Tag: trevor cahill

Cubs 5, Diamondbacks 3

OSS: Jason Hammel dominates on the mound and has the biggest hit of the game. The Cubs improve to 8-1 on this 10-game homestand and they have Jake Arrieta going tomorrow. 

Three up:

  1. Jason Hammel returned from his abbreviated start last time with 7 excellent innings. He only allowed 1 hit, though that hit was a 1st inning home run to Jake Lamb with a man on base. Hammel also singled up the middle in the 4th inning with 2 outs in a tie game. Two scored and the Cubs never lost the lead. Hammel has 7 RBI this season and according to Myles his OPS is the same as Jason Heyward's.
  2. Jorge Soler hit a game tying ground rule double in the 4th inning. It was the second highest WPA play of the game (Hammel's go-ahead single was the top play). 
  3. Travis Wood came in for Trevor Cahill in the 8th inning after Pedro Strop had a difficult time retiring the Diamondbacks. Wood got Rickie Weeks, Jr. to lineout to Ben Zobrist. That could easily have given the Diamondbacks a 5-4 lead. 

Three down

  1. Pedro Strop gave up a leadoff home run in the 8th and then after Nick Ahmed grounded out and Michael Bourn struckout, Jean Segura lined a single to CF. Brandon Drury singled to LF and Joe Maddon had had enough of Strop for the day. 
  2. Trevor Cahill was called on to get Paul Goldschmidt after Strop left the game. This one goes to Cahill who walked Goldschmidt on 4 pitches and to Joe Maddon and all managers in baseball who refuse to use their closers when it's most important. There's no reason Hector Rondon should not have been brought in to face Goldy. It's why closers get paid a lot of money, but they're never used in this manner anymore. I guess 8-man bullpens are more important. 
  3. Addison Russell was 1-4 today, but he struckout a couple of times and looked terrible doing so. I had hoped his pinch hit PA yesterday was the start of something, but he's not going too well right now. He's really struggling. 

Next up: Patrick Corbin vs. Jake Arrieta on Sunday at 1:20 CT. Arrieta goes for his 10th win of the season as the Cubs go for their 40th win of the season. 

Joe Maddon OK with bullpen game in the postseason

Yesterday Joe Maddon talked a bit about what the Cubs might do if they beat the Pirates on October 7th. Jon Lester would start Game 1 against the Cardinals and then what? Jason Hammel and Kyle Hendricks haven't exactly pitched great down the stretch. The Cubs have had a couple bullpen games recently due to double-headers that have turned out fairly well for the Cubs.

Travis Wood, Clayton Richard and Trevor Cahill are all more than capable of taking the ball for a few innings. This would eliminate the need to for the starter to face the lineup a 3rd time. Hopefully, much of the lineup would not even see a second at-bat against the same pitcher. 

Hammel hasn't been the same since returning from injury earlier this year. Going back to July 21st, Hammel's starts have not lasted particularly long. He's had the following number of innings in each start since then: 5, 3.2, 5.2, 4, 5.2, 3, 6.1, 5, 5, 6, 3.2, 5. 

In those 58 innings, he's allowed 66 hits and 37 runs. He's walked 22 and struckout 60 while giving up 11 home runs. Opposing batters have hit .281/.346/.515. 

This is a small sample, but I can see where Joe is coming from. 

Kyle Hendricks hasn't fared a whole lot better since the All Star break. He's been a bit more consistent in terms of innings pitched. He's lasted at least 5 innings in all but 3 starts this year (April 12, August 14 and September 17). The results haven't been a whole lot better lately though.

Since the break he's thrown 63 innings, allowed 65 hits and 8 home runs. He's struckout 63 while walking 24 and hitting 8 batters. Opposing batters have hit .264/.337/.431. If the Cubs 3rd starter is being chosen based on performance late in the season, it should be Kyle Hendricks.

I'd still take Jason Hammel as I think the entirety of this season, as well as the previous season would indicate he's a better pitcher than Hendricks. If you're going to go with a bullpen day, it ought to be considered that these two pitchers combine in one of them. You could have one or the other start and then the other one relieve them hoping to get through 6 or 7 innings total. The other bullpen game could be the reverse of this or you could use any combination of these two, Travis Wood, Trevor Cahill and Clayton Richard. 

