Jason Ross

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.

Shaw has a 110 wRC+ vs RHP since he fixed his mechanics. We should not be using full season data for him. He's hit RHP better, he is a significantly better fielder (one of the best in DRS at the position) and offers base running valuing. This isn't the night for Castro, recency bias is about the only thing going for Castro right now. I know Shaw hasn't looked great, but it's 6 games. He was hitting quite well the last week of the season. Starting Shaw is probably the best choice despite the recency bias.

He's been bad. But he probably should remain in the lineup. Tonight looks like a close game. I like Willi Castro in certain circumstances, but tonight is a night the Cubs will probably need to create their own variance to win. His glove is the best skill either of the two have, his base running might be the second. Castro, even if we think he might be a better option offensively, considering how good Peralta is, probably isn't enough to offset the other two.

Image courtesy of © Michael McLoone-Imagn Images Freddy Peralta's long shadow lingers over the remaining two games of the NLDS. Confirmed to start Game 4 in Wrigley, he will need to be vanquished by the Chicago Cubs to advance to the National League Championship Series (or, at least, get to Game 5 in this series). He is the unquestioned best pitcher the Brewers can toss the Cubs' way, sporting a sparkling 2.70 ERA on the season. It may feel like Cubs' offense will be unable to get to "Fastball Freddy", but recent history can give us a glimpse into how the Cubs' can solve the Brewers' staff ace. Let's rewind time just a bit. It's July 30; the Cubs are visiting Milwaukee as the month closes out. July has not been a fun month—the Brewers have quickly caught the Cubs and the teams are battling for NL Central supremacy. On the mound is our antagonist, Freddy Peralta, entering the game with a 2.81 ERA, meaning runs will seemingly be difficult to find. A whole 85 pitches later, and in just a four-inning outing, the Brewer's best pitcher finished the day having given up five earned runs and striking out just three. It's within this game plan that we can see a path to success for the Cubs tonight. Strangely enough, the game on July 30 started much like Game 1 of the of the NLDS did: a leadoff Michael Busch home run. On the second pitch of the game, the Cubs' left-handed first baseman pounded a middle-middle fastball 380 feet, leaping off of the bat at nearly 110mph. The two have a bit of strange history against each other, as including Busch's leadoff home run in the playoffs, Peralta has been tagged by the Cubs' slugger for three home runs in 25 trips to the plate... and those three moonshots represent Busch's only hits in those opportunities. Baseball is a cruel mistress. In that July 30 game, left-handed hitters would find a lot of success, as both Kyle Tucker and Pete Crow-Armstrong would reach in the first, but the home run would be their only early tally after Seiya Suzuki, Carson Kelly and Nico Hoerner were unable to help tack on more. Issues against the Cubs' lefties would crop back up in the top of the third. Despite getting Busch to fly out, Tucker would single, and after a Seiya Suzuki walk in which Peralta would come nowhere near the strike zone, Crow-Armstrong would stroll to the plate. It's interesting to see how the Brewers' approached the center fielder in this instance, as we know that the youngster is prone to high-fastballs and low breaking balls. Peralta didn't really have the best feel for his stuff this day, as he spiked a curveball, but went mostly fastball-changeup to Crow-Armstrong His mistake was on a two-strike count, leaving his changeup over the plate enough for it to be smashed for a double, which gave the Cubs their second run on the day. The biggest at-bat of the game, however, was to another left-handed hitter, this time Moises Ballesteros. The Cubs' rookie was in a very difficult situation: on the road, bases loaded. two outs and facing an elite starting pitcher. At this point, Ballesteros hadn't really settled in at the MLB level yet. Fastball Freddy would once again have a similar approach: fastball-changeup, throwing three of the latter in this at-bat. Once again, in a two-strike count, the Brewers' starter would let his changeup get too much of the plate (though, to be fair, this wasn't a bad pitch, and Ballesteros deserves credit for getting it) and Big Mo deposited the pitch into left field, clearing the bases and giving the Cubs five runs on the day. We can see the pitch distribution from Freddy Peralta on the day was generally to keep the ball down and away; both the changeups to Pete Crow-Armstrong and Moises Ballesteros were here. And the Cubs, to their credit, went and got these pitches. It wasn't that they're terrible or horribly located, but they are hittable. Peralta learned from this outing when we saw him last in Game 1. Our own Matt Trueblood wrote an article on Brewer Fanatic about how Peralta changed his approach throughout Game 1 and is worth a read, but his overall profile has changed as well. Yes, Busch caught another middle-middle fastball, but Peralta changed how he approached Cubs hitters in the contest. First off, the changeup was not spotted on that outside third; instead, he used it around the knees over the middle of the plate. This played well off his fastball, which he used less up-and-in and instead more out and over the plate. This makes sense—the observed movement of these pitches are opposite of each other. In contrast, in that July start, the fastball and the changeup were observably different, because the fastball (red dots in the chart below) was coming up and in and the changeup (green dots) was fading away, creating an easier distinction. Peralta simply used his stuff better in October. I would expect a similar plan of attack from Peralta in Game 4, even at Wrigley. It's going to make life more difficult on the Cubs. We can see this represented in how Peralta attacked lefties prior to August 1, and how he's attacked them since. Before, everything was away, but now, everything is north-and-south. This has lowered his xFIP against LHH considerably, from a 4.70 xFIP down to a 3.58 xFIP. It is unlikely, then, that the same strategy the Cubs hitters deployed in July will work again. They'll need to adapt. So, what's the plan here? Have a keen eye, lefties. You have an idea of what the plan is going to be against you now: fastballs up and changeups down, though it's not his only plan (his plan of attack changed as the game went on). His profile is going to be difficult to solve, as his pitches play well off of each other. They're his two best pitches per Statcast Run Value, and he's learned to really use them to full effect. He throws them a lot, over 70% of the time. There is one weakness Peralta still displays against left-handed hitters: he walks them. Even with the change, he walks lefties 12% of the time (compared to his season walk rate of 9%). So, be patient, and don't chase; the Cubs gave him too much help last time. As Matt outlined, the Cubs did sit on this changeup early in the game, so they were prepared. I would look for it again if he starts showing this pattern. If the wind is blowing in at Wrigley, it's going to make life tougher. Running into a leadoff home run will be much, much harder, for example. But it also creates an opportunity for misses—if Peralta misses his changeup and he reverts to finding a separation in those pitches, lefties can get to him. Make him throw you strikes, and pay attention. It's likely going to be be an environment where very few runs are scored, which has been the case in this series outside of the first inning. Fans tend to get frustrated when offenses struggle, but pitchers deserve love and credit when they succeed. Nothing is going to be easy off of one of the most undervalued pitchers in baseball. But, he has a pattern, and the Cubs will hopefully use it to their advantage. If the Cubs win, it's likely because they figured out the pattern, and if they fail to score, it's probably because Peralta's fastball-changeup combo is dancing like a perfect pair. How are you feeling about the Cubs' chances against Peralta? Do you think they can survive for a chance at a sudden death Game 5? View full article

