Checking In on the Cubs Halfway through the First Trimester

One-sixth of the way through the season, how’s everybody doing?

We‘re officially one-sixth of the way through the Chicago Cubs regular season, so it’s a good time to take a deep dive into the numbers and see how everyone’s doing. The Cubs are 15–12, on pace for a 90-win season. It’s felt like a frustrating start, but the team has lost only two series and still leads the division despite some slow hitting and troubled starting pitching.

Let’s take a trip around the roster and check out the numbers behind the numbers to see how the Cubbies players are doing…

Kyle Schwarber

The Schwarber lead-off experiment has gotten off to something of a rocky start. Schwarber’s power has shown up and he’s seeing a lot of pitches, so there’s real value there especially in front of Bryant. But Schwarber leads the team with 38 strikeouts after three more Wednesday night, on pace for an MLB record 228. That will not do, especially from the lead-off spot.

Schwarber’s .190 batting average also does not have the look of a lead-off guy, but that obscures things a bit. Schwarber has 20 hits but also 17 walks, so he’s been on base more than any Cub outside of Bryzzo. And he’s about to play in his 100th career regular season game this weekend, so let’s give the guy some time to figure it out. Kris Bryant had the tenth most strikeouts in MLB history two seasons ago and he turned out just fine.

Kris Bryant

Remember when KB was off to a slow start? Bryant leads the team in hits, doubles, triples, runs, steals, OBP, SLG, OPS, WAR, and just about every other hitting stat. He’s been the most consistent player on the team and is on just about the same pace across the board as last year’s MVP season. And oh yeah, he’s 25, making just over $1 million this year, and signed through 2022.

Anthony Rizzo

Rizzo has been mashing, leading the team with six homers so far, on pace for a career high. He has struggled to hit at times, hitting only .248 so far. That would be the second lowest season of his career so the number will almost certainly come up, as his team-low .238 BABIP would indicate. Rizzo leads the majors with seven times hit by pitch. That’s helped him to get on base almost as often as Bryant, just three times fewer despite his struggles, still easily the second most productive hitter on the team.

Ben Zobrist / Javy Baez

Zobrist has been slow out of the gates, hitting just .226 after somehow hitting precisely between .269 and .276 in six straight seasons. He’s especially struggled against lefties so far with just three hits in 19 plate appearances and a terribly unlucky .154 BABIP. Zobrist has also struggled while ahead in the count, hitting just .150 with .188 BABIP. Those are traditionally two of Zobrist’s biggest strengths, and the numbers suggest the luck should even out in his favor soon.

Javy Baez has been terrific, even if he’s only played about two-thirds of the time, about as expected. He paces to 0.8 WAR as a full-time player, which would rank him third on the team behind only Bryant and Russell. You already know Baez has been a wiz in the field, but he’s been mashing at the plate too. Almost half of Baez’s 19 hits have gone for extra bases, and his slugging percentage is second only to Bryant, right at .500. Baez is one of the few players on the team hitting far better at home than on the road so far, batting .333 at home to just .206 on the road.

Addison Russell

Future MVP Addison Russell is playing like it so far. His defense has been superb, and he’s brought more than double the dWAR of any other player. Russell is second on the entire team in WAR, on pace for 6.0. WAR over the full season. That would equal the Dodgers’ Corey Seager from last season, who finished second in the MVP voting — and all that while Russell is still hitting only .250. That number is well up from .214 last April but should improve as the year goes on.

Russell has been a metronome for the Cubs success so far. He’s hitting .312 in Cubs wins and just .191 in losses. He gets more and more valuable by the day, and he still has so much room to improve too.

Jason Heyward

You’re probably cautiously optimistic on Heyward, and you should be. Heyward leads the team with 17 RBI, a number he didn’t hit until the end of May last year. He’s hit three home runs already. He hadn’t even hit his first homer last season for another couple weeks. Heyward is up over 50 points in batting average, sitting at a very solid .263 so far. A Heyward that bats .260 with 20 HR and 100 RBI while providing everything else he does is a player who is worth every penny of that contract and then some.

But it gets better. April is historically Heyward’s worst month in virtually every stat, so there’s every reason to believe his numbers should go up from here. Heyward has also been terrible against lefties, even considering his career struggles, so that should bounce up. He’s already playing well, third in the team in WAR, and history says he should continue to improve.

