I can only speak for my mom (not trying to say moms can’t like sports here—please don’t call my employer and ask for my termination), but having Mother’s Day be a massive weekend in the sporting world was not something I’d have designed, were I the sporting world. Between the NBA and NHL playoffs, Formula 1 and NASCAR, baseball, miscellaneous college spring sports, and the freakin’ Kentucky Derby, there was a lot going on. But we’re going to start with the Cubs.
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There are two things to say after the Cubs lost their fifth straight (and 14th of 17). The first is that the schedule has been tough. The last eleven games have all been against likely playoff teams, including arguably the two best rosters in baseball between Atlanta and Los Angeles. We knew heading in that this was a tough stretch, and ink was spilled about how this was a tough stretch, so going 2-9 so far over the tough stretch (with three games left in it down in San Diego, starting tonight) is disappointing but not a shock. The schedule gets easier for a bit starting on Friday—the Diamondbacks aren’t pushovers, and the Cubs aren’t in a spot where they’re pushing over pushovers, but the Pirates, Reds, and Diamondbacks are not Milwaukee, Atlanta, Los Angeles, San Diego, and the American League club in Chicago.
The second is that these guys suck. The Cubs are bad. They’re a bad baseball team. They’re bad on paper, they’ve been worse on the field, they’re bad.
We knew this was possible—we saw the 75-win projections—but we hoped for 80. Right now, it’s trending towards 70 (maybe 65, after accounting for the incoming sell-off), and that’s a big difference. It’s a meaningful difference. It means a lot about how good this team is. It means a lot about how the rebuild is going.
It was striking, last month when we wrote the “when will the Cubs be good again” post, how few players we can point to as part of a hypothetical future core. Seiya Suzuki’s part of the plan. Nick Madrigal’s part of the plan (though the frigidity of his start has extended to my feet on that). Nico Hoerner’s trying to become part of the plan again. But Willson Contreras isn’t getting extended—might get brought back, not getting extended—Ian Happ’s been in future purgatory for a few years now, Patrick Wisdom and Frank Schwindel are old, Marcus Stroman’s on a short-term deal, Justin Steele’s future role is still questionable, Keegan Thompson and Scott Effross are relievers (traditionally uncertain), and Alfonso Rivas is a non-prospect who might work out but is not expected to work out. This is not 2015. This is 2013, when Travis Wood led the Cubs in fWAR and Dioner Navarro, David DeJesus, and a young Anthony Rizzo were the most productive position players.
The thing we’re losing in a lot of the coverage of this year’s Cubs is that they are not the future Cubs. They’re placeholders. Could they pull off a shocking turnaround with a big prospect debut and some more free agent additions and sneak into the playoffs next year? Sure. But more likely than not, the next time the Cubs are playing in October, fewer than ten of these guys will be on the playoff roster. Maybe fewer than five. Maybe, honestly, just one (Effross, we presume). There is a long way to go.
Schwindel to Iowa, Stroman to the IL
Marcus Stroman is on the IL with what’s presumed to be Covid, Adrian Sampson’s up with the big-league club, and Frank Schwindel’s headed down to Iowa.
It’s a sad thing, seeing Schwindel demoted, because the guy might not be back. Last year’s breakout had a lot of good luck to it (his wOBA was .403 but his xwOBA was only .329, the average is .320, we use FanGraphs for all stats unless otherwise noted). He’s 29 years old. The breakout was stunning, and when things are stunning, there’s usually a reason they weren’t expected. Factoring in that he grades out as one of the worst defensive first basemen in the game isn’t the end of the discussion, but it doesn’t help. He’s been woeful at the plate, and that might be who he is, as opposed to the guy who briefly, memorably, giddily raked down the stretch last season. Hopefully he resets and regroups and comes back strong, but he’s in a tough spot right now.
Now, there’s a rumor going around that Schwindel’s coming back immediately, because a Twitter user says he spotted him on a plane to San Diego, but I’m fairly certain Schwindel coming right back up would require some IL stuff, since players can’t just be called right back up to the bigs anymore. It might be likelier that Schwindel is taking a little breather before reporting to Des Moines (not exactly a Tommy La Stella situation, but that’s what’s coming to mind) and figured, as many do, that San Diego was a good spot to take said breather. I don’t know. Likeliest situation is that Schwindel was not on a plane to San Diego, but we’ll see.
Steele pitched well last night, but left with a vague thumb injury. The word is that it feels like it’s jammed. Was it a cramp? A pulled thumb muscle? Curiosity abounds, but he’s reportedly hoping to make his next start. In the meantime, Kyle Hendricks opposes MacKenzie Gore tonight, and then Mike Clevinger and Nick Martinez start for the Padres tomorrow and Wednesday but the Cubs’ starters are unannounced. Stroman could theoretically come back, depending on the nature of his Covid situation, but Steele and Smyly are both not going to be on full rest again before the series is up. Adrian Sampson? Robert Gsellman? Wade Miley, in a return from the IL? That last one could be a nice little boost.
Manuel Margot Rocks, the White Sox Roll
We’re changing up our ‘around the league’ section today, trying to highlight top performing teams and players around baseball from the weekend rather than going through series-by-series and picking one standout player from each.
On the Team Side
The White Sox swept the Red Sox over three days in Boston, winning the three games by a combined four runs to extend their winning streak to six games. It wasn’t long ago the White Sox had lost eight straight and were dangerously behind in the AL Central. They’re now up above .500 again, they only trail the Twins by two losses, and they’re the narrow favorites on FanGraphs to capture that division crown. Successful trip east.
