Sunday was a busy day with the family and so I was off of social media most of the day. I’m always amused when I follow some portion of the game, know what happens, then see social media. So seeing the flow of the first half of this game, then seeing people all over social media belaboring that Ian Happ started over Owen Caissie was amusing. Of course, in the first half of this game, Happ had scored one run and drove in the other. It is definitely a conscious thing that has happened through the years
that I’ve become a bigger fan of Ian’s (and also Nico Hoerner’s) because of the amount they are under appreciated.
There’s just something among the people who are vociferous on social media. I follow a number of people on social where I’ll see things like Lou Gehrig or Babe Ruth or Sandy Koufax couldn’t be successful in the modern game. Or that Barry Bonds absolutely was on steroids for all or most of his career, even though there does appear to be a fairly clear delineation of where he started and the dramatic change in his career.
For some reason, the fans who are most active and loud on social media are the worst at having any nuance. If you want to say to me that you wonder how someone like Ruth or Ty Cobb or whoever would do in the modern integrated game, with shifting, specialization and analytics, I think that’s a fair conversation. Wouldn’t those generational players also benefit from say modern training and analytics? I think one of my all time curiosities would be to take some of the great hitters of all time and see how their career looks with shifting. Shifting was such a tectonic shift to the game and will continue to evolve over time.
I think of it the same way with conversations about statistics. I feel like stats like wins, runs batted in and batting average have been devalued through the years, primarily because some people were guilty of stat crimes. Obviously pitcher A isn’t better than pitcher B solely because pitcher A had 20 or even 50 more wins. We need context. Just because we learn a stat isn’t as valuable as it once was, doesn’t render it useless. Wins for relievers have no real value at all. Wins for starters? Probably not in the best handful of stats to look at. Useless? I’ve never thought so.
But what’s happened now is that people are guilty of stat crimes even with modern stats. I’m seeing increasingly people using WAR as a mic drop stat. We have a great example here in Chicago. WAR is showing us that Pete Crow-Armstrong is more valuable than Shohei Ohtani. Certainly, PCA’s very fine all around game should be making people all over baseball sit up and take notice. Do I expect him to have a top 3 MVP finish? I really don’t. Ohtani is still doing eye-popping things offensively, even completely ignoring any value he’s producing as a pitcher, which I’ve never seen anyone add on to his value when these comparisons are being done.
If you’re a big enough baseball fan to be here, reading what I write, challenge yourself to be better. Challenge yourself to try to think three- and four-dimensionally about baseball. I don’t care that you want to see Owen Caissie in the lineup more than he has been. First, please know that the Cubs weren’t necessarily ready to call him up and their hand was forced by injury. They might not have had a comprehensive plan yet. Second, know that we aren’t seeing whatever amount of work he is doing with the coaching staff that may be part of him being up here. I don’t care that you wish Ian Happ was more or that they would sit Kyle Tucker down long enough to find what sounds like somebody’s handle: Kyle Tucker’s Lost Power.
I get the frustration. I get the anticipation. All of that is fine. But if you’re running around saying Ian is garbage, just stop. With his nice day on Sunday, he’s up to a wRC+ of 104. That’s down a click or two from where he’s been the last few years. But that’s a stat normalized to 100, so we’re talking about a guy who is better than league average. The culprit is his power numbers being down. That’s going to be a consistent story among most of the guys playing for this Cubs team. Wrigley has definitely suppressed offense most of this year, particularly power numbers.
Wrigley Field is slowly evolving to be more and more of a pitcher’s park with the very large caveat that for swaths of time, it can be extremely hitter and particularly power favorable. It should be interesting to see if any pitchers are a little more interested in being a Cub or hitters less interested. It doesn’t feel like there is too much of that going on, but you do know that as time goes on there are going to be agents pointing out that a given park is likely to boost or suppress your game.
Just throwing out some topics that have been bouncing around in my head as the season grinds on. The Cubs pulled out a win Sunday afternoon and that gave them a series win over the Pirates. I thought it was a series they could grab a sweep and it was certainly there. Who knows, if PCA doesn’t overslide second in the ninth on Friday or if one long ball hangs up at the wall, maybe the Cubs do sweep. But they didn’t.
The Cubs come out of the weekend with the fourth-best record in the NL and the top Wild Card spot. The Padres were swept over the weekend and the Cubs were able to open a 1.5 game lead. The Mets appear to have bounced off of the bottom and won a pair of games against a good Mariners team to stay 4.5 behind the Cubs and 1.5 ahead of the Reds for the last spot. The Cardinals, Giants, Diamondbacks and Marlins showed no signs of the kind of Brewer-like stretch that will be necessary for one of them to run down the Wild Card race. So there are seven teams for six spots and the Cubs are six clear of the Reds with 39 games remaining.
Pitch Counts:
- Pirates: 141, 36 BF (8 IP)
- Cubs: 149, 40 BF
The Pirates are at just under 18 pitches per inning. That’s a number that suggests you are going to be giving up some runs. The interesting thing is the Cubs only had six hits (two of them doubles). They did draw five walks. there were no steals and just the two extra bases. So the Cubs never really broke through. Clearly, they were aided by two errors and the one unearned run in a game decided by one is huge. An error and a wild pitch led to the first Cub run. The second run was walk/double. So a walk came up big there (and Happ’s baserunning). The third run was walk, single, single. Seiya Suzuki taking a walk and going first to third on a single were big there. The fourth run was single, double, sac fly. No bonus there, just the bats coming through.
