UMFan83

I'd say the chance right now is about 20%. Reminds me of the very last time the Bulls were in a playoff series, when they won both the first 2 games in Boston before getting blown out in game 3 and not winning again. This isn't really going to be a competitive series until the Bulls actually lead in it. that's a terrible comparison. the 2-0 start and the subsequent falling off a cliff was literally because (playoff) rondo was there for 2 games and then broke his thumb. if anything, the bucks are the ones about to deal with a significant loss in middleton (and maybe portis too). Plus that Bulls team pretty much sucked outside of the 3 alphas. Absolutely no depth. Paul horsefeathering Zipser was getting crunch time minutes in those games. I think its closer to the 09 Celtics series where the Celtics were expected to walk all over the Bulls even though KG was out. But the Bulls had some great individual players and played hard causing it to ultimately be a very closely contested series. Without Middleton we went from 0 chance of winning to some chance. I think 20% sounds about right.

We certainly have the momentum and the mental edge right now. Everyone said after game 1 that now the Bucks would wake up. But not only did they not wake up, they lost at home. Now the Bulls know they can win. Not having Middleton and possibly Portis matters but they still have Giannis and the refs so it’s not gonna be easy.

A lot more mental fortitude than we’ve seen from this team this year. Let’s get the W Now in that zone where the result of this game will bring me strong emotions one way or the other

He’s taking the Lester route to success with the Cubs

Damn

Stroman only had 1 start with 5+ ER last year. He’s done it in 2 of his first 3 Cubs starts

Sooo was that a mutual opt out after 2 years?

I saw that stat...it was later corrected to 2-16, but 14 losses in a row.

Lol, I forgot Bote even existed. I came to that same realization last night. He has no place on this team. where is he right now, is he hurt or something? I vaguely remember an injury

So what are we thinking tonight, another close loss, 20 point blowout, miracle win? I have to be honest, I completely forgot the Bulls were playing tonight until about an hour ago.

Looks like Rizzo finally got the jab

Some reaction from Jed over the first 10 games of the season: https://theathletic.com/3260398/2022/04/20/good-or-bad-cubs-president-jed-hoyer-wont-overreact-at-the-start-of-a-transitional-season-at-wrigley-field/ A couple (but not all) of the comments

Another summer friendly

I've never seen a game-time move earlier on the day of the game, presumably because its massively inconvenient for fans that plan to go. But either way, they will try to get this one in by starting an hour and change earlier. Presumably it will be a muted crowd to start as everyone's 4:20 buzz will still be going strong.

https://twitter.com/johndietzdh/status/1516621160770854912?s=21&t=kJdyMHvYiD2i_pbjmLQ7xw

Why the horsefeathers not?

I thought he drew a walk and had no official AB that game. If that's not the case, I blame Brett. Correct, he was IBB'd: https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/gl.fcgi?id=suzukse01&t=b&year=2022 Yeah he was thrown 2 balls and then intentionally walked. A waste of his PA for the game. But that's still considered a game he played that he did not get a hit, thus the hit streak ends right? That's how I always interpreted it, but I could be wrong.

You mean his hit streak in games he starts right? He had a game where he PH and went 0-1

The Schwisdom show

He's seeing an average fastball velocity that's slightly above the midpoint for qualified hitters: https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=bat&lg=all&qual=y&type=4&season=2022&month=0&season1=2022&ind=0&team=0&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=0&startdate=2022-01-01&enddate=2022-12-31&sort=4,d&page=2_50 I think I found it? This was pretty tucked away but I feel like MLB ought to make a much bigger deal that this is available: https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/statcast_search?hfPT=FF%7CFT%7CFC%7CSI%7C&hfAB=&hfGT=R%7C&hfPR=&hfZ=&stadium=&hfBBL=&hfNewZones=&hfPull=&hfC=&hfSea=2022%7C&hfSit=&player_type=batter&hfOuts=&opponent=&pitcher_throws=&batter_stands=&hfSA=&game_date_gt=&game_date_lt=&hfInfield=&team=CHC&position=&hfOutfield=&hfRO=&home_road=&hfFlag=&hfBBT=&metric_1=api_p_release_speed&metric_1_gt=95&metric_1_lt=&hfInn=&min_pitches=0&min_results=0&group_by=name&sort_col=xwoba&player_event_sort=api_p_release_speed&sort_order=desc&min_pas=0&chk_stats_pa=on&chk_stats_hits=on&chk_stats_xba=on&chk_stats_xwoba=on#results Small sample, but Seiya excels here too. He might just be perfect? Also Happ is apparently crushing velo this year too, and that hasn't always been the case. Happ is also 5-11 hitting righty this year and his go ahead single last night was batting righty. Obviously an extremely small sample size, but nice to see

I wish it was easier to find how guys do against velo. The data exists, you see it on broadcasts, but it's not easy to see anywhere. But I think that's the one open question with Seiya. I don't believe he's really turned around a good fastball. He's wrecked some at like 92, and offspeed stuff from more flamethrower types, but I think he's mostly fought off real velo. Even if he doesn't do damage on a bigtime fastballs I don't think that precludes him from being very good, but it might preclude him from continuing to do insane Juan Soto things. The closest proxy(and it's not all that close) is probably the Power/Finesse stuff at BR: https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/split.fcgi?id=suzukse01&year=2022&t=b Definitely doing less damage and K'ing more(expected since the Power distinction is based on K rate), but still hitting very well and taking his walks. Yeah and this doesn't help with velocity at all but he is leading all of baseball in wFB which I believe is weighted runs above average against fastballs, and broken down into wFB/100 fastballs seen he's 4th. It's possible with the small sample size that he's faced a number of lower velocity pitchers but he's definitely crushing fastballs better than almost anyone else in baseball.

a simple heuristic for me is, "does this current iteration of the Oakland A's lineup still lead MLB in runs scored?" ok still too early to draw any conclusions whatsoever Ha - valid point. Somehow they are doing that despite a teamwide .647 OPS. In comparison, the Cubs are 2nd in baseball at .803. So yeah its probably too early to draw definitive conclusions 6% of the way through the season, but there are some trends that look very promising that are less luck based.

Do we have enough data to start to untangle how much of this solid start is luck based and how much is legit being a decent team? I saw someone post the other day that they are 2nd in BABIP this year so obviously that points towards good luck but several other metrics look more sustainable. On the pitching side, they are 11th in xFIP and have the 7th highest BABIP which I would guess means we're a bit unfortunate there. Pitching ranks: BB/9 - 22nd K/9 - 15th HR/9 - 19th BABIP - 23rd LOB% - 8th GB% - 10th highest HR/FB% - 22nd lowest fWAR - 17th xFIP - 11th

It’s legit difficult getting used to the Cubs actually coming through with RISP and 2 outs. Hope they keep it up