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    This is What Cubs Losses Will Look Like in 2023

    Randy Holt

    By Randy Holt

    Opening Day was a delight, because it showed you exactly what you can expect wins to look like for this iteration of the Cubs: manufacturing runs, capitalizing on a few breaks via aggressiveness on the bases, solid pitching, and outstanding defense. Since then, they’ve laid down just as clear a blueprint for their losses.

    Image courtesy of © Kareem Elgazzar/The Enquirer / USA TODAY NETWORK

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    I’m not a purist, but I can at least enjoy the idea that the type of baseball which the Cubs will need to employ often is close to baseball at its purest. The wins are going to look like that. Clean. Efficient. A dash of aggression. That’s fun baseball when it works.

    Since Thursday, though, what we’ve largely seen is the other end of the spectrum. It’s less fun. Not because of the outcome. Losses aren’t particularly enjoyable when you have a rooting interest, regardless of their style or character. But this is what the losses are going to look like in 2023. It’s of a more agonizing flavor. If anything, it serves as a looming reminder that this version of the Cubs doesn’t have the chops to compensate when they need it.

    Through this trio of losses, we’ve run the gamut as to the type of defeat we can expect to see from a club like this one.

    Saturday’s game was, perhaps, the clearest example. The Cubs managed to get one run across, via an Ian Happ homer that essentially climbed its way into the basket. From there, mild mismanagement of the bullpen from David Ross watched Javier Assad squander the lead provided by said run. Assad was charged with all three Milwaukee runs after struggling to hold onto his command in his second inning of work. 

    While Sunday figures to be the rarest type of loss from a score standpoint, it still represented something that we haven’t seen the last of. Cubs pitchers walked six hitters, five of which came from relievers. Four of those free passes resulted in runs. Ironically, that was the difference in the 9-5 final score. 

    Which brings us to Monday. The Cubs jumped out to a 3-0 lead. Drew Smyly quickly erased it by surrendering three of his own, most of which came on a handful of singles in the first inning. While they were able to regain the lead by a 6-4 count in the top of the fifth, Smyly surrendered another three in the bottom half. Nine hits, a pair of walks, and one game-sealing homer across 4.2 innings of work. The Cubs created traffic thereafter, but they couldn’t manifest the situational hitting needed to take the lead back from a lowly Cincinnati team. 

    It's three losses. In the grand scheme of a baseball season there will be many, many more. But while three losses in early April can’t tell you anything about the long-term future of a team, the nature of each does tell you something about these particular Cubs. 

    The Saturday loss shows you how slim the margin for error is. David Ross rolls Assad out for a second inning. With a 1-0 lead, the manager was unable to act quickly enough when his reliever didn’t have command. Or, rather, have the foresight to have an arm up and moving if command was an issue to begin with. No one warming. No contingency. 

    Weirdly, a loss in which the Cubs surrendered nine runs also said a lot. The pitching staff, be it the rotation or the bullpen, doesn’t have a lot of strikeout stuff. It’s why the Cubs spent so much time beefing up their defensive infrastructure. When you issue free passes and allow teams to put it in play, which is the entire basis of this pitching staff, weird things are going to happen. You’ll be flared to death–sometimes, to the tune of nine runs. 

    Monday was likely the least common outcome we’ll see. It’s hard to visualize too many losses when the Cubs score six runs, given the solid quality of their starting staff and the defensive component. But they also can’t be chasing teams late in games. Opposing managers can play matchups with their bullpen. The bottom half of the Cubs’ lineup is meek. There isn’t a lot coming off the bench that is going to rattle an opposing reliever, either. Which we also saw Monday. 

    This isn’t about pointing out that the Cubs have lost three of four, or even feeling some type of way about it. The Cubs are going to win a lot of games. The roster is going to change over the course of the season. My overarching point, which will be belabored over the course of 2023, is that the roster construction of this team means that the pull-your-hair-out type of losses will be more the norm than, say, a blowout. 

    Nobody’s going to classify this team as bad. Even after a 1-3 start. But these Cubs were built to be average. As such, they were unintentionally built to frustrate. Through four games, we’ve already seen most of the manners in which they plan to do so. 

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    CubinNY

    CubinNY 2,051

    Posted

    There is no margin for error for Ross. He has to be near perfect in his decision-making for this team to win consistently. It's not an excuse for Ross, but he's been put in this position by the front office. No one is perfect, so every mistake is going to be magnified. Hindsight is what it is. Nevertheless, frustrating. 

    squally1313

    squally1313 2,225

    Posted

    I think Ross is a bad manager, and especially bad at bullpen management, though I think that's probably something that most fans would claim of their own managers and the grass isn't always greener. 

    Having said that, I've been trying to figure out how to articulate my issue with all the bullpen optimism/positivity that we've had around here the last couple years. I'll preface by saying I don't really have a better option, so this is really just me complaining, but it feels like the last few springs we've looked at a list of a dozen potential options, and then over the course of the season two or three of them turn into pretty effective dudes, and everyone calls it another successful bullpen build. And then they get traded (for reasons I'll explain here shortly), or hurt, because pitchers break, and we start the process over again the next year. But everyone kinda ignores the 3-4 months it takes of just throwing these guys at the wall to see what sticks, and having to live with the results of the dudes that don't pan out. And so we blow a bunch of games early on and end up in a spot where we're sellers at the deadline, and the couple guys that are actually dudes go elsewhere. It's just...a frustrating cycle. And again, I don't know a better approach besides stumbling on a Hader/Williams combo somehow, minus the whole white supremacy thing. 

