Opening Day postgame thread – Cubs 3, Pirates 1

Cubs win! The Cubs took an early lead on a first inning home run by Anthony Rizzo that still hasn't landed. Combine that with eight strong innings by Jeff Samardzija (two hits, one walk, 9 strikeouts) and it's a recipe for a Cubs win. Carlos Marmol made the end of the game interesting by doing Carlos Marmol things at the beginning of the ninth, but Sveum rightly pulled him and had James Russell and Kyuji Fujikawa shut the door on the Pirates. Per Sveum, Marmol is still the closer, but didn't have it today. Better go pick up Fyukikawa in your fantasy leagues if you haven't already.

New Cub Nate Schierholtz reached base four times on a walk, hbp, error, and a single. Brent Lillibridge was not so lucky, going 0-3 with three strikeouts and a fielding error before being replaced by Alberto Gonzalez. Welington Castillo had a nice day with two doubles, mitigated by a dumb TOOTBLAN, even by the Cubs recent baserunning standards.

Players of the Game

Cubs:

  • Jeff Samardzija (.378 WPA)
  • Anthony Rizzo (.162 WPA)

Pirates: 

Goats of the Game

Cubs:

  • Carlos Marmol (-0.142 WPA)

Pirates:

Around the league

  • Clayton Kershaw homered and pitched a complete game shutout in the Dodgers opener. I guess he's ready for the season.
  • Bryce Harper led the Nationals over the Marlins with two solo HRs. Strasburg went seven scoreless innings, striking out 3 and walking none.
  • The Mets pounded Rookie of the Year candidate Edinson Volquez. They're still a team starting Marlon Byrd in RF, so I wouldn't be surprised to see them end up with a worse record than the Cubs, fire sale be damned.
  • Chris Sale shut down the Royals in a game the White Sox went on to win 1-0
  • The Red Sox beat the Yankees, 4-0. Will the Yankees crack .500 this year?

47 thoughts on “Opening Day postgame thread – Cubs 3, Pirates 1”

  2. Sveum rightly pulled him and had Jame Russell and Kyuji Fujikawa shut the door on the Pirates.

    Rightly? I don’t see how panicking after 4 batters is a good strategy.

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  3. Better go pick up Fyukikawa in your fantasy leagues if you haven’t already.

    I got him in the latter rounds of my draft, as an autopick. Bitches.

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  8. @ Berselius:
    I’m always skeptical about whether people can tell whether a pitcher “has it” on a given day or not. It’s not uncommon for a pitcher to pitch badly for a few batters and then well for the next few. Or for a starter to have one bad inning and six good ones. If people could reliably predict in advance when a pitcher will fail, I’d listen.

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  17. @ Suburban kid:
    His point is that you can’t use those 4 batters to predict how he’ll do later on. There have been all sorts of cold/hot studies and they find there’s no predictive value in them. Especially at that sample size anyway.

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  20. I’ll just say if you constantly take out relievers who appear to be struggling, you’re going to be making a lot of pitching changes.

    As for Marmol, if this was even possible the cubs were crazy to not trade him. What did they think would happen with him? That it would go swimmingly?

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  21. @ Berselius:
    @ dmick89:
    I’d be interested to see if Marmol is more prone to hot or cold streaks than most. For the most part, I’m all for taking the probabilistic/large sample approach to evaluating strategy as I think it’s the best way to get results over the long term. However, if you find that Marmol does genuinely have times when he just struggles to throw strikes (perhaps due to a mental or mechanical issue), it’s probably a good idea to get out the hook when he really can’t find the plate. An extreme example of this would be when a pitcher gets a Thing, like Rick Ankiel did in the playoffs way back when. When that happens you don’t just say, ‘fuck it, let him work through this.’

    Marmol’s issues aren’t that bad, but I wouldn’t be surprised if there isn’t something out of the ordinary going on. Then again, you might look at it and find that he really isn’t throwing that many more balls when he’s off than when he’s on, but that instead he just works so close to the margin that it seems that way. I’m hoping that’s something that the team has considered and they’re handling him appropriately.

