Archive for Cubs

Among yesterday’s developments, I was pretty certain nothing was going to top the Cubs losing their closer due to an injury sustained while taking his pants off. I was wrong.

After blowing a save against the Marlins on Monday night, Hunter Strickland then lost a fight with a door. The Giants’ closer punched said door and broke his right hand. He underwent surgery on his right pinky finger on Tuesday and is expected to be out for six-to-eight weeks. Bruce Bochy wasted little time in anointing Sam Dyson as his new primary closer, and promptly used him to nail down a save against the Marlins on Tuesday night. With Tony Watson apparently off after pitching on consecutive days, Will Smith pitched the eighth inning and stayed in to begin the ninth with lefties J.B. Shuck and Derek Dietrich due up, but after walking pinch hitter Yadiel Rivera and striking out Dietrich, he gave way to Dyson. The sinkerballer, who happens to have a 64.8 percent ground ball rate, got Brian Anderson to hit into a game-ending double play.
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Owning Edwin Diaz can be a wild ride. After his hot start to the season, he’s allowed runs his last two appearances causing his ERA to rise from 1.59 to 3.03 as a result. Prior to this rough patch, Diaz pitched seven times in a 10-day stretch from May 20th through his four run implosion on the 29th. Recalling last year, Diaz did lose his mechanics and the closer role for a brief period. In spite of the recent struggles, Diaz has a 43.1 strikeout percentage and saves in 19 of his 22 chances this season and WHIP still below one (0.91). His new teammate, Alex Colome could help share the burden of high leverage since the Mariners attract close games.

Since joining the Mariners, Colome’s recorded two holds and a save retiring nine of 10 batters faced. Prior to joining Seattle, Colome had notched 10 consecutive saves for the Rays. Due to the patience the team has displayed in the past with Diaz, his owners should not panic. But continued struggles will put pressure on Diaz who should benefit from the tutelage of Colome and insurance he provides giving Diaz a much needed break from over usage patterns. Read the rest of this entry »

Well, maybe not you, specifically. The royal you. The editorial.

Kyle Schwarber has had himself a pretty dang good season so far. It’s exactly what I needed. Having just inherited my first ottoneu team — a relatively downtrodden 9th-place team (of 12) — and hardly knowing the rules, I took a gamble and traded a $12 Jon Gray for a $6 Patrick Corbin, a $7 Willie Calhoun, a $3 Jake Junis, and a $20 Schwarber. I liked every piece of the trade (although I, now regretfully, cut Junis during spring training, not really understanding the dynamics of the draft, my finances, or of ottoneu generally). But acquiring Schwarber at his relatively exorbitant price given his 2017 season was a risky proposition, especially after a summer of these headlines:

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Brandon Morrow is now a perfect 4 for 4 in save chances, but his most recent save was far from perfect. In Sunday’s series finale against the Rockies, Morrow allowed a pair of singles to Nolan Arenado and Trevor Story and then loaded the bases with a two-out walk to David Dahl. With Ian Desmond at the plate, Morrow uncorked a wild pitch that initially appeared to allow the Rockies to slice the Cubs’ two-run lead in half. Arenado had been called safe on a close play at the plate, but he was called out on review.
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The Cardinals’ closer situation took an interesting turn on Sunday when Mike Matheny brought Brett Cecil in to close out a 3-2 game against the Pirates. While Cecil getting a save chance added a new wrinkle to the Cardinals’ committee arrangement, it was a sensible move. Cecil would have to face Francisco Cervelli, Gregory Polanco and Jordy Mercer, and while Polanco was the only left-handed batter in that group, Cecil had been far more effective against righties this season. He was also on a roll, having built a string of 15 straight scoreless appearances covering 15 2/3 innings. Over that span, Cecil allowed just five singles, two doubles and a walk. It also made sense that Matheny called upon Trevor Rosenthal to take care of the top of the Pirates’ order in the eighth inning.

Cecil picked a bad time to take a break from shutting down opponents, as he gave up a lead-off single to Cervelli, a game-tying double to Mercer and a walk-off single to Adam Frazier.
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Spring training is just days away, and that’s our queue to take stock of bullpens around the majors. This is the first of six installments that will take a look at how bullpens are lining up, one division at a time. We begin with the National League Central.