To be fair to the Cubs just a little bit (not disagreeing with your assumption at all, I wish they would have poured it on last night too), the Brewers faced Aaron Civale, Colin Rea, and Ben Brown most of games 1-2 and didn't do jack against them either. They were way up in some of those innings and the Cubs never made much of a move to get back into it, so you could argue that they weren't geared up or whatever, but it does ring true. I think I'm just trying to remain optimistic and find some light. Regardless,. the Cubs are likely going to have to hit against good pitching tonight. It's incredibly unlikely they knock out Freddy early, or really, get up big at any point. Whether they're ahead or behind, we can almost guarantee Uribe, Megill, and a few others will get some looks. So they'll have to find it in them offensively tonight.

I don't want to completely ruin the article I just did on it, but Peralta underwent a pretty significant transformation in how he handled pitching to LHH in between those two weeks. Busch hit a HR, PCA an RBI double and Moises Ballesteros a bases loaded double in that game. He got much smarter on how he went about it. Cubs seemed to handle the changes a bit better game 1 (I know it doesn't super feel like they did but they did) and forced him off it a bit. They also chased too much. But I think the LHH can find some success still.

There's a pathway forward on Peralta. Just finished a deep dive on him. Cubs knocked him around in July but he switched how he pitches, specifically to LHH. He's much better against them now. But I also think there's a pattern the Cubs can exploit and they were close to using it to their advantage game one. He's really good but not impossibly good.

Peralta for the Brewers.

I've been livid about this all morning. I understand that it's for Phillies fans, but some of us Cub fans also live in EST and are old and like to sleep, damnit.

My biggest hope with Mathis is that a lot of the mediocre results in Myrtle Beach were due more to his health than his ability. The batted ball data in college was so damn good that him not cruising through Myrtle felt weird. Then he missed most of the year. Him crushing in the AFL would make me feel better about that data being more noise and injury related.

Absolutely not. They cannot win this series without him. I think he goes tomorrow. Maybe you gambit and roll an opener but I think it's Boyd in G4. You need 4 innings from him.

We're about to go live! Let's celebrate a W. That one was intense as hell. Playoff baseball is simultaneously not fun and anxiety ridden and very, very, very fun.

NAILS

Brad Keller on to preserve the season in the NLDS, the exact way we drew it up in March.