Not a whole lot of note from last night. Ian Happ homered again, making it a solid little five-game stretch for the guy (108 wRC+ over those five). Trevor Megill had a good inning and a third out of the ‘pen.
One thing I loosely referred to a few days ago was the “tanking” conversation—basically asking where the Cubs will end up, but also asking what we want out of these last two months.
As of right now, FanGraphs has the Cubs finishing 73.8-88.2, tenth-worst in the league, which is in line with where they’re currently at. They aren’t expected to pass the Tigers, they aren’t expected to fall past anyone else. There are, however, five teams between them and 70.0 projected wins, which is a rather tight pack. After that, you drop off bigtime to the Pirates, Rangers, Orioles, and ultimately Diamondbacks, but a top-five pick is on the table, and playing a team like the Rockies who trail the Cubs by three and a half after last night, it’s worth at least discussing.
In the end, it’s going to be hard to lose too much ground. The current Cubs roster is, as one will be after you trade nearly a dozen players, among the worst in baseball, but it’ll be playing against plenty of other bad teams. Remember how tough that stretch in June was? The counter to that is that the Cubs now have it rather easy from here out.
There’s also the question of what a terrible stretch to end the year means for the future. If it comes because Nico Hoerner’s resting his various injured parts and outgoing starters are getting shelled and the quadruple-A guys aren’t making things happen, that isn’t the worst indicator. If David Bote and Ian Happ are slumping, though, or if Adbert Alzolay struggles, or if Willson Contreras has a bad stretch or if Hoerner comes back and can’t hit…that’s more troubling.
Overall, then, the question of tanking has a complicated answer. The fifth overall pick is better than the tenth (and subsequent picks in subsequent rounds are, to a lesser extent, also better than ones five slots later). But it’s more important that the pieces that are here—Hoerner, Hendricks, Alzolay, Happ, Bote, Contreras, Steele, Mills, Thompson, Abbott and Heuer and Heyward if you want to include all of them—produce. Ideally, you hit the middle, getting production from all those guys but losing just enough to drop below the Twins, Nationals, Rockies, Marlins, and Royals. But if choosing one or the other, you’d prioritize the guys already here looking like good baseball players.
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The Diaspora:
Kyle Schwarber still hasn’t run the bases, but he’s hitting and doing drills at first base as he prepares to return with a new team from the hamstring injury that’s kept him sidelined these last few weeks. Jon Lester made his Cardinals debut, allowing six runs in the first two innings with a Jorge Soler home run the first blow. Cole Hamels is reportedly signing with the Dodgers.
Around the Division:
Keston Hiura is the latest Brewer sidelined by Covid. They’ve added Sal Romano off waivers from the Yankees to help bolster their bullpen. Steven Brault is returning from the 60-day IL today for the Pirates.
Up Next:
Game 2
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Whom:
Cubs vs. Colorado
When:
7:40 PM Chicago Time
Where:
Coors Field
Weather:
Temperatures in the 70’s, wind expected to be blowing in at five or ten miles per hour at gametime but to move towards blowing more lightly and from left to right as the game goes on.
Starting Pitchers:
Alec Mills vs. Jon Gray
The Opponent:
It was odd that the Rockies passed up on trading Jon Gray. They reportedly want to sign him to an extension, though, and he reportedly wants to stay in Colorado himself. Might not be pure disfunction, as it was with Trevor Story. Gray’s bounced back from a rough 2020, making that look like a small-sample phenomenon as he’s notched a 3.64 xERA and 4.28 FIP over nineteen starts. Not out of this world numbers, but they’ve got him on pace for better than a 2.0 fWAR, with bWAR already comfortably past that mark.
The Numbers:
The Cubs are +155 underdogs with the Rockies at -170, so there’s about a 37% implied win probability that might be a little low but I did not bet on this game (“the Rockies are great at home” is built on a 54-game sample).
Cubs News:
Jed Hoyer cleared the air a bit yesterday about his indirect radio spat (or whatever you want to call it) with Anthony Rizzo. Walked back his comments a bit, admitted to the emotionality of it. Seems probably fine, but at the same time, I don’t think Rizzo’s coming back next year unless there really isn’t a market for him. Tom Ricketts said the Cubs want to compete to win the NL Central in 2022 and that this isn’t a 2012-style rebuild.
Cubs Thoughts:
I don’t think Ricketts is lying, but I also don’t know that the Cubs are going to build a free agent-led team from scratch that will take the Central. I think the more likely outcome is that they make a few free agent plays, perhaps one or two of which will be big, and that they put themselves in a position to be in the mix if the rest of the division’s mediocre (which is highly possible) while still aiming to make more specifically-aimed upgrades prior to 2023, when Brennen Davis should debut. Ultimately, I’d set 2024 as the target for fielding an actual championship-quality team again, but it’s an arc, and you can get ahead of schedule or behind schedule or the arc can take on an unusual shape.
