squally1313

Mark Grace with the Cubs: 8234 PAs, 44.2 fWAR Ian Happ and Nico Hoerner combined with the Cubs: 8052 PAs, 43.7 fWAR

The Padres starter has made one start in the majors this year, which he apparently earned by putting up a 7.92 ERA in 14 starts in AAA. He made a bunch of largely mediocre starts for the Athletics before then, but looks like we never ran into him. We are second in baseball in wRC against LHP, though this guy doesn't have splits. The Padres are very bad against LHPs (27th in baseball), so in theory this should be good for us. Win again, preferably comfortably enough that Assad can just wrap up whatever Boyd can't do.

Fair enough. I did last 30 days, which are slightly different results than the ones you're showing, but worth pointing out that the rest of the offense still put up roughly 3 wins when you factor in everything, which would be like 23rd in baseball, and presumably a good bit higher if you took out everyone else's best player. In that same stretch, the entire Cubs pitching staff has a -0.3 fWAR, worst in baseball.

There's definitely truth to that, but man was it frustrating that all the pessimism seemed the come in the form of like 'Has Ian Happ ever had an RBI in a Cubs uniform' or 'Nico is 17 for his last 71, which is a totally normal sample size'. The hitters are good, the pitching is bad.

It's June 30. Despite many people confidently stating that we'd be out of the playoff race by the end of the month, here's where we currently sit. 47-38, which is an 89.5 win pace FG has us with a 70.2% chance to make the playoffs, a 11.8% chance to win the division, and a 5.7% chance to get a bye. Mentioning that last piece because Jed is on record, very frustratingly, as saying whether the team is competing for the bye is somewhat of a bellwether for their trade deadline decision making. I disagree. The Cubs offense, in overall metrics, is the second best in baseball. We are 4th in wOBA/wRC, 9th in xwOBA, 6th in runs scored. 8th best baserunning team, pretty comfortably the best defensive team in baseball. To the extent this matters, we are now 15th in wRC (102) with RISP, and 4th in wRC (119) in what FG defines as high leverage PAs. PCA is the best offensive player in baseball and trails only Ohtani for total value. Overall C, 1B, 2B, SS, 3B production has been between 12th and 13th, RF is 6th, LF is 8th, CF is comfortably 1st, as is total outfield production. DH is 20th. (feel free to stop now) Cubs pitching is 28th in baseball in fWAR. 17th in ERA, 24th in xERA, 25th in FIP, 17th in xFIP. We have the 24th highest K rate in baseball, the 10th lowest BB rate, the worst HR/9 rate, and the second lowest BABIP against. The starting pitching is 25th in baseball, the bullpen is 26th. If you want to squint and see a bright side here, we're basically at the point where we're rolling out largely replacement level pitchers in every role (which is slightly unfair to Shota and hopefully to Boyd, but is generous to at least half of the bullpen), so no matter how many more injuries they throw at us, it can't get much worse. Boyd goes tonight, Wiggins is on the mend, you hope we see at least someone from the Brown/Cabrera/Steele/Wiggins/Palencia group. Even if you do, this is a bad, severely beat up pitching staff. And no, I will not get excited for Aaron Bummer and Liam Hendriks. In the latest NSBB prospect rankings, 10 of the top 11 prospects were hitters. 5 spots in the lineup are locked in through at least 2029, and that's before considering Matt Shaw and Moises Ballesteros. The path forward, to me, seems obvious. This is a playoff team, make them as good of a playoff team as you can, which means pitching and more pitching.

Guys taking their walks even during massive struggles seems like a team wide thing. Need to think on it more, but their team walk rate is the best of any team this decade. Almost feel like there’s some very purposeful direction with the new ABS system and the zone essentially changing/shrinking

Back to an 89 win pace with a pitching staff that’s roughly 75% AAA pitchers. give these hitters a chance Jed

Man

Yeah generally agreed. I was thinking maybe with his K rate he’s such a cheat code in extra innings. But too clever by half. the ball continues to find Bregman

Pete is so horsefeathers impressive. The ball is clearly just going to keep finding Bregman until something breaks.

I’m saying it was a bad decision by the coaching staff to call the bunt

He’s a catcher, our bullpen is made of Swiss cheese, it’s the 6th inning, and the wind is blowing straight out on a 95 degree night.

Bunting is stupid. Put a ball in the air.

The cubs are second in baseball offensively over the last 14 days, and have been league average for the last 7, the expectations for constant elite production are so, so stupid

Griffin Canning supposedly for the Padres, per FG. He sucks. Shota also isn't very good. Hit more home runs, win the game.

I'm sure I'm jinxing this, but there are some incredible second round matchups coming if things break the way they're 'supposed to'. Germany v France on 4th of July, Portugal v Spain, Mexico v England in Mexico City are all nuts.

This just can’t sustain itself

Hit by pitches should be live balls

Jacob Webb is maybe a dude and it’s unfortunate we’re having to shred his arm

We’ve run out of pitchers to get hurt, makes sense.

I don’t have any idea how to build a bullpen and I don’t think the cubs do either but a lot of this mysterious brewers magic can just be explained by Devin Williams/josh hader/uribe/megill/ashby

This pitching situation is untenable. also my four year old, who is obsessed with PCA saw Vaughn come up and thought it was PCA, then said it looked a lot like him, and he’s not super wrong and I hate it.

Yeah that tracks

Caleb thielbar is actively bad at pitching and the fact that we’re supposed to feel some level of comfort he’s in because he’s a familiar name and used to be good is very depressing

Pretty bad from Ramirez there. But just win it from here