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Jason Ross
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Everything posted by Jason Ross
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Projections are formula based and each projection weighs things different. Especially with half a month of data only, you'll get wide and varying results.
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Being that he sat yesterday too against a RHP, and how he talked about his swing, I think this might have been a "get yourself right" two-days for him scheduled. His swing speed has been really low, and I wonder if he's just got a bit of a mechanical thing they wanted to work on together and not have him out there.
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No. You're misusing playoff odds to create false panic. As of today, the playoff odds are essentially, meaningless. They factor such things as "strength of schedule". Because everyone's record is essentially the same right now, it messes with the data. From Fangraphs own explanation of playoff odds " Early in the season, teams share so many opponents that SOS divergences are generally small." This is just one aspect that goes into playoff odds. There are also many projections. FG's projections have the Cubs at 40% or so. But if you switch to their WAR based model it jumps to 56%. Another reason that zeroing in on a single on and creating this idea that there will be tons of "pressure on Counsel and the team" on April 12th is silly. We can talk playoff odds much later in the year when things have settled and we're not in "one bad series throws a whole wrench in the situation". One good series swings everything in the opposite direction. They'll be much more interesting when we have a significant sample size. Until then, it's really not worth it to even look.
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You ignored the most important part: you're only focusing on it because it's the start. It's an arbitrary end point. Baseball fans live in such a bubble (more so than other sports because it doesn't allow us to breathe with how many games they throw at us) that we ignore we aren't special, we aren't snowflakes. Every team sucks for 2-3 weeks every year at bare minimum. It doesn't matter if it's in May or the first week of April, it all balances out. The Dodgers were a very good team last year who won 1 of 6 games against the ****** Angels. Good teams lose to bad teams all the time, and good teams have bad runs all the time. The first time the Dodgers won a W.S under Friedman they famously had a 10-game-win streak and a 10-game losing streak n the same year! In 2024, the Houston Astros started the year 4-11 (April 12th). They finished with 88 wins, won the AL West by 5 games. There's another example. And one that fits your oh-so-narrow category of "the start of April". That team had Alex Bregman on it, you know, the guy on this very Cub team. I'm sure he was just fine. But hey, you go creating false panic for a 162-game season on April 12th, which represents under 10% of the entire season. It's going to be a really long year if this is how you're going to handle it.
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Everytime I see Scott Kingery on screen it takes me a few moments to remember who the hell that nondescript human is.
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That's why we signed Bregman. For his gamebreaking speed.
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Sorry. Michael. I left you for dead too quick.
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Teams have these stretches, my guy. From May 4th to May 19th the Dodgers went 6-9 last year. They were swept by the Angels and lost a series to the Arizona Diamondbacks. Here is a Dodger's fan' reddit post from that time period: Link here. You're only focusing on this stretch because we focus on the beginning more than we do other arbitrarily. It'll be fine. There's no pressure.
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If I were Brandon Lowe I'd be quite mad right now.
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It's April 12th. There's no pressure. I know we all want them to win every game, but these players and coaches have been here before. They know it's April. Even if they lose, it's just noise. This is a team that was largely in the playoffs last year together. They aren't sweating games in April like fans are.
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You know, scoring runs is more fun than not scoring runs.
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I lied. I just wanted to sound cool to fit in. I'm still watching. Home runs are fun.
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Mowing the lawn took a bit longer than expected. Turned the game on to check the score. Turned the game right off. That's enough baseball for me today.
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Harvey to the IL. Cubs recall...uh...Charlie Barnes. As someone who knows a pretty fair deal about the Cubs, I had no idea who the horsefeathers Charles Barnes was,
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Walking Happ to get to Seiya "I'm not a fan of swinging early in the count" feels like an unforced error with a guy who can't throw strikes.
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Baez has made a career out of that.
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Hahaha. Pitchers suck at throwing to 1b.
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Caleb. Buddy. No.
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Damnit. I sincerely wouldn't have swung. That guy couldn't throw 3 strikes in 7 pitches at that stage.
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Breggy! Oh yeah.
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Bat speed is one of the fastest statistics to stabilize. For context, "stabilize" means to do exactly what you're saying: it takes out randomness or a small number of events causing things to be thrown off. For things like strikeout rate, that is over 125 plate appearances! Some take a long time. Bat speed stabilizes in under 10 swings. That's why people talk about it; because the sample is stable very quickly. https://jrod20033.substack.com/p/understanding-bat-speed-how-early
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Cubs (Rea) vs Rays (Boyle): 4/8/26, 5:40pm
Jason Ross replied to Brock Beauchamp's topic in Fred Hornkohl Game Thread Forum
We have a bad habit of grouping things and ignoring others when it comes to baseball. Particularly, I think we're predisposed to negative beliefs about our players or our team. For example "we are so inconsistent", "we can't hit with runners on and less than two outs" or about a player being "hot and cold". It creates a situation where it acts like every other team or player isn't. Pete had some mechanical inconsistencies last year at the end of the year that caused him to get out front of the ball too much. That's a normal happening. Freddie Freeman had a long stretch where he had a 60 wRC+ last year between great play. He's nevermore than hot stretches. But he won't be a 70 wRC+ hitter outside of cold ones. Pete Crow-Armstrong was a 115 wRC+ hitter last year. His wOBA was .321 and his xwOBA was a .323. I think that's a fair guess as to where he finishes this year. When's that going to happen? As with anything, it's more likely a player becomes who they should be every day than what they aren't. So, I think sooner rather than later he'll start being the Pete we know better. Players have rough starts to the season. We're barely into the season. He will be fine. -
Cubs (Rea) vs Rays (Boyle): 4/8/26, 5:40pm
Jason Ross replied to Brock Beauchamp's topic in Fred Hornkohl Game Thread Forum
Yeah that's a general feel. One thing that came across my feed this morning is that since the implementation of ABS walk rate is up in Triple-A and MLB by around a percent. So I'll say that I still expect normal, swing heavy Nico come around and his walk rate to be a single digit. But if you told me he walked like 7.5% or 8% vs 6% at the year end? Id buy it. -
Cubs (Rea) vs Rays (Boyle): 4/8/26, 5:40pm
Jason Ross replied to Brock Beauchamp's topic in Fred Hornkohl Game Thread Forum
In an article from 2010 (so, dated, but I'd assume the information still rings true) walk rate stabilizes as a statistic around 120 PAs. Which for a data point is pretty large; many will stabilize in half that or less. https://share.google/DV55TDeixbH5Lszii