Willson Contreras / Miguel Montero

Montero’s bat has been as hot as anyone’s of late. His .389 batting average leads the team and he’s over 1000 OPS, though he’s done it in only 38 plate appearances. Contreras is the one player on the team truly struggling at the plate. His strikeout rate is just below Schwarber’s, and his .680 OPS is the worst on the team. Still, it says a lot that Joe Maddon still pinch hit him for Montero’s hot bat Wednesday night, and even more that Contreras came through with a big two-RBI double in a big spot that turned the game.

One thing you can be certain of is that Contreras is not going anywhere. He’s struggled to control pitches at times, allowing 12 wild pitches already, so there’s work to be done there. But his arm has been fantastic behind the plate, throwing out 8 of 17 possible base stealers. That’s a 47% caught stealing rate, almost double the league-average 27%. Montero is 0-for-6.

Albert Almora / John Jay

If you combined these two guys to make a mythical player named Cubs Centerfielder, he’d be the team’s third best hitter so far. Almora and Jay are at 0.8 WAR combined, third on the team behind only Bryant and Russell. As expected, Almora has been better on defense while Jay has been better on offense. Jay is batting .349 right now, second on the team, and his .451 OBP is first on the team by a mile. Almora has been mashing against lefties with a ridiculous 7-for-16 and a 1.401 OPS. He’s also hitting .363 off the bench in 11 at-bats, easing some fears that he’d struggle without regular playing time.

Everything here is a tiny sample size so far, and Cubs Centerfielder will probably slow down, but right now “he’s” probably been an improvement on Fowler so far. If Almora and Jay do keep it up, they could be a possible solution to the lead-off equation if Maddon wants to mix things up.

Jon Lester

Like every starting pitcher, Lester’s ERA is up from last year as the whole staff has struggled a bit starting out. Still, he’s been the best starter and is easily the guy you feel best out there starting a game. Lester’s 3.67 ERA is just fine, and it’s his worst since 2013 so it’s likely to improve from here.

He’s been incredibly unlucky on the road so far. In three road starts, Lester has faced an atrocious .426 BABIP, pretty directly leading to .361 batting average allowed and a 6.06 road ERA. BABIP gonna BABIP. Lester’s still hitting his strikeout marks and keeping his K/BB ratio strong, and his numbers are all right in line outside of that bad luck. He’s fine. Even better, Lester’s allowed only two stolen bases this year with five guys thrown out!

Jake Arrieta

Jake got his team-leading fourth win Wednesday night but he continues to be pretty uninspiring on the mound. His 4.63 ERA would be his worst by far since coming over from the Orioles. Arrieta is still striking out a lot of guys and keeping his K/BB ratio right in line with usual, so that’s not the problem. The problem is 36 hits allowed in 35 innings. That’s the wrong number to be higher in that ratio.

Arrieta has struggled mightily in the first inning. He allowed another two first-inning runs Wednesday night, nudging his first-inning ERA up to a gross 15.00 with an awful 1300 OPS by opposing batters. Part of that is just brutal luck with opponents seeing over .500 BABIP in the first-inning, but part of it is just Jake getting crushed early on. Seven of his 12 first-inning hits allowed have gone for extra bases. There’s some other bad BABIP luck too, like the absurd .600 by opponents on an 0–2 count. Some of those numbers are bound to come down in time, but there’s more than bad luck here.

Kyle Hendricks

The Professor has struggled across the board so far. His 4.18 ERA is the worst of his career. His strikeouts are down, and his walks and home runs allowed are up. He’s at a 5.04 FIP when he’d been a remarkably consistent 3.20 to 3.36 every other season of his career. The control just hasn’t been there so far, with a K/BB ratio about half of his usual rate.

Like Arrieta, Hendricks has struggled in the first inning. That’s where he’s allowed three of his five home runs given up, and opponents have hit .286 in the first compared to just .162 the rest of the game, mashing a 1.110 OPS. He’s just not settling in right away, and he’s paying for it. And like Arrieta, Hendricks too has struggled to put batters away. After reaching an 0–2 count, opponents are still hitting .304 against Hendricks this season. By comparison, Hendricks allowed just .108 after 0–2 counts last season with a 17.75 K/BB ratio.

Perhaps he’s nibbling at the zone when he gets ahead early, and maybe he’s a little picky early in the game too. Whatever it is, there’s work to be done here. The good news is that April has consistently been the worst month of Hendricks’s career, and he’s always been more of a second-half pitcher. Hopefully that’s the case in 2017 too.

