Aaron_Kennelly

coming into tonight he walked 11 batters in 18 innings as a cub start, and his 3.93 era is mostly due to good luck on batted balls (.209 babip despite a 28% line drive rate). the poor command has been the biggest problem, which hopefully will be something that he can straighten out. And you're quoting rate stats in 18 innings of work, where one either way will fluctuate the numbers wildly. He's had 3 good starts, 1 meh start, and one bad start as a Cub, the shaky starts largely stemming from control issues where he gave up 8 walks in those 2 starts. Tonight as well he's allowed 3 hard hit balls with some unfortunate sequencing after his defense gave the Brewers an extra out. I think that's the big thing. A few pitches here or there can really screw up your walk or home run numbers, since there are very few walks issued or home runs hit in a short period. The things that stabilize quickly are a better indicator. Strikeouts stabilize quickly. He's striking out a ton of guys. His contact % is way down since coming here. His swinging strike % is way up. Ground ball rate stabilizes quickly, too. And he's been elite at getting ground balls. The periphs that matter sooner look pretty amazing. The walk rate and home run rate suck. But, I'm not too worried about it, because, like you said, it's a small sample. And he's fared well in those regards in much larger samples.

I think Montgomery's looked good. He's getting a bunch of swings and misses. He's had a bit of a problem with walking guys since he's come over and he's given up far too many homers. But, he's never really struggled with his control throughout his career. And the homers seem like an aberration -- his HR/FB with us is ridiculously high. He's a youngish, controlled lefty that gets a horsefeathers ton of ground balls and has a lot of swing-and-miss stuff. I'm excited for his future.

I'd also like to touch on the Cubs being historically great at LOB%. For one, they don't give up base runners or hits... period. They should be great at LOB%. When you don't allow guys to get hits, that means they can't drive in runs either. It's not as crazy as it looks. Of course they are stranding runners: Those runners only got on base because of a fluke. They were lucky to be on base, not unlucky to not score. The driving force behind the LOB number is the Cubs' ability to limit all offensive production. Teams are less likely to get on base when there are no outs when they face the Cubs. And they are also less likely to get on base when runners are on base. Good teams have higher LOB% than bad teams. And this is taking everything into account: the pitching staff being great at non-BABIP things, them being great at suppressing BABIP, the defense, all of it. Teams are hitting .207 against Cubs pitching (the next-lowest team being at .228). Of course teams are going to suck at hitting when guys are on base, too. We should expect the LOB% to be extremely high, because they are historically great at everything... in every scenario. This is the main reason for the historically high LOB%. He talks about the Cardinals from last year in this article: They were considerably better with runners on base. This was the driving force for their LOB%. They weren't really elite at limiting production with runners not on base. Taken as a whole, Cardinals pitching ranked 11th in WHIP last year. They were 7th in batting average against. They were 5th in FIP. 10th in xFIP. 11th in total team defense (DEF). They were a good, maybe very good, pitching staff. But they weren't historically great or anything. They weren't even close to being the best at limiting overall production in the league that year. The Cubs are historically great at limiting all production. Their non-ball-in-play production has been excellent. And they are historically great at suppressing BABIP -- through limiting hard contact and having a historically great defense. This is why they are so good with runners on base. They are historically great at LOB%. They aren't historically lucky. This is an important distinction. The Cardinals were historically lucky last year. Their fluky results with runners on base are why they were historically great. That's not the case with us. The Cubs have probably been a little lucky with runners on base, though. He points out that the opponents have a wOBA of .274 with the bases empty and .276 with runners on against the Cubs. It's close -- nearly identical. Most teams aren't that close. They haven't exactly been historically lucky in this regard, though. More just... a little lucky probably. But, let's look into that a little more, also. Why do teams fare worse with RISP? Well, there are a couple of reasons. For one, some guys struggle to pitch out of the stretch. Michael Pineda and Robbie Ray, for example, have had some troubles with this. It's a big reason why they've performed worse than their FIPs would indicate. Also, if you look at who's hitting with runners on base most often, you wouldn't be shocked to find that middle-of-the-order hitters are batting. Guys at the top of the order get on base more often, so guys in the middle of the order have more RISP opportunities. But, those aren't the main reasons. The biggie is this: Look at who is pitching with RISP. Who is pitching the most -- out of starting pitchers -- for the Giants with runners on? It's not Madison Bumgarner. He's not allowing runners to even get in scoring position. It's Matt Cain and Jake Peavy. The Giants are going to look better with no runners on, because when no runners are on, that means Madison Bumgarner is pitching. And they'll look worse with runners on, because that means Matt Cain is pitching. They don't perform that much worse in these situations, it's just that their shitty pitchers are taking up more of the sample. So, let's look at the Cubs. They've pretty much had the same five guys starting all year, save for a Mike Montgomery start here or there. And all five have limited offensive production at incredible levels. Take our top four starters: They rank 1st, 3rd, 4th, and 5th in batting average against, of all qualified starters in the major leagues. These guys have pitched nearly 55% of our total innings this year. So, if you just randomly pull out a RISP opportunity, you are likely to find a pitcher on the mound who has been one of the five best in the league at limiting hits. That's why we fare nearly the same with runners on base. We always have a great pitcher on the mound with an historically great defense behind them. We don't have a Matt Cain artificially inflating our RISP numbers. Our Matt Cain is Jason Hammel, who ranks 26th in the majors, with a .233 batting average against. So, sure, we've probably been a little lucky. Look no further than Travis Wood somehow turning into Clayton Kershaw whenever the bases are loaded, while being Travis Wood the rest of the time. But, that's only happened like twice this year. The larger reason why we don't give up more hits with RISP is because when we have runners in scoring position, Arrieta, Hendricks, Lester, Lackey, Rondon, Strop, or Chapman are most likely on the mound.

