Series Preview: San Francisco Giants (19-26) at Chicago Cubs (22-20)

In Series Previews by berselius207 Comments

As much grumbling as there has been at the Cubs slow start, this series offers a stark reminder that it could be much worse. The Giants season can be summed up with the fact that Giants ace Madison Bumgarner, who has been out since late April due to a dirtbike accident, has the team's third highest offensive WAR on the season. Aside from Posey and Belt, just about everyone else has been awful, and the team as a whole has a .232/.289/.349, the worst offense in baseball. Their starting staff has been pretty good despite losing one of the top ten pitchers in MLB, at least by FIP (3rd), but they are middle in the pack in ERA despite having a decent defense behind them.

Team Leaders

Giants

Great year for Shark, peripherals-wise. However he has a 4.57 ERA and a 1-5 record thanks to sequencing and this terrible offense (dying laughing).

Cubs

Injuries, transactions, vengeance pacts, etc.

Jason Heyward is back up, which sent Tommy La Stella back to Iowa. Joining him was Pierce Johnson, who was replaced by the recently shelled Dylan Floro.

The Giants have a bunch of guys on the injury report, not surprisingly. As mentioned above the biggest abscense is Bumgarner, but they are also missing outfielder/homeless person Hunter Pence to a hamstring injury. He's eligble to come back in this series, but it's not looking likely as he hasn't tried to run on it yet. Aaron Hill is on a rehab assignment for a forearm strain and may be back soon, and closer Mark Melancon was activated off the DL last week a little earlier than the team planned.

Pitching Probables

K%, BB%, ERA, projected ERA listed for each starter.

Monday: Ty Blach, LHP (7.6%, 6.9%, 4.15, 4.43) vs John Lackey, RHP (23.7%, 6.3%, 4.37, 3.74), 7:05 PM CT

Blach has a comically low strikeout rate. It's a early season fluke, but not *that* much of one as he is projected to have a strikeout rate of around five batters per nine. He's a sinker-changeup guy, who tops out around 90, but unless he's the second coming of Brandon Webb* there's little chance he can succeed with those strikeout rates. /dooms Cubs to a complete game, 0 K shutout

*holy cow, Webb's career was WAY shorter than I would have guessed. He only pitched for six seasons.

(Lackey comment repeated due to laziness) I was surprised to find that Lackey has actually thrown the most innings of all of the Cubs starters. He's neck and neck with Lester for the best xFIP among the Cubs starters, he's just given up some extra homers.

Tuesday: Johnny Cueto, RHP (21.2%, 6.5%, 4.50, 3.24) vs Jon Lester, LHP (23.9%, 9.3%, 3.57, 3.20), 7:05 PM CT

Cueto's walk rate has jumped a bit and he's had a few more fly balls leave the yard, but the biggest change from last season is a large dip in his ground ball rate. Perhaps his biggest contribution has been his ability to work deep into games early in the season, which is something we certainly haven't seen much of lately.

Lester seems to have mostly figured out the whole stolen base thing this year. Rather than trying to get him to throw to first, the team seems to have keyed into taking advantage of just how uncomfortable runners are against him, getting pickoffs on stuff like lobs to second on botched steals as well as going after backpicks at first from Willson even more aggresively than last year. By my eyeball norm it almost feels like a net positive.

Wednesday: Matt Moore, RHP (19.2%, 8.9%, 5.37, 4.08) vs Kyle Hendricks, RHP (20.2%, 9.6%, 3.35, 3.45), 7:05 PM CT

I was out in the Bay Area for work at the beginning of the season, sporting my World Series Champions hat, and all the Giants fans out there were still groaning about Moore being pulled after the 8th inning in game four of the NLDS. He absolutely owned this Cubs in that game, striking out ten and allowing just two hits and a walk in eight innings. The Cubs came back to score four runs and take the lead against seemingly the entire Giants bullpen in the ninth, and the rest was history.

