cubsclapp

Quintana is coming off a season with a career-best K rate, had a career-best velocity after joining the Cubs last year, etc. Everything about his peripherals still looked great. His FIP is currently exactly 1 run above his career rate and much higher than any season. Pitchers break at any age, and frequently start declining at this age. That's especially more likely if a pitcher has thrown 200 innings in five straight years (as Quintana has if we include the playoffs last year). The fact that he's been dealing with shoulder fatigue this year would suggest the workload is catching up to him... or that he's just going through what pitchers go through. And the fact his walks are way up is also concerning, as command is crucial to his game. But odds are that for these remaining 2.5 years, he's closer to the guy he's been over his career than the 4.12 ERA/4.61 FIP/10.7 BB% guy he's been so far this season. Could he keep being mediocre and/or get hurt? Absolutely. But that could still end up being more valuable than the prospects traded away end up being too, for all we know. I would've bet on Jorge Soler as a hitter over Eloy Jimenez and he's been worth under 2-WAR for his career.

Hyperbole much? I feel like people are generally underestimating how much Eloy will have to hit to be highly valuable. He’s absolutely capable of it because he’s a monster and a special hitting talent, but he plays a position everyone hits. Corner players that hit a lot aren’t difficult to find. But it’s concerning that he hasn’t shown a willingness to walk, which is a skill all these great hitters you hear him compared to do. This is something he can improve, obviously, but usually hitters are pretty close to what they’ve been in that department. His walk numbers are pretty much identical to Javy Baez’s in the minors (literally identical to Javy’s last full AAA stint at 6.7%), for example. And there’s his body. He’s already a horse. Usually this doesn’t age well for athleticism. Jason Heyward is the rare exception. So it’s quite possible his entire value will come from hitting the ball out of the park and a high average. And he should do these things well, but you have to do them *really* well to be a 3+ WAR kind of player, especially if we’re talking doing it on an annual basis. It’s just a difficult path. Jose Quintana has been super blah this year (and has been dealing with shoulder fatigue), but odds are he’s closer to the 3.5+ fWAR pitcher he was the previous 5 years than the pitcher he’s been this year too. If you want a for-sure crappy Cubs-White Sox trade, it’s Jon Garland for Matt Karchner. The Quintana trade was the right move in the Cubs’ position. It may end up looking bad in the end, but a lot would have to happen for it to end up looking brutal.

I really miss Chicago's ESPN Zone. I went once... to watch this game. So it was a pretty good time (hours after going to watch Kordell Stewart and the Bears play, and actually win).

Brooks has Hamels’ velocity in July as the highest it’s been in any month the last 2 years (93.03 four-seamer, 92.70 sinker).

The dong numbers are also much worse for him in the arcade Texas park this year (top home run park this year). 7 HR, .372 wOBA, .557 SLG in 28 IP at home. 3 HR, .262 wOBA, .330 SLG in 28 1/3 IP on the road. Yeah we said the same with Chatwood blah blah blah. But maybe there’s something to this for Chavez. Whatever the case it’s fine depth that can perhaps be a swingman and he’s a better option on paper than the Luke Farrells.

He's truly in the conversation by the nerd stats too at this point. For example, fWAR... Arenado: 3.8 Cain: 3.7 Freeman: 3.5 Realmuto: 3.5 Goldschmidt: 3.5 Baez: 3.4 Add in the fun factor and the things you can't even quantify 100% that he does on a baseball field... I think he'd have a lot of votes. Obviously being able to keep it up to this level with his refusal to walk over 3% of the time will be a problem, but to this point he's worthy of the NL MVP.

Yeah it would be nice to win these two series and go 4-2 going in to the break, though I'd be fine going 3-3 (just basically don't go like 1-5). Hopefully, somehow, the VBs will finally lose but I'm not holding my breath in the Marlins series with them. The Pirates series this weekend is a 5 game series with a DH so hopefully they only win 2 of those games, somehow. The Pirates have been hot garbage lately. They are hot garbage. But their true talent level isn’t far off from Milwaukee’s and they’re at home, where they’re not as bad (22-23) and the Brewers have been more ordinary (24-18) on the road. I’ll be almost annoyed as this Braves series if the Pirates don’t win at least twice.

Cubs’ non-pitcher offensive numbers (ranks in MLB)... AVG: .278 (1st; next-best is .269) OBP: .359 (1st; next-best is .348, followed by .339) SLG: .448 (4th) OPS: .807 (1st; next-best is .798) wOBA: .346 (1st; next-best is .342) wRC+: 116 (T-2nd) BB%: 10.1 (T-5) K%: 19.8 (5th-best) BB/K: 0.51 (2nd)

Tough few days for rmack.

