Jason Ross

Good to see Ashby coming out. The more we get to the pen the more I'm not sure what they do Saturday. Maybe they just start Miz. But I'm strangely a little okay with that considering how wild he can get in the first inning, especially.

In their defense, teams who out homer the other team in the playoffs are way up on the W-L record this playoffs. Granted, home runs usually beget runs scoring and runs begets wins so it's a self fulfilling prophecy...but if the Cubs can keep hitting home runs, there's at least a pathway to success with it.

Willi Castro would have had 7.

HUGE JOB. Lets go. 12 outs left.

Chourio is the 5th best hitter against LHP in baseball. You simply cannot let him see Boyd.

Yeah. I'd go with Boyd until Yelich. But he doesn't see Chourio or Contreras a third time unless the Cubs can stretch this a run or two

Hoss stuff from Boyd tonight.

Boyd is giving an absolute hoss performance tonight.

Damn. Off the bat I thought that was good

For Pete, there's actually a lot of grass for him - third baseman generally play well off the line for him because he's so pull heavy. Ssimilarly velo hits to that area, it's actually a pretty high xBA in general. When you add in his sprint speed, and his propensity to strikeout to begin with, I think there's enough data to suggest when he's down that bad, bunting isn't a terrible idea.

I think the Cubs are going to hope for a similar route as game three: Boyd gets 12 and then it's your best BP arms for the final 15 in some combo of matchups.

Just to brag, but I kind of nailed the scouting report on Freddy today again. (I'll get one wrong soon, but I'm on a heater)

IAN horsefeathers HAPP

Freddy walks the lefties.

Walk aside, Boyd looked sharp.

Gives people far too much time to let the intrusive thoughts out.

To be clear; I'm 100% right when it comes to who has the advantage on paper. The numbers are just the numbers. I don't mean that cocky, I'm actually downplaying my knowledge here. Just data. What we hope that the advantage on the data sheet actually plays out. The Cubs probably have a slightly better die-roll on hitting home runs, but it's just a roll of the dice.

It's still in the Cubs favor. Yelich is LHH as is Turang and these are two of the top-3 HR hitters for the Brewers. Carson Kelly, who hit 17 home runs on the year, the third highest number of any Cub hitter who hits only RHH (Ian Happ also can but with Peralta we can ding him some) and sixth on the entire team would have been the Brewers fourth highest on the team and tied for 2nd for RHH.

"I'm not going to provide any evidence to support my claim" is the first thing someone says when they have no evidence and are backed into a corner. Calling someone a name is the second. My 13 year old students under the concept of claim-evidence-reasoning. You do too. So I will ask a third time, provide evidence for your claims. While everyone is afforded the right to have an opinion, not all opinions are equal.

So you get to create terms and statistics but Craig Counsell has to come on to North Side Baseball to provide evidence to refute them? That is nonsensical. So let's go back to my original questions: 1. How many moves does a replacement level manager have 'pay off'? 2. How many moves has Craig Counsell 'paid off'? We don't just get to make things up. Provide data to support your claims. This is base level argumentative writing.

He represents a change. And I very much think large sections of fan bases view change as action. Thus, inserting Willi Castro is "Craig Counsell looking to kick start the offense" and not "Craig Counsell is playing the statistically worse roll of the dice". It's also easy to want a different outcome than the one given; it represents a free argument. Because we won't know what Castro would have done, it creates a scenario in people's heads of the best case scenario as opposed to the likely outcome that Castro does worse than Shaw. I don't meant that to sound holier than thou, it's just an emotional response to a question demanding an answer that is not emotional and fans, in general, are emotional beings.

Well, you must be able to provide data to suggest your claim, my friend! So please do. 1. How many moves pay off for a replacement level manager? 2. How many moves have paid off for Craig Counsell? What are we defining as "calculated risks" to begin with? Frankly, between Shaw and Castro, either would be a "risk". In fact, any lineup decision at all is a risk. One of my least favorite discussions every year is the "I hate my manager" nonsense. I have never met a single fan base who liked their coach on the overall. Eagles fans hate Nick Sirianni. Cubs fans hated David Ross and now hate Craig Counsell. Any time a team signs a coach from a former organization, all you hear about from that organization is fans claiming they sucked. And I highly suspect it's because they never get credit for anything they do "correct" - most of what they do "correct" is accredited to players. What fans remember are things they don't like "I think Javier Assad should have started Game 1" for example is an easy thing to blame Counsell for because we don't know what Assad would have done and we know Boyd pitched bad. Or times when managers make the right call and it doesn't go according to plan; nothing is fool proof. It's probably one of the most nonsensical arguments fans have. It's not to say there aren't bad coaches/managers that exist, but Counsell is a good manager most of the time. David Ross was a good manager most of the time.

And we have no idea how Willi Castro would have looked in the same plate appearances, so what someone looks like is really just an anedcote. He's been a worse hitter overall since Shaw reworked his swing. Again, I ask you to provide data to suggest Willi Castro would be a better option tonight? If you don't have data than you are using emotion to make a decision. Listen, you're a fan, I'm not going to eat your lunch for that - I'm a fan too, I get it. But we pay Craig Counsell to make baseball decisions based upon more than feelings for this exact reason and why they don't hire fans to do the job. So unless you have a legitimate reason over what has so far boiled down to vibes and feels, than Matt Shaw is the better roll of the dice. It doesn't mean it's going to work out, but all you can do is pick the best dice to roll, everything else is unknown.

Freddy Peralta surrendered 21 home runs this year. He surrendered 26 the prior two years. 10.8% of fly balls hit off of Peralta were home runs. He threw 176 and 2/3rds innings. Matthew Boyd surrendered 19 home runs on the year. I'd provide data from the previous years, but he was hurt and didn't pitch a fully amount of innings, so it's not really relevant. 8.4% of fly balls hit off of Boyd were home runs. Rate stats are more useful, so I'll also provide last years HR/FB%, which was 8%. He threw 179 and 2/3rds innings. Even over his second half, Boyd surrendered 10% of his fly balls as home runs. Before we point to September, Peralta surrendered over 19% of his fly balls as home run in September. Matthew Boyd was 12%. So to recap: Freddy Peralta gave up more home runs, more of his fly balls left for home runs, and he threw more innings. Boyd even has been recently at keeping the ball in the park, when he was having his worst month Could you please explain how Peralta has the upper hand in keeping the ball in the park?

Much like a previous coin flip does not inform the next, what Shaw has done over the last 5 games doesn't necessarily inform what will occur tonight. Shaw has been the better hitter against RHP since he became a pull heavy hitter. Matt Shaw's highest wOBA is against the changeup, a pitch Freddy Peralta features heavily and has been around .100 points of wOBA better than Castro against. While Castro has the advantage on fastballs, it's around a .15 point split, meaning, again, against the pitches Peralta will throw over 70% of the time, Shaw has the advantage. He's a significantly better defender, and in a game in which runs are likely going to be at a premium for the Cubs offense, stopping the Brewers from scoring is going to be equally as important, and is a better base runner. I just wrote an article calling for Castro to start against Priester because he's significantly worse than LHH, especially when Imanaga was on the mound, someone who throws almost exclusively flyballs. Boyd, while not a GB% merchant, is far more likely to see balls hit on the ground, especially when the wind is going to stop things from flying out. You are mostly arguing a change for a changes sake. Would you like to provide data to suggest Willi Castro is a better option tonight other than "Over his last 20 PA's, Matt Shaw hasn't been super good?" which is not a statistically significant data set to begin with? I get it, Shaw hasn't looked good, but the data outside of that suggests Shaw is the better dice roll. Sitting him is more emotional than logical.