We're popping bottles tonight!

Georgie!

A couple of things about the Cubs' BABIP. As others have said there was not nearly enough written about the Cubs' pitching influencing this. You can't just chalk it up to, "Well, some of it is defense and the rest is luck." We need to go deeper. As others have pointed out, the Cubs pitching staff is pretty great at getting weak contact. They lead the league in soft-hit%. And, this is also important -- and I've talked about it in my articles about Cy Hendricks and in my article about the Cubs and weak contact earlier this year. The Cubs are able to get weak contact on both ground balls and fly balls. The Cubs are a ground ball team, ranking 5th in GB%. That's very good. But ground ball teams usually struggle with balls hit in the air. Balls hit in the air against ground ball pitchers are hit on a lower line, and don't hang in the air as long, giving outfielders less time to get under the ball. Of teams with at least a 46% GB%, here are their ranks in vertical launch angle on all non-ground balls: https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/statcast_search?hfPT=&hfZ=&hfGT=R%7C&hfPR=&hfAB=&stadium=&hfBBT=1%7C2%7C3%7C&hfBBL=&hfC=&season=2016&player_type=pitcher&hfOuts=&pitcher_throws=&batter_stands=&start_speed_gt=&start_speed_lt=&perceived_speed_gt=&perceived_speed_lt=&spin_rate_gt=&spin_rate_lt=&exit_velocity_gt=&exit_velocity_lt=&launch_angle_gt=&launch_angle_lt=&distance_gt=&distance_lt=&batted_ball_angle_gt=&batted_ball_angle_lt=&game_date_gt=&game_date_lt=&team=&position=&hfRO=&home_road=&hfInn=&min_pitches=0&min_results=0&group_by=team&sort_col=launch_angle&player_event_sort=start_speed&sort_order=desc&min_abs=0&xba_gt=&xba_lt=&px1=&px2=&pz1=&pz2=&ss_gt=&ss_lt=#results The Cubs have some innate ability to get weak contact on fly balls, despite being a ground-ball team. This is incredibly unusual. And this is absolutely going to help them suppress BABIP. I think BigSlick brings up a couple interesting points, too. I don't know how you would prove this or even if it's actually a thing. But it makes some sense. The Cubs' pitchers give their elite defenders better opportunities to make plays. If there are rockets being hit all over the field, your defenders are going to struggle to make plays on them. Sure, if you have good defenders, they are going to make more plays than others will. But, it's essentially taking a probable (or expected) .500 average and turning it into something like a .450 average. But .450 is still bad. I've written about this phenomenon in regards to Addison Russell a few times on here. For instance, look at all balls hit at least 100 mph and at a vertical launch angle between 0°- 9° and a horizontal launch angle between -25°- 0°. (These are the hard, low liners I've written a lot about -- hit into what you would consider the shortstop's "zone."): https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/statcast_search?hfPT=&hfZ=&hfGT=R%7C&hfPR=&hfAB=&stadium=&hfBBT=&hfBBL=&hfC=&season=2016&player_type=pitcher&hfOuts=&pitcher_throws=&batter_stands=&start_speed_gt=&start_speed_lt=&perceived_speed_gt=&perceived_speed_lt=&spin_rate_gt=&spin_rate_lt=&exit_velocity_gt=100&exit_velocity_lt=&launch_angle_gt=0&launch_angle_lt=9&distance_gt=70&distance_lt=&batted_ball_angle_gt=-25&batted_ball_angle_lt=0&game_date_gt=&game_date_lt=&team=&position=&hfRO=&home_road=&hfInn=&min_pitches=0&min_results=0&group_by=team&sort_col=babip&sort_order=asc&min_abs=0&xba_gt=&xba_lt=&px1=&px2=&pz1=&pz2=#results The Cubs' BABIP on these balls is .389. The next lowest is .511. So, yeah, Addi/Javy have been way better than other shortstops at turning these balls into outs. They are the types of balls that are likely to go for hits, regardless of your defense. And I think Addi's defensive metrics are being held back a little, because he hasn't had the opportunity to make as many plays on these balls. And you get more credit for making tough plays. At the same time, you don't get it held against you very much for not making these plays, because you shouldn't be expected to make those plays. Take Zack Cozart, who is a fine defensive player, ranking in the top ten in DRS and UZR, with 9 runs saved. The Reds have turned these types of batted balls into outs 23 times. The Cubs have turned them into outs 22 times. There's a problem, though. The Reds have given up 55 of these batted balls, to the Cubs' 36. The Reds rank in the top ten in terms of BABIP on these balls. They've done a good job against them defensively. But, they certainly aren't better than the Cubs against these balls. And, as much as I would like to see Addi's defensive numbers go up, I do not want more of these types of balls hit towards him. These batted balls are bad. They do bad things. Seeing more of them would be a bad thing, even if Addi is amazing at stopping them. That's where you start drifting into a weird, uncharted territory. The Cubs are amazing defenders, capable of turning dangerously-hit balls into outs like no other team. Except, they also give up fewer dangerously-hit balls than every other team. And, that's fine. It's easier on our elite defenders because of our elite pitchers. They don't make as many highlight reel plays as they would with worse pitchers in front of them, but we don't want them to do so. We are fine with how it is. Elite contact management and elite defense working together, in tandem. When you are good at every facet of the game, you can't be measured like other teams. You are different. There are a lot of things going on that don't go on with other teams. That's why you are historically great. I also think there might be something to this, from BigSlick: The Cardinals were very good at a lot of these things last year, too. But they started out the year on an historic pace and then fell back to the pack some as they regressed as the year went on. The Cubs have been this good, nearly exactly this good, all year. He talks in the article about how he said the Cubs' BABIP would go up, back when it was .250 earlier in the year. And it did... all the way to .251. I'm inclined to believe there might be something to this line of thought from BigSlick. It's impossible to prove. But I think there is something to the fact that the Cubs have just been historically great at it all year. With the Cardinals, you could break their season up into sections and see that, well, they were very good at it for most of the year, but this one little section here at the start looks like an outlier. The Cubs have no outlier. They aren't coasting off of some incredibly fluky and lucky early- or late-season run. They've just been amazing at it... all the time.