The Kyle Hendricks Concern-O-Meter is down to about a two right now. He looks like his old self, though I don't really expect him to contend for a Cy Young again.

Thursday: Jeff Samardzija, RHP (28.5%, 4.0%, 4.57, 3.49) vs Eddie Butler, RHP (20.0%, 20.0%, 2.00, 5.02), 1:20 PM CT

Shark has been great, but has a .331 BABIP and a 63.3% strand rate. He has been giving up a ton of line drives, which I guess could explain a lot of that, but still. Also, I miss xBABIP. Was that discredited? I haven't seen it around in a while. Maybe it was at THT?

Butler was, uh, not good on Friday. The weather was pretty awful but he couldn't find the plate at all. He looked pretty good in his first start so there's still some hope there, and I still think he's better than Brett Anderson. But yeesh.

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  1. Perkins

    So Schwarber has been worth -0.1 fWAR to this point. I figured he might hit a sophomore slump, but that’s pretty ugly at the top of a lineup.

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  2. dmick89

    Perkins,

    Yeah, it’s not been fun watching him this season. I’m surprised it took Joe this long to move him down in the lineup and I’m still surprised he hasn’t moved him further down the lineup. I guess the team just doesn’t really have anyone who should be hitting leadoff. They really only have Bryant and Rizzo and Rizzo hasn’t been all that good so far.

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  3. cerulean

    I wonder if Shark will be an acquisition target. I don’t think he embodies Cubs’ culture, but I also don’t think he can’t fit—he certainly works hard. Thoyer offered something like a 5/75 extension a few years back. They might be able to get 3.5/60 rather easily.

    The Giants need all sorts of offensive help, so they might be willing to swing a deal. They also need all sorts of pitching help, so they might not (dying laughing).

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  4. cerulean

    I am intrigued by Brian Hudson—not because his BB-rate and K-rate are equal (and equally poor), but because of his groundball-rate. He is a lanky lefty with a lot of moving parts, but he could be something quite effective in a few years.

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  5. Perkins

    It’s hard to believe that the Cubs once had Archer and more for the low price of Mark DeRosa, and could still have had him but for that buttfuckingly stupid Matt Garza trade. Then again, maybe he wouldn’t have developed as well in the Cubs’ farm system.

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  6. cerulean

    I want to go on the record in saying that I really don’t see Baez being traded. In fact, Schwarber is probably more likely to be traded just because of positional flexibility. And I say this thinking that Schwarber can be adequate in left and behind the plate.

    Baez looks like the only good defender at SS that can hit worth a damn after Russell in the entire org. There are a lot of almost* SS on the team—Bryant, La Stella, Zobrist, Happ—but if Russell goes down, the Cubs would have to swing a deal.

    Speaking of deal-swinging, I wish the Cubs had swung a deal for Wade Davis instead of Chapman*—though injury certainly played a factor.

    *This asterisk is too small.
    *Yeah, yeah, 2016 World Champions. The Cubs got still got fleeced on the deal.

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  7. dmick89

    cerulean,

    I think Cueto is the more likely target, but I’m guessing the Cubs don’t do much if anything. I don’t see the talent available that would allow them to swing a major deal. Maybe they acquire a reliever for Candelario or something, but that’s about it.

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  8. Berselius is too lazy to login

    To-day’s Happless base ball squadron

    LF Zobrist
    CF Almora
    3B Bryant
    1B Rizzo
    C Contreras
    SS Russell
    RF Heyward
    2B Baez
    P Lackey

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  9. Rizzo the Rat

    cerulean,

    Davis would have been more expensive at the trade deadline, though, and I’m quite happy with the deal they got in the off-season. Honestly, I’m surprised they were able to trade Soler for a useful player at this point.

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  10. uncle dave

    Rice in limbo,

    Anderson, hopefully, though I feel like that’s more like ‘who will the Cubs try to loudly announce is on waivers in the hopes that some other team notices’ than a ‘sneak.’

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  11. uncle dave

    dmick89,

    I think he has about five more starts before the incentives start to kick in. Will be interesting to see if they give him one more shot to get it right.

