A reminder for the regulars and a heads up for those who are newer here. I’m never going to get into pointing fingers in this space. I’m rarely going to get into grumbling about managerial decisions. When I do get into any kind of critique of decision making, I’m most likely going to get into in-game decisions be they managerial or things like baserunning. Those thing are far more likely to be adjacent to Heroes and Goats than are things like starting lineups.
As a general, overarching opinion on starting lineups and player usage, I am a firm believer that a roster contains 26 players. I think the closer the team is to having 26 useful players who all play and contribute, the better the team will be. Further, the closer the roster is to 40 players on the 40-man roster that are healthy and able to contribute at the MLB level over the course of the year, the better. And at the most macro level, the ability to eventually find 50 to 60 guys over the course of the 162 game grind who can make some small contribution (or more), the better the team will be.
This is not the place to find an ear to your opinion on how the lineup should be constructed or pointing fingers at one or two guys and saying they are the reason the team lost. This is why I never really got into doing who was the anti-Player of the Game was when the team loses. I don’t like that negativity and I don’t think there is much value in that.
15 Cubs played in the game Thursday afternoon. I’ll be able to point out a small handful who made strong contributions to keeping the game competitive and giving the team a chance to win. Charitably, eight of the 15 players made some positive contribution to the game. The other seven did not. And most of the eight could have done more to tilt this game into the win column. Unsurprisingly, in a relatively close game that the team didn’t win, most of the players had reasonable opportunities to make more meaningful contributions. But most of them didn’t.
What we do in this space is try to keep everything in perspective. Since the All-Star break, the Brewers are 24-8. The Cubs are 4-4 against the Brewers in that time span. I’m not sure what the heck the Cubs were supposed to do about Brewers rolling over the rest of baseball to the tune of a 20-4 run. For sure, the Cubs being 12-12 against MLB and 4-4 against the Brewers doesn’t leave a lot of warm and fuzzy feelings. But all of the narrative of a collapse is just bluster. The Cubs played so well in the first 96 games that they had room to be virtually assured of a playoff spot by playing .500 ball over the final 66 games.
Will I be disappointed if they are 33-33 over those last 66 games? Absolutely. I’m disappointed about this 16-16 stretch. It will always be perplexing that the Cubs played around .600 ball against a very difficult schedule and that as the season wore on, their effectiveness decreased as the schedule got easier and easier.
Also, thee remaining 34 games feature just three games against teams currently in the playoff picture and four more against a team just outside of the playoffs. Most of these games are against teams that are more likely to be nailing down offseason plans and blueprints for next year than trying to stack wins. Do I think they’ll all just roll over? Of course not. But I expect the Cubs to win somewhere around 20 of these remaining games and get into the 91-95 win range. That will make the playoffs comfortably.
There’s work to be done, but I expect that work to go well. I’m enjoying this season, I intend to enjoy until whatever round the playoffs end for them. So don’t expect to get a lot of support from this part of the internet on your gloom and doom and finger pointing. This has been the most fun season in at least half a dozen years and I don’t care to dwell on the things that didn’t go well while it’s going on. As is always the case, there will be room for post mortem and speculation on the future after the World Series has played out.
On to sunny California. But first we recap the finale of a terrific series with the Brewers. Never thought I would say this, but boy would I enjoy a playoff series between these two teams, even while recognizing that the outcome of that series might be less than I’d be happy with. This Brewers team is trying to teach me something about talent evaluation, because I still think the Cubs roster is better than the Brewers roster. But boy, it’s hard to feel comfortable for even a minute against them.
Brewers: 172, 39 BFCubs: 139, 35 BF
Wow, just that one snapshot sure looks like it would be a Cubs win. The Cubs managed to make the Brewers work really hard in this one. The Cubs only managed five hits, but they drew eight walks and had a hit batsman. They did hit into two double plays. That and 11 runners left on base doomed this one.
Hat tip to the Brewers pitching staff and their coaching staff. In this space, we noted at pretty much every turn that the Brewers bullpen was set up better for the later stages of the series than the Cubs were. There were two things that contributed heavily to this. One was an untimely early exit for Cade Horton in the opener. The other was some very efficient work out of the Brewer bullpen.
The saving grace out of this was that Shōta Imanaga flipped the script in this last game by giving the Cubs seven strong innings. Unfortunately, the Cubs didn’t have a lot of options other than going to Ryan Brasier in the eighth inning. His was one of the freshest arms. With all due respect to Ryan who has been good at times this season, I hope the Cubs go a different direction for the playoff roster. I’d actually like to see them swing towards one extra hitter on the playoff roster than they carry all season. One starter (at least) shifts back to the bullpen and I’d think that would lend itself to an extra bat for a team that has struggled offensively in the back half of the season.