Personally, I'd probably go with Jason Hammel in that potential Game 2 and Kyle Hendricks in Game 4. 

First, let's just get in the playoffs and then beat Pittsburgh. 

Cubs 4, Pirates 5 – Cubs 2, Pirates 1 (9/15/15)

OSS: Cubs split with the Pirates with frustrating loss in Game 1 and semi-frustrating win in Game 2

Game 1

Three Up

1. Trevor Cahill has been great since coming to the Cubs on a minor-league deal. Since being released by the Braves, he's had a 2.79 FIP in his 4 Cubs appearances. He might get the start in the pen game coming up, and he helped his cause with 2 shutout, 1 hit, no walk innings.

2. Tommy La Stella pinch hit a double that scored Montero, bringing to 4-2. He knocked Cole out of the game, which brought in Joakim "Wild Pitch!" Soria. Great plate appearance by Streetcar there.

3. Man, Dexter Fowler is valuable. Another 1-3, BB day, getting the Cubs on board first. 

One Eh

1. Miguel Montero went 2-4 and scored a run, but he (along with Castro) had a throwing error in the 8th which set up the winning sacrifice fly. Not good.

Three Four Down

1. Jason Hammel looked awful in this game. The first inning has really been his bugaboo, and this game was absolutely no different.

2. Castro had an ugly end to this game, with a bad attempt at nailing Florimon stealing 2nd (allowing the ball to roll into center), and then an ugly AB against Melancon in the top of the 9th. not a great game by Starlin here.

3. Kyle Schwarber was ice cold this game, going 0-4 with 2 strikeouts.

4. Kris Bryant was ice colder, going 0-4 with 3 strikeouts and looking absolutely lost out there.

Game 2

Three Up

1. Jon Lester was worth $156 million dollars with his performance yesterday. He was 11 pitches away from the Maddux, and besides a shaky 7th inning he put together the best pitching performance not in a no-hitter thrown by the Cubs this year. The Dodgers match up against the Cubs well from a 1-2 standpoint; after that, I'll take Arrieta/Lester over DeGrom/Harvey, Cole/Burnett, and Wacha/Martinez.

2. Javier Baez had the sick defensive plays both games, and he also went 2-4 in this game with a double.

3. David Ross went 2-4 with a double and a run scored; more importantly, he was the field manager in the 7th inning and helped get Lester out of his mess. He is clearly going to have opportunities as a future manager when he retires.

Three Two Down

1. Addison Russell had a slick glove in this game, so his 0-4, 3 K performance is a little easier to swallow. He had some horrific plate appearances, though.

2. Kris Bryant again looked not very good. He managed to draw a walk, but he went 0-3 with 2 more strikeouts. I'm not overly worried, but it's something to note.

Eh, you know what?

Two One Down

Play of Game 1

Play of Game 2

 

Series Preview: Worst Record vs Third-Worst Record

seriespreview-e1333645859660

As you might have heard, it’s the 100th anniversary of the opening of Wrigley Field this week. Seeing how the two teams that are playing are in the bottom five of the standings right now, it’s no wonder that the Cubs have been using “Party of the Century” as their main marketing gimmick this season. On Wednesday the teams will don Federal League jerseys to play each other, and I’m guessing they picked AZ to be the “Kansas City Packers” for peripheral rooting-against interests. Also, WTF is up with the Cubs marketing department? You couldn’t lean on MLB to make this a series with an actual old franchise, like the Cardinals or the Reds or something? This is pretty much the only marquee game they have this year.

Team Overviews

2014 numbers and NL rankings listed

Cubs

  • wRC+: 75 (15th)
  • BSR: 0.6 (5th)
  • UZR: 2.6 (5th)
  • DRS: 5 (9th)
  • SP xFIP: 3.79 (12th)
  • RP xFIP: 4.51 (14th)

D-backs

  • wRC+: 82 (12th)
  • BSR: -0.6 (11th)
  • UZR: -3.3 (12th)
  • DRS: -9 (15th)
  • SP xFIP: 4.15 (15th)
  • RP xFIP: 3.83 (9th)

1914 numbers and FL rankings listed (not as much data in B-Ref)

Federals (87-67)

  • OPS+: 100 (1st)
  • FIP: 2.81 (2nd)
  • Fld%: .962 (2nd)

Packers (67-84)

  • OPS+: 100 (2nd)
  • FIP: 3.00 (5th)
  • Fld%: .957 (5th)

News, notes, injuries, blood oaths, etc.

