We’re back.
Summer’s always a little tricky with travel (what time of year is not tricky with travel, aside from maybe February), but at least for this week, we’re all in our cities, so content should hopefully be a little more consistent than it was last week, when two of us were on the road with the partial purpose of seeing the Cubs in person.
As I think I wrote on Thursday, it was fun to be at Wrigley Field. We have those new season tickets, we finally got to use them, the seats are great and it was a little emotional going back to that part of Chicago for the first time in a few years. But while it was fun, and while some of the emotion was happy, some of the emotion was also sad. Because the Cubs are struggling.
We did go on a cooler, wetter night. We did go to see them play the Pirates. We did go to see Drew Smyly pitch against what was, at the time decisions were made by many in the city on whether or not to go, a TBD starter for the visitors. All of this is to say that it wasn’t a marquee matchup, and it’s important to acknowledge that the Cubs’ attendance per home game is, per Baseball Reference, currently fourth-best in the National League, matching its ranking from 2015 to 2017 (it was actually third in 2018 and 2019). Still…
The Cubs are not compelling right now, and the empty seats and quiet atmosphere made it show. The Cubs are struggling as a team, and as a franchise, the way forward is not clear. It’s hard to see exactly how bad it is or isn’t. The farm system grades out fine as a whole, but there are few heavily-hype-able prospects, and among young players on the team, only Seiya Suzuki is currently an obvious pillar like Anthony Rizzo was around the apex of the last rebuild. The financial resources are definitely still there to contend via free agency, and at some point the Ricketts Family will use them again, but the misleading statements and the crying poor have left a sour taste. The franchise feels directionless at points, and Wednesday night was one of those points. Riding the bus back to our friend’s Wicker Park apartment, the question even came to my mind of whether those who compared the 2016 World Series title to the dog catching the mailman (“What now?”) may have been right. What if the pursuit was, somehow, more compelling than the aftermath of the capture?
Of course, this is silly, but it’s not quite as silly as some would have it, just as it’s not as legitimate as others would have it. Of course it’s good for Cubs fans that the Cubs won the World Series. But it really is different now. A cosmic element has left, like a comet streaking off out of the galaxy. The Cubs are not what they were, and the them the Cubs now are is a less compelling edition than the one that hadn’t won a title in upwards of a century.
Back in 2003, and for the first nearly-ten-months of 2004, the obvious comparison for the Cubs was the Red Sox. In late October of 2004, that changed. The Red Sox pulled it off, and the comparison became immensely less apt. There was still the parallel of being a romanticizable team in an historic ballpark—so quintessentially “baseball” in so many ways—but the Red Sox were winners, and the Cubs were not. Even now, with the Red Sox having won three titles since that ’04 one and the Cubs having won zero since theirs in ’16, there’s a different sense around each team. But that difference, realistically, is less remarkable than it may feel. While the post-“curse” Red Sox are a capable franchise with a solid bankroll and a sturdy fanbase, much like the Giants, they’ve also been pretty lucky. They’ve won 90 games (or the 2020 equivalent) ten times since ’04, and they’ve won the World Series in three of those ten years, succeeding on their dice rolls at a 30% clip, roughly thrice that of baseball’s average. Since ’16, the Cubs have won 90 games (or the 2020 equivalent) three times. That’s a better rate than the Red Sox. The Cubs just haven’t broken through. At this stage in the post-“curse” era for Boston, the Red Sox were still highly competitive (they won 89 games in 2010), but the franchise was in a tentative-enough spot that Theo Epstein left after the following season, and over the four years following his departure, Boston’s name was listed last in the AL East standings at the end of three separate seasons. They had won that second title, but did the second title make an existential difference?