John Lackey

Like Arrieta and Hendricks, Lackey has been terrible in the first inning, with a .400 batting average allowed and a 10.80 ERA. What’s with Cubs pitchers being so bad in the first inning? With Lackey, it’s not just the first inning — it’s the entire first time through the lineup. Opponents are batting .375 their first plate appearance, .244 their second, and just .150 after. If you’re not familiar with this stuff, that’s… weird. Most pitchers are just the opposite, and Lackey usually is too over his career — stronger early, less so as the game goes on. For some reason, that has not been true so far.

Lackey’s also allowed seven home runs already, about double his usual pace, a bit concerning. One encouraging note: Lackey has always struggled in April over his career, so it should only go up from here as he settles into the season.

Brett Anderson

Anderson had one good start, then an okay start, then three bad ones. His 1.25 K/BB ratio is the lowest of his career, and his two gifted wins are already the second most he’s had in a season since 2012. Lefties are batting .438 in 16 at-bats against Anderson, and he’s been comically bad at home with an 11.70 ERA. Brett Anderson is not good. The end.

Bullpen

Wade Davis and Carl Edwards have been nothing short of spectacular. They’ve appeared in 13 and 12 games and pitched 24.1 innings and have yet to allow a single run on the season with 15 strikeouts apiece. Davis and Edwards lead the Cubs pitching staff with 0.6 WAR each. They’ve been pretty close to perfect.

Koji Uehara has been just as good — as long as he’s had a day to rest. With at least one day of rest, Uehara has made 11 appearances and allowed only five hits in 38 plate appearances without allowing a single run. Unfortunately, Uehara has also pitched twice on no rest. In those two appearances, he’s faced seven batters and allowed all seven to reach base without recording a single out, allowing four runs with an infinite ERA and an 0–2 record. Here’s guessing Joe probably won’t use the 42-year-old Uehara on no rest again.

Mike Montgomery has been a workhorse eating up innings out of the pen. He’s faced 74 batters, most among all non-starters by a wide margin and only 30 fewer than Anderson. Montgomery of course had a really rough start to the season, taking the loss in each of his first two appearances. Since then, he’s allowed only one run over the past month. Whether by design or because Maddon has lost confidence in him, Montgomery has been used in mostly low-leverage situations this season, almost two-thirds of his time on the mound. In fact, Montgomery has yet to pitch with a lead at any time this season. But there’s real value to chewing up those middle innings in long relief, and he’s held the fort down since that rough start.

You probably feel a lot differently about Pedro Strop and Hector Rondon so far, but you shouldn’t. They’ve each faced about 40 batters and each allowed only three hits, blanking lefties with a combined 0-for-21. The big difference has come in high-leverage situations, where Strop’s allowing .250 batting average to Rondo’s incredible .056. That will pretty much account for the difference in ERA, 4.32 for Strop and 0.87 for Rondon. The truth is both have been quite good, like most of the rest of the bullpen.

Justin Grimm’s 7.71 ERA is as bad as it looks. He’s allowed 10 earned runs in 11 appearances and his five home runs allowed are third worst on the team. Grimm’s 8.15 FIP is atrocious. And unfortunately, April is usually one of his best months. He typically struggles in June and July. Paints a pretty Grimm picture.

Overall thoughts

The lineup has been fine, especially with Bryzzo still doing their thing at the heart. Heyward’s been as good as you think and should get better, and Zobrist should too. Schwarber and Contreras are young and they are struggling so far, while the Almora/Jay center field platoon has been a wonderful surprise.

The bullpen has probably been the Cubs MVP so far. Edwards and Davis have been untouchable at the back end while Montgomery, Rondon, Strop, and Uehara have all done a nice job holding things down in the middle. The Cubs have been in a hole early, and these guys are plugging the dam so the Cubbies can keep mounting comebacks.

The worries on this team come with those five starting pitchers. Lester has been good, but he’s alone. Arrieta, Hendricks, and Lackey have a mixture of bad luck and poor performance so far, though the latter two tend to improve as the season goes on so let’s see what May brings. Brett Anderson is probably holding a spot until he gets hurt and/or Theo finds a better option.

The hitters have been fine and should settle in, and the fielding is awesome as always. Those starting pitchers need to settle in soon and quit giving up a zillion first inning runs. Chicago is playing like the 2016 Twins in the first inning but like the 2016 Cubs the rest of the game.

Oh, and one other overall thought?

The Chicago Cubs are still your reigning World Champions.

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