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Abstract

— nice to see the average go up but it would sure feel great to see it even higher with all that luck on his side.</p><p id="d8e9">Schwarber is still striking out like there’s no tomorrow, even more since the break. His strikeout rate is up to an absurd 40% post-ASB and 35% for the season. The lefty-righty splits are starting to even out a bit but Schwarber is still hitting under .200 against both — though 16 of his 18 homers this season are against righties. That needs to be shored up long-term but for now, with so many Cubs killing lefties, that actually balances the lineup well enough.</p><h2 id="22ad">Jason Heyward</h2><p id="9fce">Heyward has a career-low strikeout rate at 16% but also a career-low 7% walk rate. He’s still on pace for his usual 12 HR 60 RBI season and pretty much is what he is at this point. Heyward’s 1.4 dWAR alone makes him a worthwhile starter, but he’s essentially a really expensive replacement level guy as a hitter.</p><h2 id="4f59">Albert Almora Jr.</h2><p id="ddd7">Almora is still crushing lefties with a .343 average, and he’s even better when coming off the bench with a .367 mark there. His second half numbers are down a bit, regressing to the mean some as he was one of very few Cubbies to actually have luck in his favor the first half. Like Baez, Almora continues to have puzzlingly poor defensive metrics. He’s at 0.0 dWAR for the season, and the eye test just doesn’t match that.</p><div id="49ee" class="link-block"> <a href="https://readmedium.com/an-all-star-break-deep-dive-on-a-frustrating-cubs-first-half-945f1037406a"> <div> <div> <h2>An All-Star Break Deep Dive on a Frustrating Cubs First Half</h2> <div><h3>Halfway through a disappointing year, where do we go from here?</h3></div> <div><p>medium.com</p></div> </div> <div> <div style="background-image: url(https://miro.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:320/1*XITlL2CKfQ9iEMU9xRN9-g.jpeg)"></div> </div> </div> </a> </div><h2 id="59ee">Ben Zobrist</h2><p id="271a">Zobrist continues to struggle this season but his numbers are beginning to inch up a bit in the second half. He’s still hitting just .185 against lefties, killing his usual switch-hitting value, an anomaly compared to the rest of his career. That might be age showing but looks like a lot of bad BABIP luck too. The real worrying sight is his power falling off. BenZo has just 12 doubles in 2017 after having 28 or more in at least eight seasons straight. Zobrist is one player that could benefit a bit from Russell’s injury. His absence forces Baez to short and could mean more consistent playing time for Zobrist by default, and maybe that’ll finally get him going.</p><h2 id="b3c5">Ian Happ</h2><p id="b14b">Happ appears to have finally hit that rookie wall. He’s hitting just .196 in the second half with three extra-base hits in 58 plate appearances. It was bound to come, and Happ’s still on a 30-HR pace as a rookie so Cubs fans can’t ask for much more, even if he’s not a reliable bat down the stretch this season.</p><h2 id="828b">John Jay</h2><p id="3847">Jay continues to do what he does. He’s hitting .301 for the season, continuing to lead the Cubs, and he’s done a fine job lately in the leadoff spot. Some Cubs fans are clamoring for more Almora, but don’t be surprised if we see more and more Jay as the games get more important. He just does a little bit of everything. His .384 BABIP does have the look of a player with insane luck for two-thirds of the season, but Jay’s career .343 BABIP paint the picture of a player that just knows where to hit the ball.</p><h2 id="0943">Alex Avila</h2><p id="e588">Avila, on the other hand, might just be really lucky. He’s at a career high .271 average with a career-high .393 on-base percentage, and his 11 homers are already tied for the second best mark of his career. But Avila had an absurd .413 first-half BABIP and has benefited greatly from a career .344 BABIP at spacious Comerica Park. Those hits probably won’t come as often at Wrigley. Avila has hit .243 or lower six different seasons and has a terrible 37% strikeout rate, and he’s absolutely miserable against lefties. Maddon can call it what he wants, but Avila is just a backup catcher, and probably not even a particularly good one. But that’s fine — as good as Contreras is playing, Avila only needs to be a fresh pair of knees every few days.</p><div id="ef79" class="link-block"> <a href="https://readmedium.com/the-cub-we-forgot-to-celebrate-8528bfdd04dc"> <div> <div> <h2>The Cub We Forgot to Celebrate</h2> <div><h3>Remembering the tragic rise and fall of Starlin Castro </h3></div> <div><p>medium.com</p></div> </div> <div> <div style="background-image: url(https://miro.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:320/1*sksDyu_8QDHbN1ZmyshAdg.jpeg)"></div> </div> </div> </a> </div><figure id="e830"><img src="https://cdn-images-1.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:800/1*j_6EqfBLNsMmhdSp_Mf4Mg.jpeg"><figcaption></figcaption></figure><h1 id="892a">THE PITCHING STAFF</h1><h2 id="d934">Jon Lester</h2><p id="4b70">Lester’s 9.3 strikeouts per nine innings are his best rate since 2010. His walk rate is up a bit, and his WHIP along with it, but the truth is that Lester is putting in his usual dominant top-of-the-staff work — just with a couple extra clunkers thrown in, which seems fair at age 33. Lester