Joe respects Almora plenty. Almora is 2nd on the team in games played and 7th in plate appearances. He’s batted leadoff in 32 games. They also do a great job of playing him to favorable matchups. He — like Javy — is going to struggle vs certain right-handed profiles despite — like Javy — making improvement in that department. And Almora had a .291 OBP with a 3.0 BB% vs righties last year. It was a major flaw and he shouldn’t have been batting anywhere but the bottom of the order vs them. Until this year, he was a lefty masher only. Hopefully his improvements are here to stay, but his BABIP vs righties is unsustainable and he’s walking under 5% of the time vs them. He’s gonna crank fastballs and mistakes still, but needs to show more than that consistently. But it’s also a matter of finding everyone playing time and giving players days off. Almora is a starting MLB player, but so are Kyle Schwarber, Jason Heyward, Ben Zobrist, Javy Baez, Addison Russell, and Ian Happ. I think the position player usage has been handled very well.

This guy's gonna be a real treat in the division.

.760 OPS on the season. vs righties: .305/.363/.458, 122 wRC+, 8.2 BB%, 8.8 K%. Even got that wRC+ up to 51 vs lefties! Will probably see his 7.9 BB% go up a little bit, especially if teams are actually kinda scared of him now.

He’s literally driven in more runs than anyone in the National League. this is a pretty weak take; he's seen 4th-most baserunners in the league and has 84 wRC+ split to show for it I hate RBI. I was just making a simple point. He is what he is: he's an incredibly annoying hitter at times -- and easy to expose with pitchers that can execute in key situations -- that is going to give you around an .800 OPS, great baserunning, and great defense in the middle infield. You're looking at a likely 2.5 to 3-WAR player at the end of the year that leaves you wanting a lot more (because it's in there, as we've seen), but it's still a valuable player. I just don't really ever understand the complaining about him unless people think he's going to magically change. I prefer to enjoy his strengths and appreciate his overall value.

Lol. As I shared on Twitter:

Does anyone remember if they tinkered with his mechanics after signing? I realize his mechanics already sucked, but this is far worse than even bad Rockies Chatwood when it comes to the walks. Well, they keep changing things up now, but I mean how couldn’t you try at this point lol. I actually liked how it was initially looking with the hybrid wind-up today... and then he fell apart again. But yeah, his command has always been crappy, but this is a whole different universe of bad. He’s currently walking 20.7% of hitters. His previous career-worst was last year at 12.2%, and was 10.5% the year before. Those previous numbers are still bad, but as we’ve seen with his stuff and run prevention, he could be plenty effective that way. He doesn’t even have to have “decent command.” It just can’t keep being extremely terrible. You could say, “Well it’s been trending up, and hitters are surely more focused on being patient vs him now.” Absolutely. But this still feels beyond ridiculous right now and has a bit of a yips feel to it. Like he keeps walking opposing pitchers when he’s surely trying to throw pitches down the middle.

He’s literally driven in more runs than anyone in the National League.

Here’s the full bottom of the ninth: https://www.mlb.com/cubs/video/cubs-dramatic-9th-inning-rally/c-2127504483

I just looked it up because it’s been a while since I did. 23rd in the league in K% and we’re closer to being 27th than we are 22nd. Rogers is such a horsefeathering dunce They entered Tuesday with MLB's second-lowest/best K% in May (19.2). And the second-best BB% in May (11.1%). And the best OBP in May by 9 points (.352). Those are good trends.

Joe has always sucked with handling pitching. Oh I agree it's been a weakness of his forever, but it's been taken to another level lately. Pulling Strop last night with one out remaining up four runs (and then pulling Duensing after one batter, forcing Morrow to enter a game he shouldn't have to). Pulling Quintana tonight after like 2 balls were hit hard all night; he'd only thrown 83 pitches; tomorrow night is Chatwood (which may be a 3-inning outing with how he's been lately); TBD on Monday or Tuesday. You may really need the bullpen the next few days, and pulling Quintana tonight probably didn't even actually help their chances of winning. He's always been an overmanager when it comes to the bullpen and sometimes is too quick on his hook with starters, but lately it seems much worse. I think part of it is the overall team's struggles (particularly with the rotation) and he's panicking (something we've seen him do in the playoffs when he doesn't trust pitchers as much as he perhaps should).

It's a real shame the Cubs went with an NL MVP over two fringe prospects at third base.

I've always backed Joe, and think he's definitely got that hidden value over 162 games. But jesus tapdancing horsefeathers has he been dumb lately with how he's handled the pitching staff.

Non-reviewable, they said. Fwiw, I'm guessing it would've been one of those that stayed the same as the original call regardless.

I did notice that too now that you mention it. But he was still throwing 96 mph darts and wipeout breaking balls. Weird.

What’s bizarre is I felt his stuff the last two starts looked like normal (pre-Cub) Yu Darvish. Obviously with pitchers, who the horsefeathers knows, and guys still pitch through these things frequently. Or maybe it happened in a side session, etc. But this timing is odd.