Imanaga’s great start positions the Cub pitching staff well heading to Anaheim. The Cubs should have pretty much all hands on deck for that one. With an off day Monday, I would hope and expect Craig Counsell will manage extremely aggressively and chase three wins in Anaheim. You certainly can’t expect a sweep against any team. But if any or all of those games are close, it’s time to deploy the pieces aggressively and chase all of the wins. I do think there is value in the fourth overall spot in the NL (and keeping the slim chance at the Central alive).
This series needed to be survived and was. Now it’s time to floor it and stack wins. You should be able to involve your whole 26 in these games, keep people fresh and work out some issues against some lesser talent and find some favorable matchups.
As I’m fond of saying, time to get greedy.
Shōta Imanaga allowed two runs over seven innings. That’s good enough to win. Unfortunately, he and the team were tagged with a loss anyway.No extra base hits and no player had more than one hits. Ian Happ was the offensive star though with a single and two walks. His wRC+ sits at 104. All of his numbers are down, but the big deal is the giant step back from 25 to 16 homers. Looks like he might end up right around 20 homers.Willi Castro had a single and was hit by a pitch. I like Willi moving all over the diamond and existing as essentially a 10th everyday player. I think he can be a real contributor.
Game 128, August 21: Brewers 4, Cubs 1 (73-55)
Reminder: Heroes and Goats are determined by WPA scores and are in no way subjective.
Superhero: Michael Busch (.119). 1-4, BBHero: Shōta Imanaga (.094). 7 IP, 25 BF, 3 H, 2 BB, 2 ER, 5 K (L 8-6)Sidekick: Ian Happ (.073). 1-2, 2 BBBilly Goat: Kyle Tucker (-.238). 0-4, BBGoat: Ryan Brasier (-.167). IP, 6 BF, 3 H, BB, 2 ER, KKid: Nico Hoerner (-.080). 1-4
WPA Play of the Game: Brice Turang’s two-run homer with two outs in the second was the key play of the game. (.205)
*Cubs Play of the Game: Michael Busch batted with a runner on first and no outs in the fifth and down two. He singled, sending the runner to third. (.130)
Yesterday’s Winner: Matt Shaw (84 votes) over Colin Rea (55) and Michael Busch (46).
Rizzo Award Standings: (Top 5/Bottom 5)
The award is named for Anthony Rizzo, who finished first in this category three of the first four years it was in existence and four times overall. He also recorded the highest season total ever at +65.5. The point scale is three points for a Superhero down to negative three points for a Billy Goat.
Matthew Boyd +23Shōta Imanaga +20Kyle Tucker +21Michael Busch +16.67Jameson Taillon +14Carson Kelly -14Julian Merryweather -15Ben Brown -19Dansby Swanson -25.33Seiya Suzuki -28
Scoreboard Watching: Padres (Wild Card 2) win (Cubs up 1). Mets (WC 3) lose (Cubs up 5.5). Reds off (Cubs up 6). The Reds need to finish 23-11 to reach 90 wins. And I’ll still take the over on 90 wins.
Up Next: The Cubs head to California to play the Angels (61-66). The Angels were competitive for a while, but 12-14 in July and 8-10 to date in August has sapped any idea of getting back into contention. The Angels were off Thursday, so they have that going for them. Also, they were already at home, losing two of three to the Reds. Before that, they were at Sacramento and home against the Dodgers. So they haven’t left the state of California since August 10. They’ve played only three games all month outside of California (and have six left, all in Texas). Kyle Hendricks pitched Tuesday. On a normal five-man rotation, his next start would be Monday against the Rangers. So I think we’ll miss that.
No starters have been named for the series. Javier Assad was at Wrigley Field on Thursday. There are definitely spots where a guy who is in the minors stops by for one reason or another. Javier is not eligible to be activated for almost another week, unless someone goes on the injured list. Friday’s game is the rotation spot last taken by Assad. The alternative appears to be Ben Brown who should be rested and good to go. Brown is 5-7 with a 5.91 in 99 innings. Staying on rotation, this spot for the Angels would be lefty Tyler Anderson (2-8, 4.77, 126.1 IP). Anderson was the 18th overall pick in the 2011 draft by the Rockies. At 35 years old, his best days look to be behind him.
Key Stat: The Cubs are 16-18 against lefty starters (and 57-37 vs righties).