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has allowed three earned runs or fewer in 18 of 24 starts now, and he was 3–0 with a 2.77 ERA and a 29–5 strikeout-walk ratio the second half heading into Sunday’s game against the Nationals. He’s not going to win the game on his own this year but he’s also not going to lose many.</p><h2 id="7f23">Jake Arrieta</h2><p id="7cd4">Jake! We missed you! Okay fine, this is not exactly vintage Arrieta, but the guy is balling either way. Arrieta’s ERA has now dropped in six consecutive starts and sits at 3.88. He’s still allowing a career high number of homers and a Cubs-career-high 7.8 hits per nine innings, way up from usually around 6 as a Cub. If you’ve followed the <a href="https://readmedium.com/an-all-star-break-deep-dive-on-a-frustrating-cubs-first-half-945f1037406a">last few updates</a>, you know Arrieta had some bad BABIP luck early in the season. That’s evening out, from .335 in April and May to just 1.67 in July and August. It’s probably not much of a surprise that Arrieta has a 2.08 ERA during that latter stretch. Arreita’s best two months in his career have been August and September. If he is back, along with Hendricks off the DL and Quintana via trade, it’ll feel like the Cubs picked up not one but <i>three</i> good starting pitchers at the deadline.</p><h2 id="add4">Kyle Hendricks</h2><p id="4b26">And yes, Hendricks appears to be back, too. His season numbers still aren’t good, but he’s had a 2.76 ERA in three starts since his return from the DL with 13 strikeouts and just two walks. One big problem for Hendricks has been the first inning — he’s got a 6.43 ERA in the first and 2.86 the rest of the game. That’s indicative of the Cubs staff as a whole, with a 6.50 first inning ERA and 3.30 any other inning. If it feels like the Cubs have been playing from behind all season, it’s because they have.</p><p id="8bdc">Hendricks actually has the best WAR of any pitcher on the Cubs staff. That’s nice and all but shows just how much Cubs pitchers have struggled when the #3 pitcher that missed over a month still grades out as the top pitcher. For perspective, Hendricks’s 1.1 WAR is about equal to part-time hitter John Jay.</p><h2 id="2bcf">Jose Quintana</h2><p id="c189">Technically, Quintana has a better WAR than anyone else on the Cubs staff at 1.5, but he did most of that for the crosstown rivals. Quintana is striking out a career best 9.8 per nine innings while allowing a career low number of hits. His 3.2 walks per nine are high, but control is an area Cubs pitchers always seem to improve so there’s plenty of hope there. Quintana has already improved to a 5.17 strikeout-walk ratio since coming to the Cubbies, and he should benefit from an improved defense behind him.</p><p id="a0fb">Quintana has posted nearly identical numbers to Lester over the last few years. He’s five years younger and under contract for the rest of this season and three more after that. He could start 10 to 15 playoff games for the Cubs under this deal. He was worth the price of admission and then some.</p><h2 id="fd0b">John Lackey</h2><p id="280b">Lackey was actually decent in July. He went 3–0 with a 3.27 ERA in four games, encouraging until you dig a little deeper and see that July has always been the best month of his career and that those numbers are boosted by plenty of BABIP luck. Alas. At this point the Cubs will take what they can get from Lackey, and that just means 8–10 more starts and hopefully a seat from the bench in the playoffs now that Quintana is around.</p><h2 id="9300">The Bullpen</h2><p id="0e81">There’s not enough innings to dig too far into the bullpen numbers, but it should be no real surprise that Cubs relievers are regressing to the mean as the season progresses. Davis and especially Edwards are coming back to earth, but that’s been offset by Rondon and Strop improving a ton as the year goes on. Don’t be shocked if Edwards gets a stint on the DL soon to rest his arm as the Cubs turn to those other guys and newly acquired Justin Wilson.</p><p id="d410">You probably don’t know much about Wilson other than that the Cubs needed a lefty to face all those left-handed bats in Washington and Los Angeles. Well, there’s good news and bad news. The good news is Wilson is pitching really well with 58 strikeouts in 42 innings. The “bad” news is Wilson is actually better against righties than lefties — but only because he is downright filthy against them, allowing an absurd .133 average in 105 at-bats this season. Wilson is under team control one more year and could be an option at closer next season if the team can’t re-sign Wade Davis. He may not be the lights-out lefty you thought you were getting, but he’s darn good anyway.</p><figure id="4890"><img src="https://cdn-images-1.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:800/1*ZC0bHyx_PgAfjNtQ4apYOA.png"><figcaption></figcaption></figure><figure id="a46b"><img src="https://cdn-images-1.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:800/1*[email protected]"><figcaption></figcaption></figure><p id="6626"><i>All numbers up to date through Friday’s 108th game of the season, the season’s two-thirds point, unless otherwise indicated.</i></p><p id="758a"><i>If you enjoyed this, please recommend by clicking the ❤ so others can too. Follow Brandon <a href="https://upscri.be/6e365d/">on Medium</a> or <a href="https://twitter.com/wheatonbrando">@wheatonbrando</a> for more sports, humor, pop culture, & life musings. Visit Brandon’s <a href="https://readmedium.com/brandon-anderson-writing-archives-6b3ee1a29301#.6cteu050v">writing archives here</a>. Thanks to <a href="undefined">Baseball Reference</a>.</i></p></article></body>

