Bertz

Betts and Smith still out, really gotta win this one

The Cubs have talked a lot about how their Pitching Infrastructure, led by Tommy Hottovy and Craig Breslow, provides a competitive advantage on the pitching front. However the results the past two years have not been especially strong. There have been a lot of individual success stories, but because of the lack of investment prior to this year there hasn’t been a full pitching staff meant to win games as opposed to a collection of individual pitchers meant to be flipped in July. 2023 is year four since the pitching group within the front office was overhauled. There’s now been some time to develop pitchers and have them matriculate through the farm. There have also bee. some significant trade and free agent resources invested in the MLB staff. The team also, finally, seems to have at least some urgency for raising the W flag more often than not. Now that we’re roughly 10% into the season, sample sizes are starting to get closer to meaningful. Particularly on a team-wide level, samples are no longer tiny. And we’re really seeing how the Cubs are generating the results they’ve gotten to this point. It’s a nuanced answer, but if you wanted to boil it down into one word that word would be “Sliders.” The Cubs have had the best staff in baseball utilizing the slider, both in terms of process and results. In terms of results, the staff has been +15.3 in Slider Run Value via Pitch Info on Fangraphs. That’s the top mark in baseball. This is not just a volume play either, as they’re 12th in MLB in the rate of throwing sliders at 25.3%. So they’ve derived the most slider value in the sport despite a fairly average rate of usage. Maybe that’s just luck though? What about the underlying aspects of the sliders they throw? We have data on that as well. Fangraphs has two different models that measure the effectiveness of specific pitches based on the underlying aspects like spin, movement, velocity, etc. These models also have methods for attempting to measure pitch command as well. There are nuances to Stuff+ and Pitchingbot, but both have pretty sophisticated math behind them. The good news is both agree that the Cubs are #1: Pitching Bot: #9 in Stuff, #4 in Command, #1 Overall Stuff+: #3 in Stuff, #4 in Command, #1 Pitching+ So the story is clear, the Cubs as a staff have good sliders in terms of stuff, though the extent of how good is up for a bit of debate. What’s not up for debate is an elite level of slider command. And they’re doing this up and down the staff. This isn’t just one or two elite arms. Wesneski (#10), Taillon (#21), and Steele (#24) are all Top 30 amongst MLB starters this year for Pitching+ with the slider. Thompson (#14), Adbert (#46), Fulmer (#58), and Rucker (#59) are all Top 60 amongst relievers (for reference, 244 relievers have thrown a slider in a game this year). There’s potentially more reinforcements on the way. Javier Assad has a 133 Stuff+ on the slider, but the command isn’t there yet. Jeremiah Estrada had a 126 when he was up last year. Bailey Horn purportedly has one of the best sliders in the org. The list goes on and on. The sweeper has been one of the stories league-wide this season, and the Cubs are at or near the forefront in terms of implementation. It’s looking like the Org’s big talk about being one of the smartest pitching orgs in the league is starting to have some evidence backing it up.

This just reinforces how cool what the Padres are doing is. They saw the Chargers leave town and said "Don't let the door hit you in the way out, we're just gonna own this horsefeathering town."

Interesting, and I'd definitely buy it. The team's faced a lot of velo in the early going. It'll be interesting to see if that balances out when the schedule evens out a bit and they face a less impactful slate of pitchers.

In a world without Luis Arraez you'd probably consider Nico the favorite for the batting title at this point. His progression is fun. Last year he added a little juice to his bat, which combined with his amazing contact skills made him an above average hitter. This year I think we were all hoping for even more juice, and that hasn't happened. Instead, he's leveled up his plate discipline, added EVEN MORE CONTACT, and kept the strength gains from last year. He has dropped his launch angle, so he's probably not getting back to 10 dongs he hit last year, but it's still a recipe for a ton of hits. Statcast's expected batting average, which does not account for speed mind you, says he should have a .334 BA right now. So the .347 Nico's currently rocking isn't really being propped up by much luck.

I wonder if the Dodgers will get Will Smith back for this series. We saw last weekend how ordinary their lineup is without him. With the Dodgers injury woes and the way the pitching is lining up for the Padres series what looked like a really tough 7 game stretch a few weeks ago might actually be something we can go 4-3 during.

I'm not super worried about Mancini yet. His swing rates and in zone contact rate are pretty flat with prior years. He's hitting a lot more groundballs, but I don't think that means a ton over the course of 3 weeks. He's been ass, but I think it's just a deep slump rather than anything systemic. Hosmer has the similarly elevated groundball rate, but his chase rates and in zone contact rates have gone south as well. That feels more likely to be real. But even if his woes are also just a slump (very possible!), the existence of Mervis means he still ought to get the boot. The other things working against Hosmer are that Mancini offers some nominal positional versatility, and that Madrigal's rebound means we do have a contact oriented bat on the roster. Hosmer made total sense in January, but for reasons both in and out of his control just doesn't anymore.

I feel better, but not by a ton. That said I was amongst the more positive folks here from the jump so I had less to move than most. Locking in some wins is good, but I don't think much has happened that impacts the medium to long term outlook. Bellinger's contact rate improvements are the only thing that feels like it definitively means something. Steele's 3rd time through the order effectiveness passes the eye test for me too (especially since it started last year). Everything else I'm cautiously optimistic about at best.