My guess is that it didn’t. My guess is that the Red Sox were going to be what they are no matter what happened in 2007, and that the same holds true for where the Cubs are now. It’s bleak at the moment, and it’s frustrating, but the reality of the Cubs’ financial situation is, as my Guardians-fan brother pointed out a few weeks ago, that if they ever want to rush into contention, they can probably pull it off with one big spending spree. Just as is true for the Red Sox. The identity crisis is real, and the rebuild is real, and the uncertainty is real, and all of that sucks, but the Cubs are still the Cubs, and that means something different than it meant in 2015, just as the Red Sox being the Red Sox means something different than it meant in 2003. The Cubs are a historically compelling, quintessentially “baseball” team. They play in a beautiful old stadium. They have good attendance, even if every game isn’t currently a sellout. They have a cultural approachability to them, thanks to Chicago, that’s lacking from franchises in New York and Los Angeles. The next time the team is good—and there will be a next time, because with resourced teams, there’s always a next time—the fanbase will rally to the flag with fervor again, not like it did in 2015 and 2016, but like the Red Sox’ did in 2018. The culture, speaking broadly, is still there. And it’s going to take a lot more than this three or four or five-year rebuild to change that.
The Cubs Stink
All that positivity expelled, let’s talk about the frustrating weekend. The Cubs entered having won six of nine and three straight series. They lost three straight games to open the set and needed late heroics yesterday to avoid a sweep. Kyle Hendricks entered off of maybe his best two-start stretch since 2020. He was pulverized on a day the wind blew out. Willson Contreras entered as the best-hitting catcher in baseball. He exited with an IL stint a possibility after tweaking his hamstring. On Thursday morning, the more optimistically-inclined could look at the Brewers’ offense and the Cardinals’ roster shuffling and the upcoming eight games and see a path to maybe getting back into this thing. This morning, that is rather delusional.
Patrick Wisdom and Frank Schwindel went back to back in both Saturday’s game and yesterday’s, and that was very fun. They are fun players, it’s a relief to see Schwindel competitive at the plate again, Wisdom is a great stand-in face of the team while the franchise traverses the wilderness. But every time the spotlight is on these 30-year-old corner infielders with contact-problem-plagued pop, there’s a bite, a reminder that they are stand-ins for unidentified future pillars we can’t really see right now. The Cubs are more than a year away. And they will likely be more than a year away all year.
In other news (credit to Bleacher Nation for being a good safety net on these kinds of things, a resource one can check to ensure one hasn’t missed news)…
Good: Nico Hoerner is getting close to a return. Could happen imminently.
Bad: Nick Madrigal is still a ways away from getting back on the field. He’s close to a cornerstone, in theory, and it’s been a rough start to his time on the North Side.
Good: Alec Mills made a rehab start in Iowa. The rotation is pleasantly clogged at the moment, but the Cubs’ best pitcher in 2021 returning to full health is in no circumstance a bad thing.
Bad: Willson Contreras, as mentioned, tweaked his hamstring. No IL stint yet, but he’s out at the moment. The consequence of this roster-wise is that Ildemaro Vargas was designated for assignment and P.J. Higgins is back, less than a year after Tommy John surgery. Higgins was a bit of a frustrating backup during his previous time with the big-league club, but that was a very small sample. Good start to this cup of coffee (hopefully only a cup, hopefully Contreras returns soon) with that bases-clearing triple yesterday.
Good: David Bote and Clint Frazier are on rehab assignments at Iowa.
Bad: Brailyn Marquez is still a long ways from returning to competitive action, and we don’t exactly know where he’ll be as a prospect when he gets there. Still young, but a rough turn, and a stark reminder of the fears which accompany Ed Howard’s season-ending injury and Brennen Davis’s current IL status.
Good: Nothing major has changed regarding Adbert Alzolay, who’s between Wisdom and Nico Hoerner on the future-value outlook, with more promise and a longer presumed shelf life than the former but not as strong a prospect-ranking history as the latter.
Bad: Codi Heuer’s injury, which required Tommy John surgery, was worse than is normal and will keep him out a few extra months. Sounds like he’ll miss something like half of next year, and while a relief pitcher isn’t often a cornerstone and Heuer’s treatment as something akin to one in the reaction to last year’s trade deadline was silly (as we pointed out at the time), this is still bad, because relievers are still valuable. Damn White Sox giving the Cubs damaged goods (I do not think anything nefarious happened I am joking the Cubs traded for Madrigal at an injury-discount and got a solid piece in Heuer as a bonus).
Good: Sean Newcomb is getting closer to returning, and while he might not have a roster spot when he’s ready, it’s still better to have too many pitchers than too few.
