Bertz

I called this fanbase stupid when they gleefully began ripping Tucker for slumping. If you felt personally called out by that that's you telling on yourself. Because *that* was incredibly stupid and to borrow a phrase toxic behavior.

Wind's blowing out to RF again, though not quite as hard as yesterday. Between the wind favoring having a lefty on the mound, the Nationals being horsefeathers against LHP, and the general gap between Boyd & Lord, this is about as lopsided a matchup as we could ask for.

This is really stupid

If I'm not mistaken, with 21 left to play the magic numbers are - 13 to make the playoffs - 18 to host the WC round (with potential to drop this one more depending on tiebreakers) - 26 to catch the Brewers

Knock on wood but this bullpen looks like it's peaking at the right time - Palencia's fine, his peripherals haven't moved. hmHe was just a bit lucky in the 1st half and paid some dues in August - Keller's a monster, full stop - Thielbar's not nearly as good as his ERA, but he's legitimately good, especially monstrous left on left - That game against Cincy was UGLY and is still impacting his ERA as a Cub, but Kittredge is very good - Rogers has been hit hard since he came over, but his peripherals have been great and with his track record he's probably still an impact arm. The only thing I'm nervous about is there's not a ton of time left to confirm it. Though again his track record means you don't need a ton of tape - If Hodge looks like *that* a few more times, you can feel pretty optimistic that he's back - Soroka, who was a *very* good reliever last year, is presumably going to come back in the next week and take Brown's spot in the pen - The pixie dust has worn off on Pomeranz, though he is probably still fine for LOOGY work - I'm not super buying what Aaron Civale is selling, but that first outing was legit stellar and in the playoffs long relievers just eat innings in losses anyways Like I'm not gonna say "who needs Mason Miller" or anything, but I think by the time we enter the playoffs we're trending towards a situation where I'll be feeling good about 5 or 6 different relievers.

I think the Cubs being particularly hammered is probably a park effects thing. Wrigley has turned into a heavy pitchers park, much to many's dismay. But yeah probably best to use it directionally and not be too confident in the magnitude. Like Dansby's gap the past three years has been ~15 points, while this year it's 50. I feel safe saying he's been unlucky this year. I feel less comfortable saying he's been exactly X runs of offense unlucky or he's definitely been as good a hitter as Ryan O'Hearn who has the same xwOBA.

I've wondered this too, at first I thought it was because ~half of Statcast's life was under the juiced ball, but looking year by year doesn't back that up https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/statcast_search?hfPT=&hfAB=&hfGT=R|&hfPR=&hfZ=&hfStadium=&hfBBL=&hfNewZones=&hfPull=&hfC=&hfSea=2025|2024|2023|2022|2021|2020|2019|2018|2017|2016|2015|&hfSit=&player_type=batter&hfOuts=&hfOpponent=&pitcher_throws=&batter_stands=&hfSA=&game_date_gt=&game_date_lt=&hfMo=&hfTeam=&home_road=&hfRO=&position=&hfInfield=&hfOutfield=&hfInn=&hfBBT=&hfFlag=&metric_1=&group_by=league-year&min_pitches=0&min_results=0&min_pas=0&sort_col=pitches&player_event_sort=api_p_release_speed&sort_order=desc&chk_stats_woba=on&chk_stats_xwoba=on#results If it were the ball '18/'19 would be huge outliers in the other direction. I know I've seen some articles about how defense is getting better and better, so maybe that's driving it? Though even that wouldn't explain the gap suddenly widening year over year. I wonder if these numbers get a little bit of extra calibration at the end of the season?

First time since July 23rd, and only the 3rd time since the break

Hopefully Mathis makes up for some lost time. I kind of wondered if we'd see Hernandez or Rojas go, though I wonder if Rojas hitting the wall at Tenn is at least in part physical.

I tend to be a peripherals hard liner. xFIP is the first number I look at for a pitcher. I think strikeouts, walks, and groundballs tell you the vast majority of how a pitcher performed. xERA is worth keeping an eye on too to make sure contact quality is accounted for, though even there I think samples should be very large to buy into someone's ability (or lack thereof) to manage contact. Assad's bad via both! Assad's xERA has been higher than his actual by at least a run every season of his career. It's actually worse than just looking at his peripherals via xFIP. So on the one hand Assad looks like the easiest regression candidate in the league. But on the other, at this point we're past 300 innings across four seasons of this horsefeathers. It's not exactly large sample size, but it's certainly not small. The best recent comp I can find is 2017-2020 Zach Davies. He was able to go nearly 500 innings before the wheels came off, though as we know first hand when they came off they *flew* off. I'd certainly not let Assad start a playoff game, and I'd probably try and move him over the winter (give Brown his swing role). But man is it tempting to try and just let this go until it actually stops working.