Jake Arrieta has a rehab start tonight with Daytona, and it will probably be his last one. Carlos Villanueva hasn’t done much to make Arrieta worried about getting the fifth starter spot. Rizzo left Saturday’s game with back spasms, but was back in the lineup the next day.

The Dbacks had a rough start to the year, even aside from their record. Planned opening day starter Patrick Corbin ended up on the operating table and is out for the year with TJS, along with sometime relief ace David Hernandez.

The Angels had a bit of cubes in them yesterday.

There was a big fight (in the baseball sense, at least) in yesterday’s Pirates-Brewers game after Carlos Gomez bat flipped and admired a triple that he thought was a HR. Gerrit Cole got into it with him, then things got out of hand, some punches were thrown, and Gomez and Travis Snider got ejected. No word yet on suspensions for anyone, but I have a feeling it’s going to be more than just Gomez.

Probable Pitchers

projected FIP, current xFIP listed for each pitcher.

Monday: Bronson Arroyo, RHP (4.52, 4.79) vs Travis Wood, LHP (4.1, 3.13), 7:05 PM CT

The fact that Arroyo was one of the more sought after pitchers on this year’s FA market says a lot more about the market than it does about Arroyo. I don’t think there’s any other pitcher that I hate watching the Cubs lose to more than this junkballer. At least I remembered he’s a RHP this time. He’s been hammered in his starts so far, most recently giving up 9 runs to the Mets vaunted offense.

I wonder if Wood and Samardzija have a side bet going as to who will get less run support this season. According to ESPN, Samardzija is in the lead with 1.75 runs per start, with Wood coming in a close second at 2 runs. I’m not sure if they count total runs scored that game or runs scored while in the game. I’d lean towards the former from what I remember of their starts.

Tuesday: Brandon McCarthy, RHP (3.96, 3.37) vs Jason Hammel, RHP (4.17, 3.87), 7:05 PM CT

Hammel hasn’t had much in the way of run support either (3.33 per start, ‘top’ 20 in the league). He’s pitched into the seventh inning in all of his starts, and looked pretty good against the Yankees but took the loss due to an outbreak of Cubes defense. Still, if he keeps this up the Cubs can probably get something half-decent for him at the deadline.

McCarthy has also been hit hard this year, though given the Dbacks record I could probably say that about all their pitchers. He’s managed to go into at least the 6th inning in all of his starts, but has given up 6 HR already on the season. He hasn’t walked many batters, so he will likely continue that trend this week.

Wednesday: Wade Miley, LHP (3.85, 3.80) vs Jeff Samardzija, RHP (3.42, 3.36), 1:20 PM CT

Miley ended up as the Dbacks surprise ‘opening day’ starter in Australia after Patrick Corbin’s elbow broke. He’s been fairly credible so far this year (incredible if you compare his stats to the rest of the staff), and is coming off a five-walk outing. Miley is mostly a sinker-slider guy, and has good-but-not-Brandon-Webb GB rates. Though to be fair, few other sinkerballers are that good either.

As mentioned above, Shark has had next to no run support this year. His split is probably the best pitch on the staff. It would be fun to see him bust out an eephus or something in honor of the throwback uniforms day.

Thursday: Mike Bolsinger, RHP (4.23, 3.22) vs Edwin Jackson, RHP (3.71, 4.51), 1:20 PM CT

Bolsinger was recently bumped up to the rotation following Trevor Cahill‘s demotion, and his first start of the year was a shelling by the Dodgers last week. We don’t have a lot of pfx data on him, as this is his first season, but so far he has mostly thrown fastballs (~90 mph), along with cutter and a curve.

Jackson finally had a start that didn’t spark another round of OMG JACKSON SUCKS BIG MISTAKE on twitter, which was nice to see. His fastball velocity looked pretty good, and looking over his pfx numbers the drop in his mph over the past 2-3 years wasn’t as bad as I remembered. He has a 32.8% LD percentage and another super low strand rate, which explains his ERA. I still think he’ll turn it around this year and eat some innings for the team.

