The Cubs dropped two of three to the Brewers, and now travel to the west coast to face an actual good team. Now that I’m west coast adjacent I wish this was a weekday series, it’s nice when the games start after I get home for once (dying laughing). The Giants are coming off of a three game sweep of the Cubs other recent thorn, the Padres.
Team Leaders
Cubs
- OBP: Ben Zobrist (.447)
- ISO: Anthony Rizzo (.317)
- HR: Rizzo (11)
- R+RBI: Rizzo (63)
- wRC+: Dexter Fowler (161)
- BSR: Fowler (2.1)
- SP K/9: Jake Arrieta (8.84)
- SP BB/9: Kyle Hendricks (1.98)
- SP FIP: Arrieta (2.61)
- RP K/9: Hector Rondon (15.07)
- RP BB/9: Rondon (1.26)
- RP FIP: Rondon (1.07)
- WAR: Fowler (2.5)
Fowler has been dethroned as the Cubs OBP leader! I thought this wouldn’t happen until at least June, if at all.
Giants
- OBP: Brandon Belt (.429)
- ISO: Hunter Pence (.199)
- HR: Pence (7)
- R+RBI: Pence (55)
- wRC+: Belt (154)
- BSR: Panik (1.3)
- SP K/9: Madison Bumgarner (10.89)
- SP BB/9: Johnny Cueto (1.62)
- SP FIP: Cueto (2.23)
- RP K/9: Santiago Casilla (10.91)
- RP BB/9: Cory Gearrin (1.53)
- RP FIP: Derek Law (1.84)
- WAR: Cueto (2.2)
The top three of the Giants staff have posted incredible numbers, the back half of the rotation, not so much. Luckily that’s who the Cubs will get in the first two games of the series.
Pitching matchups
K/9, BB/9, ERA, FIP, projected ERA listed for each player
Friday: Jay Carrieta, RHP (8.84, 2.89, 1.29, 2.61, 2.59) vs Jave Peavy, RHP (8.10, 3.38, 7.43, 4.76, 3.91), 9:15 CT
Peavy has a huge BABIP this year (.372) which, along with sequencing, probably explains that lofty ERA. It’s not like he’s giving up a ton of line drives or anything, it just looks like a lot of balls are finding holes. He’s a fly ball pitcher so the Cubs offense could have a good day. Or it could be a long day for the Gianrs outfielders.
Saturday: Jon Lester, LHP (8.72, 2.05, 1.88, 3.13, 3.08) vs Matt Cain, RHP (6.46, 2.15, 5.87, 4.48, 4.36), 6:15 PM CT
It’s strange to think that Cain went from ace to struggling late rotation guy but here we are. It happened much longer ago than I thought – his last mostly full season was in 2013, and in the two years plus hence he has been a hot mess. He started off this season badly byt has righted the ship of late, going 7 or more innings in his last two starts. He has a relatively high BABIP this year, but unlike Peavy it’s more easily explained away by a big line drive rate.
Sunday: Kyle Hendricks, RHP (8.12, 1.98, 3.51, 2.72, 3.55) vs Madison Bumgarner, LHP (10.89, 2.76, 2.45, 3.02, 2.80), 7:05 PM CT
The biggest mystery of this game is which inning Bumgarner will homer off of Hendricks.
Comments
I wonder what happened with Cain. It’s not like he suddenly lost a lot of velocity.
MillertimeQuote Reply
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_wy8ebqKbA
MylesQuote Reply
It’s amazing he can get out of bed, let alone pitch, without Drake LaRoche in the clubhouse.
JonKneeVQuote Reply
I knew it wouldn’t last, but I really liked looking at the Cubs 3rd Order Winning Percentage and seeing it above .800. Not today. .798.
dmick89Quote Reply
Kenny Williams for exec of the year. Finally excised Drake LaRoche, clubhouse cancer, and the team is suddenly good.
mylesQuote Reply
We’re calling them the Gianrs now?
JoshQuote Reply
You didn’t get the memo?
berseliusQuote Reply
berselius,
Did you put the proper cover page on the memo?
joshQuote Reply
josh,
Right…
Rice CubeQuote Reply
josh,
berseliusQuote Reply
berselius,
(dying laughing)
dmick89Quote Reply
berselius,
What would you say … you DO here?
joshQuote Reply
Oh, are we doing 90’s comedy now?
What is the deal with homework? You’re not working on your home!
MillertimeQuote Reply
http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/fun-with-early-season-park-factors/
wrigley’s park factor is second only to angels stadium. is that standard for this time of year? i.e. is the wind generally blowing in april/may and then blowing out more consistently in the rest of the summer? or is the 2016 park factor just a SSS anomaly?
EnricoPallazzoQuote Reply
Millertime,
That’s gold, Jerry! GOLD!
joshQuote Reply
EnricoPallazzo,
I’d assume that it’s just that the wind tends to blow in when it’s colder.
dmick89Quote Reply
Just learned about this tweet/thread from 2013: https://twitter.com/JArrieta34/status/327097481815019521
Rizzo the RatQuote Reply
Rizzo the Rat,
I think that’s something you’d read from most athletes. Athletes at that level generally do not lack confidence.
dmick89Quote Reply
dmick89,
Yeah, I get that, but it’s a lot of fun to see a rude fan put in his place like that.