Four-game series in Cincinnati starts tonight. Big opportunity to grab some wins before a tough stretch (White Sox, Brewers, Cardinals, Orioles, Yankees, Padres, Braves) begins.
Are the Red Sox Alive?
It’s been a while since we went around the MLB. A week and a half, specifically. Here’s who’s helped and hurt their playoff case the most over the last ten days, plus which players have been the best.
Helped: Red Sox, Twins, Cardinals, Padres
Series wins over the Rangers and Astros followed by a four-game sweep of the Mariners have Boston up to just three games under .500, and sitting at somewhere around a 1-in-3 chance of making the playoffs per FanGraphs’s Playoff Odds. The Twins got Carlos Correa back and they’re still four games up in the Central, even with Chris Paddack now out for the year. The Cardinals brought questionable-but-hot prospect Nolan Gorman up and sent longtime pillar Paul DeJong down, but even with the tumult, they’re hanging onto what’s currently an NL Wild Card spot by a few games, and they’ve made a recent Sunday habit of obliterating their opponents, putting up 15 on the Giants last week and 18 on the Pirates yesterday. The Padres beat up the Giants in San Francisco over the weekend, capping a 7-2 road trip and ending the weekend half a game behind the Dodgers in the West.
Hurt: Mariners, Guardians, Giants
Those Giants, as you might think, are reeling a little. Still above .500 and still favored to make the playoffs, they’ve fallen off the pace in the West, which is a risk for a team that isn’t as conventionally strong on paper as their chief competition. In addition to the losses, they’ve dealt with the Padres winning, and the Dodgers bounced back from that four-game losing streak by winning seven in a row before losing yesterday. Elsewhere, the Mariners continue to sink (their playoff probability is down to 7.0%), and the Guardians have slipped to six games behind Minnesota, losing three of four in rain-disrupted series with the Reds and Tigers.
Who’s Hot
- Mookie Betts (1.1 fWAR): Five home runs in the last ten games for this guy, who’s currently got his best wRC+ since 2018, when he finished with 10.6 fWAR and won the MVP. He’s only 29, guys. Lot of Mookie Betts left.
- Paul Goldschmidt (1.1 fWAR): Only four home runs for this guy in this sample, but he did pay just nine games. The Cardinals just need to keep him off the pitcher’s mound, to avoid the statistical fate plaguing Pujols and Molina.
- Rafael Devers (1.1 fWAR): Our first of a few Red Sox in this list, Devers has probably been having some good luck, but his xwOBA is still in the top 25 of baseball. That is good. Devers is good.
- Kole Calhoun (1.0 fWAR): What’s Kole Calhoun’s whole thing? He hasn’t often been on competitive teams, and he’s 34 years old, but he’s back to being an everyday player in the AL West (now with the Rangers) after spending two years with the Diamondbacks, and he had a good week.
- Trevor Story (0.9 fWAR): Six home runs for this guy over the stretch, including three on Thursday and a grand slam on Friday. The Red Sox can bop.
- Aaron Judge (0.9 fWAR): Judge is having his best season yet at the plate, with a ridiculous 209 wRC+ (that’s 109% better than the average MLB hitter) and an xwOBA better than his wOBA, suggesting he’s actually somehow been a bit unlucky out there. Scary stuff.
- Brett Phillips (0.8 fWAR): The Rays are hanging around (they actually lead the Blue Jays right now), and Brett Phillips is following up last year’s quietly strong season (2.3 fWAR despite being slightly less than a half-time player) with more good play. A lot of his value is defensive, but it’s still value.
- J.D. Martinez (0.8 fWAR): More Boston bopping. Martinez got on base in 21 of his 40 plate appearances these last ten days.
- Josh Rojas (0.8 fWAR): A Cubs-aided, wind-aided three-home run day is still a three-home run day. Congratulations, sir.
- Jose Altuve (0.7 fWAR): Another star continuing to flourish, even at 32. We’ll see how he holds up as the season goes on, but with the exception of his replacement-level 2020, Altuve’s been worth four wins or more above a standard replacement player in every season since 2013, which was just his second full year in the bigs.