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It’s not as if the Chicago Cubs’ trade for started-turned-reliever-turned-starter Mike Montgomery came cheap. Dan Vogelbach isn’t a top-flight prospect, but with plus power and a solid plate approach at Triple-A Iowa this season, it’s not like he’s a nobody, either.

Then again, neither is Montgomery. A supplemental first-round pick almost 10 years ago, he was a Kansas City Royals top-5 prospect for four straight years and a Baseball America top-40 prospect for three of them. Then 2012 came; he was thrown into the James Shields–Wade Davis–Wil Myers–Jake Odorizzi blockbuster before continuing to generally fail to impress anyone. The Seattle Mariners acquired him in 2015, the year in which he debuted, in exchange for Erasmo Ramirez, and Montgomery delivered 16 suboptimal starts. He’s in Chicago now, providing relief every sixth day to a starting rotation that has generated the best staff WHIP in more than 100 years. Cool. Got that out of the way.

Montgomery is no ordinary sixth starter, though. I beg you to read this automated scouting report generated by Brooks Baseball regarding Montgomery’s pitches and their outcomes in 2016. Extreme number of ground balls. Blazing fast. Extremely high number of swings & misses. The remarks for all five of Montgomery’s pitches are, in a word, glowing.

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Kyle Schwarber gets double-duty this week. Yesterday, Mike Podhorzer discussed Kyle Schwarber’s 2016 potential. He mentions he read a post in which the author allegedly considered Schwarber in the second round of a 2016 mock draft.

I found the whole thing intriguing, primarily because we’re working with a small sample — slightly more than 150 plate appearances. I tried to draw meaningful conclusions on a comparably small sample size for Carlos Gonzalez, and now I’m pretty sure hired assassins are tracking me. Alas, what follows is not a disagreement with Pod (because his analysis is excellent) but an unauthorized biography extension of his post.

In June, I compared Joc Pederson to George Springer, two blossoming young stars to each of whom I alluded as “evolving juggernauts.” In fact, I think Schwarber is not particularly dissimilar from Pederson. With another two months of baseball in the rear-view mirror, that comparison is especially illuminating, given we’ve seen just how tumultuous Pederson’s rookie campaign has been.

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For all intents and purposes, Chris Coghlan is having a pretty good season. Drafted in the supplemental first round of the 2006 June amateur draft, Coghlan earned National League Rookie of the Year honors in 2009, hitting .321/.390/.460 with nine home runs and eight stolen bases.

Then he slid into a prolonged funk, floundering for the Marlins (ha… floundering… because the mascot… is a fish… uhhhhhh) before revitalizing his career with the Cubs. After a relatively successful, but still lackluster, 2014 campaign, it seems Coghlan has finally rounded into form in 2015 at the ripe age of 30. Better later than never.

I planned to investigate Coghlan’s success independently. David Laurila, however, transcribed a recent interview with Coghlan during which they talked hitting and posted it yesterday. In it, Coghlan laid bare his philosophy and approach to hitting with refreshing honesty and transparency, creating a unique opportunity to see if Coghlan practices what he preaches as well as how or why it currently works for him.

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We gather here today to mourn the loss of one of our dearly beloved. Jorge Soler‘s chances of earning the National League Rookie of the Year award recently walked off into the sunset, fading into a distant memory, albeit a fond memory at that. In light of Joc Pederson’s performance thus far, however, we maybe gather here today to mourn something that never existed. My heart struggles to understand how we could have possibly loved but never lost.

It seems like just yesterday that Soler was the Chicago Cubs’ safest prospect. As much was argued — nay, commanded — by our very own Scott Spratt. Indeed, another of our Scotts, surname Strandberg, once spoke of the Cubs’ embarrassment of prospect riches by leading with Soler’s name rather than Kris Bryant‘s or Javier Baez‘s or Addison Russell‘s or Arismendy Alcantara‘s or Albert Almora‘s or Kyle Schwarber’s. I think that the fault is neither Scott’s nor Scott’s; the greater fantasy baseball community had its eye on Soler. Indeed, I tabbed Soler as my NL ROY favorite. So, too, did Eno. We are all fallible.

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