This is from earlier this week and I know it was posted elsewhere on here, but I really enjoyed it. http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/the-elite-skill-you-wont-find-on-javy-baezs-scouting-report/ The funny part to me was when he was talking about how there are a lot of minor things that we don't think about and aren't quantifiable, and someone is better than everyone else at each of these things. You know, I've seen Javy do this before, and I wouldn't be surprised if he is better than everyone else at it, too. http://m.mlb.com/video/topic/0/v767215883/lad-chc-baez-shows-off-some-nifty-defense-in-6th He also showed a clip of Baez avoiding a tag in this article and talked briefly about it. He then talked about these "80-grade minor skills" a lot in his chat the next day. He was under the impression that Lindor was the king of the swim move on a slide to avoid a tag. http://37.media.tumblr.com/71b766899c09cdac9f24721775327300/tumblr_n9ij0ekQmc1setsv8o1_400.gif http://m.mlb.com/video/topic/63817564/v630136483/milchc-baez-swipes-second-after-call-overturned http://m.mlb.com/video/topic/63817564/v832285683/pitchc-baez-steals-second-with-slick-slide Barehanding a slow roller down the third-base line? Find someone better than Javy, I dare you. Basically, what I'm saying is that Javy is better than everyone at all of these things. If it is a random, minor baseball skill that requires athleticism, then Javier Baez is better than you at it.

Good stuff. All three of those teams at the lower levels had really great seasons.

Here comes a couple weeks of games that don't matter. Luckily #wearegood, so we are fun to watch even if the games don't matter. Before fast forwarding to the playoffs, let's see God-mode Arrieta re-emerge and we should be good to go.

Stop whistling!

I'm still bummed that we aren't clinching today. They deserve to see us celebrate on that field.

lol last year's Cy Young winner is legitimately our third best pitcher.

That's because you suck and you have the greatest defense ever playing behind you, bailing you out on balls in play.

Not bad, Hammel.

This is one of those games where we beat them because we are 17 games ahead of them and much better than them. Chill out.

We're not a good matchup for Reyes.

Kick their asses.

Oh Joe West is going to be the star tonight.

horsefeathers you!

lol

You're totally right, though, Mr. Leitch, we absolutely don't want to face this team in the playoffs.

Kyle Hendricks no-hitting the Cards would be delicious.

Oh my.

Hahaha... Javy is having none of the BFIB.