Series Preview: San Diego Daddies (7-0) vs Chicago Cubs (5-4)

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The Cubs are on their fourth, and last, opener of the season as they play their first series at Wrigley in 2025. The weather looks slightly cooler than what they had in Phoenix/Sacramento, hopefully it doesn’t cool off the bats as well. Though if the bats cooled down to only scoring say 8 runs a game I guess that would be okay.

The Padres have been off to a hot start to the season but aren’t even in first place because the Dodgers are the Dodgers. Old friend Yu Darvish is on the IL but I’m hoping he’ll be around for vibes reasons this weekend. The Cubs miss both Dylan Cease and Michael King in this series, which, phew, but the Padres are another pretty good team and are in the mix with the Dbacks for the best non-Dodgers MLB team.

Team Leaders

(Preseason ZiPS DC Projected)

Cubs

  • OBP: Kyle Tucker (.355)
  • ISO: Tucker (.214)
  • HR: Tucker (29)
  • R+RBI: Tucker (185)
  • wRC+: Tucker (132)
  • BSR: PCA (3.1)
  • Defense: Swandong (19.2)
  • SP K/9: Ben Brown (9.5)
  • SP BB/9: Shota (2.09)
  • SP ERA: Steele (3.39)
  • RP K/9: Merryweather (10.43)
  • RP BB/9: Ryan Brasier (2.43)
  • RP ERA: Brasier (3.10)
  • WAR: Swandong (4.7)

Dads

  • OBP: Luis Arraez (.350)
  • ISO: Fernando Tatis Jr (.249)
  • HR: Tatis (36)
  • R+RBI: Tatis (207)
  • wRC+: Tatis (144)
  • BSR: Brandon Lockridge (1.4)
  • Defense: Xander Bogaerts (11.4)
  • SP K/9: Dylan Cease (10.60)
  • SP BB/9: Kyle Hart (2.35)
  • SP ERA: Michael King (3.32)
  • RP K/9: Jeremiah Estrada (12.39)
  • RP BB/9: Bryan Hoeing (2.53)
  • RP ERA: Estrada (3.25)
  • WAR: Jackon Merrill (4.8)

Congrats to Estrada and the Padres for being able to find the strike zone. Hopefully he walks the bases loaded a few times for old times sake.

I knew Tatis’s bat was good but I forgot that he was THIS good.

Who isn’t available?

My guy Yu Darvish is out with elbow inflammation, possibly returning in May. He’s doing light throwing but hasn’t thrown off a mound. Sometime knuckleballer Matt Waldron suffered an oblique strain in mid-March and is likely out for a few more weeks. Sometime Pirate Joe Musgrove is out for the year after TJS. Relievers Bryan Hoeing and Sean Reynolds are out for most of April.

The Cubs did the usual start of the season roster shuffle, moving Tyson Miller (hip), Vidal Brujan (elbow), and Ryan Brasier (hip) to the IL. Javier Assad is still out with the oblique injury he suffered early in ST and his working his way back for a likely return in April. We haven’t gotten any significant update on these guys, though Brujan is probably mostly fine.

Pitching Matchups

ZiPS Projected K/9, BB/9, ERA listed for each

Friday: Randy Vasquez, RHP (6.85, 3.10, 4.41) vs Shota Imanaga, LHP (9.08, 2.09, 3.52), 1:20 PM CT

I’m not sure what more there is to say about Shota. He might be the most fun Cubs player since Zambrano. Certainly since early career Javy. I can only imagine how much fun a time-traveling Shota would have been on the 2016 team. He looked great in his first start against a good Dbacks lineup, breezing through seven innings and allowing just one run.

Vasquez made 20 starts for the Padres last year in his first season as a full-time starter, to okay-ish results. He’s got great breaking stuff but barely strikes anyone out; he posted a 5.69 K/9 last year which is not exactly what you want unless a guy is pitching bowling balls. Overall he seems to profile as a fifth-starter type.

Saturday: Nick Pivetta, RHP (10.45, 2.66, 3.94) vs Matthew Boyd, LHP (9.32, 3.01, 3.79), 1:20 PM CT

Pivetta didn’t sign until very late in the offseason, and looking at his numbers I’m kind of scratching my head as to why. He’s been the very picture of a league average pitcher over the last four seasons in Boston. He strikes out a lot and doesn’t walk relatively many, but he is pretty prone to the home run ball. (looks again) Oh he was a QO guy. Still though.

We’ll get our second official look at Boyd in a Cubs uniform on Sunday. He was a TJS guy who missed all of 2023 and made eight starts last for the Tigers, looking pretty great in that small sample. The Cubs love a injury bounceback guy, they have a type. He was pretty up and down earlier in his career but a cromulent choice for a 4th starter. He was fine in his start against the Dbacks, shutting them down for five innings before the bullpen came in and poured a gas can all over the mound.

