The last two games in Milwaukee have been the sort of close but not good enough affairs that are designed to rip baseball fans’ hearts out. It’s not losing to the Brewers that’s causing distress as rain blankets the North Side of Chicago on a gloomy September morning, it’s the nature of the losses. These were games that the Cubs had in hand late and just needed a few more outs (in the case of Monday’s game) or just two more unhittable strikes (in the case of Tuesday’s affair).
But the Cubs pitching
has been a glaring issue all season. That issue was on display for all to see on Tuesday night in Milwaukee and it’s leading to real questions that this Cubs team can make a deep run in October [VIDEO].
Don’t get me wrong, the Cubs should be playing some form of Postseason baseball. They still have a 97.7 percent chance to make the Postseason, according to FanGraphs:
To be clear, 97.7 percent is more than highly likely to make the Postseason, it’s about as close as you can get this side of the juggernaut Brewers, Dodgers and Braves at 100 percent. Well, actually, it’s also now behind the 98.1% percent Phillies. And come to think of it, the fact that it’s down from the Cubs’ 99.8 percent peak on September 4, just five days ago, isn’t exactly inspiring confidence, either. That’s the type of move that is bigger than one game:
The bottom line is that the Cubs are probably going to play in the Wild Card round, but if the Postseason started today they’d be playing those games at Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia rather than hosting them at Wrigley Field. With a 3-5 record so far in September, Cubs fans can be forgiven for feeling like the final month of the season seems more reminiscent of the 13-16 May the team would rather forget than the rest of the season that saw this team posting winning records. The MLB playoffs are all about getting hot at the right time, and the Cubs don’t look particularly hot at the moment.
Maybe that’s to be expected with a team that is historically unbalanced. Earlier this week Thomas Nestico posted FanGraphs WAR by team split between batting WAR and hitting WAR:
Over at Cubs Insider, Evan Altman called out the elephant in the room: the unbelievable gap between the WAR the Cubs have generated from their position players vs. the WAR they’ve generated from their pitchers this season (emphasis mine):
Only nine teams have a single-digit pitching WAR, and the Nationals are the only other team with fewer than 5.0 heading into Tuesday’s action. Spurred by a question on X, I exported the team hitting and pitching WAR results from FanGraphs for every season in MLB history to see where the Cubs fell in terms of their delta. At 30.95 (the export actually takes it out to five decimal places), this year’s squad has the fifth-largest disparity of all-time between hitting and pitching WAR.
Now, being in historic offensive territory puts you up there with some incredible teams. As Altman notes, the 1927 Yankees are on this list and so is the Big Red Machine. I can feel my hope growing with every keystroke:
Ah, but those teams had much substantially better offenses and marginally better pitching to produce those differentials. The Cubs are a category difference with a solid, but not historically elite offensive WAR coupled with an abysmal 3.6 total pitching WAR. And just for fun I have to note that these stats were run before Tuesday’s bullpen meltdown.
This doesn’t strike me as the type of problem the Cubs can hit their way out of in October. For starters, the offense has generated at least some portion of that position player WAR hitting against pitchers who will not start or relieve in a competitive Postseason game. Additionally, a non-insignificant part of that position player WAR is PCA’s historically good defense, combined with the elite defense being put up by other Cubs players. That can suppress runs to some extent, but perhaps not in as predictable a way as Mason Miller or Jacob Misiorowski pumping 104 on the black.
The bigger problem to my eye is that there is no cavalry on the way. As Altman notes, the Cubs best pitcher by fWAR this season was Ben Brown, who will miss the rest of the season after an injury setback. Kevin Gausman, Clay Holmes and Matthew Boyd have been a solid top three, but the days of a starter throwing a complete game multiple times a season, let alone multiple times in the Postseason are long gone. Someone has to throw after those starters to get to the end of the game. Below are key stats from every Cubs pitcher who’s a) healthy and b) thrown at least five innings in relief so far this year:
It’s not great, Bob.
There are no elite strikeout minus walk rates hidden in this chart. There isn’t a ton of electric stuff, either. There are a handful of guys who can throw multiple innings outperforming their FIP (I’m looking at you, Aaron Civale and Javier Assad) but honestly, it seems less than likely the Cubs are going deep in the playoffs with Civale and Assad throwing in late, close games in October.
I suppose it’s theoretically possible that some combination of Edward Cabrera, Shōta Imanaga, Braxton Garrett and/or Justin Steele can join the Cubs bullpen in September and October and lock down some of these late wins. Shelby Miller has also been rehabbing in the minors for the last month, but he’s had some ups and downs of his own.
Regardless of which unlikely bullpen arm is called on to come to the rescue, it’s definitely not how anyone drew up the last month and a half of the season. Buckle up, Cubs fans. It looks like what’s become a bumpy ride at the end of games is only going to get rockier before the end.