On the Cub side, the Cubs threw just under 17 pitches per inning. No great performance either. The Cubs allowed nine hits, four of them doubles, and they walked three. Nine strikeouts contributed a bit to the high pitch count. So nothing great either side on the pitching side, despite the relatively low score. Either team could have gotten into more trouble throwing that many pitches. But generally, both pitching staffs were able to avoid getting into too much trouble.
Heading into a big series, Ben Brown was the only reliever to have a heavy workload. I can’t see Ben appearing in the Brewer series until at least Wednesday. They’ve passed on a couple of previous opportunities to do so, but it would be defensible to send Brown down and get a fresh arm up somewhere in the series. Someone is going to lose a roster spot to Jameson Taillon. Ryan Brasier would seem to be the other possible choice, assuming everyone is healthy. Andrew Kittredge threw both Saturday and Sunday and I would expect him to be unavailable for the most part for the doubleheader. Maybe a very specific situation where you think you could send him in to face one or two batters, an injury or a long game. But otherwise, I’d expect him to be down Monday.
Six relievers is probably enough for a double header. Brasier and Taylor Rogers are probably both going to pitch in meaningful spots Monday if there are two competitive games. I’m certainly interested in the chess game with the roster with the 27th man rule, etc. for Monday. The Brewers running away with the division makes things interesting. Obviously, you are not guaranteed a playoff spot or positioning, so wins matter. But, the division title does not hang in the balance. There isn’t a lot of incentive to sell out to win any one given game.
Three Stars:
- Ian Happ. Single, double, walk, run, run batted in. A big day for Ian.
- Dansby Swanson. Double, sacrifice fly, two runs batted in, including the eventual game winner. Nice bobblehead day. This is my totally, completely shocked face that maybe a little of the RISP bad luck is having a little positive progression.
- Andrew Kittredge throws back-to-back days, in a key situation both times. He gets a 1-2-3 inning for his first save as a Cub. His 17th career save. Color me surprised also that a guy that spent years in the Rays system is a useful piece.
Game 123, August 17: Cubs 4, Pirates 3 (70-53)
Reminder: Heroes and Goats are determined by WPA scores and are in no way subjective.
THREE HEROES:
- Superhero: Pete Crow-Armstrong (.254). 2-4, R
- Hero: Ian Happ (.207). 2-3, 2B, BB, RBI, R
- Sidekick: Andrew Kittredge (.157). IP, 3 BF (Sv 1)
THREE GOATS
- Billy Goat: Ben Brown(-.198). 2.2 IP, 14 BF, 4 H, 2 BB, 2 ER, 4 K
- Goat: Michael Busch (-.104). 0-4
- Kid: Matt Shaw (-.085). 0-2
WPA Play of the Game: Joey Bart’s two-run double with one out in the sixth turned a one-run deficit into a one-run lead. (.293)
*Cubs Play of the Game: Dansby Swanson’s RBI-double with one out in the fifth gave the Cubs that one-run lead. (.173)
Cubs Player of the Game:
Yesterday’s Winner: Shōta Imanaga (132 of 155 votes).
Rizzo Award Standings: (Top 5/Bottom 5)
The award is named for Anthony Rizzo, who finished first in this category three of the first four years it was in existence and four times overall. He also recorded the highest season total ever at +65.5. The point scale is three points for a Superhero down to negative three points for a Billy Goat.
- Kyle Tucker +24
- Matthew Boyd +23
- Shōta Imanaga +20
- Jameson Taillon/Miguel Amaya +11
- Carson Kelly -13
- Julian Merryweather -15
- Ben Brown -19
- Dansby Swanson -23.33
- Seiya Suzuki -27
Up Next: I don’t need to give you 500 words on the Brewers. I don’t even get to use the gambler’s paradox. The Brewers lost Sunday, snapping their franchise-record winning streak. Also, even with the loss, they are in rare air over the last couple of months. There is little question that they aren’t as good as this run they’ve been on. Also, there is no question at all that this is a fundamentally sound, talented team that is playing with overflowing confidence. This is going to be a tough week. Regardless of which team is more talented or better, they are playing better right now and it isn’t close. Even this one loss was in extra innings.
Cade Horton (7-3, 3.07, 85 IP) starts for the Cubs. I talked about it some after his last start. This guy has quietly emerged as a middle of the rotation pitcher posting front of the rotation numbers. He’s won his last four start, allowing just one run in 22.2 innings. Going back to seven starts, it is 4-1 with a 1.13 (40 IP), He’s pitched some big games against some quality opponents and he’s passing tests. The Brewers have not seen him yet.
Freddy Peralta (14-5, 2.90, 136.2 IP) is very well known to Cub fans. He looks great over seven outings too, 5-1, 2.86 (37.2 IP). The clear bright spot is that the one loss was to the Cubs in Milwaukee a few weeks ago. The Cubs hung five runs on him in four innings of work for the one game the Cubs took in that series. He’s 2-1 against the Cubs in three starts allowing eight runs in 15 innings. So the Cubs have hit him well. But you know you can’t count on that against a starter this good. He shut the Cubs out over six early this season.
Jameson Taillon (7-6, 4.44, 95.1) almost certainly has to throw Game 2, though that has not officially been announced yet. He threw 82 pitches over 5.1 last Wednesday for Iowa, allowing two hits, two walks, no runs and striking out four. It was a cool game for minor league fans who love to see guys with major league experience. He was followed by Keegan Thompson, Porter Hodge and Luke Little. That foursome has had their troubles this year, but they held a Worcester Red Sox team that is over .500 scoreless for a complete game.
Let’s go win a game or two.
