Baseball is back! I’m so glad that the Cubs opener is on a Sunday so I don’t have to burn a vacation day for my favorite holiday of the year. Today’s lineups:
Cardinals
- 3B Carpenter
- RF Heyward
- LF Holliday
- SS Peralta
- 1B Adams
- C Molina
- 2B Wong
- CF Jay
- P Wainwright
Cubs
- CF Fowler
- RF Soler
- 1B Rizzo
- SS Castro
- LF Coghlan
- 3B Olt
- C Ross
- P Lester
- 2B La Stella
Team Overviews
2014 stats listed, for now. NL rank in parens.
Cardinals
- wRC+: 95 (6th)
- BSR: -14.5 (15th)
- UZR: 28.5 (2nd)
- DRS: 64 (2nd)
- SP FIP-: 101 (7th)
- RP FIP-: 99 (10th)
- R+RBI: 1204 (9th)
- Neck Tattoos: 1st
- Self-righteous books: 1st
Cubs
- wRC+: 90 (10th)
- BSR: 4.5 (4th)
- UZR: -5.5 (9th)
- DRS: -22 (14th)
- SP FIP-: 95 (3rd)
- RP FIP-: 88 (4th)
- R+RBI: 1204 (9th)
News, notes, vows of revenge, etc.
The Cubs 25 man roster is set. Guys who had decisions yet to be made:
- Chris Denorfia to the DL
- Matt Sczcur to the Cubs
- Jonathan Herrera to the Cubs
- Ryan Sweeney DFA’d
- Welington Castillo to the Cubs
- EJax to the bullpen
- Motte makes the team
Jorge Soler and Mike Olt hit the video board in BP yesterday, and already managed to break a panel. (dying laughing). It’s since been replaced.
Probable Pitchers
For the first few weeks of the season, I list the pitchers’ ZiPS projected ERA and FIP.
Sunday: Adam Wainwright, RHP (2.92, 2.95) vs Jon Lester, LHP (3.10, 3.25), 7:05 PM CT
Wainwright saw his strikeout rate drop by an entire batter per nine due to a nagging elbow injury, which required minor surgery in the offseason. Of course he posted the best ERA of his career anyway because Cardinals. No surgery is minor for a guy with as many miles on his arm as Waino, but I’m not about to predict a down year here or anything. There was a little concern that he might not be ready to start the season (he only made three spring training starts), but by all accounts he’s ready to go.
Lester, on the other hand, saw a huge jump in his strikeout rate in 2014, nearly a batter and a half per nine, as well as posting the best walk rate of his career. His season ended in the bizarre and exciting wild card game against the Royals, where he pitched into the eighth inning and gave up 6 runs, losing the game and ending the A’s all-in season. That shit still doesn’t work in the playoffs. He’s dealt with some dead arm this spring and made his last two starts in intra-squad/minor league games, where he reportedly cleaned up. He should be good for 100 pitches or so
Tuesday: Lance Lynn, RHP (3.27, 3.88) vs Jake Arrieta, RHP (3.67, 3.79), 7:05 PM CT
It feels strange to see that Lynn has posted 200+ innings the last few years, my lack of a concept of time still has him as the fifth-starter swingman-ish guy he was in 2012. He gets his strikeouts, and his home run rates have improved every year he’s been in the league. It’s a little surprising to see, considering how many fastballs he throws (>50%).
Arrieta was clearly the biggest surprise last year, even over Rizzo suddenly destroying lefties and Jorge Soler murdering baseballs. He drastically changed his pitch mix, throwing a lot fewer sinkers. From what I remember the big difference was a lot of cutters, but they’re not showing up in Brooks which is showing lots of sliders/curveballs instead. Whether he can repeat that performance this year is one of the big question marks on the team.
Wednesday: John Lackey, RHP (3.64, 3.76) vs Jason Hammel, RHP (3.89, 3.97), 1:20 PM CT
Lackey could have retired this offseason, but chose to honor the contract he signed which comes in at ‘merely’ $500k due to a clause triggered by his injuries since signing the deal with the fried chicken and beer Red Sox. He came back from his 2012 TJS with the best strikeout and walk rate he had in years, but is still pretty homer-prone. Since the surgery he’s been mainly a fastball-slider guy, and still hits around 93 with the heater.
Hammel is the guy I’m most worried about in the rotation. The Cubs would love to see the guy they got for the first half of 2014, who struck out nearly a batter per inning and posting a career low walk rate and ERA. But he’s also a guy who has only posted a sub-4 ERA in three of his nine seasons in the league. He’s just spectacularly meh, and I’d probably rate him as the fifth best guy in the Cubs rotation.
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