During my middle school years, I had the joy of being party to two magical baseball runs. In 2007, my 12-year-old Little League team played its way to losing in the state championship game, a handful of wins shy of Williamsport. In 2008, my brother’s high school team entered the first round of the state tournament with a losing record but rattled off five or six straight wins to go downstate, where they finished fourth. The runs were decidedly different, but there was a magic to each of them, a magic I felt again when the Cubs turned it on around this time in 2015. I’m curious, this afternoon, looking ahead to the Cubs’ four-game series with the Reds, whether we’ll remember this summer with that same sense of magic.
The Cubs have won eight of their last nine games, and while they’ve come against two teams in the middle stages of selling off parts, both are Major League competition and one’s lineup is legitimately star-studded. In the process, the gap between David Ross’s team and first place in the NL Central has more than halved, dropping from 8.5 games to an even four. The Wild Card gap has nearly halved itself, shrinking from an even six games to 3.5. The gap between the Cubs and the top Wild Card spot—the one where you get to host a playoff series without winning your division—is down to 4.5 games, having sat at 8.5 ten days ago. The Cubs’ chance of making the playoffs that morning, on July 21st, was 6.3%, per FanGraphs. Their chance of winning the division was 4.7%. Those probabilities are up, respectively, to 26.3% and 16.2%. With current rosters what they are, the Cubs stand a 1-in-4 chance of playing past the end of the regular season. The four games ahead against Cincinnati are some of the highest-leverage ones remaining.
A fun thing that happens when teams go on a run—a cause, not an effect—is that almost everybody contributes. Miles Mastrobuoni hits a home run. Tucker Barnhart grabs an RBI and hustles his way from first to third. Yan Gomes posts a 10-day slugging percentage of .559, equal to Stan Musial’s career number in the category. On the mound, five relievers—Adbert Alzolay, Mark Leiter Jr., Javier Assad, Daniel Palencia, and the now-demoted Michael Rucker—combine to throw just shy of 18 combined scoreless innings. In the field, Mike Tauchman and Seiya Suzuki each rob a game-changing home run. This is especially magical when it happens with previously bad teams. The players in question are—with the exception of Suzuki among those named above—such a ragtag group. Things click, and suddenly the castoffs and the no-names and the washed up are in a position to be heroes, heroes under the summer sun.
Another fun thing is how the games go. Those eight wins were, in order: a nailbiter of a last stand aided by an umpire’s poor eye, a rain-delayed series of comebacks, a smacking of a rival which likely put that rival’s season into the ground, a comfortable–then–terrifying–then–comfortable defeat of the crosstown foe, a chaotic mess of a comeback in smoky heat against that same crosstown foe, The Miles Mikolas Stupid Ejection Game, The Mike Tauchman Catch Game, and a rain-delayed businesslike victory in which every little thing went right for the Cubs and wrong for the Cardinals. There were moments galore which could have turned the 8–0 stretch into 3–5 when even 6–2 might have had Cody Bellinger packing his bags tomorrow. Again, it’s a cause, not an effect—“good teams win wild games,” they say, but to win a lot of games you have to win some wild ones—which means it happens just about every time a run like this one materializes. That doesn’t make it any less fun.
More than anything, I’ve been called back to those 2007 and 2008 youth baseball runs these last weeks by the single or double-elimination nature of what the Cubs have been doing. With selling so possible and with so much value to be sold, a surrender by the Cubs’ front office would be even more final than its definition dictates. The Cubs needed just about every single one of these wins. They got them.
I don’t know what will happen this week against the Reds. Probability says the teams will split the four games but that the Cubs have already done enough to persuade their own bosses not to sell the best among them off tomorrow as parts, and that if the team can hold its ground over the next two weeks, they’ll enter the thick of the stretch run in a position to make up a lot of ground before September. We can only hope that comes to pass. Hope. They’ve given us the chance to do that.
How Concerning Is Marcus Stroman?
Marcus Stroman takes the ball tonight against Rookie of the Year candidate Andrew Abbott. This is not as exciting for Cubs fans as it would have been a few weeks ago. Marcus Stroman has not been pitching well lately, and it’s come to a head these last two starts as he’s allowed twelve runs in a combined seven innings of work, with eleven of the twelve earned. The trouble might not have been caused by this, but it aligns with his developing a blister during his outing in London. Prior to that game, he had a 2.28 ERA and was averaging over six innings per start. In six outings since, he’s gotten through the sixth only one time, and his ERA is 8.00.