The Ghosts of Free Agency Future

In the aftermath of the recently announced deal with the city to renovate Wrigley Field, Theo Epstein spoke to the media about its potential benefits to the team:

Our payroll now is third in the division. That’s fine. But it should be first in the division. So this is one of the ways that we’re going to get there.

It should be, we are on the same page. And this is one of the ways to get there. Still with you. I'm just struggling to figure out what the other ways are. Because this…

some aggressiveness in free agency

…I have to be honest, I don't see it.

Perhaps the greatest fault of the Cubs organization circa the late Hendry era was it's reluctance to invest in the minor league system. While other teams were stockpiling compensation picks, luring players from college with massive late-round bonuses, and throwing money around on the international free agent market, the Cubs mostly demurred.* When Theo was hired, he pledged to change all that, and no doubt he would have were it not for the new CBA, which hit like an angry Carlos Quentin and abruptly ended most of those practices. And while the new CBA was a shock, most of us figured: "hey, it's a setback, but there's always free agency." However, a new trend was slowly building and has now nearly overwhelmed the game. No one is making it to free agency any more. Prospects that the Cubs were busy not acquiring years ago are now being locked up well into their 30s, just long enough to get past the time when other teams would have any desire to sign them. 

*The exception being 2011, of course, when Hendry got either religion or a mandate from upstairs to spend big.

Don't believe me? First, I used Fangraphs to find a list of all the players who accumulated at least 5 wins above replacement between the 2010 and 2012. An average player is worth about 2 WAR per season, so this is a fairly low hurdle to clear. It captures more or less everyone who has had a good season for two out of the last three years. Then I used Cot's and Baseball-Reference to determine when each of these players could potentially reach free agency. I filtered out everyone who will be 30 or older by the time they get there. The front office has repeatedly emphasized the importance of acquiring young players close to the prime of their careers. These are the players that they want to spend money on, the building block pieces which would presumably be at the heart of any effort to lead the NL Central in payroll.

Behold, I give you free agency future:

* Club Option

** Two Club Options

+ Two Player Options

2014

Phil Hughes, P, 28

Seriously. That's it.

2015

Pablo Sandoval, 3B, 28

Asdrubal Cabrera, SS, 29

Billy Butler, DH, 29*

Dexter Fowler, CF, 29

Colby Rasmus, CF, 29

Clayton Kershaw, SP, 27

Johnny Cueto, SP, 29*

Yovani Gallardo, SP, 29*

Homer Bailey, SP, 29

If you think Clayton Kershaw will make it to free agency, then either you believe he's on the verge of a catastrophic arm injury, or you are blissfully unaware of the goings-on in LA over the last 11 months. Otherwise, there are some decent pieces there. We can assume a few marginal players will take a step up over the next two years to join this group. Overall, that's not likely to change the way this looks, which is decidedly fair to middling.

2016

Jason Heyward, OF, 26

Austin Jackson, OF, 29

Justin Upton, OF, 28

Alex Avila, C, 29

Gerardo Parra, OF, 29

Mat Latos, SP, 28

Jaime Garcia, SP, 29 **

Rick Porcello, SP, 27

Trevor Cahill, SP, 28 +

Jhoulys Chacin, SP, 28

And now we find ourselves in 2016, the last for which Theo is under contract. If we are lucky, this could project as really good year for the Cubs. And it could be a banner year for free agents, but that is really anyone's guess given how many things could change between now and then. Some of these guys will fall off, and they will be joined by others who breakout. If the early extension model continues, many of them won't make it to the market. My guess, though, is that by then a few marginal guys will have been overpaid to such an extent in free agency that some will decide that waiting is worth the risk. And the Cubs will aggressively pursue them. In 2016.

My point is not that the Cubs are doomed.* There are a few 30 year olds barely missing my age cutoff that would make each of these classes look better. However, avoiding guys over 30 is central to what the front office is trying to accomplish (namely, sustained success). It seems clear to me that the Cubs will be forced to do a lot of things they would rather not: pony up for guys over 30, take on good players with bad contracts from other teams, ship out prospects to smaller market clubs to get a crack at extending bigger names, and pray to Jeff Samardzija Jesus that his will be done, role players be transformed, and prospects pan out. 

*The Cubs are probably doomed.