth keeping an eye on.

Not sure I see anything that suggests dead-arm. Velo was pretty fine (fastball was like half a tick down, but his curveball was 1mph up so I think it's just normal flux). He went a little fastball heavy yesterday so that is a little something but that's about it.

One thing to note specifically about yesterday: KC isn't a heavy K% team; they rank bottom-5. They also rank bottom-5 in walks. They're a swing-heavy team. I won't speak for the entire time of his return but I do think yesterday may have just be an aggressive team's output.

[The_Achiever]

Jed did great work at the trade deadline.  This team is good and will be a very tough out in October.

[gflore34]

12-5 for the 17 consecutive game stretch, that's pretty damn good.

[Bertz]

1 hour ago, squally1313 said:

To put some actual numbers on it: 2.43 ERA, 4.82 xERA, 4.65 FIP, 5.66 K/9, 2.75 BB/9, 89.9% LOB. He's basically been super-Assad since coming back, which isn't great. I started to make the comparison to 2025 Shota but Boyd isn't as HR heavy so there's probably less chance of it all melting down. 

I'm certainly not the pitch analyzer guy, but velocity seems fine, arm angle seems fine. He's throwing like 2x the amount of curveballs than he was earlier in the year. Maybe a crude metric but FG splits up pitches by Heart, Shadow Zone, Chase Pitches, and Waste Pitches. Before his IL stint, he was 21%/47%/26%/6%. Since he's been back he's 27%/40%/21%/10%. So he's not losing the zone, but he's having trouble finding the edges as much as he used to. 

I didn't see the Holmes start. Going to assume Gausman will spend a little more time in front of this defense and realize he can just spam splitters, and Holmes has always thrown a heavy ball too. We're almost certainly not going to get some 10 K start come October (or maybe again the rest of the year barring Brown exceeding rehab expectations), but the team was built to swallow up groundballs, so it'd be a lot more cause for panic somewhere else. 

 

Yeah I think some of this is just random ebbs and flows, it is unfortunately not weird for pitchers to not have their peripherals and their results always come in sync, and he was due a healthy bit of positive regression.  Do I just get a monkey's paw and he throws up a 30% K-rate and a 5.50 ERA his next half dozen starts?

The stuff models both think his fastball is a little worse despite the velo being fine.  And to your point he's probably not being as fine command-wise.  But there's nothing glaring here.  A 15% K-rate from a non-elite groundball guy is absolutely not a playoff starter though so while I'm not sweating it now I will be if we're still here in a month.

[Rcal10]

4 hours ago, Bertz said:

Yeah I think some of this is just random ebbs and flows, it is unfortunately not weird for pitchers to not have their peripherals and their results always come in sync, and he was due a healthy bit of positive regression.  Do I just get a monkey's paw and he throws up a 30% K-rate and a 5.50 ERA his next half dozen starts?

The stuff models both think his fastball is a little worse despite the velo being fine.  And to your point he's probably not being as fine command-wise.  But there's nothing glaring here.  A 15% K-rate from a non-elite groundball guy is absolutely not a playoff starter though so while I'm not sweating it now I will be if we're still here in a month.

I think his spot in the rotation in the playoffs also depends on the team we face. The Phillies, as an example, are trrrible against left handed pitching. I would expect Boyd in game 1 or 2. I honestly think Guasman is game 1 no matter who we face, but the next 3 can be match up driven. 

[Derwood]

11 hours ago, Bertz said:

Getting a little nervous about Boyd's lack of swing and miss since he came off the IL.  At first I was like "whatever, he's due some good luck from his pre-IL stint." (when he was striking out the world and had an ERA north of 6) But we're at six weeks now.

He's been throwing A TON of first pitch strikes, and his GB rate is up a little bit, so maybe it's just a natural consequence of hammering the zone?

It's not a five alarm fire but I've got an eyebrow firmly raised.

He's the Tampa Bay Rays of the Cub staff. None of the numbers add up to the resutls