Checking in on the Cubs through the Second Trimester

A deep dive through the numbers as we hit the home stretch

AROUND THE INFIELD

Willson Contreras

Contreras has become a star, that third stud bat the Cubs have been missing much of the season. He leads the majors with 10 home runs after the All Star break after three more this weekend, and he’s third on the team behind Bryzzo in all the major batting stats. Contreras is playing at an All Star level and is on pace for almost 6 WAR, just barely behind Rizzo and Bryant. His numbers are pretty similar still to last year too, so this is probably real (though we probably can’t expect this post-ASB 60-HR pace to continue).

Contreras is still mashing lefties, and he should benefit most from the presence of Alex Avila. Avila can play replacement-level catcher enough to give Willson’s knees a break, and Contreras’s versatility can still keep his bat in the lineup like it did Saturday when he played left field and hit a key homer. Next up for Contreras is improving his 9% walk rate and 27% strikeout rate.

Anthony Rizzo

Rizzo has been one of the few constants in the Cubs lineup after his difficult start to the season. He’s leading the team with 26 homers, just six away from a career high and on pace to hit 40 for the first time ever. Rizzo is also on pace to shatter his career high in walks. His 65 walks are just 13 away from his most ever, and his 14% walk rate is a career high. Getting on base is nice, but pitchers are continuing to pitch around Bryzzo to face the other inconsistent Cubs bats, so it’s important Contreras continues to make them pay. Rizzo’s batting average is the only real weakness and that continues to slow edge back upward as his BABIP luck begins to even out.

Javy Baez

Baez continues to heat up as the season goes on. He’s hitting .309 with 5 HR since the break, though be warned that he’s had some absurd .414 BABIP in that range so it’s a bit lucky right now. Still, we’ll take it — Baez has struggled with the bat while playing shortstop and the team will need him to stay healthy and man the 6-hole while Addison Russell is on the DL. Baez continues to have a weirdly muted defensive season. The numbers have him as a negative at both second base and short, so strange.

Addison Russell

Addy is on the 10-day DL, and to be honest, that might not be a bad thing. Baez can fill in defensively, his bat won’t be missed, and the guy can probably use a mental break. A couple weeks for a young guy guy going through so much to clear his head before the stretch run could be pretty valuable. The hitting numbers are still in line with Russells’ career with a .241 batting average, though he was hitting .306 in the second half before the injury. Like others on the team, Russell is striking out too much and walking too little, a classic young player problem. His 7% walk rate is down from an already low career mark. But the good news is Russell’s defense is still so valuable that even slightly above average offense make him an All Star candidate.

Kris Bryant

Bryant is one Cub whose eye at the plate is improving. He is striking out less, down from 36% his rookie year to 26% last year and 24% this year, and his walk rate is up to 14%. He and Rizzo could both threaten 100 walks on the season. That’s a lot of base runners but again a little indicative of opponents preferring to make the other bats beat them. Bryant had his best batting average month of the season in July at .326 but his average is ticking up a bit at the expense of power, not a great trade-off.