I've been as guilty as anyone about handwringing about IP counts earlier in the year, but it's pretty clear with Horton that something like the Garret Crochet plan last year is the template. Horton's incredible midseason level up results wise has made it so that ~70 pitch target each outing hasn't killed the bullpen like I would have worried about 3 months ago.

Nice!

I wonder if Cole Mathis goes to the AFL to try and make up for some at bats. I know it's usually someone more in the AA adjacent stage of their careers but some Low A guys do go (Zyhir Hope went last year I know).

https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/46139027/2025-mlb-free-agency-offseason-early-intel-contracts-schwarber-tucker-imai-bregman-alonso Tatsuya Imai Munetaka Murakami Kazuma Okamoto

They're 2nd in the league in pulled flyball rate in the second half https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/leaderboard/batted-ball?dateStart=2025-07-14&gameType=Regular&minSwings=q&minGroupSwings=1&seasonStart=2025&seasonEnd=2025&type=batting-team And if you want to specify just hard contact, 12th in pulled barrels (since this is a custom query I don't have a good way to turn this into a rate) https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/statcast_search?hfPT=&hfAB=&hfGT=R|&hfPR=&hfZ=&hfStadium=&hfBBL=&hfNewZones=&hfPull=Pull|&hfC=&hfSea=2025|&hfSit=&player_type=batter&hfOuts=&hfOpponent=&pitcher_throws=&batter_stands=&hfSA=6|&game_date_gt=2025-07-14&game_date_lt=&hfMo=&hfTeam=&home_road=&hfRO=&position=&hfInfield=&hfOutfield=&hfInn=&hfBBT=&hfFlag=&metric_1=&group_by=team&min_pitches=0&min_results=0&min_pas=0&sort_col=pitches&player_event_sort=api_p_release_speed&sort_order=desc&chk_stats_bip=on#results

Decent data point here too. Cubs/Brewers the most resilient of the contenders in terms of avoiding lengthy bouts of bad play

I guess to engage with this a little more seriously, the NL feels pretty wide open. - The Dodgers are *easily* the scariest team in the league right now. They're more or less completely healthy for the first time all year, though TBD how long that will last. Especially since with them not being in line for a bye and the Padres on their heels they can't just sell out for rest. And it's not a fluke they get so many injuries. But unless/until the injury bug comes back in the next few weeks they're the favorites IMO - The Phillies losing Wheeler was massive for playoff purposes. They're still tough obviously, but no longer feel overwhelmingly so. Their scariest bats are vulnerable to LHP, which is worth keeping in mind for matchups - Brewers are good team but not particularly scary IMO. They're a good team who got insanely hot for 6 weeks. Those wins are banked, which matters a lot for the standings, but doesn't mean much for October. A seemingly sustainable takeaway though is that since adding Vaughn and getting Contreras back on track they're no longer vulnerable to LHP - Mets are a good all around team. With the very notable exceptions of Lindor and Soto their roster is more depth over impact. Their SPs are in a bad way right now, but I don't see anything that looks permanent, probably mostly paying for some of the good fortune early in the year. - Padres are probably the matchup you want most right now. Its the worst position player group among the NL playoff teams by a healthy margin. The SPs are a mess right now, with much scarier under the hood markers than the Mets. The bullpen is terrifying, and Cease/King getting hot at the right time could decide a playoff series pretty quickly, but IMO they're the clear #6 in the NL playoff field at the moment

I'm old enough to remember the Cubs going 7-0 against the Mets in the 2015 regular season and getting their asses handed to them in the NLCS

Long to this point in his career has reverse splits, which somewhat ironically lowers his chances of sticking in the big leagues but raises his chances of being an impact guy in the event that he does. I'd also suspect along with his 40 man status is why he never made it up this year despite Turner's issues.

Hey Eli Morgan's alive!

Me on BaseballSavant during that first start

Really want to fast forward and see what the org decides w/r/t Caissie/Mo/Long/Alcantara

Elder's much better than his ERA, but even by the more generous measures he's not full on good. Interestingly his peripherals are garbage against lefties while his results are garbage against righties. Curious if there's something there or just SSS weirdness.