    • Like 5
    CubinNY

    CubinNY 2,051

    Posted

    12 minutes ago, squally1313 said:

    I think Ross is a bad manager, and especially bad at bullpen management, though I think that's probably something that most fans would claim of their own managers and the grass isn't always greener. 

    Having said that, I've been trying to figure out how to articulate my issue with all the bullpen optimism/positivity that we've had around here the last couple years. I'll preface by saying I don't really have a better option, so this is really just me complaining, but it feels like the last few springs we've looked at a list of a dozen potential options, and then over the course of the season two or three of them turn into pretty effective dudes, and everyone calls it another successful bullpen build. And then they get traded (for reasons I'll explain here shortly), or hurt, because pitchers break, and we start the process over again the next year. But everyone kinda ignores the 3-4 months it takes of just throwing these guys at the wall to see what sticks, and having to live with the results of the dudes that don't pan out. And so we blow a bunch of games early on and end up in a spot where we're sellers at the deadline, and the couple guys that are actually dudes go elsewhere. It's just...a frustrating cycle. And again, I don't know a better approach besides stumbling on a Hader/Williams combo somehow, minus the whole white supremacy thing. 

    Every team fixes problems on the fly, but it is usually not part of the process like it is with the Cubs. they put Morel and Mervis in AAA to see if they had something and will bring them up if they don't. It's just not a good process.  I think they are a vastly improved team compared to the last few years in terms of having actual MLB players (minus Hosmer), but they are still going into seasons as a work in progress and proclaiming it as a virtue not a deficit. 

    Transmogrified Tiger

    Transmogrified Tiger 2,745

    Posted

    17 minutes ago, squally1313 said:

    I think Ross is a bad manager, and especially bad at bullpen management, though I think that's probably something that most fans would claim of their own managers and the grass isn't always greener. 

    Having said that, I've been trying to figure out how to articulate my issue with all the bullpen optimism/positivity that we've had around here the last couple years. I'll preface by saying I don't really have a better option, so this is really just me complaining, but it feels like the last few springs we've looked at a list of a dozen potential options, and then over the course of the season two or three of them turn into pretty effective dudes, and everyone calls it another successful bullpen build. And then they get traded (for reasons I'll explain here shortly), or hurt, because pitchers break, and we start the process over again the next year. But everyone kinda ignores the 3-4 months it takes of just throwing these guys at the wall to see what sticks, and having to live with the results of the dudes that don't pan out. And so we blow a bunch of games early on and end up in a spot where we're sellers at the deadline, and the couple guys that are actually dudes go elsewhere. It's just...a frustrating cycle. And again, I don't know a better approach besides stumbling on a Hader/Williams combo somehow, minus the whole white supremacy thing. 

    I think it's a fair point that the time to find the winners comes at a cost, but it's also hard to disentangle from the rotation.  When starters struggle to go 5 innings, the burden on the pen compounds.  This was especially bad last year with the rotation injuries, which not only meant we were on rotation option 9 so the pen was throwing a ton of innings(meaning more innings for even the known losers), but it removed some of the success stories(mainly Thompson but Leiter Jr. also) from the pen which made things even thinner.

     

    I also think that some of this is self-imposed in a way that won't necessarily persist.  In 2021 none of the biggest winners from bullpen roulette were around in 2022(Kimbrel, Chafin, Tepera).  The closest was Effross, who was great in 2022 before he too was traded, and joined some of the 2022 winners in that regard(Robertson, Givens).  But the sea change that's started is that starting with Effross(a nothing sidearming prospect they sold high on before his arm exploded) there's now arms with extended team control being built up.  Thompson, Alzolay, maybe Assad, maybe Hughes, you add that base plus whatever is still coming from Iowa(including a bunch of velocity) to their clear ability to pick their top FA setup/closer candidates successfully(Kimbrel/Tepera, Robertson/Givens, Fulmer/Boxberger thus far) and I think the optimism is warranted.

    Hairyducked Idiot

    Hairyducked Idiot 1,499

    Posted

    100% what squally said.  This is why the whole "bring in a bunch of guys and we who sticks" thing doesn't work, in the bullpen or anywhere else.

    Because in order to find out if your "low-cost" gamble worked, you have to commit major league playing time to them, and they will probably suck, and that *is* a cost. 

    Hairyducked Idiot

    Hairyducked Idiot 1,499

    Posted

    I haven't loved every decision Ross made, but managers look smart when they have good teams and dumb when they have bad ones. Unless they are maliciously hurting their own players like Dusty Baker, they don't matter.

    • Like 3
    Bertz

    Bertz 2,652

    Posted

    It hasnt taken 3-4 months to find the right combos.  It's been more like 3-4 weeks, if that.  The Cubs bullpen last year pre trade deadline was:

    - 2nd in innings

    - 20th in ERA

    - 5th in xFIP

    - 4th in WPA

    In 2021 it was:

    - 6th in innings

    - 6th in ERA

    - 10th in xFIP

    - 4th in WPA

    The full year numbers have sucked because the units have been slashed to bits at the past two deadlines, but the groups they took north each year were very effective.  That 20th in ERA last year sticks out like a sore thumb, but the divergence from the WPA tells you the story.  The top half of the bullpen was very strong, and did their job in the games and situations that mattered.  But since they had to cover so many innings with the SP woes, the bottom half had to go out there and wear it in a bunch of blowouts.  

    This year's pen is probably more settled than it has been coming out of ST since like 2017.  This weekend sucked, and showed the cost of trying to get by with 0 lefties out there.  But Hughes will be back by like the weekend so I get why they didn't want to burn someone on the 40 man for like two Ryan Borucki appearances.



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