The Giants rallied after losing their first two at home to the Cardinals, snapping a five-game skid with a 13-run outburst on Saturday off of Steven Matz before a Mike Yastrzemski home run yesterday put them ahead for good in the sixth. The Giants’ World Series title probability rose by roughly a third between Friday morning and today.
The Marlins had a terrible trip to California, losing three of four to the Padres including a backbreaking 3-2 loss yesterday where they led 2-0 entering the ninth and Cole Sulser even struck out Austin Nola to open the inning. A single, a fielder’s choice, another single, and a Jorge Alfaro two-out home run later, game over. With Atlanta taking two of three from the Brewers and the Mets winning their series in Philadelphia, the Marlins’ playoff odds plummeted.
On the Individual Side
Margot was the player of the weekend, homering in each of the three weekend games in Seattle, including Friday’s in which he only recorded one plate appearance. Yesterday, he even stole a base, bringing his season total to three, which is…the same as his home run count, making the weekend even more noteworthy. Stay hot, Manny.
The Reds aren’t actually in all that different a spot from the Cubs, which is why Brandon Drury’s three-double, one-home run weekend against the Pirates may have looked familiar to those accustomed to watching Patrick Wisdom. To be fair, Drury has nearly two thousand career plate appearances. To also be fair, Drury hasn’t had a good season since 2017 and that was in Arizona back when Arizona was merely hard to pay attention to and not completely irrelevant.
Ronald Acuña Jr. is back, and if his falling-over home run Friday night didn’t make that clear, maybe him homering again on Saturday drove it home? He’s now recorded a hit in eight of his nine games since returning. Good for all involved. Besides his opponents.
Margot wasn’t the only one raking for the Rays. Brandon Lowe homered twice on Saturday and reached base eight times over ten PA’s between Friday and Saturday combined. Monster weekend for the 27-year-old, whom the Rays have under contract through 2026 if they choose because they are the Rays and they are better at this than everyone else.
The White Sox had a huge weekend, but the Twins had a good one themselves, sweeping the A’s in Minneapolis. Jorge Polanco went deep and doubled as part of a three-hit day on Saturday, then drove home what, five and half scoreless innings later, turned out to be the tying and winning runs yesterday.
Chris Paddack left that game yesterday with elbow inflammation, and that might hurt the Twins badly. If it does, at least they’ve got top-100 prospect Josh Winder doing things like throwing six innings without allowing an earned run, something he’s done in back-to-back starts now after his eight-strikeout performance on Friday.
Jose Altuve hasn’t missed much of a beat since returning from injury himself, with his seven-hit, two-homer series against the Tigers just the latest series of exploits for a man with a 155 wRC+ (55% better than the average hitter) despite just a .268 BABIP (.300 is average, so Altuve is getting unlucky on balls in play). Look out yet again, AL West.
It’s been a rough start to the year for Franmil Reyes, who has the opposite wRC+ (77) vs. BABIP (.373) thing going on. He may have turned it around a bit over the weekend, though, notching nine hits in the Guardians’ four-game set with Toronto. One home run in there, too, for vibes.
While the Red Sox are a disaster so far, we will acknowledge Nick Pivetta’s fabulous start on Saturday. Six innings, eight strikeouts, no walks, no runs. Terrible start to the year for him, but his FIP’s solid, so maybe this is the start of something good in Boston.
Tennessee Can Be Beaten
In the college game, the weekend was highlighted by nearly bottom-of-the-SEC Kentucky taking two of three from Tennessee in Lexington. College baseball is a unique brand of baseball. It’s also still baseball.
Elsewhere around the country, Oregon State swept Oregon, Arkansas took two of three from Auburn, UCLA got swept at Washington, Wake Forest took two of three from Louisville, Texas A&M grabbed two of three from South Carolina, Maryland and Rutgers split a pair (and combined for 49 runs in the process), LSU won a series at Alabama, Georgia Tech was swept at Clemson, Vanderbilt nabbed two of three from Georgia, and Oklahoma won a series over TCU in Fort Worth. College Softball World Series bracket announced Sunday (well, the tournament leading to the World Series)—we may be tuning into that, hopefully with a Relo model, similar to Gelo, to guide us through the postseason. TBD. We’ve still got three weeks before the baseball tournament comes into view. Hopefully we’ll have Relo for that as well.
Betting Miscellany
We had another frustrating NASCAR loss yesterday, but given how many drivers frustratingly lose NASCAR races, I’m wondering if that’s actually noteworthy. May have to go back and check on this down the line. We hit on the F1 bets, but on the lower-payout of the two with Verstappen winning.
Gelo bounced back last night, hitting the under in the Oilers/Kings game. I’m still unsure of how strong our futures portfolio is over there, but the fact we have three full holes, one of them is on the clear favorite, and two are on high seeds trailing two games to one makes me think there’s a lot of risk and a lot of upside, which makes sense after a week. On another under tonight.
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Viewing schedule, second screen rotation in italics:
- 12:05 PM EDT: Royals @ Orioles, Hernández vs. Wells (Regional TV)
- 1:05 PM EDT: Rangers @ Yankees, Gray vs. Cortes (Regional TV)
- 7:00 PM EDT: Panthers @ Capitals, TBS
- 7:00 PM EDT: Rangers @ Penguins, ESPN
- 7:30 PM EDT: Celtics @ Bucks, TNT
- 9:30 PM EDT: Flames @ Stars, TBS
- 9:38 PM EDT: Rays @ Angels, Springs vs. Syndergaard (Regional TV)
- 9:40 PM EDT: Cubs @ Padres, Hendricks vs. Gore (Regional TV, ESPN+)
Lot of Rangers. Just need to find out if that Queens Park soccer team in England is playing an afternoon game.