Digging deeper, the numbers become a lot less concerning. His walks are up, but only from 3.10 per nine innings to 4.67, and his strikeouts have risen alongside them. He’s given up home runs at a faster rate, but he’s only allowed three in six innings, hardly cause for concern. His FIP, notably, was always much less impressive than his ERA, sitting at 3.35 as the Cubs crossed the Atlantic. In these last six starts—the bad starts—it’s a perfectly respectable 4.46. His BABIP has been enormous, sitting at .375, and some of that is quality contact but a lot, as anyone who watched the White Sox game last week can attest, has been an uncharacteristic string of messy defensive play behind him. His left–on–base rate is a ridiculous 49.1% when the MLB average is somewhere in the low 70s, another hallmark of bad luck *especially* for someone allowing as few home runs as Marcus Stroman allows. This Abbott fella, meanwhile, has managed to strand 96.2% of baserunners this season, far and away the luckiest rate in the league for anyone at or above his innings count. He’s also allowed a .222 BABIP despite an xERA which does not meaningfully differ from his FIP, a sign that the contact has not been abnormally bad.
We are not seeing early-season Marcus Stroman take the ball tonight at Wrigley Field. Unfortunately, that hot streak is probably in the past. We also aren’t seeing a bad starter for the Reds in Andrew Abbott—the man has a better FIP this year than Kyle Hendricks. But at best, the starting pitcher position tonight is close to a wash, and with the Cubs grading out as the better team on offense, on defense, and on the bases, not to mention enjoying the benefits of playing at home, the Cubs are a deserved favorite in the betting markets. Making things better yet, this is probably the Reds’ best starting pitching matchup of the whole series. It’s a great opportunity for the North Siders.
Contenders, Factors: Exiting July
Ten days ago, we said there were six contenders and seventeen factors in the World Series picture, by which we meant six teams had a realistic chance of winning the World Series (better than 1–in–20 on FanGraphs) and seventeen had realistic playoff hopes. The six have not changed, though the Rangers have bolstered their case with good play on the field and aggressive dealing off of it. The seventeen have changed. We’re down to fifteen.
It’s not a gigantic drop—all that’s happened is that the Cardinals and Mets have waved the white flag—but it’s probably only the start of the winnowing. The Mariners may be on the verge of some selling, and even if they buy, they could be pushed out of the picture within a few weeks. The Angels have committed to buying, but they haven’t begun winning at a much faster clip, putting them in an identical situation in terms of the on-field results—remaining a factor is mostly not a choice. The Cubs are still very much in danger, sitting only a game above .500 and needing to pass at least two teams while holding off the Padres to make the playoff cut. The Padres had a great weekend, but they’re still two games under .500. The Red Sox and Yankees are far from thriving.
One team that will remain a factor for now despite a soft sell decision today is the Guardians, who dealt Aaron Civale to the Tampa Bay Rays. This isn’t unusual behavior by Cleveland, and it’s not all that irrational for an organization which due to a few factors cannot be reasonably asked to be a consistently aggressive player in free agency. Civale is a great arm, but Cleveland has an abundance of those in its farm system, and the return they’re getting from Tampa Bay—first base prospect Kyle Manzardo—is among the best hitting prospects in the minor leagues right now. What’s more, the Guardians are still a half-game back of the Twins for a playoff spot, and should they make the playoffs, they’ll likely be the worst of the twelve teams in the field, making any championship hopes this season a stretch. It could happen—get yourself to the table in baseball and you can always pull something off—but it’s not likely enough to pass up an opportunity at a top-50 prospect, especially if you’re a franchise for whom making the playoffs isn’t all that unusual, lessening how special it is (the Guards have made the playoffs more often than the Cubs have over the last seven seasons, and had a two-round run last year).
Looking at this week’s matchups, then, we have curiosity about the Mariners and Padres, and we have some marquee matchups between the Reds/Cubs, Phillies/Marlins, Rays/Yankees, Orioles/Blue Jays, Angels/Braves, Diamondbacks/Giants, and Red Sox/Mariners. The ones where we could really see someone change their position, though, are the undercards: If the Twins smoke the Cardinals and the Guardians flop against the Astros, we could be starting to write Cleveland’s obituary. Even if the Padres buy, they need to take advantage of some games against the Rockies if they’re going to stay in the picture. The Rangers have a great opportunity, hosting the White Sox, and must not pass it up if they want to remain a serious contender for long. Even the Dodgers (hosting the A’s) and the Brewers (visiting the Nationals) are feeling the pressure to take care of business, with comfortable division leads for now, but only for now. For practical purposes, it’s August. Welcome to the playoff push.
