"Who needs good relief pitching when you're scoring 5 runs a game?"
- Thread starter WaveJumper
- Start date
I rarely here Cubs fans complain about Ricketts spending money. What I do here them bitch about is WHO they spent the money on.
Honestly, it’s hard to find an egregious contract on that roster. I guess Chatwood. Maybe you could cite Zobrist, but that’s a stretch. The Darvish deal will look bad if he can’t stay healthy. But that’s about it, unless you want to kevetch about the bullpen.
But the costly rotation and mediocre bullpen are symptomatic of the same problem: a lack of pitching development in the minors.
Yeah, you’re right. I thought his value was higher. His defensive values have dropped as a Cub.
23, I think, which puts them second (highest) in MLB. Surprisingly, they were tied with the Yankees, Red Sox, As and Nats heading into Friday’s game. All pretty good teams.
But it gets better. The As, Cubs and Yankees are 1-2-3 in bullpen Win Probability Added. This measures the change in statistical win probability that occurs each time a reliever pitches. A blown save is negative win probability.
So while these bullpens have had bad nights where they have blown saves, they, on net, have helped their teams win many close games.
Agree that they really need to start getting some pitching help from their minor league. Having said that, Lester was a very good signing and both Darvish and Chatwood are showing why they were considered good gets. Of the prospects , only Torres would be starting for them, as Cease hasn't shown any consistency yet and Jiminez is basically a DH. I think most Cubs fans would feel that winning a World Championship worth the cost of renting Chapman.
The only questions left for this Cubs team are, who is going to be the manager next year? Girardi? Ross? Loretta? Lastly, do they need to trade any of the core players to shake up the roster? Bryant?
Last edited:
Lester is my favorite Cub. A tough dude who never makes excuses. That was a good signing. Chatwood is $12M for a spot starter, Long man. Could have got a stud RP for that. Would you ever trust Darvish in a critical game? $20M is too much for inconsistency. SP is doing well, but they wasted great starts the last 3 games.
Jimenez definitely starts on the Cubs in LF. Way too much upside despite defensive deficiencies. It’s not like the Cubs have a defensive wizard in LF. Cease is currently not good enough to be in the Cubs rotation, but isn’t Hamels contract up after this year? If so, Cease would slide into the 5th spot, take some rookie lumps, but allow the team to allocate cash to the big 4 position players.
Is Maddon really the problem? I guess someone has to take the fall. They are only 3 games behind their Pythagorean record, which is hardly a condemnation. Their offense and defense R/G are both top 5 in the NL. It's a good team. The roster is enviable. I guess that outfield has not produced as expected/hoped.
But it seems the whole is less than the sum of the parts with this team. And I guess that's on Maddon.
IMO, he is part of the problem. Theo should get his fair share of blame for 1) leaving Joe with poor bullpen options, and 2) some questionable free agent signings that limited any financial flexibility.
Joe handling of the staff has always drove me nuts. He has had a quick hook and the BP gets worn out. I joke around with the boys that any SP that has 80 pitches in, gets the hook with the first hit after the 5th inning. Joe also does a boatload of line up changes in both the batting order and in positions. Again IMO, too many.
Sometimes a new voice helps in professional sports even if it isn’t entirely on the Coach.
Looks like NU versus Nebby in football last year.BTW, the win expectancy graphs from these games are always interesting:
I don't know if he is the sole problem but I do know that the team is not responding to him like they should when you look at the last two seasons. An argument can be made that he has also not been able to develop some of the younger core players (Schwarber, Almora, Russell, Happ) like had previously been envisioned. Perhaps those guys were not as good as envisioned but what GM who selected that talent is going to admit that? Maddon's contract is up so it's a lot easier to change the manager than it is to fire all the players.
Last edited:
You can’t pin player development, or lack thereof, on Maddon. His platoon use should reflect their relative abilities, but most of the development is on the minor league staff.
I would have to agree with a lot of what you say but I'll take Schwarber over Jimenez. yes I would take Darvish in a big time game. he's probably their best pitcher right now not named Hendricks.
Eh, I see what you are says no but no player is a finished product when gets to the majors. Baez is a clear example of that. Some of these guys just haven’t developed their games. Schwarber in particular has been disappointing for me. I watched him play several times when he was in the minors at Kane County and thought he was a superstar in the making. I think he has actually regressed. He was much more selective hitter with better command of the strike zone as a young hitter and that reflected in his batting average which was consistently in that .260-.280 range. Now he is lucky if he is above .235.
OK. I think the challenge for guys who are successful early is the adjustments they have to make as the league adjusts to them. Conventional wisdom is that you cannot fully judge a hitter until he accumulates 2,000 PAs.
Schwarber is still a good hitter, but has never hit above .246 in a season. His 28% career K rate is a big part of this, but he has value in his power and ability to walk. The BABIP gods seem to be punishing him this year. His BABIP is .244, where most of the metrics suggest he should be above .280. Projection systems say he should be hitting closer to .250 with an .850 OPS
According to Fangraphs, Schwarber is seeing more off-speed stuff (curves and changes) this year as his diet of fastballs has steadily decreased (not unusual at all). His soft contact rate has dropped considerably over 3 years, but he's hitting more to RF, which probably hurts his numbers a bit (not showing up in ISO, though).
Schwarber was a catcher that needed to learn new position and is now a pretty darn good outfielder. I will also take his 30+ HR's per season.
Nice to see the Cubbies sweep their road game series with Rizzo as hero in yesterday’s win at the Little League World Series field at the MLB game with his two run home run.
Just curious, anyone know if the distances are shorter on the little league World Series field? If so surprised Pittsburg could only muster one home run - their only score of the game.
Have to assume the win(s) have positive implications for the Cubs making the playoffs. Are the magic numbers already being touted?
All that above said did anyone else start to cringe when Pittsburg had the bases loaded in the 9th which with a home run to follow the one that opened the inning would have brought the score within two?
Just curious, anyone know if the distances are shorter on the little league World Series field? If so surprised Pittsburg could only muster one home run - their only score of the game.
Have to assume the win(s) have positive implications for the Cubs making the playoffs. Are the magic numbers already being touted?
All that above said did anyone else start to cringe when Pittsburg had the bases loaded in the 9th which with a home run to follow the one that opened the inning would have brought the score within two?
Schwarber was a much a better hitter in college and the minors. He was always a power hitter but he was also very selective who rarely expanded the strike zone. He had a relatively low strikeout rate for a power hitter and walked almost as much as he struck out. As a result, his BA was w always above .250 and his OBP was consistently in the .350+ range. Today he is a much different player who in a thirst for power has become undisciplined and strikeout prone.
Alaska, they didn't play on the LLWS field. They played on a minor league (single A) field in the same town. The dimensions were similar to a big league field. The LLWS field is much smaller.
Actually you couldn't be more wrong. Without looking at any statistics, I'll say that he has "eyes "on the club. Also I would guess that every major league player was a better hitter in college and in the minors, for obvious reasons. I'll take his 35 home runs anytime.
Thanks. That’s what I get for missing the start of the game when it was likely clarified.
Ok, whatever you say. How is that “Ryan Pace is an idiot” comment sounding to you these days?
Similar threads