He probably won't work deep inti the game, but Miller is really good. I'd love to win tonight and lock in that series W before we see all thia velo tomorrow

Yeah what we've seen thus far is the vastly improved BB/K numbers and some help from the shift ban. Those two things are probably enough to keep his wRC+ in the 110 range. He has to hit the ball harder to get all the way back though. But power is the streakiest aspect of a hitter's skillet so nothing says more of the juice in his bat can't also reappear as well.

I really wanted Waldichuk last summer. It looks like his Stuff+ numbers are way down on his fastball and curve YoY. That Montas trade is looking like a wash all around.

I've said this in another thread or two, but I'm in no rush to call Morel up. The team sent him down to prioritize his development, so let's leave him down and prioritize his development. Last year Morel had the worst in-zone contact rate in baseball. We don't have apples to apples comparisons with minor league data, but he's currently swinging and missing more than he did last year in MLB (18.1% Swinging Strike Rate last year, 18.8% at Iowa this year). He's hitting a ton more fly balls (and clearly hasn't lost any juice in the bat in the process) which is the other thing he needed to work on, but he's not a finished product. All in all I'd much rather him come up in June and play at a 3+ win pace rather than have him come up right now and play at a 2.5. On Wisdom, I think this is more or less just a hot streak. He's making more contact than normal, but if you go on Fangraphs and look at a rolling average of contact rate he's had periods at this level over the last two years. I'm much more moved by his glove at 3rd, which has been great. It looks like we've got 2021 Wisdom’s glove with 2022 Wisdom’s bat, which is a quality 1st division starter worth ~2.5 WAR.

Yeah it's really encouraging. Even for the things where you can pick nits like them missing deGrom, they are balanced elsewhere (getting both Burnes and Woodruff, getting both Castillo and Gilbert). I think you mentioned a week or two back about being able to break this early season into blocks. and that's how I've been looking at it too. There's a hellish stretch that starts in mid-May that goes @ Twins @ Astros @ Phillies Vs. Mets Vs. Reds Vs. Rays @ Padres I think if they come out of that still at or at least approximately at .500, I'll be pretty much all in.

One of the PD focused FO guys, I think Banner, actually called out exactly what TT said. Their high level approach to pitching dev goes Improve Velocity -> Improve Shape/Movement -> Improve Command So you've got a bunch of guys right now who have either improved velo or new/changed movement profiles on their pitches. It's going to take a bit to learn to harness them.

There's a part of me that's the baseball fan equivalent of the Sickos meme, and likes seeing players be highly productive in weird ways. That part of me weirdly hopes that PCA doesn't improve his plate discipline, because I think there's still a chance for him to be a 4 or 5 WAR guy through sheer dongs and defense. Something like Byron Buxton without the whole being made of glass aspect. But if he does improve his discipline, there's a real chance for an MVP caliber player. The offensive bar is going to be so low for him, he only needs to put up something like a 125 or 130 wRC+ to crack 7 WAR. That's a top ~50 wRC+ so I don't want to minimize it too much but ALSO he's going to probably run really high BABIPs so he's going to get a good head start offensively as well.

Not actually that bad from a run standpoint, but hilarious that basically every call against the Dodgers happened in the bottom of the 9th

Hopefully Hayden can have a good game. The pitch modeling data is unmoved on thinking he's a star, so hopefully he just needs to beat up on a team to get his swagger back. Although for as bad as Oakland is their offense has been okay thus far its the pitching that has been nightmarish

I think it's quite the opposite honestly. The Cubs' pen at the moment has the 2nd lowest FIP in the league and are tied for the best xFIP. The problem is a distinct lack of a lockdown option. Fulmer and Alzolay have each shown signs of being that guy, and Estrada's probably the favorite to end up that guy by mid-season, but right it's depth over impact. Put another way, I'd trust any of the Cubs relievers with a 3 run save, but I don't trust any of them in a one-run deal.

The ump scorecard for this game is gonna be a doozy

Really enjoyed Boog putting Sutcliffe on blast for not understanding how to do an ad read

That's Bellinger's hardest hit ball since the shoulder injury

After today Ballesteros is hitting .250/.367/.500 with 5 walks and 6 Ks Cristian Hernandez is hitting .350/.409/.600 with 2 walks and 4 Ks

McGeary doesn't seem long for SB. Maybe it's just a hot streak but honestly feels more like he's just too advanced.

It's largely procedural I doubt he boarded a plane but Nelly got "sent down" last night for Hughes FWIW

I have zero issues with any of the pitching decisions or performances last night. Guys executed, they got BABIP'd in the ninth and that's all she wrote. It sucks but there's not really much to take away from it IMO. But yeah, we need to clean up the position player group, and start with ending the Hosmer era. Mervis can wait a beat, they're about to face a stretch with a ton of lefties, but I want Hosmer gone after Bellinger's paternity stint. Nelly Velazquez should come up today for Bellinger, and then stay up via Hosmer. I'd also like to see Torrens get some run here. If/when he can't get it going against this stretch of lefties, it'll be clear there's not really anything there and then we can start Mervis time. Morel can wait a bit. His swing and miss hasn't really improved at all. He's hitting the ball in the air, which is great, but there's still work to do.