The Pac-12 TV Deal Is Here?
Multiple outlets are reporting that Pac-12 commissioner George Kliavkoff is expected to share his long-awaited media rights deal with the conference’s nine remaining members tomorrow morning. There are implications.
Arizona’s brass has been saying for months that they want to see the numbers of the TV deal before they make a decision on whether to remain in the Pac-12. While other schools in the league have been more committed to the conference, at least in their statements, Arizona has been seemingly honest, stopping just short of saying, “We don’t trust this Kliavkoff guy.” This is probably a big reason why the assumption in reports—everyone guessing at things and calling it “sources”—is that Arizona is first in line to get the next Big 12 invite. If all nine Pac-12 schools started falling over each other to court the Big 12, the Big 12 would probably turn to Washington or Stanford or Oregon ahead of the Wildcats, but Arizona has positioned itself in our public eyes as the leader in the clubhouse, and they well may be. Their willingness to effectively confirm their interest in the Big 12 is a legitimate sign that they may be first in line. They also may have put themselves first in line by having sufficient interest for there to be something to confirm.
So, what we’ll all be watching for coming out of the meeting is a report on Arizona’s decision. They have at least made clear that they have a decision to make. Don’t be completely shocked, though, if another school jumps in, especially having had a week to get in touch with their colleagues on the Plains.
It’s not coincidental, of course, that Kliavkoff is presenting the media rights deal now, but the fact he’s doing so raises some large red flags about his overall performance. If a deal was always a few days away from being available, why did he wait until Colorado threw up its hands and left to get that deal in writing? It implies he wasn’t taking seriously what seemed like extremely serious threats, or that his bosses—whom some might say are simply Oregon and Washington’s presidents and athletic directors—weren’t taking said threats seriously. There’s an alternative explanation which I think is just that Apple or Amazon or whoever the Pac-12 is working with these days saw their window to get into college football closing and suddenly threw out a stronger offer—but it would certainly reinforce some growing perceptions were the reality that Kliavkoff and/or the Pac-12’s power players actually caught off guard. Those perceptions? These guys are out of touch with reality. It’s a single-sentence explanation which explains more and more, from the Pac-12’s decision not to pounce on the floundering 2021 Big 12 to the Pac-12’s decision to reject the surging 2022 Big 12’s offer of a lifeline to Washington and Oregon’s seeming fantasyland where the Big Ten will want two top-30ish brands in top-20ish media markets sometime in the next five years. I don’t know if it’s correct or not, but what does the scientific method say to think if one common hypothesis explains every single piece of an experiment’s results? (That’s a serious question. I don’t know what it says.)
I do have some sympathy for the Pac-12’s power players, and of course a lot of sympathy for schools like Oregon State and Washington State. It is a hard league to hold together, as we talked about a little last week. Further complicating things is how new just about all the Pac-12 presidents are at their jobs (thank you to the reader who pointed this out):
- Stanford: Does not have a president right now, but Richard Saller will take over as the interim in September. Marc Tessier-Lavigne was only announced as president in February 2016.
- Oregon: President John Karl Scholz took over in March 2023.
- Oregon State: President Jayathi Y. Murthy began the role in September 2022.
- Utah: President Taylor R. Randall was appointed in August 2021.
- Colorado: President Todd Saliman was appointed in July 2021.
- Cal: Chancellor Carol Christ began her term in July 2017.
- Arizona: President Robert C. Robbins assumed his current position in June 2017.
- Washington State: President Kirk Schulz began this job in June 2016.
- Washington: President Ana Mari Cauce was first appointed as interim in March 2015.
- Arizona State: President Michael Crow took over the job in July 2002.
It’s possible I’ve gotten a title wrong or that a month is an announcement month and not when they started the job, but everyone outside of ASU—of the ten which remained prior to Colorado’s departure—had someone in the job who’d been there less than a decade, and half the ten have someone who’s been in role fewer than three years. I would imagine that, when convincing a group to stick together, it helps if that group has been together for long enough to feel some loyalty. I would further imagine that it’s just hard to hammer things out like TV deals when so many people at the table are there for the first time.