KB continues to be really good, just not MVP-level good. Not everyone is Mike Trout, unfortunately. Most players win MVP and then regress toward the mean. The reality is most of us probably expected Bryant would just keep on improving forever and that wasn’t a fair expectation. Bryant’s average and slugging numbers are down just a little bit from last year. He’s still insanely good and still the Cubs MVP, just not quite at last year’s pace.

Waiting for the Other Shoe to Drop — A Cubs Life

On the Cubs and Vikings and brokenheartedness and hope…

the-cauldron.com

OUTFIELD AND UTILITY GUYS

Kyle Schwarber

Schwarber’s average is all the way up to .192!! The exclamation mark there is pretty indicative of how rough his season has been, but at least things are moving in the right direction. Schwarber hit .178 the first half with incredible unlucky .200 BABIP. He’s at .255 in the second half as his BABIP has rebounded to .385. That’s both good and bad — nice to see the average go up but it would sure feel great to see it even higher with all that luck on his side.

Schwarber is still striking out like there’s no tomorrow, even more since the break. His strikeout rate is up to an absurd 40% post-ASB and 35% for the season. The lefty-righty splits are starting to even out a bit but Schwarber is still hitting under .200 against both — though 16 of his 18 homers this season are against righties. That needs to be shored up long-term but for now, with so many Cubs killing lefties, that actually balances the lineup well enough.

Jason Heyward

Heyward has a career-low strikeout rate at 16% but also a career-low 7% walk rate. He’s still on pace for his usual 12 HR 60 RBI season and pretty much is what he is at this point. Heyward’s 1.4 dWAR alone makes him a worthwhile starter, but he’s essentially a really expensive replacement level guy as a hitter.

Albert Almora Jr.

Almora is still crushing lefties with a .343 average, and he’s even better when coming off the bench with a .367 mark there. His second half numbers are down a bit, regressing to the mean some as he was one of very few Cubbies to actually have luck in his favor the first half. Like Baez, Almora continues to have puzzlingly poor defensive metrics. He’s at 0.0 dWAR for the season, and the eye test just doesn’t match that.

An All-Star Break Deep Dive on a Frustrating Cubs First Half

Halfway through a disappointing year, where do we go from here?

medium.com

Ben Zobrist

Zobrist continues to struggle this season but his numbers are beginning to inch up a bit in the second half. He’s still hitting just .185 against lefties, killing his usual switch-hitting value, an anomaly compared to the rest of his career. That might be age showing but looks like a lot of bad BABIP luck too. The real worrying sight is his power falling off. BenZo has just 12 doubles in 2017 after having 28 or more in at least eight seasons straight. Zobrist is one player that could benefit a bit from Russell’s injury. His absence forces Baez to short and could mean more consistent playing time for Zobrist by default, and maybe that’ll finally get him going.

Ian Happ

Happ appears to have finally hit that rookie wall. He’s hitting just .196 in the second half with three extra-base hits in 58 plate appearances. It was bound to come, and Happ’s still on a 30-HR pace as a rookie so Cubs fans can’t ask for much more, even if he’s not a reliable bat down the stretch this season.

John Jay

Jay continues to do what he does. He’s hitting .301 for the season, continuing to lead the Cubs, and he’s done a fine job lately in the leadoff spot. Some Cubs fans are clamoring for more Almora, but don’t be surprised if we see more and more Jay as the games get more important. He just does a little bit of everything. His .384 BABIP does have the look of a player with insane luck for two-thirds of the season, but Jay’s career .343 BABIP paint the picture of a player that just knows where to hit the ball.

Alex Avila

Avila, on the other hand, might just be really lucky. He’s at a career high .271 average with a career-high .393 on-base percentage, and his 11 homers are already tied for the second best mark of his career. But Avila had an absurd .413 first-half BABIP and has benefited greatly from a career .344 BABIP at spacious Comerica Park. Those hits probably won’t come as often at Wrigley. Avila has hit .243 or lower six different seasons and has a terrible 37% strikeout rate, and he’s absolutely miserable against lefties. Maddon can call it what he wants, but Avila is just a backup catcher, and probably not even a particularly good one. But that’s fine — as good as Contreras is playing, Avila only needs to be a fresh pair of knees every few days.