Sunday: Kyle Hart, LHP (8.92, 2.35, 4.73) vs Ben Brown, RHP (9.66, 3.53, 3.67), 1:20 PM CT

Hart was a long-time minor leaguer, mostly in the Red Sox system, who had a cup of coffee in 2020 and went to Korea last year, posting a 2.69 ERA. That was enough to get him a modest $1m contract with the Padres late in the offseason, and he squeaked into the fifth starter job thanks to the Yu Darvish injury. He got knocked around a bit in the spring, we’ll see how he looks in his quasi-debut.

I’m not taking away much from Brown’s first start since Sacramento might be Coors West, in which case three runs over five innings seems okay. His stuff still looks as electric as last year’s, the big question is whether his lack of a third pitch will hold him back as a starter longer term. Though to me, the even bigger question is what happened to make him look like he aged 15 years in the offseason. I think he has reverse Craig Counsell disease.

Go Cubs. Or don’t. I can’t tell you what to do.

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Comments

  1. Author
    berselius

    To-day’s base ball squadron

    LF Happ
    RF Tucker
    DH Suzuki
    1B Busch
    SS Swanson
    2B Hoerner
    CF PCA
    3B Shaw
    C Amaya

    SP Shota

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  4. BVS

    Some comments on the O/Us from last post.

    I went through the rosters over the last few years to count relief pitchers, thinking I’d spitball 25. I didn’t go too many years back, but let’s just say if that were an actual betting target, the bookmaker would be out of business. I went Around, and Around, and Around on that, and finally picked 32 as a rough average. Y’all were split. If it’s under, then our bullpen will stabilize quickly and be healthy. Hope that’s right.

    Taking the under on 3.5 Counsel ejections is the safest bet on the list. Most years he has 3. One year he had 4 and one year 5.

    I suspect the wind won’t be blowing in so much this year at Wrigley, so Shota probably gives up more homers, but he’s also learned the league, so who knows.

    I’ve long thought Nico could hit 15-20 homers. With a fixed elbow or whatever, this is the year!

    Nico had 31 SB last year. PCA had 27. Tucker has had 30 SB seasons twice and 29 once. I’m hoping either he or Shaw join the 30 club.

    Taillon’s career K/BB is 3.66. The target was 3.6. Will his command be above average this year? I hope so.

    Finally,

    Rice Cube:
    berselius,

    They needed the position and the spot too, they already can’t play Seiya in the field most of the time (your perspective as to whether that’s good or bad) and they essentially have blocked their top prospect OF bats (ditto) so having Bellinger on top of that is probably going to make that worse

    In terms of roster/position management, I totally agree. It’s not that they traded Bellinger, it’s that they got nothing useful back and they did nothing with the money they saved. The Cubs have no business just executing a salary dump with no return. (Reinforcing the over.) 🙂

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  14. andcounting

    BVS,

    As it fits in the narrative, the Cubs were hoping Bellinger would elect free agency as opposed to exercising his option for another year in Chicago. From that point on, imho, they didn’t have Bellinger so much as they were stuck with him. Getting out of that scenario without having to pay a team to take him (especially since every team at that point knew the Cubs didn’t have a place for him and Bellinger had even conceded he wasn’t likely to get that much on the open market) is a net positive in my eyes.

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  16. Author
    berselius

    Hope the Cubs don’t end up regretting the wasted opportunities against this mid Padres starter.

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  22. Author
    berselius

    tbh the better berselius-related over under would have been the number of times I call for the Cubs to trade for Yu Darvish (dying laughing)

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  24. andcounting

    BVS,

    Totally, and it’s really more of an “I can reason my way to no longer caring about the return” rationale than a “good job, Jed” type of deal. The overall whimper of spending following the trade has been uninspiring.

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  30. Author
    berselius

    good news!

    AI Overview

    As of April 4, 2025, the living Chicago Cubs players in the Baseball Hall of Fame include Ernie Banks, Andre Dawson, Greg Maddux, Ryne Sandberg, Billy Williams, Fergie Jenkins, and Lee Smith.

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  38. Perkins

    Rice Cube,

    I think Pressly needs to get a bit more efficient anyway, so I’m not sure his absence would break anything. Feels like most of his appearances so far are high wire acts.

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  40. Rice Cube

    The folks at Marquee and online do suggest that it makes little sense to have a guy with diminishing velocity and a seeming inability to miss bats close games, but he weaseled out of his mess so expect to see him there at least through April

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  46. Rice Cube

    Rice Cube:
    The Reds, picked by many for some reason to finish above the Cubs in 2025, are being no-hit through 6 after not having scored in like 3 days

    They heard me (dying laughing)
    They’re threatening to score now

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