Rizzo the RatQuote Reply
Rizzo the Rat,
Agreed
dmick89Quote Reply
Rizzo the Rat,
Agreed. Gotta be better. If we see each other in person, you should avoid me.
Good point. Don’t ever fucking make it again.
joshQuote Reply
Regrets, I have some. Actually no I don’t. My way.
MillertimeQuote Reply
dmick89,
I mean yeah but I guess my question was, is wrigley typically a pitchers park in april/may and then a hitters park in the summer? I’d just never really noticed that much of a split. Always seemed to be more day-to-day (or even inning-to-inning) rather than month-to-month.
EnricoPallazzoQuote Reply
I feel like Cubs announcers etc. have been talking about this for years, though I might have heard it somewhere else.
berseliusQuote Reply
Wrigley park factors are extremely unpredictable.
In 2014, it ranked 23rd: http://espn.go.com/mlb/stats/parkfactor/_/year/2014
In 2013, it ranked 2nd: http://espn.go.com/mlb/stats/parkfactor/_/year/2013
Rizzo the RatQuote Reply
While I agree with the day-to-day variation, in the summer it gets hot and balls go farther in the heat. But the real story is this spring. In Chicago, it has been very cool after a relatively warm winter—I think March was warmer than April and May hasn’t been much better—I don’t know that we have hit 80° yet. So it’s just another opportunity for inane announcers to openly doubt global warming.
ceruleanQuote Reply
Embed didn’t work, but this is obligatory.
ceruleanQuote Reply
Rizzo the Rat,
Fair enough but those espn rankings go strictly by runs. The fangraphs PF ranking that I linked to uses player performance, which I would guess is more accurate given that (for example) a good pitching staff and a terrible offense would yield few runs at the home stadium but that wouldn’t necessarily mean that it’s a pitchers park.
I wonder how tight the correlation is between the espn PF and the fangraphs PF is. I’m too lazy to try to figure it out on my phone though.
EnricoPallazzoQuote Reply
I did a stats project for a class and I analyzed wind based on the average windspeed and direction to try to see if there was a correlation between wind blowing in/out and homeruns. I found that there was none, but average daily dosen’t really tell you much about gametime and the only reliable wind measurements are taken at O’Hare so ymmv.
joshQuote Reply
cerulean,
Did you ever read randall munroe aka xkcd’s book “what if”? It’s pretty entertaining for dorks who like to speculate/argue about stupid shit, which I assume applies to all OV commenters.
EnricoPallazzoQuote Reply
josh,
That’s surprising. Do you have any idea how strong the correlation is between wind speed/direction at ohare versus wrigley? I would figure that it’s generally tight but then again you never hear much about wind being a factor for white sox games and they are just as close to wrigley as wrigley is to ohare so maybe wrigley air is just an anomaly. The near North side (old town to wrigleyville) always does seem a lot windier than the rest of the city but I don’t really know what the hell I’m talking about.
EnricoPallazzoQuote Reply
EnricoPallazzo,
No. They need a wind gage at Wrigley, or if they have one they should share the data. I think if I remember, assuming you can draw any conclusions at all from that kind of data, the only real effect was from cross winds and it tended to aid home runs. But none of the correlations were very strong. Could just be that O’Hare and Wrigley are too far away or the lake is playing hell at Wrigley.
joshQuote Reply
EnricoPallazzo,
I read his What If blog posts pretty regularly. They’re awesome.
joshQuote Reply
Read it before it was a book.
Bought Thing Explainer ostensibly for my girls, but mostly for me. (dying laughing)
ceruleanQuote Reply
Come to think of it, ACB or 1060 was where I first learned about the web comic. So thanks DMick and friends. (Curiosly, xkcd is to this day categorized as a verb in my head, just like FMJ.)
ceruleanQuote Reply
I always find it disappointing when there is just one or two new things, so I like to forget and then binge.
ceruleanQuote Reply
to-nite’s base ball squadron
Fowler
Heyward
Bryzzobrist
Soler
Montero
Baez (SS)
Arrieta
berseliusQuote Reply
Kyle Hendricks with Buster on the BBTN Podcast .
ceruleanQuote Reply
I didn’t read every word so maybe I missed something, but the new site is no longer letting me log in. Is it just me?
And here I was, all ready to bitch about my dish going out on the one weekend where the Cubs will be blacked out here, and now this. Thanks, Obama.
uncle daveQuote Reply
Chump edit: now logged in. Thanks, Obama!
uncle daveQuote Reply
uncle dave,
We’re having some login issues. You’re not actually being logged out. If it looks like you aren’t, refresh the page a few times. Sorry about this.
dmick89Quote Reply
dmick89,
No harm, save for me looking like a dunce. Which is just business as usual now that I think about it…
uncle daveQuote Reply
new shit: http://obstructedview.net/cubs-giants-game-thread-8-20-2016/
dmick89Quote Reply