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  22. @ uncle dave:
    It does seem that Marmol is more prone to being “on” and “off” than other relievers, although it may be because of the latter of what you said.

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  24. casper wells and robinson chirinos or nate schierholtz and steve clevenger, who ya got?
    (in the parlance of our times)

    the former have been dfa’ed

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  25. @ uncle dave:
    The problem is finding evidence in the sample of one player. While it may be true, I find it hard to believe any data on this would be the least bit useful. There’s no way you’d find statistically significant results.

    I think it’s kind of funny. 5 or 6 years ago I’d have been pissed that they left Marmol in. 3-4 years ago I’d have been pissed if they took him out. By him, I mean anyone in that situation. Today I wouldn’t have cared a damn bit if Sveum brought in an injured Darwin Barney to replace Marmol.

    It’s like it was in the 90s. You know the cubs will suck so you just enjoy baseball and don’t care about the wins and losses.

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  30. I think the thing with Marmol is that it’s dependent on the strike zone. If the ump is fair to generous, Marmol will do well. If the ump calls him close, he won’t. He’s rarely in the strike zone on a good day. And some days the batters really help him out.

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  31. @ Rizzo the Rat:

    “Rightly? I don’t see how panicking after 4 batters is a good strategy.”

    When would it have been ok to remove Marmol in your mind? When the Pirates were walking off the field with a victory? A 3-0 count with the bases full of walks and the winning run on 3rd?

    The only guy Marmol retired whiffed on a pitch that bounced in front of home plate. Marmol’s day consisted of:
    3 foul balls
    4 called strikes
    1 swinging strike
    9 balls
    1 HBP
    1 line drive single

    The Piratess had a 3.0% Win Expectancy when Marmol started the inning and it had jumped to 17% when Sveum finally pulled the plug.

    Sveum has sat there and watched Marmol be shitty all spring – it’s not like he’s some asshole reading boxscores and making judgments on the internet like me. It’s impossible to say for sure if Marmol would have gotten his shit together and struck out the next two guys, but I think we can all agree… it wasn’t looking particularly promising. Sveum made a move and the Cubs won the game. Making those kinds of calls is what makes Sveum the big bucks. I hope he continues to ‘panic’ if the same situation happens again.

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  34. Remember that time we traded Derrek Lee for Matt Cain?
    And more than half of the people on this board argued that Lee was far more valuable?
    by D98 on Apr 1, 2013 | 7:53 AM reply

    Sigh.
    Wish that one would have come true.
    by Al Yellon on Apr 1, 2013 | 7:54 AM up reply

    Can someone with a BCB account remind Alvin that his Lee for Cain trade didn’t stop there?

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  38. @ dmick89:
    You might be able to find statistically significant results if the question was simply whether or not Marmol’s ability to throw strikes was ‘streakier’ than the general population. I mean, the guy’s faced 2200 batters, which is probably like 10,000 pitches. That’s a healthy sample.

    I think you’re rightly suspicious of the value of such knowledge, though. You can confirm that he’s less consistent than an average pitcher, but you’re also probably going to get way more useful info on what’s happening by monitoring his mechanics and communicating with him over the course of the season.

    Mostly, I’m just glad he’s in the last year of his deal. Hard to believe he’s 30.

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  39. dmick89 wrote:

    @ Suburban kid:
    His point is that you can’t use those 4 batters to predict how he’ll do later on.

    In that situation, there was no “later on”. I understand the concept, but I’m not sure it is useful knowledge for RP who tend to pitch no more than one inning. And in the bottom of the ninth with the winning run at the plate, I’m not going to bitch about “too many pitching changes”.

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  41. @ josh:
    In case the ceremony that is “Opening Day” gets rained/snowed out, they want to give the gathered fans/media/dignitaries/marching bands a second chance. Obviously they could shift festivities to the second game on the calendar, but the fans who bought opening day tix would be pissed off? Or something.

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