squally1313

Max Mayer has been pretty good, strong K and BB rates, but when people connect, they hit it hard. Cade really hasn't been (though he's one to improve rapidly), and despite the clear difference in line up strength this is one of those games I wouldn't be too upset about. Only problem is that we already had that game this series, and so I'd strongly prefer a win.

I'm usually one to preach patience, but I just feel like big picture decisions are going to need to be made soon. You've got two top five outfielders in baseball, one with years of team control and one who the entire fanbase wants to give all the money to, and then two behind them that are also very good and signed comfortably through next year. You can't just let Caissie and Alcantara (and probably Ballesteros) sit in Iowa until 2027. If you think that the current offense in Chicago can threaten for a championship in the next few years, you've got a lot of talent in Iowa without spots (and you've got this theoretical money under the cap this year 'earmarked' for in season additions). Sitting at 29-20 with the toughest schedule YTD (still) should lead you to that conclusion. Kicking ass for the next few weeks should help even more. If you don't think this is the group for you (or all the doomsayers were right and payroll is being permanently slashed), then you realistically ride out this year (even worst case scenario I can't see them being sellers, barring a collapse) and hope you get lucky with a flawed roster, let Tucker walk, put Happ, Suzuki, and Hoerner on the market and start next year with a line up of like PCA/Moises/Busch/Shaw/Caissie/Alcantara/Long/Swanson/Amaya and whatever pitching you can buy. This is not what I would pick, to be clear, that's a 76 win, 'up and coming' punt of a team. So, in conclusion, force the front office's hand. Go be 50-35 or something at the end of June. It's right there for them.

Realize I sound like a broken record, but today is another great day to go overpay for a starter. Most of the good bullpen guys out there are already playing on good teams. The best options for significant bullpen upgrades are Ben Brown and Cade Horton throwing at max effort for 2 innings at a time every couple days. But they are (already) in the rotation. Here's how many innings the following guys have left this year to hit 120% of their total innings from last year: Boyd: 36.1 Brown: 20 Horton: 3 Taillon is fine, not worried about overworking Colin Rea but that's mostly because I'm still convinced he sucks. Shota is at least a month away. Chris Flexen sucks. The time to move Brown/Horton to the bullpen in an ideal world is now, because if they stay in the rotation into July they're not going to have anything left to even be responsibly moved to the bullpen for the stretch run. Eflin, Drew Rasmussen, Luis Severino, Kikuchi, Gore, Trevor Williams, Alcantara, Keller, Heaney, Freeland. Obviously different profiles/costs/commitments listed there but all should be looked at.

I wanted 14-7 in this stretch. 6-2 so far, challenge will pick up a little with the reds games but also have the Rockies in there. Day game tomorrow with Horton, pick up a road series win and you’ve put yourself in a real good spot.

Moises isn't a first baseman, and he has a .716 OPS against LHP in AAA.

Overall though, beyond Brown, I remain very worried about the pitching. It was basically projected as an average group going into the year and that was with Steele and Shota. Steele is gone for a while and Shota seems to already be having setbacks and also wasn't that good before he got hurt. Boyd has been solid but will eclipse his 2024 innings total in about a month at his current pace, and I'd throw Taillon/Horton/Brown all at about the same level of mid grade performance. Rea made a couple encouraging tweaks but the metrics still say he's bad. AAA is pretty barren, and even a fixed version of Wicks is more innings eater than elite performance. This is all going to have a knock on impact to the bullpen, now minus Hodge. There's no real multi inning guy there (because ideally it should be Horton or Brown). There's still enough bodies floating around between Chicago and Iowa, but short of a Bautista type move, the best way to fix this is to get a couple starters and push Horton to the pen.

Brown has 102 career innings and 2.1 fWAR, he has 85 innings as a starter giving up a .305 OBP and a .307 wOBA. His ERA as a starter is 4.35, and his FIP is 3.51. It’s easy to dream on what he could become given the flashes but he’s been fine and based on everything should continue to be more than fine as is.

Also get Eflin

Guys it’s going to be fine

This pitcher is objectively very bad, Boyd has been fantastic, so inevitably I expect this will be the one game this series we drop.

It’s like 2018 Javy on steroids

Fixed

Horton got it through some sort of scorekeepers discretion clause. The rules get funky. failed prospect Cade Horton with a quality start and no walks with the wind howling out. Why can’t all these guys just throw strikes and also get tons of whiffs and also not throw anything too hittable, is that too much to ask

*gestures at everything*

(Nobody look up what Jackson Jobe, Chase Dollander, or Chase Petty has done this year)

Nice we’re writing off our top 50 pitching prospect 6 innings into his major league career, fun.

I mean, if you’re worried about playing a terrible team that we’ve beaten 7 out of the last 8 times, more power to you, but that also generally means you worry about every game.

The cubs went 4-0 against the Sox last year, 3-1 the year before. People truly just remember the bad stuff about this team.

https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/savant-player/kyle-tucker-663656?stats=gamelogs-r-hitting-statcast&season=2025 This is as close as I've gotten to that type of granular detail, do with it what you will (and you aren't wrong on Tuesday night). When I was reading through that, I was trying to keep in mind that his average exit velocity this year is 90.6 mph (and 91.1 mph last year), and I figured anything in the single digits or negative were ground balls.

Eh….Mullins and Laureano hitting free agency after this year. They’ve got hitting prospects for days but most of them are seemingly infielders/catchers. (Also, Wiggins isn’t untouchable)

The batted ball profile in those numbers I included say otherwise though. Hard hit balls are a flat 1/3rd of his output, soft is down, medium is up. It could just be/probably is just bucketing noise. But that 20% soft hit % in April would have been by far the highest of his career. His current overall 17.6% still is, but it's actually trending in the right direction. Someone smarter/more connected than me can find like, rolling average exit velocity or specific data on GBs, but I just don't see it borne out in the actual numbers.

He's got a bunch of team control still, doesn't hit free agency until 2030. I joked last night about trading for him in a couple years (in a post Seiya and/or Happ world), but even as unserious as the Marlins are, bailing on a good player with 4 more years after control seems a little beyond the pale.

The weak contact thing seems anecdotal. Like, yes, the double was a check swing, but the double play ball was over 100 mph and had an expected BA of like .630. That stuff evens out. Ground ball rate has spiked, which explains the slug dropping 80ish points. But hitting more GBs and less FBs would typically help your BABIP, and it's down 76 points. Ultimately, it's 12 games vs 30 games, there's going to be a lot of noise, but the stats you can lean more heavily on (exit velo metrics, K/BB rates are all very healthy). Slight mechanical tweak to get the ball back up in the air and we should expect him getting back to elite instead of just very good.

The Cubs offense is not as good as it was in April. It’s better than it has been in May. These things happen.

The Cubs had a 100 wRC in May going into today.