The Cub We Forgot to Celebrate

Remembering the tragic rise and fall of Starlin Castro

medium.com

THE PITCHING STAFF

Jon Lester

Lester’s 9.3 strikeouts per nine innings are his best rate since 2010. His walk rate is up a bit, and his WHIP along with it, but the truth is that Lester is putting in his usual dominant top-of-the-staff work — just with a couple extra clunkers thrown in, which seems fair at age 33. Lester has allowed three earned runs or fewer in 18 of 24 starts now, and he was 3–0 with a 2.77 ERA and a 29–5 strikeout-walk ratio the second half heading into Sunday’s game against the Nationals. He’s not going to win the game on his own this year but he’s also not going to lose many.

Jake Arrieta

Jake! We missed you! Okay fine, this is not exactly vintage Arrieta, but the guy is balling either way. Arrieta’s ERA has now dropped in six consecutive starts and sits at 3.88. He’s still allowing a career high number of homers and a Cubs-career-high 7.8 hits per nine innings, way up from usually around 6 as a Cub. If you’ve followed the last few updates, you know Arrieta had some bad BABIP luck early in the season. That’s evening out, from .335 in April and May to just 1.67 in July and August. It’s probably not much of a surprise that Arrieta has a 2.08 ERA during that latter stretch. Arreita’s best two months in his career have been August and September. If he is back, along with Hendricks off the DL and Quintana via trade, it’ll feel like the Cubs picked up not one but three good starting pitchers at the deadline.

Kyle Hendricks

And yes, Hendricks appears to be back, too. His season numbers still aren’t good, but he’s had a 2.76 ERA in three starts since his return from the DL with 13 strikeouts and just two walks. One big problem for Hendricks has been the first inning — he’s got a 6.43 ERA in the first and 2.86 the rest of the game. That’s indicative of the Cubs staff as a whole, with a 6.50 first inning ERA and 3.30 any other inning. If it feels like the Cubs have been playing from behind all season, it’s because they have.

Hendricks actually has the best WAR of any pitcher on the Cubs staff. That’s nice and all but shows just how much Cubs pitchers have struggled when the #3 pitcher that missed over a month still grades out as the top pitcher. For perspective, Hendricks’s 1.1 WAR is about equal to part-time hitter John Jay.

Jose Quintana

Technically, Quintana has a better WAR than anyone else on the Cubs staff at 1.5, but he did most of that for the crosstown rivals. Quintana is striking out a career best 9.8 per nine innings while allowing a career low number of hits. His 3.2 walks per nine are high, but control is an area Cubs pitchers always seem to improve so there’s plenty of hope there. Quintana has already improved to a 5.17 strikeout-walk ratio since coming to the Cubbies, and he should benefit from an improved defense behind him.

Quintana has posted nearly identical numbers to Lester over the last few years. He’s five years younger and under contract for the rest of this season and three more after that. He could start 10 to 15 playoff games for the Cubs under this deal. He was worth the price of admission and then some.

John Lackey

Lackey was actually decent in July. He went 3–0 with a 3.27 ERA in four games, encouraging until you dig a little deeper and see that July has always been the best month of his career and that those numbers are boosted by plenty of BABIP luck. Alas. At this point the Cubs will take what they can get from Lackey, and that just means 8–10 more starts and hopefully a seat from the bench in the playoffs now that Quintana is around.

The Bullpen

There’s not enough innings to dig too far into the bullpen numbers, but it should be no real surprise that Cubs relievers are regressing to the mean as the season progresses. Davis and especially Edwards are coming back to earth, but that’s been offset by Rondon and Strop improving a ton as the year goes on. Don’t be shocked if Edwards gets a stint on the DL soon to rest his arm as the Cubs turn to those other guys and newly acquired Justin Wilson.

You probably don’t know much about Wilson other than that the Cubs needed a lefty to face all those left-handed bats in Washington and Los Angeles. Well, there’s good news and bad news. The good news is Wilson is pitching really well with 58 strikeouts in 42 innings. The “bad” news is Wilson is actually better against righties than lefties — but only because he is downright filthy against them, allowing an absurd .133 average in 105 at-bats this season. Wilson is under team control one more year and could be an option at closer next season if the team can’t re-sign Wade Davis. He may not be the lights-out lefty you thought you were getting, but he’s darn good anyway.

All numbers up to date through Friday’s 108th game of the season, the season’s two-thirds point, unless otherwise indicated.

If you enjoyed this, please recommend by clicking the ❤ so others can too. Follow Brandon on Medium or @wheatonbrando for more sports, humor, pop culture, & life musings. Visit Brandon’s writing archives here. Thanks to Baseball Reference.