- Tim Anderson (0.7 fWAR): Yesterday’s silencer of the Bronx booers may have been his only home run over the stretch, but Anderson’s been getting on base nearly half the time in recent days, and he’s currently hitting a .359 that is not misleading. The batting title isn’t the most important award in the game, but it’s a pretty good one!
- Mike Yastrzemski (0.7 fWAR): A bright spot for the stumbling San Franciscans.
- Taylor Ward (0.7 fWAR): No, not Tyler Wade. Tyler Wade has faded. Quadruple-A guy Taylor Ward also plays for the Angels and has been outhitting even Mike Trout on the season, but he’s getting an MRI today on his neck and shoulder due to a throwing injury. Hopefully it comes back clean.
- Justin Steele (0.7 fWAR): There he is. We could’ve cut it off at 0.8, but that would’ve left us pitcher-less and Cub-less. Eleven innings over two starts for Steele against the Diamondbacks, with 19 strikeouts and just four walks therein. His xERA’s at 2.90, his FIP’s at 2.73, and he’s only averaging a little more than four innings per start, but he’s still been one of the brightest spots in the Cubs’ 2022.
McCullar and More
Transfer portal and parallel happenings in basketball since we last did this:
- Kevin McCullar is headed from Texas Tech to Kansas, which is…big. That shakes up the Big 12 in a big, big way. McCullar isn’t a particularly efficient scorer, but he distributes well and his Bayesian defensive numbers (thanks, EvanMiya) are strong. EvanMiya has him as the third-best player in the portal.
- One of the two players better than McCullar in the portal is Matthew Mayer, and he will remain in the portal after withdrawing from the NBA Draft.
- Also staying in college is Trayce Jackson-Davis, who will return to Indiana for at least one more season. Should be one of the best players in the Big Ten. Again.
- Jared Bynum, probably Providence’s best player, will return to school. Hard to know what to think of Providence—the luck stuff is a legitimate question about last year’s results—but this sure doesn’t hurt.
How the Bets Are Going
Tough break yesterday for us with Charles Leclerc’s car failing, but Gelo had a good day, pulling us back within three units of even on single-game bets this postseason, and all of our futures interests prevailed, which is big with the Avalanche on the verge of putting their series away. No luck on NASCAR, but the new approach helped limit the damage.
Overall, the NHL picks are still really uncertain. If the Blues get back in this series, we’re in great shape. If the Blues don’t, we’re heavily reliant on the Oilers taking down the Flames, and even that is just to set us up for what might be a tail-between-the-legs hedge in the Western Conference Finals. In the East, we love what the Lightning are doing to the Panthers, but we need them to finish the job. As our Lightning position grows larger, we get an added interest in the Rangers, on whom we’re in more heavily than the Hurricanes but who would also probably be the easier competition for Tampa Bay.
Haven’t looked at the odds yet today, but we’ll be staying away from Blues/Avalanche after the Binnington injury. Especially with how far apart Gelo and the market have been on Colorado so far this postseason.
NBA, NHL, Series by Series
The Celtics are in a tough spot, having given back home court advantage with a surprising Game 3 loss. It’s fair to believe in them to still win the series—the series feels open right now, even with the Heat holding the advantage—but tonight’s probably do-or-die. The Mavericks, of course, are on the brink. Matter of when, not if, which makes a question out of what exactly the deal was with the Warriors/Grizzlies matchup.
On the hockey side, the Rangers could kind of hold serve tomorrow with yesterday’s win, though they’re still playing with a disadvantage as the lower-seeded team. The Blues, as said, are in need, and the Oilers could nearly put their series away tomorrow while the Lightning could clinch a sweep tonight. Nothing too complicated about any of this. Rangers/Hurricanes has become the most compelling series at the moment, but the Battle of Alberta is getting close to a boil.
**
Viewing schedule tonight (second screen rotation in italics):
- 6:40 PM EDT: Cubs @ Reds, Smyly vs. Gutierrez (ESPN+/MLB TV)
- 7:00 PM EDT: Panthers @ Lightning, Game 4 (TNT)
- 8:30 PM EDT: Heat @ Celtics, Game 4 (ABC)
- 9:30 PM EDT: Avalanche @ Blues, Game 4 (TNT)