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  12. Berselius is too lazy to login

    Give credit to Lackey for those defensive plays. He made sure his teammates weren’t out of their element.

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  13. dmick89

    I was worried the Cubs scored all their runs for the week yesterday. Maybe Lackey is going to allow all the runs the Cubs will allow this week.

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  14. cerulean

    I don’t know that I have ever seen a 2–5–4 DP. Contreras–Bryant–Baez. Tinker–Evers–Chance.

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  15. Perkins

    I mean, you can’t expect to beat a guy who’s only on the roster because Madison Bumgarner hurt himself in a freak dirt bike accident.

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  16. dmick89

    The Cubs are kind of lucky to even be sitting above .500, even if it is only one game above. This team could easily be a couple games worse than the Pirates.

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  17. cerulean

    dmick89:
    The Cubs are kind of unlucky to be sitting around .500, even if it is one game above. This team could easily be a couple games better than the Brewers.

    I can see it either way.

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  18. dmick89

    cerulean,

    I could see them being better than the Brewers based on the Brewers luck, but not the Cubs. The Cubs have been lucky to steal several games late that no team can expect to win. This team has played no better than .500 baseball so far. They look like crap to me.

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  19. dmick89

    Rice in limbo,

    That’s about what he was hitting in the later part of his career. I’m guessing even if he’s been playing a lot and was warmed up that he’d have trouble hitting 87 or 88 these days. Wouldn’t surprise me if 85 was pushing it.

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  20. cerulean

    dmick89,

    That’s the point. They have looked terrible. And they have won half their games. And according to run differential, they have been about a game unlucky. #MAGA so you know it’s real.

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  21. Berselius is too lazy to login

    My mind is still grappling with the idea of a Cubs player homering with a runner on base.

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  22. Perkins

    That was a game I recently enjoyed in person. Hell of an outing by Lester, and Schwarber’s HR was manly.

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  23. cerulean

    So, anybody excited about Johnson-Hanks 2020? I hope they pick Meryl Streep as Secretary of State. (She could totally infiltrate the Russians.) #MAGAFRTT

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  24. dmick89

    cerulean,

    Sure, if they turn the debates into a wrestling match, I’m all for it. I’d love to watch Trump get his ass beat for awhile. Somehow though, after thoroughly getting his ass kicked, he’d claim that he won the debate.

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  25. Perkins

    To day’s base ball squadron:
    Baez
    Almora
    Bryant
    Rizzo
    Happ (LF)
    Heyward
    Russell
    Montero
    Hendricks

    It’s a bold strategy, Cotton. Let’s see if it pays off.

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  26. Rizzo the Rat

    Montero starting against a LHP? Does he have a personal catcher thing going on with Kyle?

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  27. cerulean

    I didn’t pay attention to the lineup. I thought I missed an inning or two with Baez and Almora up. Fascinating. I guess today is all about the defense.

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  28. cerulean

    Why didn’t Joe pinch hit for Hendricks? It’s not at all like Joe not to pull a starter when a scoring opportunity presents itself.

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  29. Berselius is too lazy to login

    Solid start by Cyle. Nice to see Cubs starters pitching past the fifth for once.

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  30. Berselius is too lazy to login

    Don’t love that bunt with two catchers on the base paths but I’ll take the gift run.

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  31. Berselius is too lazy to login

    (dying laughing), Pat made it sound like that was going to land on Sheffield.

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  32. cerulean

    Davis had the ”eye of the tiger” and was ”In the zone”.

    Addy is not one to shy away from cliché.

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  33. Rice Cube

    Perkins,

    I don’t think Davis had seen game action in something like a week, so maybe every now and then he should mop up just to keep the gears greased.

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  34. dmick89

    Rice Cube,

    Yeah, that probably wouldn’t hurt, but I think all those fouls really got to him. He seemed irritated, which is natural. I wouldn’t expect that to happen again even with long rest.

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